Author: Matthew David Segall

I wonder if electronic devices are a form of “captured” subtle energy…. Machines are not alive, but what does it mean to be alive? Life grows itself. Machines must be built by an outside agency. Because life grows itself, it is always following some hidden inner law or creative principle. Henri Bergson called this the…

Go, set off to Uruk, tell Gilgamesh of this Man of Might (Enkidu). He will give you the harlot Shamhat, take her with you. The woman will overcome the fellow as if she were strong. When the animals are drinking at the watering place have her take off her robe and expose her sex. When…

Is all this blogging and vlogging, all this artificial symbol exchanging, really changing the world? I think the answer to that question depends on us. This whole activity itself (trying to save the world by networking) is the evolutionary zenith of the human conscience. It is our most self-consciously social undertaking in history. We are…

As of right now, I have no idea what I could end up saying about the essence of integral spirituality. You must of course trust that I have not edited the text and interfered with its temporal flow. I’ll admit I had to stop and reflect to gather my thoughts before I wrote each of…

Learning to speak is learning to act. Verbal communication is reading the lines and putting them into character. That is, taking a text and giving it context: putting it with something else, making a connection (to something others will understand). The face, the gestures of the body: these are the instruments of meaning. It is…

On a desert night beneath the moon, Cacti in full bloom, The little light that did reflect Off clouds fell into tune. It sang for me a song of smiles, Full of angels laughing, Enacting heaven’s holy joke: That even God has no control. The gagging subsided And the moon began to set. Darkness became…

The words, these words, appeared And since then, we hold them in esteem. More dear than the winter night’s breeze– Than any of the meaning we seem now unable to retrieve. The words, these words, have dissected, Labeled and laid claim. They have classified and cataloged What was once but mystery. They have caged and…

A few weeks shy of 21 and I am beginning to feel as though I actually understand the words that I read. A book for my adolescent self was a mysterious collection of arcane references to cultural antipodes of thought I had not yet run the gauntlet through. When I read a chapter today, I…

Between cause and effect there is no difference or separation. This, in short, is the doctrine of karmic retribution. It appears to contradict common sense, and indeed we must admit that it does so. Common sense is the law of the land, but we must here draw a distinction between land and sky, between earth…

Those with distaste for metaphysics need not read past this period. If you’re still reading, I’ll take it that you, like me, have a sense for the mysterious weirdness of existence. All in all, the concept of existence seems to me to be at least improbable, and, at most, a never-ending free-fall of Being toward…

1. What is the ego? The Buddhist wants to say the ego is a fiction, as this seems to be the only way to avoid the reductio ad absurdum inherent to mind/body dualism. If the ego is real, it must exist in a self-contained dimension not subject to the laws of time and space. It…

Why do we insist on measuring alien technology in terms of time? We say, “It is likely that advanced forms of alien life are thousands, if not millions of years ahead of us technologically.” First off, what is it we typically mean when we refer to “technology”? Do we mean something material and mechanical? Something…

Clothing is scattered across the carpetAnd dinner plates pile upOn all the tops of tables.Books go unreadAnd phone calls go unanswered,While the patients of my mind–troubled thoughts–Remain alone and without cure. The dial of my dayHas wound tightAround the sun,Pulling quickly its tripBetween clouds across the sky. The sand falls gently,The hourglass grows full.My lungs…

I have a message For the world. Not to scare you, But I think it Should be heard. People ought to Let themselves Get hurt and get lost. Suffering is the shortest route to Bliss is the sound of serpent’s tongue Who was guilty of a sin And whose nemesis Was his reflection’s grin In…

Where does fire come from when it’s started? Is it the same place it goes when you put it out? Or, is it that the fire was never there to begin with? Or even that the fire has and always will be burning eternally? The fire burns forever and yet it doesn’t exist. How bizarre.…

What does it mean to be enlightened? Surely, it has nothing to do with knowing the answer to every question. Enlightenment has nothing to do with knowledge. It has more to do with asking the right questions from the very start. To know something, anything, you must have not known it at some point in…

With all mind and no body we become like a monk. With all body and no mind we become like a ninja. With body and mind together we become a master. A master has realized his Way. He has recognized himself. He flows with the Tao. He is One with God. It is not occult…