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Spiritual Big Shots
“The West has become a heaven for spiritual charlatans … without the guidelines and criteria of a thriving and full-fledged wisdom culture, the authenticity of so-called “Masters” is almost impossible to establish.” — Sogyal Rinpoche
Have you noticed how many people these days boast about some type of spiritual, self help, or self improvement type of system or program they are selling? And of course, how great they are, and how great their program will make you. Hhhmmm, yes indeed, you probably do detect a note of skepticism in my point of view here. I certainly do pride such skepticism as an ingredient to a healthy attitude, as long it does not get in the way of anyone’s ongoing progress.
Yes, our ongoing progress. Now, how does that work exactly? Exactly, is exactly the word. Meaning there is no perfection, no exactness, no wonderfully magic formula to spiritual growth and progress. No matter what all the spiritually self-important big shots say.
When I first began searching for a spiritual path, system, whatever, in my late teens I felt somewhat desperate. But I realized early on not to make such an important decision while in a hyper emotional state. Calm, relaxed, and focused discernment I felt would serve me better, even if not always easy to accomplish. So, I did not take the first spiritual prescription that happened along. My search wound up taking over four years, which granted is not very long in the span of a lifetime, but when you are young, impatient, and almost frantic, it sure seemed like it.
The Sound of Silence
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“The sound is the source of all manifestation … The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.”
“Learn to listen to the voice within yourself.”
“In the beginning was OM …”
“For in the beginning of the times so did we all share in the Holy Stream of Sound that gave birth to all creation.”
“The kingdom of heaven is within you.”
“The Tao is the source of all things … existed before heaven and earth … eternal … pervades everywhere…”
“May the force be with you.”
The Greek philosopher/mathematician Pythagoras called it “Music of the Spheres”, another Greek philosopher Heraclitus called it “Logos” (which means both sound and word), the Bible calls it “The Word” and “Voice of Many Waters”, the Upanishads call it “Shabda Brahman” (the cosmic sound of Lord Brahma), the Vedas call it “Anahad” (unlimited tone), the Sufis call it “Saute Surmad” (the tone that fills the cosmos), the Sikhs call it “Nam” or “Naam” (name or spiritual sound), and the Hindus also call it “AUM” and the Buddhists “OM”. Some Native American traditions call it “Song of the Creator”, in reference to the force that created life and sustains the universe.
Between Lives
“I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times.”– Goethe
Even though I have remembered parts of several lives over the years through deep meditation, I had often wondered what exactly do we do between those lives?
Well, I did have the fortunate experience in meditation a few years back to ‘remember’ something I did between this life and my last, as in something I had actually done on the other side between two lifetimes. To set this up, I need to briefly explain that this was not a normal meditation, if there is such a thing. And that where I was meditating was a very special place. Meaning that there are some places where certain spiritual harmonic devices (or configurations) have been built to enhance ‘spiritual flying’. I cannot at this time speak of them freely, as you could probably say they are in research and development, and not really accessible by the general public. No, it’s not top secret or anything, just a precautionary step to make sure people don’t hurt themselves using them. (Note: However, if you are especially curious about this I can put you in contact with the person who knows all about this and let him decide.)
My Love, My Lady
Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind, we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love
Where’s that higher love I keep thinking of?
“Higher Love”, Stevie Winwood
Yes, we are back into the obviously complex, utterly mysterious world of … love. Isn’t it wonderful, to explore a world so many of us seem to know so little of? But yet, I still think we may know a little more than we give ourselves credit for. Maybe the world just conspires against us, so we will spend more time trying to learn and experience it, instead of worrying and fretting about it.
I wrote about love in my last entry, in a bit of a clinical way. Mainly because it was meant to be more of an intro into a world we may explore a bit here now and then. Being that it is so very important in the fabric of our lives.
I feel I am a very fortunate man. I have been married three times, all to wonderful women. My first marriage was to my high school sweetheart, but it did not last too long for our immaturity caught up with us before a strong enough foundation could be built for a lasting relationship. Of course there were other factors, but the important thing is that we have remained good friends over all these years. In fact, I saw her just last month. And we still can have fun and laugh together like we used to. She has been married to a wonderful man for years, and they have a pretty amazing teenage son, who refers to me as an uncle.
Silver Love
“To be content in bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be together in happy stillness.” — D.H. Lawrence
I know I haven’t posted in a bit, but I just recently came down from two weeks of camping, hiking, meditating and just hanging out with nature and friends up on Mt. Shasta, one of my favorite places to go. So, as they say, I was off the grid for a while, recharging my batteries for my existence back in the lowlands of the normal physical world.
I first came up to Mt. Shasta in 1972, forty years ago. I was only twenty years young then. Of course, I’ve aged a bit since then, both in body and in spirit. However, I’d like to think I’ve traded those years for something worthwhile, like gaining a little wisdom, and learning a few lessons from the immature trials of inexperienced youth.
And one of those lessons involves a simple but powerful lesson called love. At the retreat on Mt. Shasta this year that theme kept popping its inquiring head around at me, like saying ‘okay, are you really comprehending how this silver love thing works?’ Uh, well, I thought so. But hey, maybe not? Well anyway, while I’m at it, let me explain a little about this silver love thing. And no, it doesn’t mean love between senior citizens, something that has been bantered about some.
Rocket Man
“And I think its gonna be a long, long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home.
Oh no, no, no, I’m a rocket man.
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone …”
“Rocket Man”, Elton John
Do you remember when you were little, and you thought for the very first time you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up? I actually remember that day very clearly, for it was when one of my very first dreams took root. Which makes remembering when John Glenn orbited the Earth for the first time special, not only because it was around my 10th birthday but because it was about that dream.
