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Book
Excerpts: from Double Mirrors by Dylan Tauber
November,
1 1974, Seattle, WA.
A
day after Holloween, a year after the storm, I come into this
world, destined , I believe, to continue where Bruce Lee and
the rest of that generation left off. Except for one small detail.
I'm still an Old Jew and don't know Kung Fu from Sushi. But on
the spiritual level, Truth is the same for all of us. Unless
somebody out there has three legs, as Bruce Lee put it, fundamentally,
we are all the same.
It is the name of God/Love/Truth, that I am headed down my own
path of self discovery. Our paths vary, but the destination is
one.
Spirituality is the same experience for us all. God is great.
Now if I can just get myself to focus for long enough, I'll tell
you my story.
Brookline
MA., Winter, 1979.
"
Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at myself from far away. .
. its like I'm up in the sky, floating, and looking at what is
happening to me like its a movie or something," I said.
The Friday night Sabbath meal in our cold house on Buckminster
Rd had just ended. My father was sitting in his big velvet backed
throne-like chair at the head of our long Victorian dinning room
table. The room was dimly lit by an antique chandelier which
I had always been afraid would fall down and crush the roses
which were placed right underneath. My mother was perched in
an identical chair at the other end of the table, seemingly miles
away. I knew she was about to get up any second and send me off
to bed. I hated when she did that. I looked at my father apprehensively,
not sure if he was listening to me, or about to give me that
"to bed, to bed, to bed!" line.
He smiled and gave me a hug. "Your a smart boy," he
said.
But he was wrong. It wasn't that I was smart.
Five years old, and my Double Mirrors were already cracked. I
was headed down the first step of a downward spiral that I wasn't
destined to understand for another 15 years. More self-reflection
than love, the leftover energy on the verge of overflowing into
self pity, depression, rage, destruction. A warped Double Mirror
negative force building off of itself headed for disaster, a
ship on fire, burning its own fuel. I, the blind, deaf, and dumb
captain, was only to be saved by the grace of God.
I was infected with demons not of my own making before I even
knew what a demon was. And by the time I did I had plenty of
new demons of my own. But God gives everybody a chance to get
out of the cave. No matter how dark or how deep.
--------
-------------
On the Road to Camp Grossman, summer of 1982.
"I
don't get it" said my father. "Just jump in- I don't
know what the hell you are scared of," he insisted. "Just
look at your brother - he doesn't have any problems swimming."
He wasn't helping any. He could analyze the situation rationally
all he wanted- why I should clean up my room, why I should be
nice to my mother, and why the water is safe. But it wasn't going
to change anything.
-------------
"Come on you can do it," coaxed the swimming teacher.
The swimming period was over and all the kids had left, but she
was staying with me in the water like she had all the time in
the world, trying to convince me to jump into the lake. All I
could do is stare into the deep and remain frozen on the dock.
No. I can't do it. Its already been twenty minutes. Now its
too late- I thought about it too much now. I could have done
it then, but no- its too late.
"The water's great, you'll love it," she said.
But the problem wasn't in the water- it was in my head.
October
1982, 42 Lowell Rd, Brookline Ma.
My
depression had turned into frustration and then into anger. And
man, was I pissed off. I was getting kicked out of all my classes-
having coffee in the principles office was becoming routine.
I cursed at three piano teachers until they quit, and called
my mother a witch until she locked me in the basement. And I
was only seven.
The school told my parents to get me a shrink. A good one.
So here I am in this guys office, and he tells me to call him
Dr. Weil. And then he has the nerve to ask me to take my feet
off his desk.
I went outside and stomped all over the bed of flowers in front
of his office window. I'll show him. Boy was I a jerk.
My energy used up on killing his roses, I went back inside, and
quietly crept up the stairs to his office. The door was ajar,
and I peeked inside. Dr. Weil was sitting quietly at his desk
with a sad look on his face I'll never forget. He was not going
to reprimand me or say anything. I walked apologetically back
into the room, realizing how foolish I had been. From that instant
and forever Dr. Weil was what you would call a friend. But I
like the Star Wars trilogy a lot, so I call him O-Bewon Kanobie.
. . . [He would continue seeing me until I was 13, without pay
for most of this period. Through his kindness, understanding,
and wise example, effectively save me from my childhood troubles.
Dr. Weil was tragically murdered in December 1997, a testimony
to the sadness and sickness of this world humans have created.
]
The next summer,
I was back at camp Grossman all over again. Same dock. Same nice
swimming instructor. But nothing happened. I was just too scared
to jump in. And then there was a miracle. It was the second to
last day of camp- the day of the eagerly awaited swimming tests.
While the rest of the kids in the day camp were showing off their
crawl and backstrokes, me and the four other kids in the "there's
no way I'm jumpin in" group were gathered on the dock at
the deep end of the lake. Our instructor was in the water. (I
remember now that she was beautiful and that had I already reached
puberty she would have been enough for me to jump in any day).
