More and more I am understanding myself as a catalyst. A catalyst is an additive which facilitates the combining of things which by themselves would not otherwise combine. I help people shift positions by challenging their views in gentle ways. I have no replacement position to insist upon, it is a matter only of stirring movement, like a physical therapist might work to extend the range of motion of an injured limb.
I first discovered this ability when I co-taught Jr. College Philosophy, as a tool of creative thinking. Today it is integrated into my coaching practice in a conversational manner, and some become clients not to heal anything but to loosen the boundaries of their mind. I have not really figured out how to make a living at this but some do pay me for this simple conversation.
The ideas I present here in my blog and in the groups I am a member of, are best viewed as examples of catalytic ideas and the observable effects are a change in the conversational depth and enhanced creativity of group thought. It is perhaps a small thing and not one to spark much recognition, yet it is a pleasure to know I make a difference even if the fruit of the seed blossoms in another s vineyard.
I am here to make a difference.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
On Energy Healing
Repost from Energy Medicine Exchange - a Facebook group
Let us not forget that energy is itself a metaphor for an unknown.
Having a label is useful as a placeholder but may give us a false certainty about the IS-ness of things.
Once upon a time all dis-ease was a spiritual attack.
With the upstart called psychology, spirits became complexes.
I have no problem with the idea that the stabbing pain in a leg is due to a thought form of a knife, an imbalance in a meridian, or neuro-chemical imbalance.
As a healer all I really know is it "hurts" in some way and assist to release it.
For me everything is alive with an underlying intelligence, so spirit works for me as well as energy - maybe better as I might be able to dialogue with it, even conversationally, which may be the only skill set I need.
In dealing with "energy" let us not make the mistake of the materialist that we are dealing with only " dead stuff" which behaves in some lawful manner.
As I am not separate from my environment, there is no "other" - no pain, person, entity or condition that is outside of that relational field I call " my life."
The healing model I now work within is "relational," which is part of the "rasa" model from which I borrow the name for my coaching practice.
The willingness to acknowledge relationship is perhaps the most powerful healing tool in our arsenal, especially when things get sticky.
My "enemy" (sickness) is always presumed intelligent in some way and thus not beyond the reach of love.
So it may be that ideas like forgiveness and repentance/conversion are spiritually/energetically ways to "turn around" the presenting condition, neutralize it malignant nature and integrate it into the flow of my living personal life-field of experience.
This is not a system for me per se, but a premise I find workable and from which I can apply many techniques and non-techniques just as with any relationship in my life.
I am open to acknowledge good or evil as spiritual forces and as no more or less problematic than that found in dealings with humankind.
Of course it is better if I can transcend the duality and positionality of such concepts.
Given all of this, my spiritual development is not to be separated from my development as a healer.
I also understand this may be difficult for some to hear as it always reveals the three fingers pointing back to us for the one pointing out there.
I am a bow strung without arrow, a warrior without a weapon, a healer even with clients none, a no-body embodied. In mystery I was born and in mystery I abide. Knowing nothing I am delighted to know all will be well. If all seems not well I have but to wake up. I am life and living yet no one finds my name midst the clatter of the wisest tongue.
Let us not forget that energy is itself a metaphor for an unknown.
Having a label is useful as a placeholder but may give us a false certainty about the IS-ness of things.
Once upon a time all dis-ease was a spiritual attack.
With the upstart called psychology, spirits became complexes.
I have no problem with the idea that the stabbing pain in a leg is due to a thought form of a knife, an imbalance in a meridian, or neuro-chemical imbalance.
As a healer all I really know is it "hurts" in some way and assist to release it.
For me everything is alive with an underlying intelligence, so spirit works for me as well as energy - maybe better as I might be able to dialogue with it, even conversationally, which may be the only skill set I need.
In dealing with "energy" let us not make the mistake of the materialist that we are dealing with only " dead stuff" which behaves in some lawful manner.
