Divinity and Duality: Willard K. Willis on the Nature of Man

By E. Karl Pierson

This account of a fictional discourse is led by a mysterious gentleman named Willard K. Willis, who was asked by a discussion group to present his unorthodox view of life, which is both pragmatic and spiritual. Together, members of the group discuss the limitations of man, the nature of divinity, and the perception of good and bad. Early in the discussion, Willard uses the example of riding a bicycle to demonstrate that we don’t really possess as much knowledge as we think we do; an unseen force knows how to correct a crash-course before man’s awareness function has a chance to figure it out, and the body receives its instruction from that unseen source. Some people call it God, some call it Creative Intelligence, and some call it The Great Spirit. Willard calls it “Delta.” As the discourse progresses, participants explore answers to questions like “Who am I?”, “Where did I come from?”, “Why am I here?”, and “Where am I going?”. Topics include, among others: spiritual practices, religion, culture, emotions, mysticism, and personal responsibility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E. Karl Pierson
• Release date: Jun 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465898944

E. Karl Pierson

The fictional character, Willard K. Willis, was created to deliver Mr. Pierson’s experience with and application of "The Teachings" in his personal life. Drawing on ancient sources and personal observation, Pierson presents a simplified picture of man that reflects the way he has internalized the basic tenets of The Teachings. Readers are encouraged to neither accept nor reject the ideas that Willard Willis expresses without testing for themselves, using observations and experiments in their own lives as the only required testing field. Mr. Pierson believes that we have an innate, though usually dormant ability to question and test the ideas of man and the man-made world for ourselves. This innate potential, combined with his common existence, is what qualifies him to write about ideas and observations of the living process. In fact, Mr. Pierson considers the notion that one’s views must be certified or sanctioned by an institution to be a fallacy; such programs can be an impediment to “seeing” with clarity and completeness. No one needs third-party certification to examine and test ideas regarding the process of living. Mr. Pierson is in his sixties, married, has children and grandchildren, and has worked in the business machine and automotive industries. His interests include hunting, fishing, equestrian sports, music, painting, and many more, too varied to mention.

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Divinity and Duality:

Willard K. Willis on the Nature of Man

Copyright 2011 by E. Karl Pierson

All rights reserved.

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Acknowledgments

To Robert Gibson

A great appreciation for a wealth of information and ideas that have influenced the way I see life and the world.

To Jiddu Krishnamurti

For a way of seeing self, the observer.

To strangers with whom I’ve shared coffee

Some gems, some gross misconceptions.

To my daughters

Thank you for formatting, editing and illustrating.

A Very Short Story: 40 Years Ago

Willard approached the front door of the residence of his older sister. He rang the doorbell, stepped into the house, and loudly announced his presence. It’s Will.

His sister stepped into the room and exclaimed, Will! I haven’t seen you for months! What in the world have you been up to?

Oh, nothing in particular. I was just in the neighborhood and decided to stop in for a few minutes.

You must have been up to something lately. Look at you! she said with a questioning look.

What do you mean? I must have worn these same clothes fifty times.

Not your clothes. It’s you. You have color in your face. You were so pale, and I think you’ve finally put on a few pounds. Have you finally found a better job?

Willard quietly responded, Nope. Working at the same job, living at the same place.

Are you on some type of medication?

Nope.

Come on Will, you’re not telling all. You can’t have a gleam in your eyes and color in your cheeks unless something came along and turned you around. Mom used to say that you were quietly desperate.

Quietly desperate, he repeated. I never heard her say that, but I suppose that would be accurate.

Dad and I have both been worried about you for some time. He said you call occasionally, but you really should stop by to see him so he can see you’re doing well.

I’ll stop by this weekend.

His sister paused for a moment. Well, are you going to tell me or do I have to drag it out of you?

Willard looked away, trying to think of a way to describe something that may be difficult to get across. Well, I have met someone that...

I knew it! You’ve met someone. Do I know her?

No, no. Not like that. I met someone several months ago that changed my direction. Better stated, he worked with me on seeing the world differently.

