The Awakening of God

I occasionally refer to God in this blog in order to make some point or other about the true nature of our existence. But the term "God" is often taken to mean some supernatural being above and beyond (i.e. separate from) nature (i.e. "creation"), and that's not what I mean at all!

To me, God is nothing more, or less, than creation itself (i.e. "nature"). The key difference between my understanding of God and most people's belief is that to me the idea that God is somehow separate from nature is ludicrous. God is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. That means God must be more than just "in" nature. God must BE nature, both the unknown and all the known aspects, including you and me.

That last phrase, "including you and me," is the key to understand what I mean when I say - as I sometimes do - that, "I am God." It does not mean that I believe I have some sort of supernatural power over you, or anyone or anything else. It simply means that I am you, you are me, and we are God.

This is only difficult to understand when you try to think of it in terms of limited being. But God is an infinite being. God is everywhere in space and time at once. So it is natural for God to be everywhere and hence everyone at once. And that is all I am saying when I say, "I am God." It is not an assertion of power or authority. It is instead more of an admission of my powerlessness as an individual over my own fate. It is an acknowledgement of God's Infinite Being, Wisdom, and Power, not my own.

But, it is important to realize that I am saying God is completely natural. God is the sole source, and the sole witness of all creation. This is a self-evident truth that has been written about and unfortunately misunderstood for many thousands of years. And yet, it is also the sole source of our ultimate liberation, which is freedom from death and yes, rebirth. But, it is not our liberation as individuals that I speak of. It is the very liberation of "God" alone. It is not the end of Creation of which I speak, but the awakening of God!

[J.D. September 9, 2018]

P.S. No one can tell you what this "Awakening of God" will look like, but I believe personally that the next "stage" will be an awakening of the planet Earth. Just as we have awakened as individual animals, so soon the entire planet will awaken, becoming conscious of itself as a living being, and perhaps reaching out and/or recognizing other living planets for the first time in the history of our planet. Forget about spaceships and aliens... such things are merely the best we can yet imagine. After our planet awakens, we will experience a kind of euphoric sense of oneness, or wholeness, and "miracles" will be commonplace. Except they won't be miracles at all, they will simply be the natural consequence of our collective unconscious becoming a collective consciousness.

Monster Myths

Psychopaths are evil monsters that are incapable of emotionally connecting with others the way humans were meant to. Or, at least that's the myth. It is a myth supported by pseudo-scientific "facts" in exactly the same way such "facts" have been twisted and used throughout history to support other insane myths such as, "Jews are a scourge upon the Earth," and "blacks are biologically made to be subservient", and "The seas are filled with giant monsters that live at the fringes of our world and devour all who dare explore beyond the confines of the known realms."

That last one, about giant sea-monsters and such, sounds a bit fantastic to us today, but there was a time when such monsters were considered all too real, and the only thing that protected society from them was our common systems of beliefs (i.e. "the Church and State"). And just like the belief in witches and demons and all other sorts of "evil monsters", these myths were supported by "irrefutable evidence" and sheer "common sense" of that day and age.

Well, this is a new day and age, where information itself has become the most valuable commodity; and yet we still believe that "evil monsters" roam the fringes of our world and devour all who dare venture beyond the protections of the state, and often even the innocent ones as well.

How can this be? Well, it's really no mystery once you are willing to look honestly within yourself for answers and understanding, instead of relying entirely upon the System to tell you how you should think and what you should believe or not believe. If you think psychopaths are real, and are not ready and willing to consider the alternative, then go ahead, take the safe wide and well trod road that our modern church and state has provided for you. Stop reading now, as this blog is not an intellectually safe place to be for any mind. This blog is the turbulent sea at the edge of the known world, where "monsters" reveal themselves to be just as human as you, and have something they'd like to say, and moreover, something they'd like you to see for yourself, if you are brave enough to look and not let others tell you what you should see.

[J.D. August 2018]

Here's An Idea...

