neglect not this meditation on the phenomenon of the second dawn:

[Jonathan Barlow Gee]

there are two dawns. One is when the sun-rises, and this is when the "planet" awakens. All the wild animals awaken, the birds begin to chirp and crow, and the domestic animals begin to become restless and start stirring. Last to rise are the humans, architects of this all according to themselves, and the "second dawn" occurs when we ourselves awaken to greet the light of day.

most people live a 12 hour light and 12 hour darkness cycle determined form of "day." Each day they live, they are awake at most 12 hours, and asleep at most 12 hours. They are awake in the light of day, and asleep by the dark of night. Daylight lasts 12 hours, and night-time lasts 12 hours, so each of their days last 24 hours. but time is relative, and in its own way flexible, even elastic.

imagine you could extend your life by increasing the amount of hours you are awake and asleep in each of your own durations of a "day." If "our days are numbered," as logic tells us, and if "time flies when we're having fun," then logic dictates the 'best lifestyle" (if the goal is to survive the longest) is both sedentary and insomniac. Sitting still for very long periods allows the body to use the same amount of energy as say, during jogging, over a much longer period of time by dolling it out at a much slower, much more relaxed, rate.

if your day is 12 hours long, and your night is 12 hours long, you are worshipping the "solar deity" and his "solar civic calendrical" cycle. This model dates back at least to pre-dynastic Egypt, some 5,000 or possibly even 6,000 years ago, prior even to the building of the great pyramids at Giza. It is based on the real durations of daylight and night-time lengths of duration on earth. But this does not mean we MUST obey it, nor that it is what is meant to be what is "natural" or "best" for us.

given free-will and the desire to expand their intellect, if not increase the duration of their life-span, the sage has, throughout history, been called to sit still and stay awake for as long as they can, and then to sleep for as long as they need to, and to take turns watching over one another while they practice this art when possible. The role of the "sage" derives from the ancient practice of the Vedas in casting out their "undesirables" or "untouchable" class into ascetic exile. WIthout any role in society, these outcasts invented yogic meditation. They were able, given unlimited free-time, to disobey the "laws" of night and day, and to determine their own personal temporal cycle. This aspect (being the spin on electrons in one's aura) became associated with the "merkaba" or "chariot" of the soul in western mysticism.

thus, the first dawn is the dawn of the planet, and of all those creatures that wake by this dawn. but the second dawn is your own personal soul's dawn, it is the dawning one experiences as one awakens to their "higher self." Thus, neglect not this meditation on the second dawning, the dawning of the "self" and of the "soul."

the reaction to the sage, who has no place in society, by those who do have a place in society is, traditionally, one of utter disgust. To the clean-shaved, 9-to-5 working, "normal" / "average" guy on the street, etc. a "sage," "swami," "mahatma" or "shaman" appears as a dirty old hobo with no prospects for a job and no one to give a shit about their life-story, on death's door and about to plummet into the "dustbin of history" and become what they were born to be: forgotten. And all this is true, for such the "sage" or "shaman" knows too; they agree their mind and body are worthless to the socialized citizen, because they know that what they know is natural, has been known before, and will be known again, regardless of their own knowing it or existing.

those who meditated in caves far away in the wilderness, who "heard voices in their heads," or who we would consider today to be "mentally ill," were, 2,000 years ago in the middle-eastern deserts of Judea, lumped in with lepers and communes on the fringes of "polite society." For one example from NT biblical scripture, the story of "Legion," the demoniac (demon-possessed) man "healed" by Jesus by having his "demons" cast out into a herd of pigs, who then drowned themselves. Other acts of "healing" by Jesus including curing lepers and the blind, paralysis and anemia (thin blood with low white-cell count). Thus, the form of "mental illness" experienced by the sage or shaman, in self-exile from society - alike "John the Baptist," but in seclusion alike, supposedly, Shimeon Bar Yochai was during the 1st century AD - who lived like hermits and who heard and "answered back" to the "vision and the voice" of the "one true god," was already, by 2000 years ago in the middle-east, seen as a disease of the mind no different than leprosy or anemia is a disease of the body. But what if the shamans and sages, the ascetic scribal monks living in communes and the hermits in self-exile, what if they all have it right, and it is society that is wrong? Collectively all these people living on the fringes of society were referred to as "unclean spirits" and the "sons of darkness," while socialized citizens were considered the "sons of light," and the "savior race." Later the sage was lumped in with the proletariat as among the "great, unwashed masses," but here he was always meant to serve as a "mole" and "double-agent," benefitting the gentile proles by civilizing them into genteel citizens.

the question rarely arises, was the Prophet Muhammad PBUH insane? The reason for this is, as a matter of religious belief, it would be extreme shirk to even propose such an idea. Muhammad's teachings and the Hadith form the basis for Sharia law. To say Muhammad was insane would undermine the premise that Sharia law can ever attain true justice, equality or fairness before the law for its citizens. Yet what did Muhammad do? Muhammad had visions and eventually went into "occultation" in a cave in the desert. He lived, as supposedly had Jesus the Essene before him, and Buddha even before Yeshua, as a hermit monk in a cave. He meditated on his visions and he reached conclusions by them. According to western medical science these behaviors define the acts of someone who is schizophrenic or disassociated from reality. How can such a gap have arisen over only the last aeon between what is considered a "holy communion" with the "most high god" and what is considered delusion, hallucination, "flash-backs" due to "PTSD," or simply "delerium tremens" brought on by substance-abuse. How can the idea of venerating the experience of the exiled sage have fallen so far?