Rayisms by Ray Rothbard - HTML preview

We passed through the Bonneville Salt Flats where the fastest cars had made their record runs. It had just finished raining and there were shallow three to four-inch lakes for miles around because the salt won‟t absorb the rainfall. After the Salt Flats, I was rushing to get to California. In 1966 when I was living in Orange County, I used to take at least two trips per year back to New York. I had once drove my VW bug from Fullerton, California to Long Island in 51 hours with about two hours‟ sleep. I got a speeding ticket for going 80 MPH in Oklahoma. I never intended to make such a run but once you get going, sometimes you just don‟t want to stop. So familiar was this trip for me again, and this time I wasn‟t stopping until I found what I was looking for—which was a better way.

When I arrived in California, I was crossing the mountains just north of San Francisco and I planned on taking Hwy 101 South to Los Angeles. Daf and I spent a couple of days camping at Stinson Beach, welcoming the freedom of the beaches. Boy did Daf ever take to the beach like a duck to water. All you had to do was wave your arms as if you‟re going to throw something, and off she goes in a big round arc—the classic sheepdog pattern of movement! There were lots of times when I had to pick her up and carry her off because she wasn‟t ready to leave.

The main luxury of having your own time is that you can enjoy everything in the here and now, and if you want to stop along the way you become totally involved. If you‟re on vacation or on the job where you know you are only passing through and that your presence is temporary, you just can‟t see the situation as it really is on a day-to-day basis.

The final leg of my journey was the southern route down the Pacific Coast Highway.

Along the way you pass Sam Simeon and high on the hill is this tremendous building known as Hearst Castle. As I purchased my ticket, Daf had to stay in the van and I took a bus up the hill. On the way up, you see South African Deer and all this wildlife living freely, and as you gaze out you feel the expansiveness that Hearst tried to capture when he built this place. Originally the estate covered ¼ million acres and Hearst as a child used to camp out on top of the mountain and vowed that one day he would build a castle.

The tour covered about five miles and your attention is in awe of the vastness of the valley with the Pacific Ocean down below. Then you come around a bend and there it is.

Every kind of flower and tree you could image seemed to be there. Inside, each room was decorated to the max with historic cultural artefacts from around the world. I could go on and on describing it and list 100 reasons pro and con about the Palace on the Frontier but if you want to have your mind expanded without any drug, come to this place. My immediate thought was that this would be an incredible residence for inventors and artists who could exchange their time there to serve humanity.

Travelling south again on Pacific Coast highway I reflected back on the experience and I had been touched. In a matter of hours, my mind had encountered so much input I would find myself loving and hating the guy intermittently. I guess the building would have gone on for as long as he lived. It is just incredible how much money he spent and it makes one think about gold and how the rich seems to thirst for it. Gold is their drug, and it has a corrupting force on its beholder. If this guy was a humanitarian, he could have probably helped develop the whole continent of Africa but somewhere along the line he got caught up in the glitter. All of that fancy stuff seems to take you away from yourself and others. Rich folks have a way of trying to see themselves in those they admire and dismiss everyday people as inferiors. I think the immigration laws of this country reflect such values of the wealthy and in recent years have neglected the original values inherent in a truly free society. It‟s come down to freedom only for the legislative people and those who have power and influence to change the laws to suit their needs.

Heading towards LA I decided to call an old friend who lived near the beach in Venice. I could live anywhere that on-street parking permitted me to. All I had to do was park the camper and draw the curtains. While on the beach I met a lady with a Sheepdog and we became friends. She was old enough to be my mother but it seemed like we were both looking for the same thing. She had kind of a negative attitude towards things and found herself trapped in a situation with three teenagers living in a dingy atmosphere. For an immediate remedy, we decided to paint the walls and it seemed to work. Seeing the change in my friend did something for me too. It was about a week later when I met a friend of hers who told us about this 14 year-old Indian guru with millions of followers back home in India. The story was that his father was a famous guru and upon his unexpected death, his family put out the word that his youngest son was to be Guru Maharaj Ji, messiah to the world. Apparently the Guru was staying at a friend‟s house in Beverly Hills and that my friend and I were invited to visit him at the home where he was staying. Even though he had all of these speaking commitments, we were told that if we got there early enough, we could see him when he came downstairs in the morning. What a mind blower! For this to happen to me at this particular time, I was near bliss. Someone was leading me down a path and I was eternally grateful.