As I am not separate from my environment, there is no "other" - no pain, person, entity or condition that is outside of that relational field I call " my life."
The healing model I now work within is "relational," which is part of the "rasa" model from which I borrow the name for my coaching practice.
The willingness to acknowledge relationship is perhaps the most powerful healing tool in our arsenal, especially when things get sticky.
My "enemy" (sickness) is always presumed intelligent in some way and thus not beyond the reach of love.
So it may be that ideas like forgiveness and repentance/conversion are spiritually/energetically ways to "turn around" the presenting condition, neutralize it malignant nature and integrate it into the flow of my living personal life-field of experience.
This is not a system for me per se, but a premise I find workable and from which I can apply many techniques and non-techniques just as with any relationship in my life.
I am open to acknowledge good or evil as spiritual forces and as no more or less problematic than that found in dealings with humankind.
Of course it is better if I can transcend the duality and positionality of such concepts.
Given all of this, my spiritual development is not to be separated from my development as a healer.
I also understand this may be difficult for some to hear as it always reveals the three fingers pointing back to us for the one pointing out there.
I am a bow strung without arrow, a warrior without a weapon, a healer even with clients none, a no-body embodied. In mystery I was born and in mystery I abide. Knowing nothing I am delighted to know all will be well. If all seems not well I have but to wake up. I am life and living yet no one finds my name midst the clatter of the wisest tongue.
Coosing Life
It was a vision and something greater. I lay down one day, to
rest in the sweetness of bliss and deamons came to steal it. I felt
then my dying as they stole my life form, deconstructing it piece by
piece. From I know not where they came. And they sought to
devour my very soul-self. I at first began to resist, but deep from
within I knew to let go even in this. Little by little all I knew was
eaten away and nothing remained - not I , not the world but nothing at
all. Time was no more. All was no more and none to recognize even an
absence. Then these silent words were somehow heard: "Choose
Life." It was so simple and I did, and by some spontaneous power Bliss
returned. Once again dust became bone and flesh speared on the bone and
life returned in its familiarity. Then it was with no small conviction,
that I found I could doubt even the worlds existence, but could not doubt life.
Spirituality
and healing can not be separated in my mind. Nor can either be
separated from the movement of life itself. The Universe breaths and the
universe grieves - in birth pangs of a sort. The Universe as Mother
seeks to bring forth it's children as bliss drops of an unbounded sea of
possibilities. Its current is undulating heart beats of conscious
orgasmic vibrations of pleasure. It is in its image the perfection of a lovers
paradise.
The question then comes why does it grieve? It's grief is a yearning for that which it asserts is missing. This is the fundamental error of life, where love becomes adulterated. Its choice is to experience separation as the denial of Union. This of course makes little sense, yet if one is honest, it may be seen that our search for love is thwarted by our insistence on our individual uniqueness. It is a basic duality in which we insist that Oneness and uniqueness are incompatible. Love uncovers a vulnerability in which we imagine the the Oneness will swallow us whole and we shall be no more.
Existence is fundamental and underlies all our searching for immortality as well as our incessant accumulations of stable points of view and beliefs. The problem arises that those things run counter to the unconditional love we seek. But this is all based in a false premise - that there is something out "there" that will fulfill our seeking. What is out there is a projection only of what is to be found within. Understanding this may give us courage let go of these layers of illusion we have called our "self" and re-cognize the Love- bliss which is true home and true being.
When, I ask, have you ever expanded awareness and wished to return to the prior limitation? Surely not. Recognize then that there was never a releasing of limitation that was ever counted as a loss. Being grounded in this faith, which is a faith in Life, make the commitment to live into life fully. Recognize that the unobstructed movement of life is always in the direction of a greater experience of Love-bliss. We grieve in part because we perceive this state as far off and the province of those more gifted than ourselves. Yet recognize even a decision to "smile inside" proves the door as close as thought and that never can the depths of Unity or Bliss be exhausted if we but walk through this open portal.