The head lifeguard, a pit bull who enjoyed screaming in his megaphone
at little kids as if he was an army sergeant or something, was
walking towards us. It was really scary.
"O.K.. guys, its time for action," barked the lifeguard.
"Lets do it!"
I was the second to last in line. I wasn't paying attention as
one kid in my group after another belly flopped into the lake.
I was in a trance, and as I stared into the mystery of the deep
water, despite my fear, some force seemed to be pulling me as
if this had already occurred. . . I was meeting my destiny. I
had to do it now. I had to jump in. Not for myself but for some
reason I couldn't yet understand.
"Are you gonna jump or not?" the words echoed into
my head in slow motion as if they were from a great distance.
The beautiful lifeguard with her open arms, the dock, the lake.
. . it was all a blur. I was frozen in time and nothing mattered
except jumping in. Please God help me! I prayed, and my
already adrenalized and trembling body received a spiritual boost
that brought my energy levels to overflow. And then it happened.
. . I JUMPED. The lake took me in, and for an instant I was below
the surface and part of another world. But just for an instant.
I shot up to the surface and doggie-paddled into the instructors
arms. The curse was broken. The seeds of my vision quest were
planted.
---------
Dr. Weil continued to see me, without
pay, for five years until I left home at 13. To this day he serves
as an inspiration in my quest to become a man of truth and love-
a full Jedi. His message was that we need to love. His language
was Freudian therapy. This book is basically an effort to express
the same idea. My way. But as long as we focus on the Moon and
not the finger of the one who is pointing towards this truth,
the language is irrelevant- the idea is constant and not affected
by these shadows. God/Truth/Love is One.
Anger, fear,
hatred- forces of the dark side are they.
Love/Truth is the cure for this disease.
God is Truth. Truth is love. Love is God.
God is Great.
Yom Kippur,
October, 1993, West Village, Manhattan:
I wasn't happy
with the bouncer frisking me, but it was O.K. as long as he didn't
card me. This was one of the many wild spots of the New York
night scene and the high security was not unusual. Perhaps the
Limelight, an old church that had been converted into one of
the city's hard-core hangouts for the club crowd wasn't really
the best place for a Jewish sophomore at Columbia College to
blend in on Yom Kippur. But hey- this is half the reason I'm
in Manhattan to begin with- I need a noise loud enough to pull
me into the present so I can communicate my vision. And it
sure beats hangin with Old Jews in some synagogue and listening
to some shmuck version of Rabbi X [the head Rabbi at the Yeshiva
I went to in Milwaukee WI] shriek a mussar shcmooz (Yiddish for
long boring speech) in my ears.
I come for the music, but I think its more than that- its the
anonymity. You can just blend into the mass of swaying bodies
and not have too worry about anybody looking at you or making
sure to say your Yom Kippur prayers the right way. [in retrospect
one way to be a hermit is to get lost in a crowd so huge you
are not noticed, all groovin to the same kickass techno], Just
the way I like it- free as a dolphin. The two friends I was with
had already chugged down three beers down a piece. As for me,
I preferred to leave my senses unaltered so I could soak in this
heart thumping world. And besides, I'm messed up enough without
the alcohol, and I find it easier to get high off the club/house
music. Its not like this was my first time at a club; I discovered
this entertainment during my year in Israel, the year that I
had my vision quest. But that's another story. Sort of. [The
truth its all the same, and Double Mirrors is on my mind always-
my situational, physical environment is irrelevant except for
its capacity to affect my physical energy levels- the fuel I
translate into spiritual energy so that I can keep my ideas flowin.'
We are all half finite and half infinite and trying to maintain
a constant vision can get pretty trying on the animal side. The
limelight's hard-core techno is a good energy booster.]
There were no inhibitions in this house of pleasure. Guys were
walking around without shirts. Girls were walking around without
shirts. Couples were passionately kissing and fondling each other
all over the place.
Yep. This sure as hell wasn't Milwaukee anymore.
Best of all I could just sit on my bench in the corner, and just
watch the whole thing unnoticed.
I wonder what Rabbi X would think if he could see me now. "GET
THE HECK OUT OF MY YESHIVA!" he might shriek. Or my mother
for that matter. But at least she's happy with my two brothers
and little sister whom in her eyes are perfect children. Good
Jewish boys. Benjamin is even going off to Yeshiva in Israel
next year. My mother is so proud. My family is twisted. [Funny
thing about my family But don't get me wrong- I love my parents.
And they seem happy with me these days. It was a big day for
us when I got accepted to Columbia. Dr. Stein, my private elementary
school principal who was constantly trying to get me expelled
was at my house when my father opened the acceptance letter.