Someone should set up a controlled study to see if there is a correlation between a person's inability to determine when someone is acting and the inability to spot phony political candidates. I got this idea after hearing an avid Trump-supporter talking about a program on T.V. that used actors to depict U.S. military personnel pretending to speak candidly with a reporter about their experiences in Iraq. The Trump-supporter spoke as if the actors were real soldiers expressing their real thoughts and feelings. But, when I saw the same program, it only took me a few seconds to tell they were only acting, because people just don't talk the way they were talking naturally. And I wondered, how could anyone not see that they were just actors? And I realized how I have often wondered the same thing about why so many people can't tell that Trump is an idiot pretending to be intelligent. The only thing he (Trump) is any good at is doing what other people tell him to do, and then taking credit for it when it makes him look smart, or blaming the person who told him what to do when it doesn't. In other words, acting. And he's not very good at that either.

[J.D. August 18, 2018] 

The Necessity of "Evil"

They say, ignorance is bliss. I say, ignorance is everything. Without it, we would be unable to perceive space and/or time at all. It is not the hindrance to experience that many presume. It is the reason for it!

And what is ignorance but "evil"? When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. So-called, "evil" is that which is opposed to God. And since "God" is "The Truth" (or "The Living Truth", as I like to say), anything that opposes the truth --- any truth --- opposes "God". And nothing opposes the truth more than ignorance.

We are all intimately familiar with the suffering that our ignorance can cause. What few are aware of though is the simple fact that like "evil", ignorance is the cause of all suffering. Not only is this a basic premise of Eastern religions and philosophies, it is also a self-evident truth, that ignorance itself very effectively conceals.

The way ignorance conceals itself is a fascinating subject all by itself (reminiscent of "the greatest trick the devil evil pulled..."), but one I'll presume for the moment to be already understood. The important thing to realize here is that ignorance and so-called "evil" are essentially one and the same thing. And that being established makes it possible to realize the necessity of "evil" in order for anything at all to even exist, in the sense that we commonly know existence (i.e. our ability to perceive experiences).

In order to make this clear, imagine a world without ignorance (and without "evil"). Such a world would be inhabited by beings (technically, A Being) that was by definition omniscient (all-knowing). Such a being (or beings) would be unable to perceive space and time at all, because to it/them no moment in time, nor place in space, would be prominent. All moments, all places, and thus all events, would be completely imperceptible due to the inability to separate one from the next.

When you thus think about it, the primary function of ignorance (again, like "evil") is to cause the perception of separation from one moment to the next, and from one place to the next. Without ignorance, there would be no way for us to "know" where, or when, we are. There'd simply be no basis for any limited sense of experience at all. We would simply be "God" (singular), and nothing more; there would be no "Creation" as we know it (by limited perception).

And thus, ignorance and "evil" must have been invented and created by "God" for the very sake of Creation itself!

Think about what that means. If properly realized, it could be the key to our universal salvation. And if not properly realized, the cause of a lot more suffering.

[J.D. August 5, 2018] 

The Hypocrisy of Personal Salvation

The core premise of Christianity is personal salvation. Every time I see a Christian movie, or hear a Christian song, even if it doesn't advertise itself as Christian, I can sense the hypocrisy of this premise in its message. It permeates everything Christians do and think. And it is "evil" in every sense that the wise men who constructed the scriptures that Christianity pretends to base itself upon meant when they spoke of evil.

What is "evil" if not the essence of that which is opposed to God in the particular sense that God Is The Truth (i.e. "Christ"?). So evil is simply that which opposes the truth, any truth (since all truth is Truth), it is not --- as most Christians seem to believe --- that which maliciously causes us to suffer.

Of course there is a link between suffering and the absence of truth. And I think it is this link that causes so much confusion, whereas the truth itself is abundantly clear. We invariably suffer when we fail to realize or are otherwise "separated" from the truth. Or, to put it another way, we suffer only when we are deceived, which the Christian Bible tells us, and most Christians superficially agree (I say "superficially" because if they truly believed this then they could not believe in personal salvation, which directly contradicts the belief that suffering is caused by such ignorance).

"Salvation", as the relief from all suffering, must be universal, not "personal" at all. This becomes apparent when you consider the meaning of truth, and suffering, and the relationship they have with each other. And significantly it becomes even more apparent when you consider the meaning and difference between "personal" and "universal" salvation.

