"Music for the Mind"
NEW ARTICLE by FR. JOHN VOGLER
Short thoughts about life. religion and current events
SOUL MUSIC FOR THE MIND
Welcome to the Band
That’s right. This is not an ordinary band. Anyone can join the band. Anyone can join who is a little critter. Anyone can join as long as you want to be a happy little critter.
Are you a little critter? Do you want to be a happy little critter? Are you willing to take action?
This band plays a different kind of “music.” You don’t have to pl
That’s right. This is not an ordinary band. Anyone can join the band. Anyone can join who is a little critter. Anyone can join as long as you want to be a happy little critter.
Are you a little critter? Do you want to be a happy little critter? Are you willing to take action?
This band plays a different kind of “music.” You don’t have to play bass or drums, sax or clarinet, guitar or banjo. You don’t even have to play a kazoo.
Just bring yourself and your willingness to be creative and to share and…to take action. You will never be charged money to participate in the band.
You will be asked to change your conscious thinking to be a Happy Little Critter. And, if you’re not satisfied after 90 days, you can have your old miserable thinking back.
It’s okay to be a virtuoso, but you can never be happy playing alone. Also, you can never be happy if you only listen and watch. You have to play the music.
You already have the power to join
Most experts agree that our minds can do enormous damage to us—even to our physical health.
What if you could be happier by changing your conscious thinking in just two important ways? What is stopping you? After all, aren’t you in control of your conscious thinking?
Parts of our minds can’t be controlled. That’s not our fault. You are not
Most experts agree that our minds can do enormous damage to us—even to our physical health.
What if you could be happier by changing your conscious thinking in just two important ways? What is stopping you? After all, aren’t you in control of your conscious thinking?
Parts of our minds can’t be controlled. That’s not our fault. You are not to blame for the unconscious parts of your mind that keep you scared, angry and lonely.
But, consciously, you can choose to believe any damned fool thing you want. Some people still believe that the earth is flat. You can change your conscious thinking…and you can do it right now.
This is not just any old positive-thinking program.What makes this different is the content of the two notes I will give you to play in your mind. These thoughts are not just positive; you can accept them as absolutes.
I will never suggest that you make up reality. Too many unhappy people are determined to make up reality and absolutes. I have merely discovered these absolutes and I am now offering them to you.
If you have a choice, why think stuff that makes you miserable or leaves you in doubt? I want to give you a choice. I will give you two notes to play in your mind. Join the Happy Little Critters. Take action.
Who am I ?
Who am I ?
I am a Roman Catholic priest who doesn’t care whether or not you belong to my church or that you even believe in God. I want you to be happy.
I have been trained in classic Christian thinking and behavior and, quite frankly, a lot of it sucks.
I love my Catholic Church and the Good News of Jesus Christ, but I despise the popular “God” and
I am a Roman Catholic priest who doesn’t care whether or not you belong to my church or that you even believe in God. I want you to be happy.
I have been trained in classic Christian thinking and behavior and, quite frankly, a lot of it sucks.
I love my Catholic Church and the Good News of Jesus Christ, but I despise the popular “God” and the “Jesus” that is most often crammed into kids’ heads.
I despise the attempt to control folks with threats of an eternal hell. I despise being betrayed by religious theology too complicated for ordinary people.
I’ll give you two happy thoughts to play in your head instead of the stuff that makes you miserable. The music I want you to play will never cause pain or make you want to run away.
For years, I have been using these two thoughts and have been sharing them. Most people listen and love what they hear. Unfortunately, very few people take ownership of the thoughts.
It’s your turn to play with the Happy Little Critters Band. I want to be your leader. I’m rooting for you. I’m here for you.
Ways to contact me:
John Vogler
314-775-8811
10 Archbishop May Dr.
St. Louis, MO 63119
WHAT CONSCIOUS THOUGHTS MAKE THE MUSIC?
What’s the first note of the music?
What’s the first note of the music?
What’s the first note of the music?
This universe and anything else that might exit is all ONE ORGANISM.
It’s like your own body. It’s an organism made up of many parts that all work together as one. It is conscious of itself and of all its parts.
