spiritual growth
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.
Altitude & Attitude - An Answer?
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” — Abraham Lincoln
An answer? An answer to what, you might say. Well first, let’s get some definitions out of the way, and see if any kind of answer is the right approach here.
1. Altitude is defined as a distance elevation or an angular measurement, mostly in a vertical or up direction, between a reference point and another point or object, usually based in a particular context, such as aviation, astronomy, geographical, geometry, or sports, and commonly used as the location height above sea level.
2. Attitude is defined usually in aeronautical, artistic, or psychological terms. In aviation, it means the inclination of the principal axes of an aircraft relative to the wind or the ground, or the orientation of a spacecraft in relation to its direction of motion. In the arts, it is a specific ballet position, and for a painter or sculptor it is a position or gesture by the figure in their artistic piece to communicate a particular mood or emotion. In psychology, it is a person’s mental (cognitive) and emotional (affective) perspective, tendency, orientation, manner and/or behavior towards people, ideas or other specified targets or objects.
Simple Humility
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” — Ernest Hemingway
I think we could all probably do with a dose of humility on more regular occasion than we actually practice it.
Every morning for the past forty plus years I have tried to take the time to sit down and meditate. But sometimes now it seems to be more out of habit than anything, until I have an experience or set of experiences that remind me how important it is.
At times as I sit in the solitude of my own being I can sense what a tiny speck in the vastness of creation I am. Then my ego may chime in and disagree and start tooting my horn about my greatness. I sit back and observe this goings on, sometimes chuckle a bit and then try to comprehend what is actually going on.
Many spiritual teachers (as well as mine) have spoken about how this world is essentially a grand illusion. As if we are inside a virtual reality simulation, running for our mutual, what? Amusement? Demise? Actually, it seems like it’s probably a school of some kind. A type of precursor or test to see what we would do if actually presented with all this in our world, as if it was real. How would we act? How would we treat others? How would we treat the world? How would we treat ourselves? How would we do on the test?
Azmirenda
Trekking, even at times floating, upstream along the banks of this vibrant stream,
I reflect upon how simply generous today has always been.
Up ahead this so vibrant stream fed from a simple, still, and silver pool,
and nourished in the far sky by the setting of a burning, white hot sun.
In the distance a waterfall gushed from behind a long, dark shadow,
and I wonder, yes oh wonder, what secrets it must hide today.
Yet I know in this pristine moment it’s time to align my lower self and my higher self,
and my heart, my mind, my spirit, my soul, my very being,
within the ears and eyes of a principle, singing consciousness of high creation.
For now tomorrow shall be even more wondrous inside this eternity’s dream.
And then a dragon stuck her head from behind that long, dark shadow,
and into the silver light before me, as I fearlessly faced her eye to eye,
she smiled slightly, signaling her helping spirit,
and welcomed me into creation’s eternal land of happiness.
And she said her name was … Azmirenda.
And then I told her mine …
TMC
My Spiritual Adventure, Part 1
“Silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation.” — Jalal ad-Din Rumi
I have previously mentioned several times that I would write here about the particular meditation system I have been practicing for more than 40 years now. Well, since I recently finished an annual retreat hosted by this organization, I figured this was probably a good time to spill it. But be warned, there is a lot to communicate here so it may be written in several posts.
I shall start at the beginning, as it should be …
I found myself in the early 70’s at the University of Texas, after several of my unexplained experiences when I was growing up, which I have already mentioned some of here in this blog. This offered up an environment to help me explore my ‘predicament,’ trying to figure out what the hell had been happening to me.
I spent more than a year reading volumes of material on anything related to this. Back then it wasn’t like today. Nowadays, you can find all kinds of metaphysical books in most bookstores. Then you really had to seek them out, because most bookstores didn’t carry those types of titles.
Still, they weren’t very satisfying. A good portion of them were all theory and philosophy. Some were about experiences the authors or others had, but didn’t really say how or if those experiences were repeatable by anyone else. What I wanted was the nuts and bolts of this greater reality.
Answers for Questions?
“Life is available only in the present moment.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
Do you ever ask the big questions of or about life? You know the ones, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ … ‘why are we here?’ … ‘who am I?’ … ‘does any of this even matter?’ … and on and on. Do you think those questions matter? Do you think the universe, creation, God, Deity, or whoever or whatever is out there cares … at all? Should that or they even care? Why or why not? Are we done asking these asinine questions yet? Yes … for now, for aren’t there always questions, won’t there always be, as long as we humans are around? Yes, of course. Well, at least that one was easy to answer.