I wish I could have seen the look on his face, but, thank god
was busy conducting a vision quest in Jerusalem. My father was
all excited to start bragging that his son was the first kid
to get into an Ivy League school from the Wisconsin Institute
for Torah Study, (WITS), the yeshiva (religious Jewish boarding
school) he shipped me off to at the age of thirteen[at least
he didn't send me to the South Haven Institute for Torah Study,
huh- I was laughing pretty hard about what that would have been
called for short]. I fought with my parents too much to live
at home, and I guess my dad figured that the rabbis at WITS would
straighten me out. $$ And besides, it was a hell of a lot cheaper
than the other boarding schools $$. The only catch was that I
would have to live with seven fanatic rabbis breathing down my
neck. And I thought my parents carried too much authority for
my taste- Rabbi X was enough to make me wish I was in catholic
school! There was no way that I, the kid who refused to wear
my retainer just because my Father told me to- was going to stay
in "shitsville," and put up with seven Rabbis telling
me what to do. After three years in Milwaukee, as much as I would
have loved to hang out with Rabbi X and eat Kugel, I split town
without my diploma. The heck with graduating- I would rather
be high school drop out than put up with one more day of the
lies and bullshit all around me. I was in a very dark cave, and
God took pity on me and pulled me out.
But I didn't come to the Limelight to think about my parents,
or WITS- they were all ready taking up too much room in my nightmares.
It was Yom Kippur, and while my parents, Rabbi X, and the rest
of my family were all in synagogue, I was pondering the reflection
of a red beam of light off the snake tattoo on the half naked
girl dancing in front of me. I tried to see if I could get hypnotized
by the rhythmic motion of the swaying skull and crossbones earring
hanging from her left ear. I couldn't. But that's not the point.
In club society you can never have too many body piercings. Counting
the earring connected by a chain to a ring in her nose, this
girl had three that I could see, and I was sure I didn't want
to know if he had others I couldn't. Tattoos, earrings, they're
all status symbols here in club society, I guess. Its what kind
of car you drive out there, but in here its how many earrings
you have, how funky your clothes are, how much gel you have in
your hair, and of course how well you can move.
My "friends" [I don't have any real friends except
the Mediterranean Sea off Tel Aviv and Dr. Weil who's seventy
five now. Oh yeah- and the 4 million New Jews living in Israel
who call themselves Israelis] were off dancing with these two
girls wearing outfits that would make my mother faint. I was
happier making myself comfortable on my bench and getting lost
in the music, flashing lights and artificial fog or whatever
they call it. I like that stuff. Its just another part of that
making the "real world" disappear thing- I mean that's
what all this is about, isn't it? Its like we're trying to fog
up the Double Mirrors in our minds, returning to our animal nature,
grooving to the primal beat, forgetting our self consciousness,
riding the waves of the present. Sorry but I often get philosophical
in moments like these.
What we call the real world is just an illusion. The Emperor
has no clothes.
Plato, I found out, said this already his own way- he calls
these illusions shadows in a cave. We assume these shadows are
reality until we escape the cave and discover the world that
is producing these shadows. Until we see this spiritual truth,
all we know is the physical- what we can experience with our
five senses. Until we find the light for ourselves, all we know
is shadows. I borrow Plato's metaphor, but one thing I should
make clear right now is that I don't really believe in reading.
If I had not discovered this truth for myself already, Plato's
allegory of the cave would be just words on paper. One living
idea, introduced to the soul through life experience, is worth
more than all the dead intellectualized ideas in the world. Call
me a smart-ass, or anything else, but I will still say that the
only way to learn is through living. Through interaction with
others, and living in the present. By some twisted irony or bizarre
joke from God, I am now at Columbia, a capitol of intellectualism,
where they "teach" things like the philosophies of
Plato, the writings of Jesus, and the Old Testament. But reading
these books is just intellectual masturbation- shadows- unless
their words transcend the ink, paper, and rational framework
in which they were written. Yes I do believe life is all one
big dream- that like Plato says we are stuck in a dark cave,
staring at shadows we assume to be reality. That the only thing
real is God/truth/love.
But I didn't
figure this out by reading the cliff notes of the Republic like
half of my classmates at the distinguished institution of higher
learning known as Columbia. It was only through my Vision Quest,
in Jerusalem the city where men have been having vision quests
for thousands of years, where I discovered these truths for myself.
We all have the same need of a search for Truth of some sort.
A little vision quest never hurt anybody. Unfortunately those
who are still stuck in the cave have trouble understanding this.
One of the many crackpot shrinks I have seen determined my romanticism,
vision quest, and general way of thinking, to be a result of
a Jerusalem Syndrome- a Jesus complex- but I say it is he who
is suffering from illusions.
Get out of your cave, buddy -- the Revolution is here. And
if you don't open your eyes you might miss it.
Dr. Winchel, Rabbi X, my parents, and countless others have
tried to put me down but they will only succeed when I allow
them to pull me into the burning past they have created for me.
Mohammed might say they are unbelievers- infidels who must be
annihilated. But I say they need to be loved. . . or dumped on
a beach in some remote island until they see the light for themselves.
The same sensitivity that helped me to see the good of the New
Jew left me susceptible to a point blank attack from the spirit
demons of my family of Old Jews. For every vision of Love there
is a counter force of deadness from the past. With God's help,
I will be strong enough to keep my vision strong, and to be free
of the chains of this memory. Through living in the present,
like the New Jews who inspired my vision, the human spirit will
survive. And this is, at least on the spiritual level, what brought
me to the Limelight that night.