We arrived at the house around four in the morning and were led into the living room where the stairwell from upstairs was. Talk about being high!! I had only heard of this young person in the past few weeks and this whole thing was new to me. There were 15

to 20 of us sitting cramped on the floor, cross-legged with great expectations. After an hour or so somebody came in the house with a bunch of newspapers and took them upstairs. There were lots of flowers all over and people were eating rose petals, bowing down, kissing…it was really something. Finally he came downstairs and sat down in front of all of us, amidst the flowers. I just sat there and stared him in the eye. For a 14

year-old he had a chubby face with lots of baby fat cheeks and I sat there waiting for something to happen. We waited and waited and all he did was sit there. One of the members of the family came into the room and told him it was almost time to go. Then he said his first and only thing, something to the effect that life was like a movie or motion picture, it goes by frame by frame, and that was it. All of a sudden he got up and we all went to the doorway to watch him leave. His followers that were there started asking, “Do you have knowledge?” and if you said no you were instructed to go to some kind of seminar, attend classes and become one of Maharaj Ji‟s followers. The people who were asking seemed like a bunch of blissed-out burnouts, worshipping the ground, chair and flowers that the guru had touched. I was disappointed to say the least and when asked, I looked some guy in the eye and said “Yea I have knowledge” thinking that I knew enough that I didn‟t need to sit on the floor looking at some bewildered kid. When I got outside and talked to my friend, I was surprised to find out that she had bought the whole program and that she was going to receive knowledge that afternoon. What really surprised me was some of the family seemed to have their stuff together, even more than the boy, but they were praising him! Well, if I was wrong I would certainly learn from my friend who was going for it hook, line and sinker. The whole experience, mainly my thoughts before I met the Guru, was very uplifting and I knew then than I had a lot to learn but following this dude was like window shopping. In a way, I could see that I was originally swept up like everyone else. Then I found myself feeling sorry for the young guy because everyone was telling him he was the one and they put him on a pedestal.

But the whole experience left me with a clear picture of how religion operates in this country. Anyone with any kind of personal experience with a religious person becomes initially exposed in a situation whereby that person believes anything they hear or see until they know better. Maybe TV evangelists are popular because that is the only contact many people have with religion and they just don‟t know any better as they send in their checks, hoping to find themselves in the grace of God. When you walk into a room, your attention or awareness will only pick up a few objects in that room in the first minute, but if you spend one hour in there you will know the contents more thoroughly. If you decided to spend a day or a week in there, not only would you know everything in the room, but you could probably spend some time learning the architectural structure too.

The same goes for religion. The more time you spend learning about it, them more you will get out of it. Upon closer examination, one finds that religious values are really a part of daily living. If you turn on your TV Sunday morning and the man comes on breathing fire about God’s going to get you if you don’t listen to him and next thing you‟re sending him a check hoping to feed and enlighten your soul—that is self-delusion.

In the following years I spent the majority of my time reading books on metaphysics. My goal was to find and understand whatever it was that would relieve my anxiety and leave me with peace of mind. I had come in contact with the Krishna Consciousness Devotees through a friend relative and I made a sincere effort to understand what they were all about. I visited the Ashram in Brooklyn several times and I spent many hours taking part in their discussions. I could probably say 100 things pro and con but for me it was too much Hare Krishna, which reflected a separatist situation in a world that I believe we should be drawn together as one. As I began reading books by a man known as U.S.

Anderson, I developed such a thirst for more that is seemed to change my anxiety into desire. What the author was getting at was just the thing that I was looking for. I had travelled many thousands of miles, spent many thousands of dollars in search of the one thing that would end my anxiety. What I was looking for was my true self that was lodged somewhere between my ears and contained in my mind.

To begin, there is so much in the mind that it‟s like finding a room in your own home that you were never aware of and when opening the door you see a scattered mess with everything in disarrangement. If your desire is to understand and learn, you must put things in order. The most immediate change I was able to bring about was through positive thinking. There are two sides to everything and to each side or point of view there is a positive or negative side. Since negativity results in nothingness and as the word implies, darkness, it should be discarded from one‟s point of view. As one observes himself, he will become aware that everything he does is by habit. We operate like computers but instead of programming, we form habits. We are even in the habit of reacting to new things mechanically. One can view a habit as positive or negative so right away you have to get rid of the bad habits. It‟s like peeling away the skins of an onion to get to the inner core. As you drop your bad habits you are slowly peeling away at your personality to get to your true self. At the same time you will note that your mind operates at both levels, positive or negative depending on how you program it. When you have a negative thought you can tell yourself that you are identifying it as a negative thought and you no longer desire to have that thought. The most important consideration you will develop is that your inner core, your true self is and has to be your best friend.

