by Raphael O’Suna

If people are kept busy, burdened and in debt, and if they are entertained and their attention is diverted from unity, tolerance, love and compassion to irrelevant, inessential and meaningless things, they can be provoked into sanctioned violence, robbed of their wealth and taken advantage of.

In the Angelic Realms, this would be called severing the soul from the spirit.

On earth it is called “business as usual” — politics, divide and conquer and the victory of the upper classes over the others.

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by Raphael O’Suna

There is charm in the way Bobby told his stories.

It would be easy for me to retell them, using more generally accepted explanations. One might use more appropriate psychological language, but I’m not sure that that would make things more accurate.

I’ve always hallucinated at critically important and very intense moments. This started at a very young age, when I would find myself in a very beautiful and subtle world. Later I called it Green Meadows, but at the time, I hardly realized that I had transited into another world. I was very young at the time.

Later, when I was in grammar school, I remember the morning of the great accident. Richard Gelman and I were talking outside the old Gothic public school building, waiting for the doors to open, when a large flame erupted before my eyes. I had been seeing black lines before my eyes that morning, but it was the flashing flame which moved me.

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by Raphael O’Suna

They had been friends a long time. Their friendship was like a photo hidden in a locket, worn around the neck. Others could see the locket, but not the photo.

The friendship was visible, but not the core or source or the sentiment which attracted and warmed them. The connection was not obvious. Neither was with others as with each other. They were like locket and photo. Fire and light. They were like the fire of the heart and the fire of space, always attracting each other. They were magnets to each other. Bridges to a shared state of higher communion.

They were twin flames. Each beheld each by the fire of their devotion. And they ascended together in the mutuality and magnanimity of their love.

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by Raphael O’Suna

Although we averted the calamity of a McCain presidency, we have been disappointed by the presidency of Obama.

Many of us were enthusiastic supporters of this man. We anticipated an assertion of presidential leadership and an affirmation of policies that would lead to positive change. The president has been unconvincing on both counts.

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by Raphael O’Suna

They were old and had been friends for a very long time. It was unusual in those days for a man and a woman to maintain a loving friendship, despite the fact that each had lovers and mates who never quite embraced this friendship, as the friends had.

When they had become very old and foresaw that the friendship would soon be coming to an end, they decided to spend an afternoon expressing what the friendship had meant to them.

He said without hesitation: “At first it was your beauty–your face, your figure, the life and fire of your heart. It was your grace and spontaneity and the way you laughed and the sound of your voice. You were a pearl, a ruby, something so valuable that I vowed never to risk its loss.

Later, I realized that we were so much more conscious and smarter when we were together. We were more intuitive, more inspired, more creative, more imaginative and possessed greater moral courage. Still later, I imagined that you understood me more than anyone else. The thought of you made me sigh. And smile. Goodness, truth, beauty and a controlled wildness which I loved. You spoke in exclamations and passion possessed you from sources which seemed inexhaustible. You really were a star, which cast no shadow.” Read the rest…

by Raphael O’Suna

Sometimes people would ask Bobby what happened to his leg. It was the first thing you noticed about him, after his crooked jaw and teeth.

Sometimes, if he was in the mood and trusted you, he would tell you what had happened.

He was a young boy at the time of the incident. His father managed a photo shop and photofinishing business. The company was always in need of money. Once the legitimate sources of capital had dried up, Frank, the owner turned to the racketeers for some cash.

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by Raphael O’Suna

“Take what little language you have, and make it work for you,” he said. “You’ll never be a writer of delicate sentiments and thinly sliced emotions, but you can make people see what you see and feel what you feel. Be honest, simple, direct, sincere and feel what you think.”

He was not himself a great writer or artist. He was not much of anything. He was a man whom I had picked up hitchhiking. He became interesting when he asked me what was the most important thing about a woman to a man. I had answered: “Her face.” “No,” he said: “Her smell. A woman’s scent goes straight to the heart. People think that the nose smells, or the brain,” he said: “But the heart is the organ of perception. And the heart can determine finely sliced qualities through the sense of smell. Women know this,” he added. “They’ve always perfumed and washed and oiled their bodies.”

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by Raphael O’Suna

When I first thought about writing this story of two Italian brothers, I imagined that I would simply state various facts. But then I realized that people might have difficulty accepting the story as being true.

However you want to receive this information is up to you. For my part, I will not suppress information simply because I imagine someone might have trouble believing it.

The two boys were born during the Second World War. Lorenzo was born in 1940, Silvio in 1943. They lived in an Italian neighborhood in the East Bronx. They were poor, so much so, that they shared a sofa bed in the living room. They slept together until 1958.

One night, unbeknownst to either of them, a full moon shone in the sky above their tenement. It was a special Spring moon celebrated in many parts of the world. On this night, asleep together, the two brothers had the same dream. They dreamed that they made a solemn pact, in the presence of a being who had a well-lit star where a third eye would be. In the dream, the brothers vowed to penetrate as deeply as possible the mysteries of success in the world and the mysteries of the spiritual path. Lorenzo was marked for more active service in the world. Silvio would choose a more solitary, spiritual path.

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