The dream of life can get pretty convincing if we let ourselves
get sucked into it. The loud music, beer, and wild partying ,
to hide our Past and pulls us into the Present. Its like a little
kid shutting his eyes to make his world disappear. [The funny
thing is that on the spiritual level, where perception determines
reality, this can actually work. . . so it does work] People
in this place can leave all their problems outside; In here they
don't have to think about ex-girlfriends, late bills, or where
they're life is headed. As for me- I get a chance to stop remembering
the Rabbis in Milwaukee waking up at 7 in the morning for prayers,
or my mother whining that I should clean my room. Here, the human
condition is reduced down to loud music, artificial fog, flesh,
and more flesh.
Which of course brings me to the second reason people come to
the Limelight- pursuit of pure hedonism. Not that there is anything
wrong with that, as long as you don't hurt anybody in the process.
A sin is only a sin if you think its a sin. And I sure as hell
know that I'm not evil. I was in a club that used to be a church
on Yom Kippur, but was this any less spiritual than sitting in
some synagogue listening to the old farts gossip in the row behind
me? "Through loving one boys correctly," says Plato,
we become immortal and become one with God. You can find god
through loving young boys, but you can't find Him at the Limelight?
What- you think God got carded at the door or something? He's
over 21 even if he don't got I.D. . . .
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Coke, do you want some coke?" the big guy with the
shaved head in front of me repeated himself.
"No thanks," I answered. You see what I mean; this
place was intense. But that shit is not for me- yeah I go to
sleazy clubs, but I believe I'm a good boy. No I don't say my
prayers in the morning or study Talmud anymore- I pray my way.
And I try to be nice guy. Tell that to my mother if you get a
chance. Somehow, I don't think she is convinced. She liked to
call me a juvenile delinquent when I was little; in her naive
eyes I was evil because I refused to clean my room. But after
the truckloads of anxiety she dumped on me as a baby, (my parents
were on the verge of divorce at the time) she doesn't have the
right to criticize me about anything.
My attention was soon grabbed by a gorgeous girl dancing a couple
of feet from my seat. Her hips swaying to the beat were completely
mesmerizing.
I couldn't take watching this anymore. An ass like that is enough
to make a guy forget about any Jewish mother. I quickly looked
around for my friends but they had disappeared into the multitude
of rocking bodies. By now I was drunk on the music and could
start dancing myself. The music was so loud, I could feel my
bones vibrating.
Memory of Mom was gone, and my inhibitions let go. I let my body
move as the music commanded it. Society's rules, self consciousness,
set aside, I was like a primitive dancer moving to an ancient
drum beat. I was no longer Dylan, frustrated philosopher, and
campus Don Quixote, but instead just one limb in a massive organism
of swaying bodies. I was wasted without even drinking any beer.
That lasted maybe a couple of minutes- I am still far from being
a full Jedi- until I was absorbed once again in self reflection.
I was soon looking for a seat where I could go back to pondering
the meaning of our existence.
Suddenly, some commotion shattered my reverie; some asshole with
a black wool hat was harassing a girl a little to my right. She
was beautiful dark skinned girl- she looked black or Hispanic-
with brown hair and brown eyes. Like me. Except I'm not Black
or Hispanic. I thought she was black- but it was pretty dark
in there. I love black woman. . . . They remind me of the Ethiopian
Woman I met in Jerusalem. I spoke to her for only ten minutes
at a party, but I dream of someday marrying her. She is the Dulcinea
of my dreams. But before I launch into an ode to the Land of
Ethiopian Women, I'll get back to my story. Suffice it to say
this girl had my undivided attention.
I gathered up enough courage to try to make eye contact with
this maiden in distress. I stared at her until she noticed me.
And then it happened- she smiled. Well, not a real smile, but
more like a hint of one, and a sparkle in her eyes, I guess.
You know what I mean. I was hooked, and was quickly being reeled
in.
So I moved next to her and was surprised when she grabbed me
and started dancing closer than I was even hoping for. I gave
the son of a bitch who was bugging her a dirty look. He moved
closer to us, and grabbed the girl but I quickly turned, giving
him a little shove as he found himself staring at my back. I'm
not a big guy by any standard- I have a small frame and I'm skinny-
but people tended not to mess with me. God protects me, I say.
People say its because I look intense. [sort of like a 80 year
old in the body of a 20 year old maybe] I have only recently
figured out what they mean by that. Anyway, the little vulture
got the message and I guess he moved on to search for other prey.
Pretty soon my newly found friend and I were performing the lambada
to hard core techno. This is my kind of woman, I thought as I
caressed her petite thighs. "What's your name?" I shouted
over the music. I couldn't hear the answer. But I think she said
Jasmin. She then said something to me. I just smiled; I couldn't
make out a word of it.
After spending a seemingly short while doing the most sensual
dancing I had ever experienced, I asked if I could buy her a
drink. Minutes later, we had joined the scores of passionately
kissing, newly aquatinted couples on the couches in the back
upper level.