You mean, like a psychologist or a guru?

No, he’s just a regular guy. I was sitting on a park bench, eating my lunch as usual, when this old guy, smoking a strong smelling green cigar, came walking down the path. He stopped as he was walking past the bench and looked at me for a few seconds. It was kind of creepy. Not frightening, but strange. It was if he could see right into me. Then he turned away, as if he was aware that his look was discomforting. He stood there smoking that smelly cigar for a minute, then sat on the bench looking disinterested.

I’d have gotten up and left if that happened to me, his sister sharply answered.

I wasn’t afraid at all. It was just eerie. I said something to him, you know, making small talk. He had an unusual angle on things that sparked my interest and the conversation got serious. In very short order, I realized that this man had information and views that I wanted to have. I over-stayed my lunch break, and he agreed to meet me at the cafe a couple of days later so we could finish the conversation. I’ve spoken with him several times over a period of months. We sometimes talk at the cafe, sometimes at the park.

I don’t mean this in a bad way, but do you think he goes to the park, trolling for someone to talk to?

He’s not a lonely guy, if that’s what you mean. Apparently other people like to talk to him. He resists giving out his phone number because some people call him at odd hours looking for solutions to their problems. He says people need to be on their own between talks to figure things out on their own. Besides that, he says he doesn’t work on problem-solving."

Well, for goodness sake, she sharply answered, what good is his advice if it doesn’t help people solve their problems?

He doesn’t give advice either.

With a puzzled look, she said, I don’t get it.

It’s a long story Sis; it’ll have to be for another conversation.

Why do you think he picked you out of the crowd?

He said I picked him out.

She hesitated for a moment. I don’t get it.

I’m not sure I get it either, but he said I will. I’ll have to take him at his word on that because I haven’t been able to fault him on anything else.

Will’s sister was skeptical. I’m not so sure I trust old guys that walk in the park.

I’m not sure, but I think he goes for walks in the park out of consideration for his wife. He said she doesn’t like the smell of his stinking green cigars.

Will, I’m going to be late to pick up the kids if I don’t get out of here. You take care. There are a lot of weird people out there.

Indeed there are, Sis, indeed there are.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

A Very Short Story: 40 Years Ago

Prologue

Introduction

A Picture of Man

Spirituality and Belief

More Picture of Man: Methodology

Chasing the Ideal: Good and Evil

What is Vs. What Ought to Be

The Trolls and The Delta

A Hidden Teaching

Belief, Hope, Problems, and Limitations

Problems and Limitations: The Four Elements

Resistance as a Divine Gift

Meditation

The Question of Prayer

The Dalai Lama and the Teachings of the World

The Age-Old Questions

Q: Who am I?

Q: Why am I Here?

Q: Where Did I Come From? and Where am I Going?

Alternate Questions

Q: What am I?

Q: Where am I?

Q: What is Taking Place Here?

Q: What Can I Do? (Part 1: Understanding and Consideration)

Q: What Can I Do? (Part 2: Being Harmless and Making a Contribution)

Altered States

Self Esteem and Positive Thinking

Order

Spiritual Strength Vs. Groupthink

Culture and Counterculture

The Christ

Perfection

Thought Control and the Subconscious

Time

Existentialism and Freedom

The Law

Anger and Guilt

Responsibility

Extrasensory Perception and the Paranormal

Black Magic and White Magic

About the Author

More About The Teachings

Willard’s Picture of Man

Prologue

In this introduction to what Willard believes is the true nature of man, he is addressing a small, informal group of people about how mankind relates to the world, and the divine. Some participants are new to the group and the subject, while others have returned to re-engage in a topic that is difficult to ‘digest’ in one sitting. Although the principles he tries to convey are easy to understand intellectually, Willard concedes that the powers of convention are probably too strong for most people to escape its trappings, and view themselves with detachment.

With vague references to biblical scriptures, Willard challenges participants to rethink what they mean. Topics such as culture, prayer and magic are briefly examined in order to help participants understand, test, and apply the Picture of Man presented by Willard. He grows weary of having to constantly remind participants of the principles they discuss early in the discourse, sometimes losing his patience, but understands that people need the redundancy in order to break free from conventional ideologies.