Oh, but wait, one more question. Are there even any answers to any of these questions? Okay, done for now with the questions part. Now, maybe we can move on to the answers part. Yes, answers, the hard part of the equation. Questions, the easy, lazy part. We all have questions, of one kind or another. We can all ask them, whether simple, profound, or just there, so easy to ask. But humans seem to be in the business of the search, always searching for answers, whether it be in mathematics, science, business, psychology, spirituality, and so forth. In every human endeavor throughout history, questions were the foundation for the march forward, no matter the answers. For we usually found some kind of answer to temporarily satisfy us. Or did we (oops another question, can’t seem to get around that)?
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.
Elevator Love
“And when Love speaks, the voices of all the gods make heaven drowsy with its harmony.” — William Shakespeare
I recently drove to Texas from California, and a week later, back again. On my trip back I stopped for a few days at a place I consider ‘very special.’ It is a place especially built to enhance active meditative experience. This time around I did indeed experience something very special, something I can barely put into words here.
I have been to this place many times before over the past almost two decades, and I have had many different types of experiences. But nothing like I recently encountered, and in fact, am still trying to comprehend.
In a past blog entry I wrote about the different types of love, silver love being the loftiest. Well, one of the most compelling experiences I recently had relates to this subject. Yet how do we speak of love without getting a bit romantic, mushy, or starry-eyed about it? Well, not so fast. For the way I truly want to communicate this to you is more in a way of comprehension, not romanticism. Is that clear at all? So, let me attempt to clarify.
Every once in a while one of the things that happens to me in meditation, especially a deep one, is what comes to me are pieces of information that I am not readily able to comprehend. It’s like someone speaking to me in a foreign language backwards. But usually it comes to me like when you download an online zipped file to your computer. You first have to download it properly, then you have to unzip it, and then use the proper application so you can interpret it and get any use out of it. Well, sometimes it seems it happens about like that. Except …
Psychopomp Anyone? (Part 2)
“You must free yourself. The magic is within you.”– Bruce K. Avenell
During the process of grieving the loss of someone close to us, many times the lost energy tie we have with them is what we are feeling gone. Of course, we have strong feelings for them, but also the loss of shared exchange energy is what we are feeling. Sometimes this may be an energy co-dependency break off we are responding to, and this is what we have to deal with. However, if you have been doing something to regularly replenish your own inner energy supply, such as a system of meditation, then this should serve as a buffer against such a shock on your energy system. This is another reason that both you, as a person who will eventually cross over, and this person you are grieving, should have been striving to sustain your own energy supply independently of each other.
Other negative situations can make the transition to the other side very difficult. People who were so wrapped up in their earthly possessions may not realize they have died or don’t want to accept the fact, and refuse to pass on. Or others may become disoriented and have trouble making the transition, getting lost in the astral dream worlds. Either person may remain attached to a familiar place, such as a house they once inhabited, or become negative nuisances to those left behind, actually ‘haunting’ these areas. Not letting go like this may cause one to appear as some kind of spirit, apparition, ghost or phantom. Or if a person died of a violent or quick death, they may remain in the general vicinity of the incident, not knowing what to do. Such stranded entities usually have a detrimental effect on the physical people they hang around, often attaching themselves to them. This can result in the energy being sucked right out of them, possibly causing physical, emotional, mental and spiritual problems over time. Before you become enamored with the idea that your relative or friend may still be hanging out with you from the other side, consider the possible negative consequences for both of you.
Psychopomp Anyone? (Part 1)
“When one door closes, another opens…but often, we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which is opened before us.” — Helen Keller
In one of my meditations of just under 10 years ago, a very strange thing did indeed happen. At that point I had been doing this meditation scene for over 30 years, and nothing quite like this had ever occurred before. After I had been into the meditation for only about fifteen minutes and just started to actually get somewhere, suddenly a woman was right there jutting her face in mine. Now I don’t mean physically, but at some spirit level. She presented herself in a way that it appeared she was involved with some kind of voodoo or black magic.
Immediately I was jolted back some, totally unprepared for this. But I kept my composure, as I wanted to keep the contact going, this being such a very curious thing. She was obviously quite irritated with me about something. As the contact progressed and we “discussed” this concern she had, I began to get a picture of what was happening.
Anyway, this is the story. Turns out, as she says, that she is a psychopomp. A what, you ask? Exactly. I had the same reaction. For a few moments in the early part of this contact I started to wonder if all this was the result of something I had ingested the night before and this was just a total hallucination. But I went ahead and decided to see this thing through.