No one can be at peace with anything until he is at peace with his inner self.

With my new discovery of my true inner self I was curious as to what it as and where did it come from. I came upon a word that said it all: consciousness. Consciousness is something that is always with us wherever we are and is best expressed by the statement, I am. The very point of existence in each one of us is the sense of a voice deep within that expresses I am. You can say “I am” anything—hungry, smart, young, etc, but there is always I am. The I am is at the root of our core and the very source of all our energy. As the sun contracts all life in our universe by radiating its energy, the sense of I am is the source for all life within ourselves. The best example of I am would be represented by a radio signal. There are many radio stations which could represent different areas of interest but none of them would be of any value to you if you didn't have a radio transmitter (your mind) and energy to receive the signals ( I Am consciousness).

Since this consciousness is the sole I am interpreter and benefactor that gives us life, when we no longer that the presence of I am, it can be said that we are dead. But let‟s see what has really happened. I am consciousness is energy that dwells within a physical body. When we are sleeping our minds may be very active elsewhere in dreams while our body lies peacefully resting. Can it be said that our minds and the I am consciousness temporarily dwell in our bodies? To take this one step further, you are not your body—

you are your mind which is indestructible because it is not physical. At this point we have to bring in the concept of the spiritual, which encompasses the great masses of I Ams.

Anything that exists beyond the realm of physical is spiritual. Just as a large body of water is comprised of individual droplets, a spiritual body is comprised of a collection of I Am s. If we were to isolate one drop of water, we could understand the chemical makeup of that one particular drop but as part of a whole we could not define its limits or boundaries. Could it be that each one of us is a part of a whole on a spiritual level and it would be impossible for one part of something to comprehend the whole it is a part of?

In other words, could one part of a finger understand that it is attached to a hand attached to an arm attached to a body, controlled by a mind? No, its total preoccupation would be with what it is as one in an assembly plant has one function and the sum total of all workers performs his part and is unable to produce the whole by himself. If you‟re still with me, each I Am is a part of a whole which means we are all of the same spirit and while we appear to be different by size, skin color, sex, etc we are one in spirit. It is as if we are one huge puzzle with many different parts which all exist to complete one picture.

If there is one single point I want to emphasize it is this: the human race is comprised of many different members but all are connected spiritually and when one acknowledges his spiritual unity, he sees himself in all others and learns to relate to that person‟s mind instead of their body.

Growing up in this world exposes us to many different varieties of cultures and nationalities. Seeing yourself in others focuses your attention on their minds and you will hardly notice any physical differences. It is these differences among us that should be the central theme in bringing us all together. As I was growing up, I was limited to learning values and ways from my immediate families and close friends but no provision was made to understand or become aware of people of foreign lands and cultures. The first exposure I had was from a college Sociology course. This is probably the reason for all wars, which are fought among strangers. A country‟s leadership tells its young sons to hate and defend in the name of patriotism. It is that belief that one‟s country, religion, family, etc is better than another that creates all the separatism. A religious leader who proclaims there is one way or preaches fear to those who don‟t conform is teaching separatism. Maybe that is the only way they can raise the bucks in order to perpetuate the broadcasting of its ministry. When you support such a situation you‟re adding fuel to the fire. The only faith that I have ever come in contact with that respects all individual religions and believes in the oneness of mankind is the Bahai faith. Can you believe that the Bahais are being executed in Iran at this time under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khoumeini?

In 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr was called upon by his Creator to leave a very troubled world behind, but upon his death his message was proclaimed all over the world, peace and change through non-violence. Never have I seen such a courageous man, armed only with his soul, penetrate the walls of prejudice, leading freedom marches and always advocating for social change through non-violence. It was not until his assassination did I become aware of King‟s tremendous influence on the world and myself. He seemed to define something within me that I couldn‟t previously understand. When I was around 14, I was riding the bus to school and a boy sitting behind me was really getting obnoxious, and even though he was smaller than me, insisted on having a fight once we got to school. Right away I was on top of him and I had him pinned down with my knees with my right arm free. I raised my fist to bring it down on his face but the strength was gone from my arm. I could not throw a punch! All I could do was bring it down to bump his lip. I thought about it for years and it wasn‟t until Martin Luther King Jr‟s message that my embarrassment turned to pride. Pacifism was always within me, I just had the wrong interpretation of myself. It took another man to bring me to terms with myself.