I couldn't believe this was happening. I mean, I love coming
to clubs but it was almost always the music, and, I guess, the
voyeurism that was the drive. Now somebody was probably staring
at us.
She sure knew how to make a guy happy.
When we paused for a minute, I broke the number rule of this
game; I started an actual verbal conversation. Yeah, I know-
that's not the kind of communication that's supposed to go on
at a place like this; when all inhibitions are put aside, the
language of the body comes most naturally. But for some reason
I felt the need to actually meet this stranger positioned on
my lap.
After the usual beginning of where are you from, where do you
go to school, and how old are you, I couldn't hold it back anymore.
Something about the uniqueness of the moment (probably that it
is so rare I actually have the balls to start talking to a girl
that I like) was inspiring me, and I just had to explain to this
girl what I believe is the meaning of life- you know- let her
in on my vision quest. What's wrong with a little spiritual exhibitionism?
I think I shocked the shit out of her.
I figured the actual Double Mirror metaphor was too deep, so
I began in shallow waters. In my mind, I said, every person here
is merely trying to escape from the prison of their past and
self reflection. The harsh reality of life is easily hidden by
raw hedonistic pleasure, or at least some intense voyeurism.
That there is no absolute reality on the physical level, and
therefore the reality of this club is as legitimate as the reality
of, say, my mother. That I'm sorry I'm jumping from one idea
to another but I think I have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
and I tend to jump from idea to idea, talking really fast with
a manic energy without finishing anything. That even though in
principle I don't like to read, I was assigned Ralph Waldo Emerson's
essay, "Self Reliance," in which he referred to himself
as a "transparent eyeball"- one who observes everything
without being seen or affecting anything- and this is what I
personally like to do at a place like this . . . . [probably
because it is so hard for me to Listen anywhere else] I could
have went on all night but I was soon interrupted in the middle
of my of my sentence while trying to elaborate the theory of
the transparent eyeball.
In her thick Brooklyn accent she muttered, " That's cool,"
and we went back to our more urgent business of sucking at each
other's mouths.
A mouth can be used for all sorts of purposes, I guess. But I
think I better keep mine shut- or else become satisfied with
the transparent eyeball view from my bench.
----------------------
Spring 1994:
I am Dylan,
Son of the Waves. Welcome to my life. Dylan Bob, my parents named
me. . . a backwards Bob Dylan. [Dylan means "Son of Waves"
in Welsh] Yeah they were hit pretty hard by the sixties. But
Dylan Robert Tauber, just doesn't sound right. Sure, Bob Dylan
was Jewish to (his real name, I hear, was Robert Zimmerman),
but a Jewish Dylan? I thought Dylans are supposed to hang out
at places like 90201 and Hollywood movie sets, not in Yeshivas
in Milwaukee. It was no accident that I was named Dylan; in Welsh
the name means Son of the Waves, and this is who I was destined
to become. . .
So here I am,
a lost and frustrated American Jewish visionary/ writer/ photographer
sophomore at Columbia College, named Dylan. To tell you the truth,
I'm actually a self proclaimed visionary. But most of us visionaries
are, I suspect. After a quest leading me to the waves of the
Mediterranean off Tel Aviv, I had a vision- inspired by New Jews-
of Double Mirrors and Dolphins. My dream is to go back to this
land of God's blessing, marry The Ethiopian Woman of my dreams,
have many children, live on the beach, and finally get my mother
out of my head. In short to become a full Jedi. A man of Truth
and Love. So what the heck was I doing at Columbia University,
in Manhattan, material capitol of the land of Elvis impersonators
and spray on cheese-in a-can? Good question. Juxtapistional irony
is what my Lit Hum professor would probably call it. I believe
I'm here in New York destined to communicate the Truth I have
seen, but I'm getting tired of explaining that, so now I just
like to say that a drunk deity is writing my life story. In fact,
after trying to explain my vision to hundreds of people, I am
getting tired of talking about it at all. I'm neurotic, depressed
but sometimes manic, and have an MTV attention span and a tendency
to sleep until 2 in the afternoon. I found the meaning of life
but I'm a slow typer.
I have a dream,
though. A vision that I must communicate. As the Israelis said
when they were fighting wars for the survival of their country,
Ain Breira- there is no choice. I must go on. I have got this
far only out of the mercy of a being, for a lack of a better
name, I call God like the rest of the world. His help, an external
energy that we all have the potential of tapping into, is the
only reason I believe I will someday finish this thing. The last
five years which brought me to the point I'm at now (1988-1993)
make up the most bizarre true story you will probably hear anytime
soon. [don't worry- the next 7 years are even more absurd] Unless
there's some other Generation X, Jerusalem Syndrome recovering,
digital dolphin, wired island hermit, out there who went to Yeshiva
in Milwaukee and happened to later bump into the meaning of life
in between visits to Manhattan strip clubs and Tel Aviv beach
excursions. I don't care what the most recent PC study says;
I sure as hell wasn't born this way. It takes a lot to get somebody's
mirrors that cracked. So for the last few years I have been on
a vision quest with the immediate goal of finding the meaning
of life and the long term goal of getting myself straightened
out in the process.