The more we step within this mystery the less shall we fear our letting go. Our healing practices are all aboput our releasing, our letting go - a letting go of what I call the SEA's of sorrow. Those Sensations, Emotions and Attitudes and their aggregates which tell us not only that we are separate and limited but that we may all together cease to Be.
The question then comes why does it grieve? It's grief is a yearning for that which it asserts is missing. This is the fundamental error of life, where love becomes adulterated. Its choice is to experience separation as the denial of Union. This of course makes little sense, yet if one is honest, it may be seen that our search for love is thwarted by our insistence on our individual uniqueness. It is a basic duality in which we insist that Oneness and uniqueness are incompatible. Love uncovers a vulnerability in which we imagine the the Oneness will swallow us whole and we shall be no more.
Existence is fundamental and underlies all our searching for immortality as well as our incessant accumulations of stable points of view and beliefs. The problem arises that those things run counter to the unconditional love we seek. But this is all based in a false premise - that there is something out "there" that will fulfill our seeking. What is out there is a projection only of what is to be found within. Understanding this may give us courage let go of these layers of illusion we have called our "self" and re-cognize the Love- bliss which is true home and true being.
When, I ask, have you ever expanded awareness and wished to return to the prior limitation? Surely not. Recognize then that there was never a releasing of limitation that was ever counted as a loss. Being grounded in this faith, which is a faith in Life, make the commitment to live into life fully. Recognize that the unobstructed movement of life is always in the direction of a greater experience of Love-bliss. We grieve in part because we perceive this state as far off and the province of those more gifted than ourselves. Yet recognize even a decision to "smile inside" proves the door as close as thought and that never can the depths of Unity or Bliss be exhausted if we but walk through this open portal.
The more we step within this mystery the less shall we fear our letting go. Our healing practices are all aboput our releasing, our letting go - a letting go of what I call the SEA's of sorrow. Those Sensations, Emotions and Attitudes and their aggregates which tell us not only that we are separate and limited but that we may all together cease to Be.
Know yourself as the smiling one and find your infinite depths within
this happiness without reason but of simple will alone. Then know the
power of thought that takes its creative cue not from happenstance but
from dream. Dream beautiful dreams my friend, waking dreams born from
your own wakefulness, self- born.
Beauty draws us, for we are of the creative itself. It is this creative which through beauty awakens love of form and between forms. And it is in this self-abiding love that Blissful Unity becomes reality revealed. And reality is not a thing to find but a life to unfold - our life, right now, always. Please choose Life! The Heart knows the way even if mind has forgot. With every thump-thump it knocks inviting your opening to the infinite. Answer now - please.
Beauty draws us, for we are of the creative itself. It is this creative which through beauty awakens love of form and between forms. And it is in this self-abiding love that Blissful Unity becomes reality revealed. And reality is not a thing to find but a life to unfold - our life, right now, always. Please choose Life! The Heart knows the way even if mind has forgot. With every thump-thump it knocks inviting your opening to the infinite. Answer now - please.
Shape-shifting
Tat Tvam Asi is a mantra which means loosely "I am that." It is an affirmation of the object of our awareness and awareness itself being a unity. This relates to the shamanic idea of shape-shifting - that knowing is through becoming or assuming the identity of.... Thus the infinite falls in love with the finite and becomes one with it. Or to say this another way, that which is formless assumes form to know itself in each of its aspects.
We can recognize in this as well, teachings about how to manifest by acting "as if," and also in the NLP idea of future pacing. Clearly shape-shifting is worth some close study, if only to recognize those solidified identities which have become our bondage.
Below is the first poem I ever wrote when I thought poetry should rhyme. It is childlike to be sure, yet embraces the idea of shape-shifting which has influenced me quite powerfully over the years in understanding what knowledge really is.
Are we not all, more
than we think we are?
If I dared, do you know what I'd be?
I'd be the depths of a blue crystal sea.
I'd be the joy in a child's surprise,
and I'd be the love bridging lovers clear eyes.