Here in America, the term redneck is used to define someone who generally sees and believes only in his own values and is ready to physically fight or kill to preserve his values on the rest of the world. If one is physically stronger than his opponent, he is demonstrating weakness by taking up the act of violence. On the other hand, the other man who is physically weaker is showing courage and strength while confronting his brother by trying to communicate his message instead of being a bully. The more I thought about pacifism, the more appealing it became to me. Ideas are not communicated and absolutely no good ever comes out of physical violence. Man has the negative abilities within him but he must realize that it only exists to accentuate the positive. Life is a total learning experience which becomes much easier to deal with through understanding as I was finding out.

There have been many people who have had experiences whereby they have returned from what they consider “near death” and report visions of peacefulness and tranquility.

Many of these people believe they were experiencing the passing of death but for one reason or another returned to this life. If this is true, this will substantiate my belief that we are all part of a spirit that dwells within our consciousness, which being non-physical can never be destroyed. Upon death of the body, our consciousness becomes totally devoid or free of preoccupations of food, shelter, clothing—all the needs of the body.

Can you imagine an existence whereby you don‟t have to worry about maintaining a home, taking care of your car, buying food and clothing, and having to take care of the living needs of others? What if, in this existence, your only concern would be to understand love and truth, and this existence would be forever? I had come into contact with a book called The Book of James by S. Smith, which maintains that the author is a medium and the spirit of William James is communicating through her and he says he is experiencing just that. In thinking it over, if one sees himself as an indwelling spirit within a body and sees all other life as the same spirit in different manifestations, and recognizes the importance of cooperation instead of competition while reacting to innate feelings of love and oneness, then maybe that person will come to understand that guns and killing are contradictory with any logical, rational purpose our Creator has intended for us. To this end, anyone who kills is also killing himself and soldiers who are following orders are letting their bodies be used as weapons.

If one applies common sense to understanding a purpose for our life situation that we all find ourselves in, perhaps we should prepare for our immortality by placing our awareness and values in non-physical attributes beginning with caring for life around us.

The number one killer in our society today is stress because of the pressures and demands placed on our bodies and internal organs. One of the heaviest burdens each of us must face is protection from uncontrollable persons who want to inflict physical violence on us and to fight fire with fire we must resort to the animal kingdom. Yet the most consistent and stable friend you will ever have will be your dog when you learn to look him in the eye and see part of yourself in there.

I had spent the whole summer travelling throughout California and the novelty of travelling was wearing off. Each night was getting colder and with the prospect of winter coming on, I decided to go back to New York with my newly acquired knowledge.

Certainly I could turn my friends onto what I had learned and with great enthusiasm I headed east. As I approached the major cities, the pace of everything picked up in to a near frenzy as other drivers rushed to and fro, getting on your tail and expecting you to rush along with them. Once you have removed yourself and stepped back to see where your head is at, you will note there are many things that a busy society is and you are not.

In other words, to exist in modern day society people adopt impersonal values to relate to each other to avoid any personal contact. It‟s more important which toothpaste or mouthwash you use than what you ever did for yourself or anyone else. I guess what I am trying to say is that in many situations it would require a very small amount of effort for one person to accomplish making life more livable for others in more disadvantaged areas. For instance, there are many Long Island, Westchester County, Beverly Hills housewives who don‟t have to do more than push several buttons on their telephones and can spend a million or two on food and first aid equipment for people on the other side of the world. With a little initiative, one could hire a person to go to a disadvantaged country and supervise a complete agricultural program with adequate irrigation to ensure continual farming and food supply. Why couldn‟t we make such a venture a fashionable thing-to-do society project???

Somewhere in New Jersey, I called my friend John in NYC to tell him I would be at his place within a matter of hours. Daf and I were pretty tired but the thought of being with friends gave us the spark to finish the trip. It was around 11:00 at night as we pulled up outside of his apartment. Ringing the buzzer, we rushed out of the cold night and went up to his apartment. It was so relaxing to be off the road, out of the elements, and so stoned!

After two hours or so we decided to go out for some pizza and as we walked across the street I noticed the door to my van was open. Sure enough, I had been ripped off!

Cleaned out, ruthlessly the stereo was ripped out, about 70 tapes, clothes money, savings bonds and everything else. Instantaneously, my consciousness had been automatically lowered. Welcome back to the city!

Having no place else to go for the winter, I decided I wanted to live in Greenwich Village. It was a great find—a beautiful apartment overlooking Abington Square with glass windows along all the outer walls. Always desiring the best of everything, a monthly rental of $327 in 1972 for an unemployed soul searcher seemed to make as much sense as Richard Nixon was President, so I figured if he could pull it off so could I.

John helped me all day long moving in and I set up the mirrored glass ball with the spotlight that I had kept from the store.