Tossed into a yeshiva in Milwaukee at the age of thirteen, and
adopted by the waves of Lake Michigan, I surfaced into the world
with a mission- a search for truth that brought me as far as
Jerusalem. The air raid sirens went off when I was exposed to
the lies of the Rabbis in Milwaukee. The war of truth is now
raging at full scale and I will not- no, can not rest until I
communicate my vision. I'm the first to admit that all this might
just be a result of watching Star Wars one too many times, and
a few loose screws in my head/lack of a long term loving girlfriend.
But what if I'm right? What if I have seen Truth? What if I am
the little kid shouting the Emperor has no clothes? There is
at least a minute chance that all this is not just in my head.
Regardless of what the scientific facts are, The bottom line
is I believe that I am a Jewish version of Luke Skywalker, on
a quest, like Don Quixote who I had to read about for Lit Hum,
to fight evil- the lies perpetuated by the Rabbis and other Yoda
figures of the world. And to exhibit the greatness of God/Truth/Love.
To sing the praises of the New Jew, and if it is not too late,
prevent the spiritual beauty of Israel from being shattered by
Civil War. And maybe even help convince my family to eventually
move to Israel, the Jewish homeland. But we all have our own
"Israel" somewhere- a home of spiritual harmony and
love. It is God's mercy that brings us there and helps us overcome
the lies and fears blocking the path. If I can help one 13 kid
out there with a neurotic mother that will be cool. But what
I really want is to wake up every single person out there in
this cave of ours whose been oppressed by lies, fear, and hatred.
By spreading Love and Truth and these demons will be destroyed.
We must put an end to organized religions, oppressive governments,
an ever increasing global corporate machine supplying only need
for further consumption, and every other institution that spreads
human suffering. But more than that we must Love. Free love isn't
some slogan from the sixties. It is the only thing that will
keep humanity from destroying itself.
Islamic fundamentalist who preach terrorism, death and destruction-
this is one Salmon Rushdie who isn't going to shut up. [And you
can't kill me for another 6 years because my Jesus complex tells
me I won't die until I'm 26- in the year 2000. . ..]
And all you Rabbis out there spreading lies and fighting plans
for peace- you are part of the same problem.
We are all the same. We must become united as humans. We are
one tribe, and if don't begin to love each other than we will
destroy ourselves permanently and the cockroaches - the only
species scientists say would survive a nuclear holocaust- will
inherit the Earth. It is either the cockroaches or love. Armageddon
or Messiah. And the Messiah isn't some dude on a white horse.
A Messiah is sleeping in the heart of each of us. But so is an
equal potential for destruction. It is up to us to decide which
it will be.
The revolution is here.
A little vision
quest never killed anybody; I say we all should try it. Its actually
very therapeutic. The only problem is most of us have heads already
overflowing with the contemporary preconceived, intellectualized
bullshit dogmas of our society. Its like Bruce Lee, a full Jedi
and one of my role models, said: you can't pour more tea into
a glass that is already full. We can't understand new ideas if
our heads are already full with the old.
Why do I make
my life miserable by obsessing over my vision quest? It would
seem I have a major overdose of humanity- self reflection. I
think way too much. I look at my life from a distance constantly,
trapped in the past like all the other Old Jews. This self consciousness
got to the point where I began to question everything- even my
own sanity. [the danger and distraction of living in cities with
close proximity to millions of human emotional predators] My
self esteem sank to the point where I was convinced I had to
change myself. In a period of 4 dreadful months, I went through
half a dozen psychiatrists and even more medications. You name
it- I tried it. But thank God all that is over.
The medications which hurt me are a manifestation of this culture's
reaction to my constant and ever deepening self reflection- on
a desert island it would be fine to contemplate my navel for
all of eternity, but in an apathetic city like New York, self
reflection and the resulting hyper-sensitivity- makes me a target
and susceptible to spiritual/emotional attack. I could walk around
like a dog and be safe from other dog like humans, but talking
about the meaning of life, and saying we are living in times
of spiritual revolution means the system can send a shrink with
a white coat to give me prozac. [God or, spelled backwards, Dog
we are in the middle and can become either]
Excessive self reflection, without boundaries becomes dangerous.
Until this force transcends to Love, it is just loose energy
[often taking the form of anger or fear] that becomes a cage
of obsessive self destruction that traps me in my self and ties
down my soul. This is the real problem- my self destruction and
fear of myself. This internal dissonance translates to a fear
of people. I must learn to overcome my fear of people just as
I have overcome my fear of the water. Not by conquering but by
embracing what I am scared of. I need to get out of my head.
I need to learn to Love. I must evolve into a New Jew.
[I believe
it is through this project that I will finally make that leap.