It’s not just a jar of individual jelly beans or of shotgun pellets fired into space. Everything is part of the ONE and is already
This universe and anything else that might exit is all ONE ORGANISM.
It’s like your own body. It’s an organism made up of many parts that all work together as one. It is conscious of itself and of all its parts.
It’s not just a jar of individual jelly beans or of shotgun pellets fired into space. Everything is part of the ONE and is already connected.
You don’t get up in the morning and worry that your toes might fall off, do you? A woman doesn’t have to construct the child within her womb. The farmer doesn’t build a stalk of corn in the field.
This thought saves you from the obsession to control. You don’t need to control because everything is already part of the ONE.
All forms of control are driven by the threat of separation. Friends threaten separation to force the good they want. Enemies use it to get what they want.
Parts of a healthy body do the best they can with what they have and share it with the other parts. Likewise, healthy, happy little human critters do their best with what they have and share it with others.
Because we are already united in the ONE ORGANISM, it doesn’t matter how much you have. It doesn’t matter how screwed up you may be. Just do your own business and share wholeheartedly.
Because most human critters have never believed that we are already one, few of us have ever been able to live in healthy intimacy. If you keep playing this note in your head, at least your conscious mind won’t be part of the insanity.
What’s the second note?
What’s the first note of the music?
What’s the first note of the music?
The ONE ORGANISM demands the coexistence of “PERSONS”—the only ones capable of fully receiving its gift of LIFE.
Each of us human critters also has a coexisting “person” to complement our natural need to be totally received and possessed in a healthy way.
This is a truly unique idea. You will not find it anywhere else.
The word “person” me
The ONE ORGANISM demands the coexistence of “PERSONS”—the only ones capable of fully receiving its gift of LIFE.
Each of us human critters also has a coexisting “person” to complement our natural need to be totally received and possessed in a healthy way.
This is a truly unique idea. You will not find it anywhere else.
The word “person” means something different than the way it is commonly used. We critters are not “persons.” We are forms of life.
“Persons” are not part of life. Yet they cannot exist without a form of life giving itself to them. (Think of a helpless infant.) Life and “person(s)” are inseparable like an object and its shadow(s).
Your nature as an intelligent critter demands that you have a “person” to receive you. And, your “person” cannot exist without receiving a life. You, the critter, and your “person” exist together as one. Without “persons” there can be no total love—intimacy.
Every human critter is going to end. Then, it rises up into new forms within the ONE everlasting Life. At that point, the ONE gives its whole self to the human “person.”
[Christians believe the eternal Organism (God) has always given itself equally to the Father Person, the Son Person and the Holy Spirit Person.]
No “person” is ever abandoned, left out or goes out of existence. Each human “person” that is assumed by the ONE enjoys or suffers whatever the ONE Life is enjoying or suffering during its eternal existence.
The ONE ORGANISM is crazy LOVE. It gives EVERYTHING it has to the “persons.” When a little critter (no matter how small) finds a healthy way to give EVERYTHING it has, it will be as perfect and as happy as the ONE.
Therefore…
What’s the first note of the music?
Therefore…
You are precious, dear and darling. You might decide to change what you can to be happier, but no one can make you change. No one and nothing can make you more worthwhile or valuable than you already are.
You already belong. You might choose to change what you can to be happier, but nothing can separate you from the ONE and from all those
You are precious, dear and darling. You might decide to change what you can to be happier, but no one can make you change. No one and nothing can make you more worthwhile or valuable than you already are.
You already belong. You might choose to change what you can to be happier, but nothing can separate you from the ONE and from all those who are part of the ONE [God].
You can never escape. You may choose to keep a safe distance from others to be happier for the moment, but you can never succeed in separation from the ONE or from all that is part of the ONE.
When you are happy, your “person” is happy. An ordinary parent would do anything for the happiness of their infant child. You have a "person" that is depending on you. Learn to be happier. It can be a win-win situation.
Free-will and control can never succeed at separation. A child can try to not go to sleep, but all she succeeds in doing is to make herself and everyone else miserable. The agony stops when you surrender to reality.