I'd be the smoothness of time polished stone,
and I'd be the riddle of some grand unknown.
I'd be the symmetry in geometric form,
and I'd be the intensity of a thunderous storm.
Yes, this and more if I were free to be me!
If you dared, what could you be?
Shall we challenge each other to raise the bar?
Dueling Poets
It was mad, mystical and... near the turn of the century last, an online exchange occurred, the essence of which is rendered below.
(In memory of a poetic exchange with the Hobo lady Alyse.)
Saith the Oracle
Dancing with her
He said he'd bring to her Her children Bring them up with tenderness and care. Saith the Poetess
In beginning,
Mother, an ivory skeleton of a beautiful beast was cast upon the clouded sky.
Saith the Poet:
I was born to the wet blackness of the earth,
wrapped in the blanket of an orphans loneliness yet mind vibrating to the rhythm of the pipes of Pan and tongue sucking on the breast of the rains. Then a voice of mystery called me forth into the service of She: the Mother of All Names.
Saith the Poetess
She comes and goes in so many forms
forever changing yet unchanged. meeting herself in times of our silent twilights
From Her we fell to the earth.
Fell to the earth and into a deep sleep
mistaking Her voice in the echo.
Who would stir from this dreaming?
Saith the Poet
Now anothers voice in my wilderness? A nymph or magical sprite for company? Her heart must be half angels harp so bewitchingly does she serenade me.
Saith the Poetess
From beginning
we played accompaniment to revelation song, and quite suddenly I caught on.
He drew me out from slumber,
led me back from the abyss.
So patiently he led me.
From a deep and gentle dream
he beckoned me to seek him and follow him home.
Saith the Poet
A veil of mystery billows between us.
How long in caution must it remain?
In search of words I can only question thus; will you respond and reach out or refrain? What delights might truly move you? Come share those reveries with me now. Do unkindly thorns blindly pierce you? I'll try consoling you softly somehow. What dance of fate awaits us now? What prophet has such searching eyes? What guidance would our hearts allow, but that from within, a light to the wise. By groan of vowel and consonant
My thoughts flood the air with anticipation.
I cry to those unborn who might be listening; speak encouragement to the winds that carry them.
Saith the
Poetess:
Father, Brother, Lover, Son
From below I searched the waters for your sole reflection.
This piper called from somewhere in the air. No! He called from somewhere in my heart. Called for me to join with him. I could not help but fall in love with his song. With my life I grasped the chord of light he offered. He stirred the winds in his intent, and led his invisible parade across the sky.
Saith the Poet
All pervading is love in deathless streams.
Love is She within a grove on Mount Tabor, and He upon Her sacrificial tree. Love is source and refuge, dearest intimate and power of life. But not least of all might love become, my Friend - should you find your way to my soul. ...If mist and mirage of mind forms
cloak the sensing heart,
I pray a kiss to prove what words fail.
Saith the Poetess
Rare prince, you have earned a kiss.Come to me as knight companion. Wisdom has revealed you O seeker of Minne. If you can find for me Her children, embrace them as your own.
If you can rescue them and gently sweep them up
I will give to you my favor Make you a king in my counsel, and share with you my Love.
Saith the Poet
Come dance with me.
I'll bring to you the voices of Her children, one chorus, a harmony all. Bring them up with tenderness and care,
remembering their mother, our Lady of Thought.
Saith the Poetess
I accepted his hand
and round us four letters gathered
and circled as we danced.
... Qoph, Ayil,
Daleth, Yod
I bid my troubadour an interpretation.
Saith the Poet
Holy, Holy cries the angel
The way is prepared.
The sacrifice made
The bridal chamber blessed
The eyes are opening
Gnosis is revealed to the servant
Naked before new beginnings
Light shines in dark places
The door is without hinges
No fear of the beyond
Letting go, the intention is good
The heart has it’s trusted design
A power primordial
Birthing the creative
Emptied of selfishness
The end too is good
|
Monday, January 28, 2013
Approaching Nirvikalpa
Repost from 2008: (needs minor revision)
I was trained as a healer of souls, a "cure of souls," a designation offered me while in religious vocation. The injunction given: physician heal thyself is here most apropos, as the only thing knowable is MY perception of the world. Here I am confronted with an interesting dilemma.