In the early 1960’s I remember reading about the new space program in our little Weekly Readers in elementary school. And I became mesmerized with it. So I started reading everything I could find about it. Anything I guess an elementary school kid could understand. But I couldn’t get enough of it. When I got a book about what it took to be an astronaut, I was hooked. I wanted to go in space. One way or another I was going. I had to, or else… I just never realized it would be without my physical body.
A Matter of Altitude
“May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The last month or so, I have down in the dumps a bit. Not really down in a depressed way, but just not at my normal foundation of “up-ness.” For the most part, meditating provides me with a lift, but lately not quite enough to what my level of ‘normal’ is. I haven’t really let it concern me too much but after almost a month of it, which is usually a long funk for me, I have been wondering what was up. Most of the time I try to go through a checklist of any issue or problem that comes up.
I first try to decipher if it’s something that’s going on inside of me. If I don’t get any clues there, I start searching outside myself. If not much comes up there, I have to ponder deeper. I did all those things, but nothing significant presented itself. Only minor, seemingly insignificant things came up. So now, I was at a bit of a loss. I just decided to keep up with my normal day to day routine and hoped I would pull myself out of it somehow. Nothing gave, so I gave up on my normal routine for a few days and wound up doing very little for awhile. That just made me tired and drained, and then I felt worse. Something needed to happen. Ask and ye shall receive, as they say. Or someone did, I think in the Bible.
Belief vs. Experience
“A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.” – Samuel Clemens
Is there an amicable meeting ground between one person’s religious beliefs and another’s spiritual experiences? Or are these worlds and the people who inhabit them just too different, too much in conflict? I know this is a tall order, but I would like to explore that a bit here. Now right off I want to make it clear, this is not going to do an anti-religion diatribe here. That wouldn’t be fair, because it’s too easy, offering the target rich environment that they do. Obviously, that doesn’t mean I won’t take religion to task. No, I am trying to communicate what I think I might understand here. Ha, isn’t that how it always is? We think we know more that we do, but then we probably know more than we realize. Is that a paradox? Is that what I’m diving into? And maybe the questions I ask here are some evidence of a paradox in operation?
Anyway, here is my personal conundrum. Every once in a while I get asked about the religion I practice. Actually, and I want to state this emphatically, I do not practice any religion, any philosophy, or any belief system, at all. Does that make me an atheist, or a malcontent? Of course not. I just don’t adhere to the doctrine and dogma fed to the masses via the ‘recognized religions’ of the world. I know there are much larger forces and beings at work in the Cosmos than little ol’ me. Then the next question comes, but what about the spirituality that you sometimes talk about? My answer usually doesn’t soothe them, because it falls outside the normal parameters of religious belief. I answer that I base my spirituality on my own personal experiences. Uh, oh. Most just nod politely, not quite knowing how to take that. A few, I wish I could see their thought bubbles, because I’m sure they are priceless. A small percentage do engage with me beyond that, but don’t usually follow me too far. Such nonsense seems to be beyond the horizon of many. But I am not perturbed, insulted, or even concerned with all of that. It is the norm and I accept that. However, over the years I have seen more movement in my direction in this, so I am hopeful.
Revolving Wombs & Tombs
“Reincarnation is a way for God to improve his earlier works.” – Norman Mailer
At first I had a hard time mentally accepting the idea of past lives. There didn’t seem like any real logic to it. I mean actually, the idea had some coolness about it. How hip could it be that we been revolving in and out of this place for, what? Centuries? Eons? So hey, we’ve probably seen and done all kinds of things, right? It fit right into the sixties thing, so yeah man, it was cool. But coolness and logic were different things, and they were locking horns inside me. I guess the whole thing made me feel eerie.
But hey, I was only in college at this time, and I didn’t need to figure it out right now. It had only come up because I started reading all these books on metaphysics, trying to understand what these experiences I was having were all about. And most of them got into the reincarnation thing. I didn’t care about that; I just wanted to know what the hell was happening to me.
As I read more and more, I realized I needed to find a teacher of some sort, someone to guide me through some of this. I wasn’t interested in the eastern guru paradigm. Somehow paying allegiance, homage or devotion to someone like that just didn’t feel right for me. More like someone who had experience (way?) beyond mine who was more like a teacher at a university who you just took a class from, with a more distant relationship akin to that. I didn’t want someone to hold my hand, just someone who could point at a road that maybe I should try. But the more I looked, the harder it seemed to find someone like that. Most of them were so into their own trips, it all seemed fake to me.
Creation’s Elevator
“Who are you? … How have you joined creation?” – The Watcher Rock, ‘Dreams Awake’
The first time I truly experienced the elevator I had a little over ten years in. Meaning I had been meditating on the inner sound current that long. By this point I had had some pretty intriguing experiences, but nothing like ‘the elevator’. Now yes, I had been lucky enough to taste a bit of it. In meditation, when I finally got relaxed enough and out of the mind raps, I would feel like I was starting to go up in an elevator. And just as I would anticipate what was going to happen, the elevator would stop abruptly before it really got started, and there was no more going up. Basically because as I did the anticipation routine, that tension locked me up. So I did learn early on that tension was a buzz kill for meditation. Which was a bit of a catch-22. You needed to relax to get into meditation, but you needed to meditate to relax. It seemed there was a balance somewhere in there to find.
So, when that grand elevator day came, I wasn’t expecting it. Ha, see…no anticipation. It was one of those days that you could never forget. If I live to be a hundred and my great grandkids hop upon my knee, I would still be able to speak coherently about the first time I traveled up inside creation’s elevator. I have since had the experience numerous times, and even in more expansive, exciting ways. But you always remember the first time, so I was no longer a spiritual flyer virgin.