Willard reveals a little about himself through the personal stories he shares with the group, but avoids disclosing his profession and level of education. He soundly rejects organized religion and the behavioral sciences, and believes that social conditioning, in its many forms, limits the degree of objectivity with which we can observe and examine our lives.

This transcript has been edited for readability and continuity.

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Introduction

WW: Good morning. I see some faces that I don’t recognize. For those of you I have not previously met, I answer to the name of Willard Willis. I’d like to thank you for asking an old gray-haired guy to give a talk. Although I’ve never promoted a talk with a group, I’ve never turned down a request to do so, and I’m quite thrilled to have the opportunity.

Has everyone sharpened his or her pencil this morning? If not, there is a pencil sharpener on the table over there, as well as more paper. We’re going to draw a simple picture today and you will have to sharpen your own pencil and draw your own picture. There is a reason I didn’t just run a picture off with a copy machine. When you draw your own picture, it requires the activation of values as we we’ll see later. We’ll be taking a little trip here today and it would be futile for me to try and take the trip for you. We need action for this to be a trip that we’re taking together; to get action, we need some participation. More on that as we go along.

It looks like we have about 20 people here today. That’s a nice sized group because it’s not too large to handle, but it’s large enough to develop some inertia and questions. Over the course of this talk we’re going to look at the human condition. I’ll put forth some ideas that you may not have previously heard of or considered. We will also field some questions that I’ll do my best to address. I prefer not to turn this into a debate. We have a number of people here that may want to get through this talk and get as much out of it as possible. If we turn this talk into a contest, we’ll get bogged down and not go anywhere.

When I was much younger I liked a hot debate because I could bring up points that would make people squirm and become uncomfortable. I got a certain sinister thrill out of it. Ed is here today so it may be difficult to get through this without a debate. On the bright side of that, I always come out on top when I have a parley with Ed, although he usually doesn’t realize it.

(Participant laughter)

ED: I let you win sometimes so you won’t feel humiliated.

WW: We need to look at things together, not as me telling you what to believe or as me giving you my opinion or as some authority that you’re supposed to believe because of some credentials. I don’t want anyone to believe me because then all we will have done is to file away some dead information in the mental library.

Let’s look at some things on which we can make observations for ourselves as we go through them, or at the very least that we can check out for ourselves after we leave here. We’re going to look at both the esoteric and exoteric sides of subjects. This is not psychology, where you accept the ideology or studies of some professor from the college. This is not religion or some religious substitute where you need to be a believer and have so called faith. I am not interested in pushing some self-improvement scheme, but rather, self-observation without improving upon it, condemning it, justifying it, or blaming someone or something for our condition. This will take honesty and energy, but if you see the necessity and value, you’ll muster the energy. It takes much more energy than one might think to pay attention to what is going on inside the self, but like other activities or interests in life, when one has a vital interest in some pursuit, one seems to have more energy to expend in that direction. Prior to vital interest, one has to see the value or necessity in the endeavor, and I’ll try to make it clear as to the kind of self-destructive inner prison we have built for ourselves. We’re not talking about concentration, but rather, we’re talking about expanding the awareness function that we were all born with—expanding our abilities to see the fallacies of self and how that plays out in the outer world.

There are several areas that I would like to address today, but I think it might serve us well to address some questions first so we can see the direction we need to go.

PARTICIPANT: Some of us have never met you and don’t know about you. I know that you said something about not believing someone just because of who they are, but it might help us to know where you’re coming from if you could give us some idea of your credentials, or possibly, an internship or something like that.

WW: I was born.

(Chuckle from other participants.)

PARTICPANT: As you were just speaking you used the term, esoteric. I’ve seen and heard the term used so many times and in so many contexts that I’m a bit lost. Now I’m not sure of what it means in relationship to the things you intend to speak of. I guess I’m asking for a definition.