Universal salvation means that if one is saved, then all are saved. In order to appreciate this, you should realize that "universal" means everything and everyone... throughout all space and time. In other words, the "infinite all", or "God" Itself. The Bible emphasizes this "Oneness of God" throughout the old and new testaments. So do all other "great" religions (even those that worship multiple "deities" still emphasize the "Oneness of All"), not to mention the apocryphal texts, commonly accepted philosophies, and even modern science (e.g. the proven scientific concept of "non-locality" is just a complex way of saying, "there can be only One..."). So the concept of universal salvation is essentially saying the same thing as no less than the salvation of God. And that is the only salvation that matters, and should matter, or even can matter, because God is the only being that can be real, and not just the illusion that we "personal" beings are while "separated" from the truth of our Oneness.

Personal salvation then, turns out to be only a selfish and limited concept, where we are freed as individuals from our personal suffering, but it also becomes a painfully obvious form of self- and mass-deception. There can be no personal salvation if there is only One Being to be "saved".

Most religions are aware of this dilemma and often attempt to cover it up by convoluted arguments that often seem to make a lot of sense until the basic premises are closely examined. Their premises will invariable at some point call on you to have "faith" in one or more ideas. Often these ideas are rooted in some scripture, and sometimes they are rooted in only thin air. The apologist will simply ask you to "believe" that "God is good", and therefore "He" would never allow "evil" individuals into "Heaven" unless they become "good" also, or something equally nonsensical.

But, all arguments aside, the Truth is simple, obvious, and plain to see. Even a child can understand it. You don't need any "Bible", scripture, or even words to understand it. In fact, it is best understood without words at all (which is again something that the sages who wrote the Bible, not to mention many other religious, philosophical, and scientific texts, have repetitively tried to tell us). The man named "Jesus" himself chastised the zealots around him for seeking Truth in the scriptures instead of seeing it right in front of them.

In order to be as plain as possible, I'll put it simply like this: Power is the ability to act according to one's own volition. And, if a Being has the ability to act according to Its own volition, but chooses not to, for ANY reason (as Christians claim God does in order to give humans the necessary "free will" we need to determine our own fate --- a critical part of the core Christian premise of personal salvation), then that Being is still acting according to Its own volition, and hence still has "power". In other words, power... that is, REAL power, not the illusion of power that exists in the limited sense of human experience... can NOT be transfered, given away, granted, or otherwise shared in any sense. To do so would be the same as surrendering ALL power. And by the same simple logic, existence itself cannot be given away, granted, or otherwise shared, because to do so requires power (i.e. the ability to act according to one's own volition).

So, the Truth is plain for anyone to see. All we need to do is stop deceiving ourselves with nonsensical words. There is only One God. And that means there is only One being, One Authority, and One Will in all of Creation (or "Cosmos", as I prefer to call it). This knowledge only seems to contradict our experience because of the way we are currently taught to deceive ourselves with beliefs that hypocritically contradict the simple Truth that exists without words, and yet speaks plainly to all of us. We have only to quiet our minds to hear it.

[J.D. August 4, 2018]

Jury Instructions

While I was representing my own interests in court (by acting as my own attorney, per se) during my "death penalty" trial, the team of prosecutors who I was supposed to be defending myself against would sometimes come over to my side of the court room during the "recess" (in Federal court, Idaho) so they could make a show of discussing certain technical procedures that must normally be agreed upon by the attorneys on both sides (and then signed off by the judge). During these so-called "discussions" I would usually just sit quietly and let them tell me when I should agree, or say something. I had no real interest in the "game" they were playing with my life.

One of the procedures that had to be agreed upon was called the "Jury instructions". This was a document (that the prosecutor drafted in my case) that provides detailed questions that the jury must answer specific to the case in order to determine their verdict. The intent is to provide clear instructions to the jury on what they must determine in order to make their decision in accordance with the law. For example, they must ask (and answer) questions like, "Did the defendant act with malicious intent?" Or, "Did the prosecution establish a clear motive?" etc. etc...

Well, one day the prosecutors came over to my table during recess and told me that the jury had requested that a particular part of their "instructions" be clarified, as they were having trouble understanding how to apply it in their decision. The part in question concerned "mitigating circumstances". In layman's terms (i.e. as I understand it) the law requires that the jury must "weigh" the "aggravating" factors of the crime against the "mitigating" factors. So the "jury instructions" had a section that tried to explain to the jury specifically how they must make a list of all the aggravating facts, then weigh it against a list of all the mitigating facts. It was this part that the jury had asked for "clarification" on. They wanted to know how they were supposed to determine the "weight" of the various facts and factors.