Montaigne writes: "The object that we love seems all the more beautiful … and uglier the one we loath." Of course this is often the same object separated only by moments of time. It appears as Henry Tomlinson said: "We see things not as they are but as we are."
"Humans can only perceive a fraction of 'What Is Going On' around us ... What we can describe is not what we sensed. What we infer, assume, conclude is not what we described," writes Steve Stockdale. Everything we sense becomes then a projection in the form of inference, assumption or conclusion. No wonder it is said this world is an illusion.
I long to behold what Liebniz wrote, that "We might get to know the beauty of the universe in each soul, if we could unfold all that is enfolded in it." Yet, "… each distinct perception of the soul includes an infinite number of confused perceptions." Defying our perception perhaps, Tibetan Tantrics speak of the innate goodness of the "indestructible drop"—the immortal soul. They also speak of obscurations of emotions, spurred by incessant thoughts. These obscurations are illusion and the very cause of our ignorance and misperception.
Like the Egyptians, the Tibetans say we have two souls or "drops"— somewhat like we have two brains—a right and left hemisphere connected by the corpus collosum, described by Julian Jaynes as the "Bicameral Mind." To align eastern teachings with modern psychology we could speak of the spiritual "Self" as being "right brained," creative intuitive, feeling oriented. This is a tiny "drop" in the abode of the heart, which the Yogis call the "atman" or Divine reflection within us.
The second soul-drop surrounds the first like an aura. It is predominantly "left brained," rational, descriptive, symbolic and memory oriented. At death this "binary soul" separates and the different journeys of the two halves encompass the phenomenon of near death experience and the varied ideas of the after-life within religions.
Rebirth, being the concern of the "indestructible drop," we normally can not recall the history of our second soul-drop … it appears to pass into what Jung called the collective consciousness; a psychic history of our species, and virus or meme like, compels us unconsciously through its force of symbolic association, which we likewise project outwardly onto our human affairs.
With each birth a new soul-aura is emanated by the "world soul," surrounds the indestructible drop and again a learning phase begins. Yet the learning curve is colored by images latent within collective consciousness and the chronic moods of the indestructible drop. As with our collective and personal histories, it is these moods that mostly obscure the soul's perception of itself and of reality. The native mood of the indestructible drop is Love and Joy, which is observed when the outer soul separates, as in the moment of death or near death. Yet in identifying with its story and history it takes on a reactive emotional tone that appears in the bio-energy system as various forms of knots, ridges, shields, leakages and blocks. It is these moods, also referred to as tendencies, which the astrologer sees reflected in the stars and are the karmic seeds of our ongoing experience.
The existence of a second soul is not a difficulty in itself. The Taoist alchemists and practitioners of Highest Yoga Tantra seek erotically to birth a semi-immortal or Bliss body in which the indestructible drop in the ocean of being may dwell in the created realm—co-creating what the Kabbalists call the "world to come" (the Divine pattern that is life's plan, instituted at the alpha and omega of time).
To find our innermost soul drop is to know ourselves and heal our separation from the Divine presence—the communion of all souls and life—it is clear that we must remove not the outer container of the Ahamkara (I maker) but those aggregates of projections that cover us like a veil and blind us. This leads to what in Sanskrit is called nirvikalpa. Nir means not or none. "Vikalpa is an empty notion conveyed by words, but of which there can be no object corresponding to reality." This is a good description for much of our mental life and the whole of projection. Vikalpa is the antithesis of clear direct perception.