It was great, a large two-room apartment for Daf and me, now all I had to do was get a job. I had a friend who worked in the employment agency that had originally got me a job at S & H Greenstamps. When I saw him the following day he agreed to hire me on a commission basis and the following day I started working. What a switch from my expectations but at least I had a great place to live. My new job was to pick a bunch of employment applications and call around to various companies trying to market these fellows. It was just like trying to sell a used car over the phone to someone who can‟t stand salesmen and wasn‟t looking for anybody else anyway. With my newly formed awareness, I had hoped to accomplish some positive goals and bugging people wasn‟t what I had in mind. After three days I quit and was back among the ranks of the unemployed. A friend called me and asked if I could get her a stereo and instead of making money off of her, she took me out to dinner and that was great! Then she turned me on to a bunch of genuine Orange Barrel LSD and all kinds of downers, mostly bootleg Secconals. The LSD was a four-way hit and you would stay very high for 12

hours or so. With the lights and the music, I was definitely enjoying myself and meeting some great people.

I got it together for another job interview with a company that sold photocopiers and materials downtown on Wall Street. Once again, this job also paid on a commission basis but the man hiring me agreed to let me spend the day with their top salesman. Great! The following morning I reported to work and met this real shazzy dude who was number one in sales. He made several calls where he clearly bugged the people he met and before you knew it, it was time for coffee. He and his buddies all assembled together and had a discussion about how they were going to pool together all of their sample supplies to sell under the table to one of their clients. After the extended coffee break, they got all the photographic paper together and I waited out in the hall while he did the deal. I asked him why he did that and he explained that was the only way he could get by. That afternoon I told the boss thanks but no thanks and went home to the bottle of downers. With the pressure off, I could kick back and I was up to three Secconals a day but in the back of my head I knew I had to do something if I wanted to live there and pay the rent. After several more interviews that didn‟t turn out so well, I thought I had reached the perfect solution. I had an interview scheduled for a furniture buyer for a big department store and by accident I had taken a downer without realizing I had the appointment. On the way over there I noted how relaxed I was and how good I felt. The lady who was interviewing me was very straight-laced and her attitude so serious it was like it was happening to someone else and I was the audience. I couldn‟t conceal myself any longer as I laughed aloud and then I laughed even more at the shocked expression on her face. On my way home I came to the realization that downers weren‟t doing my life any good. There had been many occasions when I was with some friends and before I knew it, it was two in the morning and everyone had gone home as I was waking up on the floor or couch.

The days seemed to fly by and it didn‟t look like I was going to come up with the rent.

However, during the last few nights I was hearing a bunch of strange noises and I had a pretty good idea what it was. There was a small hole in the big bag of dog food I kept under the kitchen sink and apparently my little visitor would crawl along the water pipes and take as much food as he could. It got to the point where you could hear him walking along the pipes late at night. When you‟re paying as much rent as I was, that wasn‟t expected. These apartments were built close to the warehouses where they butchered meat and the word around was that there were rats in the building. Not mice, but rats! Not knowing what I was up against, I decided to get a big rattrap the next morning. To test the trap that was about a foot in length, I dropped a ballpoint pen on it and the trap shattered it all around the room! That night I set it just before going to bed and in the morning I rushed into the kitchen to see what happened. Sure enough, there was a giant rat which I immediately measured (what else do you do with it?) to be 13 inches from head to tail.

Naturally I went around and showed everybody in the building, but I knew who I really wanted to see. I put the rat in a plain brown bag and I went to see the rip-off owner of the building. When I got there he was gone and there were two elderly ladies who were probably secretaries. I told them to relay the message from me that I refused to pay my rent until my apartment was guaranteed to be free of rats and not only that, the place was so cold you had to sit around with a coat on. One of the ladies snapped “There aren‟t any rats!” and as she was finishing that line I reached in the bag and pulled Junior out by the end of his tail and dropped him on the floor in front of her. One lady screamed “Get it out of here!” and the other picked up the phone and threatened to call the police if I didn‟t pick it up. Knowing that I had made my point, I went over and picked up the rat, put it in the garbage can by her desk and walked out.

Rats or no rats I received my eviction notice about a week later and like everything else, it was a rip-off but since I didn‟t have a lawyer and it wasn‟t worth fighting and hassling, I just moved out. I have to admit that the downers had gotten the best of me and by moving I was able to leave that whole scene behind. I was moving all my stuff to my mother‟s home and once again I could concentrate on my reading and not worry about having to earn money except to buy the books I wanted to read.

One day while walkin