Happiness is not the same as pleasure. Happy little critters know they (and their “persons”) belong. Nothing can separate them. So, they find healthy ways of giving their whole selves away.
SOURCES OF DISHARMONY
Your own “master-mind”
Family, Religion, Economy and Culture
Family, Religion, Economy and Culture
When you try to play the two notes of Happy Little Critters, your own mind keeps shouting thoughts of fear, anger and loneliness. Those old thoughts are stuck in your mind until the happy tune gets stronger.
It’s not your fault. Human minds start in little infant critters. Once the infant mind discovers its hands and feet, it thinks that t
When you try to play the two notes of Happy Little Critters, your own mind keeps shouting thoughts of fear, anger and loneliness. Those old thoughts are stuck in your mind until the happy tune gets stronger.
It’s not your fault. Human minds start in little infant critters. Once the infant mind discovers its hands and feet, it thinks that there is nothing else.
It takes a long time for most of us critters to discover and embrace our other parts and the other people and things in our world. Some of us get stuck in the very tiny world of our own minds.
It’s normal for minds to develop by adding more and more people and things that belong. Unfortunately, it’s also normal for human minds to get stuck.
The stuck mind becomes a “master-mind” and thinks that it is in control. Even when the mind uses control for a good purpose, the attempt to control is your greatest obstacle to happiness.
A controlling mind thinks it can choose who and what belongs. It thinks that others can choose who and what belongs. It is both a symptom and the cause of misery.
The two notes that Happy Little Critters have chosen to play in the conscious mind allows the mind to accept that its purpose is to be a “servant-mind.” Its ultimate glory is to listen, ask questions and to report honestly.
Those who have chosen to play Happy Little Critters music in their heads know that it is impossible for the ONE ORGANISM to be separated. Everything is one and no one can successfully choose otherwise.
We unhappy critters think “the universe is against us.” We don’t understand that the ONE cannot control life. Fear of the ONE is based only on the fact that it will not bend to what our “master-minds” want.
Everything is part of natural interactions within the ONE. When we abuse our bodies, it has consequences. When we abuse the environment, it has consequences. When we do not relate to one another in healthy honest ways, it has consequences.
If you play the right music in your conscious mind, it has consequences. You no longer need to be in control. You no longer need for the ONE ORGANISM to be in control. It is already good and safely held together. What a relief!
Family, Religion, Economy and Culture
Family, Religion, Economy and Culture
Family, Religion, Economy and Culture
Family: This is the most important place that forms how you think from the very beginning. At best, for most of us, the family has sent mixed messages. You are precious one minute, and the next, you don’t measure up. It is all done “for your own good.”
Up to now, it is extremely rare that any family has modeled really healthy love. You ma
Family: This is the most important place that forms how you think from the very beginning. At best, for most of us, the family has sent mixed messages. You are precious one minute, and the next, you don’t measure up. It is all done “for your own good.”
Up to now, it is extremely rare that any family has modeled really healthy love. You may be the first generation that has a chance to play happy notes in your minds. You might be the first to form families that actually live in harmony with the happy music in your heads.
Religion: As with the family, most religions are commonly dominated by those elements that assume that separation has to be overcome by control. Some religions encourage the separation of mind and body.
Much can be learned from religious principles. That is how I have discovered the two notes for Happy Little Critters. However, it is rare to find people who actually live out the principle of their religions.
Economy and Government: Universally, it seems that economies and governments have always been practiced using control and competition. All these practices are based on the assumption of separation rather than the reality that all is ONE ORGANISM.
Cultures: I know of no culture that does not use the threat of separation. Tribes and clans have always thrived on rituals to earn positions of belonging. Make no mistake. You are being overwhelmed by cultures and sub-cultures.
You can be part of building a new culture based on the truth that we are inseparable—we already are parts of the ONE ORGANISM. To begin, totally surrender your conscious mind and play nothing there but the two happy notes of Happy Little Critters.
Sharing that’s not healthy
Family, Religion, Economy and Culture
Sharing that’s not healthy
“When a little critter (no matter how small) finds a healthy way to give EVERYTHING it has, it will be as perfect and as happy as the ONE.”