So the prosecutors came to my table, explained the jury's question, and then, as I sat quietly and listened, began discussing revisions to the instructions that would provide the jury with clear instructions on how to make a list of all the aggravating and mitigating factors and then assign "weights" according to things like victim impact, future threat, and callous intent, etc. etc...

As I sat and listened I could not help but remember how the prosecutors made a big deal in their closing arguments during the "guilt" phase of the trial, about a spreadsheet they found on my laptop computer which I had made to help me decide whether or not I should "lash out" against society while I still had the chance, or if I should stay and face the "molestation" charges against me and risk going to prison for the rest of my life because I touched a boy's penis in Minnesota. This spreadsheet very explicitly listed all the pros and cons I could think of concerning the decision I had to make, i.e. "kill or not kill". I literally assigned numeric values to each item in the spreadsheet, positive numbers for reasons I should "run" (and get revenge by raping and killing as many children as I could). The prosecutors said that this spreadsheet proved that I callously deliberated my crimes, and knew exactly what I was doing.

So, I decided the circumstance, of the prosecutors literally discussing how the jury must now be instructed on how to "objectively" (i.e. callously) deliberate my demise, was much too surreal for me to just sit there and say nothing. I wanted to just burst out laughing, but knew "they" would never understand. So I decided to show them the humor and the hypocritical irony all at the same time.

I excused myself into the conversation, and they all stopped talking to hear what I had to say because it was so unusual for me to say anything. My own "stand by" counsel (attorneys who sat with me at the defense table and provided advice and expertise when I asked for it) were listening too as I said, "You know, I might be able to help. I could make a spreadsheet that the jury could use to decide..."

My own attorney, Judy Clarke, laughed first (she understood my sense of humor), and that let the prosecutors know I was making a joke, so they laughed too, when Judy did. But their laughs had barely come out before they became abruptly stifled as the prosecutors realized that the "joke" was on them. There was a moment of awkward silence (awkward for them, not me; I just smiled at my own joke and their reaction), and then some hem-hawing and polite smiles as no one was sure anymore if they should laugh or cringe at the irony.

They resumed their discussion once more, without me of course, and the "jury instructions" were determined with no further input from me. I had had my say, and made my point; by judging and condemning the way I chose to kill, they were only judging and condemning themselves.

[J.D. April 2018]  

I Am Me After All: But It's Still Not Personal

"We" recently announced that Joseph Duncan (me) would use first person plural pronouns as a way of emphasizing the fact that this blog is not about him (me). But, upon further reflection, I (Joseph Duncan) have come to realize that doing so severely detracts from another perhaps even more important aspect that this blog must also portray. And that is the fact that it expresses the thoughts, feelings, and experiences (memories) of someone (me) who society in general has labeled a "monster" and condemned to death for doing exactly what any human being would do and in fact does do all the time (hint: express their feelings the only way they know how).

So, I will go back to using the first-person singular form in said interest. But, this blog is still not about me! It is about all of us as human beings, and about how we interact and function together in such a way that no one can be said to be "innocent" of anything anyone else does (i.e. it makes no sense to blame each other for what we all do!). Only by embracing the "monster" within ourselves (or, more specifically, our ignorance and fears) instead of projecting our feelings onto someone else (like me) will we be able to end the madness that lead me and so many others to do the terrible things we do to each other.

This blog is my attempt to illustrate and communicate the madness that lead to my particular "crimes", by expressing my own most intimate (often "insane") thoughts, feelings, and memories. But, this is not a ploy for sympathy or recognition of any kind (I have never done interviews for the professional media outlets in order to avoid publicity and the inevitable slanting of "packaged" information that sickens so many minds!). I am merely making the information available, in the hopes that someday someone might actually realize that the "answer" is right "here", inside of us all, by perhaps recognizing themselves within these (blog) pages, as a few already have and do, but there needs to be many more before the "tipping point" is reached, and the world in general "wakes up" and becomes truly "conscious" for the first time! Of course I don't pretend or think this blog will bring about that "tipping point", but I do hope to help if even in the smallest way, because our very existence as human beings depends on it!

So, from now on I will be me and represent myself within these pages as I always have before. I will go back to saying "me" and not "we", even though this blog is about "us", and not "I"; for as I AM, so are YOU!

[J.D. Feb. 12, 2018]