WW: Esoteric has its origins in Greek. Those Greeks had a lot of twenty-dollar words, didn’t they? I’ve made an effort to not use a lot of twenty-dollar words and I can say quite honestly that I have been quite successful at it.

I think there are a couple of primary definitions of esoteric. First, esoteric means obscure or difficult to see except by a few. The original Greek word meant within. That is opposed to exoteric, which means something that can be understood by the public in general, usually in literal terms or externally. The Greek word meant without. You know, exo, as in exoskeleton creatures like crabs and lobsters. I prefer the within and without definitions of esoteric and exoteric. I would make a pretty good guess the other definition came about because so few people understand or even care about their most basic inner make-up and the fallacy of it all. It isn’t that the inner man is that difficult to understand, but rather, so few people see the necessity of looking. It is extremely difficult to turn away from the clouded, colored view that we have looked through for our entire lives. Our view has been colored by the ideas that we serve. We have served the clever devil of our own making with just enough success to keep us hooked. We also look outward and see that everyone else is serving the same master and so it must be the right thing to do.

PARTICIPANT: I was at another of these talks where you spoke. I was interested in finding some sort of book or written material that goes along with the things that we went over. I went to the library and a couple of bookstores, but was unable to find anything that expressed this view. I couldn’t find much on the Internet either. Do you have access to some sort of book that we can use as reference material—something that I can use to refresh my memory?

WW: There isn’t much out there, that I know of, that isn’t sketchy or incomplete or mixed in with so much other nonsense. We are recording this talk, as did we the last one. I am acquainted with a few people that have some writing experience, and I may be able to get one of them to come up with some type of edited, readable transcript that participants could read at their convenience. I haven’t really decided yet, but we may charge a reasonable fee to compensate someone for his or her work. We may just send it by email to help reduce costs. We’ll see how the transcript reads, then decide what to do with it. Since Bill is the person that hosted this get-together, maybe we could get him to take down the email addresses of those that are interested, in the event that we do decide to go in that direction with the transcript.

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A Picture of Man

I think we’re ready to get out our pencils and papers so we can draw a picture of man. This will be somewhat of an abstract picture, but it’s designed to serve our purpose of understanding self, esoterically speaking.

There are only three main parts to this picture, four if we count the result. First there is the physical body or instrument that we could represent by a small circle, about one inch in diameter near the bottom of the page. This covers everything including the brain and its neurons, internal organs, glands, bones and all. We don’t need to spend much time here because there are plenty of doctors out there that have spent years training to understand anatomy, physiology, diet, and exercise. We’re drawing a different kind of picture that could be understood strictly for its inner perception value by anyone at anytime in history with any level of education. This is a picture of man from infancy to death. In fact, this is more likely to be understood by a country boy with an eighth grade education than by an overeducated philosophy professor who has absorbed so much useless information and misinformation that this picture would be just one more idea that he can turn into a piece of philosophy to put on his shelf, rather than an observation of the human condition—an observation that may turn out to be something of great inner value if acted upon.

Okay. Let’s draw the inner man. This would be a circle about three inches in diameter and placed above the first circle so that the edges of the circles are touching. This is man’s awareness function, not his brain. Remember that this could be understood by anyone living anywhere, at any time in history, even before they knew about brain function.

The awareness function can only do two things. First, it can determine if a given piece of information garnered from without or within is true, false, or possibly needs more investigation. If the information is false, it can simply be tossed out or disregarded. Secondly, if the information is true, the awareness function can place a value on whatever it has determined to be fact. Let’s just say that the value is placed somewhere from zero to 10. If the value is placed at zero, then no action will occur. If the value is above zero, then some type of action will be called for. This brings us to the third part of the picture of man.

PARTICIPANT: Wait a minute. You said to determine if something is true or false, but what’s true for one person may not be true for everyone.

WW: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Nearly everything that we’ll discuss today will fit everyone. You and I see only a certain spectrum of light rays. We don’t see ultra violet or infrared, and neither does anyone else. It’s true for everyone.

PARTICIPANT: But we all see things differently and all have differing beliefs.

WW: Quite true. People have all kinds of