But, to play the music of Happy Little Critters, the sharing has to be healthy.
It is a perfectly healthy relationship when the ONE shares with the “persons." The ONE has its whole abundant life to giv
“When a little critter (no matter how small) finds a healthy way to give EVERYTHING it has, it will be as perfect and as happy as the ONE.”
But, to play the music of Happy Little Critters, the sharing has to be healthy.
It is a perfectly healthy relationship when the ONE shares with the “persons." The ONE has its whole abundant life to give. The “persons” have no life to give. “Persons” are like helpless infants.
It is a healthy relationship for a mother to provide everything for an infant. The mother has everything an infant needs to survive. The infant is helpless.
QUESTION: Is it healthy for a mother to provide everything for her 35 year-old healthy son living in her basement? After all, she loves taking care of him and he loves being cared for.
The mother is enabling her perfectly healthy son who is not sharing what he has to share. She is helping him to escape from the reality that all little critters must learn to share everything to be happy.
The mother and son are only delaying what is necessary for their solid happiness. What they are doing cannot be sustained. It is like the temporary “happiness” produced by drugs and alcohol.
The experience of unhealthy "love" has probably driven more of us little critters into the misery of isolation than any other factor. It is probably as dangerous to relationships as dishonesty.
HOW CAN YOU STRENGTHEN THE MUSIC?
Faith is a state of mind
Love translates desires of the mind into action
Faith is a state of mind
Practice. Practice. Practice. Keep coming back to the two notes to be played in your conscious mind. I spend at least 15 minutes every day to strengthen faith, hope and love.
Faith is not necessarily religious. Even science is faith based on consistent signs that are observed. I believe the sun continues to shine on some part of the earth
Practice. Practice. Practice. Keep coming back to the two notes to be played in your conscious mind. I spend at least 15 minutes every day to strengthen faith, hope and love.
Faith is not necessarily religious. Even science is faith based on consistent signs that are observed. I believe the sun continues to shine on some part of the earth even at nighttime when I can’t see it.
Faith just means we believe something is true right now even though it can’t be seen. It needs to make perfect sense. It just cannot be proven.
Happy Little Critters believe that everything is ONE ORGANISM. All the signs are there. We cannot see it because we are too little and our senses are not very good. (We can’t even hear what a dog hears.)
Thoughts to strengthen faith:
If everything and everyone are part of the ONE, it is all precious and beloved (including you).
There is always enough for everyone. We only need to learn how to share. If you don’t have enough, it is not the fault of the ONE. If you are one of the hoarders, you are part of the problem.
At the moment, human critters are infantile. Yet, humanity is growing up right now as I speak. I think we are on a course to mature in just one more thousand years. Meanwhile, you can be happy.
Nothing is dull, dirty, drab or dead. Even alone in my room, molecules are alive and darting about in dramatic dances that fill the universe. Even the grave gives up its dead to rise into new dimensions and designs.
The ONE ORGANISM that we are all part of has consciousness and a spirit that flow through it. It knows self and every part of itself.
[In Christian religious traditions, the ONE is God and all of this is God’s body, blood, spirit and divinity. Without all the “hocus pocus,” that is their bottom-line belief about Christ and the Holy Eucharist.]
Happy Little Critters believe that we each have our individual “person” that can only have what we have. If I am happy, my “person” is happy. If I am miserable, my “person” is miserable.
The ONE LIFE is LOVE and has always shared everything with the “persons” that have no other life. If the ONE is completely happy, its “persons” are completely happy. If parts of the ONE are miserable, its persons suffer the misery of those parts.
As human critters are dying this very moment, they are already rising from their human forms into millions of new forms to eat and be eaten in this wonderful ONE LIFE.
Meanwhile, human “persons” of the dying are being assumed to receive the fullness of the eternal ONE ORGANISM.
[Strictly speaking, when religious people talk about “descending and ascending” or “assumption,” they are talking about “persons.” When they speak of “death and resurrection,” they are talking about forms of life.]