It is the self reflection of this work that will provide the
fuel to allow my soul to take off. But this is a very dangerous
game. The engine is racing, and I'm now more self reflective
than I have ever been in my life. And more messed up too, not
surprisingly. The faster I go, the more there is chance for me
to take off. OR the chance that I will race off the runway and
blow up. Either way, I feel it is my destiny to write down the
story of my last seven very strange years. Years that shaped
who I am today, and brought me to my air conditioned summer housing
room on 115th street and Broadway [summer of '94], where I am
determined to write down my story. And communicate my vision.
. . . [Significantly, It is only when I returned to Jerusalem
in the summer of '95 that I was able to get more significant
work done for this project of communication with the help of
God.] Although I recognize the potential of this work to add
destruction, with God's help it will only add love. Every potential
for good is accompanied by a potential for bad, and it is up
to each of us to decide which will happen. With God's help, we
will all learn to escape the cage of our pasts and transcend
to Love.]
I'm a recovering
Old Jew. (I'm also recovering from a Jewish Mother and a Jesus
complex, but I think that's obvious by now). My messed up head
is just a continuation of a 4,000 year tradition of Jewish self
reflection. Humans are half animal half spiritual, and until
a harmony is achieved between the two, we are in a constant state
of tension, our animal nature hating the soul which stares at
him while he eats and f_cks, and our souls, straining to break
free out of the belly of the beast in which it is trapped. Jews,
a people who personify human self consciousness, and therefore
the human soul, have always been hated by the elements of civilization
who are not at peace with their own humanity. These people hate
self reflection, hate the people who represent self reflection,
and most tragically, hate themselves. If Jews are an exaggeration
of humanity, my family is an exaggeration of Judaism. And so,
it is through discovering truth about my family, and, more importantly,
myself, that I have come to learn universal truths about the
human soul. My vision quest, culminating with the idea of Double
Mirrors, was my own personal search. But the sunset on the beach
in Tel Aviv reflects a beam of light along the waves that seems
to be pointing directly at each and yet everyone on the beach
who chooses to see it. We are all searching for the same thing
, the same truth. And we all feel the same way after we find
it. The sensation during the moment of orgasm is universal. But
the number of paths is infinite. . .
Only through experience- through life- will these truths be revealed.
I hope that sharing my experiences will communicate more than
a mere intellectualization of Double Mirrors. Before every search
for truth, there is a lie, and it was after being exposed to
the lies of Rabbinic Judaism that my search began. How we find
love is relative. It is what we experience when we find it that
is absolute.
Double
Mirrors
Book Summary: 100 words
"Mankind's
inexhaustible quest for truth/god/love or however else one wishes
to refer to our search for the unattainable, can be accounted
for by what I refer to as my theory of the Double Mirrors."
Dylan, Son of Waves, 1993
Double
Mirrors is a
400 page account of a 6 year journey from a yeshiva in Milwaukee,
to NYC, to Israel New Jews and dolphins and finally a move to
Jerusalem dreaming of finding The Ethiopian Woman, all revolving
around a vision of parrallel mirrors.
Double Mirrors
Long Book Summary 6000 words (5266 words)
This book is
a spiritual journey 6 years in the making. I write not only about
the meaning of life, but what happens when a one's highest priority
becomes expressing truth for its own sake. When all of society,
and the absurdities of everyday life are dismissed as a waste
of time, and the single goal of communicating the "project"
serves to define all other variables by default. Even in today's
confused world, there are means and ways to do so. To drop out
of high school, and get by through the grace of God until a CD
ROM, web site, laptop and wireless phone enables a pure upload.
But in a world where people are malicious even in supermarkets
when the stakes are just fruits and vegetables, manifesting a
moment of truth, a meaning of life, an infinite amount of potential
energy, into a tangible book becomes a very dangerous endeavor.
Especially for a sensitive guy like me- and if I was like everyone
else and mean/dumb enough to be immune to all the perils of the
rat race, I wouldn't have come up with these ideas to begin with.
I am now living as a wired hermit, alienated from all society,
and even my family. I am 26 but refuse to become an adult, when
everyone knows children are happier, more free, and dream more
purely. The more love I create, whether through writing, music,
images, or the SWS Network of web sites, the more all else becomes
existent by default. But its dangerous to be a baby. Even with
the help of digital technology. As I strive to become an independently
survivable digital infant, I become much more susceptible to
the obstacles we all experience daily, carrying our dreams of
love across the dangerous and limiting threshold that define
the everyday physical worlds we live in. The result is always
diminished by the fear and illusion which define this world.
All physical reality, by definition, is the absence in some form
of spiritual existence. To be totally God like is to not exist.
To be 1 or 0, not the grey mush in between. But in this grey
mush, we are scramble to somehow increase our immortality, and
make our souls more powerful for when we go back to the infinite
world of non-existence from which we came. And it is the potential
to create more love than existed previously, not because but
in spite of the greyness, pollution, that makes the human experience
infinitely valuable. Every kick becomes a push, every death a
birth, every birth a death, every added mess, a potential for
more harmony to be created. And potential builds the spiritual
world just as molecules and atoms build the world of our senses.
