Lunch Time

"Wow, Adam, you sure gave me a lot to think about. What you say makes a lot of sense, but is not easy to digest. I hope my hamburger is easier."

"I know, Eve. It's very easy to regress soon after new information is received. Memory for most humans is short and self-serving. Unless they can perceive or receive some immediate benefit from a new point of view, it usually dissipates rapidly and they return to their previous world view. If they retain even ten percent, it is remarkable."

"How long have you been considering becoming a Utopian?"

"More years than I want to recall. I suppose I have had the seed inside me since my youth. I grew up outside of a small town in Central France. Our house had no electricity and no indoor plumbing, therefore, no radio, TV, telephone, etc. We had little money, so we never got any toys, but we three brothers created our own games and activities. Everything we ate came from the ground, trees, river and the chickens and rabbits we raised. For a child growing up, it was a state of bliss. That state of bliss is available to all Utopians and I want to get another taste of it before it's too late."

"Listen! The restaurant audio is playing "Imagine!"

"Serendipity at work. It's a sign. It means I am doing what I should be doing."

"Here comes our lunch!"

"I never saw a box of food or a can of food until we moved to Chicago. I cringe at times when I observe what some parents are feeding their kids today. Consumerism is an excellent choice of words for most American families. Forget about the contents of your food, just fill your belly. Did you know that much processed food in the United States contains at least thirteen chemicals that Europe has banned from their food supply? Europeans are also very conscientious about enforcing the rules. They are even fining grocers up to eighty thousand dollars for discarding anything edible. They must find a way to get that food to those who need it or pay the penalty -- every day."

"I'm almost finished with my hamburger. Can you hold off on more food facts until I get the remainder in my stomach?"

"Ha, ha. Done."

"All right, then. Enough with my lousy diet for now. I'd like to hear more about your interpretation of John Lennon's song."

"OK. There are three significant messages beyond what we have already discussed. Those are the elimination of countries and possessions and living for today. Which of those interests you first?"

"Living for today sounds good and safe. Let's get another cup of coffee and explore that."

"Great. I think I know what Lennon meant with that phrase. He understood that the concept of time relating to past and future were projections of the human mind from a point we call Now. There truly is no such thing as past and future in reality, only in the imagination of the human mind. Our concept of time is created from our brain's ability to interpret the waves of energy that bombard our body in terms of frequency. The brain has the ability to visualize time 'frames' and use those to navigate from one now to the next now. However, the Now is a moving target and can never be nailed down, save in the human capability to 'stop a thought.' Living for today, for me anyway, means to live in that thought until it has been fulfilled. If I set a goal for myself and intend to achieve it, I will address it NOW until it is achieved or I get distracted enough to be interrupted by a greater goal need -- like realizing that a tornado is a few blocks away -- or stopping for lunch because my body needs nourishment."

Today is a string of time frames that can be filled with goals to be accomplished. Most people will be resurrected after sleeping 'yesterday' away and their mind will attempt to orient itself with thoughts of what goals they want to work on in their waking hours. They project the 'future' of this day by sequencing the activity required to fulfill their 'To Do List.' For example, if they are headed for their place of employment, they may activate the processes of making coffee, taking a shower, getting dressed, getting in their vehicle and driving to work. If all intermediary steps to the reaching their place of work are completed successfully, their first major goal of Today has been achieved. If they get stuck in a traffic jam or get a flat tire, adjustments will have to be made to their goal list.

Every waking day, in every moment of Now, people activate themselves on the most important goal that can be worked on - at this time, in this space, under these circumstances. There is no exception to this truth. In this moment, you and I both have the same goal in mind - to get to Shangri-la. The subsidiary goal of sharing this information was created by our circumstances.

"I thought that this topic would be easier to understand. Foolish me. How on earth did you manage to get all this information?"

"As far as my concept of time is concerned, it all started with reading Tartang Tulku's 'Time, Space and Knowledge' in 1989. Castaneda added more insight and Eckhart Tolle's 'the Power of Now' brought me closer. I had already completed three years of study of the Rosicrucians' 'Mastery of Life' course and, after many headaches and meditations, reached a satisfactory level of understanding for myself. What Tulku taught me is there are three, and only three, elements to our human consciousness but I call them Time, Space and Understanding. Our human universe is defined by what we understand. The moving moment of Now is paired with the point of view we call Here as described by Einstein's Time/Space continuum and the truth is that we can only be conscious Here and Now. We will forever exist in the Here and Now of Universal Consciousness. All Utopians know this. John Lennon knew this, along with Gauthama Siddartha, (the first Buddha) Jesus of Nazareth, Leonardo da Vinci, Carl Jung and many others. From the infinite Here and the eternal Now, we use our understanding to project the universe we seek to occupy. It's much like vivid dreaming."

"I am not going to do any fact-checking on you. What you say makes sense, but I would have a hard time explaining it to others."

"Try this. Visualize yourself as a radar antenna positioned in the Here and Now. Send out waves of energy created from your understanding into your universe and, when you get the echo, analyze it to see if your universe has changed. Anything in that echo that 'doesn't make sense' needs to be defined accurately or discarded from your thoughts. That is when you will have learned how to create a better universe for yourself. When Leonardo da Vinci said 'Learn to see, everything is connected,' he intended to help us acquire a better understanding and when the first Buddha was describing Oneness, he was doing the same. Carl Jung describes this well in a more modern method."

"Why aren't these things being taught to our children?"

"Excellent question. When we continue our ride, we can delve into that."

"Check, please!"