Happy Little Critters rest in a complete state of serenity, knowing that the resurrection of their bodies and the assumption of their “persons” are absolutely guaranteed by the very nature of reality.
All of these thoughts are faith because we believe they are happening right now. Hope is what we believe is still in the process of developing. Hope must be strengthened also.
Hope is a state of mind
Love translates desires of the mind into action
Faith is a state of mind
I practice and strengthen my hope by rehearsing these thoughts in my mind. My hope extends to all of humanity, not only to myself and to other individual human critters.
We individuals can only mature for 100 years (more or less). Humanity continues to develop over thousands of years. My hope is that all on earth will be living as happy c
I practice and strengthen my hope by rehearsing these thoughts in my mind. My hope extends to all of humanity, not only to myself and to other individual human critters.
We individuals can only mature for 100 years (more or less). Humanity continues to develop over thousands of years. My hope is that all on earth will be living as happy critters in just one more thousand years.
I know that each generation of humans are producing more and more critters that have the thoughts necessary to be happy. It is a struggle, but I see signs that it is happening.
I see signs that, in each generation, happy human critters are meeting and sharing the thoughts necessary for happiness. If you are reading this website, you are one of those who are changing your thinking.
I see signs of more and more who are making decisions to behave as precious parts of the ONE. You may have seen those rare human critters that embody happiness in the way they treat themselves and others.
Human societies tend to celebrate and glorify many miserable lives, but the most beloved and admired lives that are recognized are the lives of happy little critters. I see happiness winning out over misery.
The most important development I see in humanity is the growing number of people who are listening and asking sincere questions (questing). It is actually happening. I see it. I am learning to do it myself.
I am no Pollyanna. I know that there are huge numbers of people who fight to their death trying to control everything and everyone. Most every one of us resists taming our own miserable tyrannical minds.
My hope is based on my experience of letting go of control. I know it can be done. My tyrant mind is learning to be a servant mind. At least, my conscious mind has surrendered to the music of Happy Little Critters.
My faith and hope in the unseen is leading me to act on my beliefs. I am making decisions to live each day as a little critter, safe in the life of the ONE, without controlling, finding healthy ways to share everything I have.
Pleasure is a temporary escape. It can kill my pain, but it is never a solution. Surrender is the solution. The two notes we play as Happy Little Critters make it possible for conscious minds to surrender.
Love translates desires of the mind into action
Love translates desires of the mind into action
Love translates desires of the mind into action
Here are more thoughts to prepare for and strengthen the desire to surrender. These thoughts are only observations. The surrender is in the doing. Only in doing (in surrendering) can we say we really know anything.
Happy little critters expect to have pain. Growth and intimacy in happy living necessarily include mistakes and all kinds of u
Here are more thoughts to prepare for and strengthen the desire to surrender. These thoughts are only observations. The surrender is in the doing. Only in doing (in surrendering) can we say we really know anything.
Happy little critters expect to have pain. Growth and intimacy in happy living necessarily include mistakes and all kinds of ups and downs.
When you accept the pain you cannot change, the agony stops. The pain may continue, but there is no more agony. The musical thoughts of Happy Little Critters can withstand and play loudly in the midst of any pain.
Expect physical pain. Some critters have more than others but all critters suffer physical pain. When the life of a critter ends, the physical pain ends. Accept the things you cannot change.
Expect to suffer mental pain, to be misunderstood and persecuted. Happy critters know that their worth and value and their belonging do not depend on others opinions or on measuring up.
Accept the fact that the life of every critter ends; yet, it never ends until it ends. To be happy, you only need to keep giving it all until you end. You are part of the everlasting ONE ORGANISM.
You have nothing to prove. You have no grand purpose to accomplish. Do the best you can to live every opportunity that comes you way. Love everyone you are with. (And laugh as much as you can.)
Accept that you will end. Consciously learn how to let go. Practice it when you go to bed and when you get out of bed to face another day. Embrace the pleasure and the pains of being part of the ONE.
Keep practicing how to end until you end. Your “person” will be assumed to share the eternal ONE. You will rise up to serve the ONE in new and beautiful forms. Accept the things you cannot change.