In addition
to philosophical and spiritual examinations, I share some of
the personal experiences, anecdotes, triumphs, and tragedies,
that brought me to these realizations. This book is best experienced
together with the https://DoubleMirrors.com website, updated continually,
and the Project Double Mirrors CD ROM, which includes multimedia,
animation, hundreds of images, and an original ambient/techno
soundtrack. The work begins with light autobiographical writing,
and gradually increases in depth and philosophical content, with
the extended Double Mirror Theory on page 303, and concludes
with the recent insights "The Doorway" and "Origin
of the Universe/ 1s and 0s", which came to me while in wired
Jerusalem seclusion at the turn of the millennium. This section
has now been included as a second volume entitled The Doorway.
The first half of the book, mostly written while a student at
Columbia, in NYC, relates experiences ranging from surviving
a yeshiva in Milwaukee, to strip bars in NYC, and then New/Old
Jews in Israel, and Ethiopian Woman. These sections were mostly
written in 1994 and 1995, in a conversational informal style
of writing that suited this chronology. The last half the book
is more of a journal and culminates with an escape to an island
where I can work without distraction, and also mentions other
travels throughout the South Pacific, Central, and South America.
Please visit https://DoubleMirrors.com for continual updates,
including an ongoing online journal project, Project Double Mirrors
CD ROM/ Double Mirrors Soundtrack audio CD ordering info, as
well as an extensive full color image and multimedia gallery.
To hear the ambient/techno Double Mirrors soundtrack, inspired
by Ethiopian Women, dolphins, and Double Mirrors, please visit:
https://DoubleMirrors.com/soundtrack.
Version 1.2
of this book, uploaded on 11/1/00 was 604 pages, 250,000 words.
For version 1.3 I had to edit out 172 pages ( down to 180,000
words) for the publisher, which amounted to omitting 28% of the
book. So In order to avoid limitations in the publishing process,
I decided to publish a 2 volume work, with the second volume
entitled The Doorway, focusing on writings and diolouge
from 1997 to the present, beging with my move from NYC to Jerusalem,
and on the Origin of the Universe theory from Jerusalem, at the
turn of the millenium, which appears in the preface section of
this book as well. Many exceprts from both books, as well as
most of the removed sections, and can also be found on DoubleMirrors.com
in the section "book excerpts." For recent updates,
please visit the ongoing online journal at DoubleMirrors.com/journal.
Dylan@DoubleMirrors.com
Theory Excerpts:
Double Mirror
Theory - 1994
Mankind's inexhaustible
quest for truth, spirituality, god, and or however else one wishes
to refer to the infinite, can be accounted for by what I refer
to as my theory of the double mirrors. Like animals, are senses
perceive a physical world; light reflects off tangible objects,
and into the retina, sending a chemical message that is interpreted
by the brain. This reflection causes other chemical functions
leading to all of the natural behavior of animals. The chimpanzee
sees the peanut and eats it. What makes us different, however,
is that we somehow reflect on our existence, analyzing our sense
perception from a distance. This ability in effect, provides
another "mirror," and combines with the first reflection
to produce the illusion of infinity. We are like a chimpanzee
living between two mirrors, constantly viewing not only the grass
in front of him, but the reflection of the grass and the reflection
of the reflection and so on. As a result, we humans do not merely
eat the peanut, but ponder why we are eating the peanut, what
the world would be like if it were not for the peanut, and how
we should properly treat the peanut, etc.. Like the illusion
of infinity is produced by parallel mirrors, we construe notions
of immortality, the soul, god, and spirituality. If our minds
were merely powerful computers, we might still have produced
advanced technology but the perception of metaphysics would be
unattainable.
It is only
our self perception that has led mankind to the perhaps infinitely
difficult problem that confronts us all- how our we to deal with
our notions of spirituality, and should it affect our interaction
with the physical world? Should our primary and most basic interaction
with the sensual world be affected by notions derived from our
secondary reflections? Should our pursuit of spirituality affect
our interaction with the physical world? Or should interaction
with this sensual world be used to help us in our search for
the spiritual?
Like many people,
these are questions that I have personally tackled for most of
my life. My own journey culminated in Jerusalem, the city where
men have been pondering these questions for four thousand years,
and then led to wondering much of the glove as a wired hermit/digital
nomad , seeking dolphins and mermaids to help nurture my wounded
spirit, and a place to conclude Project Double Mirrors without
distraction. From Times square, Manhattan, to remote islands
in the South Pacific , each cluster of human energy on this planet
seems to reveal the same fundamental truths. When it comes down
to it, I'm just a really sensitive guy with a laptop and a few
other digital tools, and hope to communicate what I have seen-
Double Mirrors, a vision of Dolphins, A Doorway, Infinite Universes,
and some of the absurd but true travels tales along the way.
And the saga continues. . stay
tuned for further updates. You can also read my original journal entries: https://DoubleMirrors.com/journal
DylanTauber.com
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