As a "cure of souls," I understand that the only thing needful of healing is MY response to life. I take as an article of faith that all souls are connected and I hold all souls perfect and blameless regardless of any immediate perception of them or reaction to them. If in recognizing my projections, I can dissolve them through compassionate and forgiving observation of my emotional responses to others, I may then heal what needs healing within and often without. I will no less attain to and remain increasingly in that right mindedness of love and joy, and this will purify karmic tendencies that bear fruit in further lives. This simple yet intricate process can often seem quite miraculous as its effects reverberate through the universe. So then, the cure of my own soul (Gr: psuche means both soul and life) opens awareness into the higher life (zoe) in which this mysterious connection with each other can be felt as an intimate communion and sacred presence. Faith becomes inspired gnosis and all things are freely released into the pristine clarity of limitless possibility, from which each moment is made anew.
I was trained as a healer of souls, a "cure of souls," a designation offered me while in religious vocation. The injunction given: physician heal thyself is here most apropos, as the only thing knowable is MY perception of the world. Here I am confronted with an interesting dilemma.
Montaigne writes: "The object that we love seems all the more beautiful … and uglier the one we loath." Of course this is often the same object separated only by moments of time. It appears as Henry Tomlinson said: "We see things not as they are but as we are."
"Humans can only perceive a fraction of 'What Is Going On' around us ... What we can describe is not what we sensed. What we infer, assume, conclude is not what we described," writes Steve Stockdale. Everything we sense becomes then a projection in the form of inference, assumption or conclusion. No wonder it is said this world is an illusion.
I long to behold what Liebniz wrote, that "We might get to know the beauty of the universe in each soul, if we could unfold all that is enfolded in it." Yet, "… each distinct perception of the soul includes an infinite number of confused perceptions." Defying our perception perhaps, Tibetan Tantrics speak of the innate goodness of the "indestructible drop"—the immortal soul. They also speak of obscurations of emotions, spurred by incessant thoughts. These obscurations are illusion and the very cause of our ignorance and misperception.
Like the Egyptians, the Tibetans say we have two souls or "drops"— somewhat like we have two brains—a right and left hemisphere connected by the corpus collosum, described by Julian Jaynes as the "Bicameral Mind." To align eastern teachings with modern psychology we could speak of the spiritual "Self" as being "right brained," creative intuitive, feeling oriented. This is a tiny "drop" in the abode of the heart, which the Yogis call the "atman" or Divine reflection within us.
The second soul-drop surrounds the first like an aura. It is predominantly "left brained," rational, descriptive, symbolic and memory oriented. At death this "binary soul" separates and the different journeys of the two halves encompass the phenomenon of near death experience and the varied ideas of the after-life within religions.
Rebirth, being the concern of the "indestructible drop," we normally can not recall the history of our second soul-drop … it appears to pass into what Jung called the collective consciousness; a psychic history of our species, and virus or meme like, compels us unconsciously through its force of symbolic association, which we likewise project outwardly onto our human affairs.
With each birth a new soul-aura is emanated by the "world soul," surrounds the indestructible drop and again a learning phase begins. Yet the learning curve is colored by images latent within collective consciousness and the chronic moods of the indestructible drop. As with our collective and personal histories, it is these moods that mostly obscure the soul's perception of itself and of reality. The native mood of the indestructible drop is Love and Joy, which is observed when the outer soul separates, as in the moment of death or near death. Yet in identifying with its story and history it takes on a reactive emotional tone that appears in the bio-energy system as various forms of knots, ridges, shields, leakages and blocks. It is these moods, also referred to as tendencies, which the astrologer sees reflected in the stars and are the karmic seeds of our ongoing experience.
The existence of a second soul is not a difficulty in itself. The Taoist alchemists and practitioners of Highest Yoga Tantra seek erotically to birth a semi-immortal or Bliss body in which the indestructible drop in the ocean of being may dwell in the created realm—co-creating what the Kabbalists call the "world to come" (the Divine pattern that is life's plan, instituted at the alpha and omega of time).
To find our innermost soul drop is to know ourselves and heal our separation from the Divine presence—the communion of all souls and life—it is clear that we must remove not the outer container of the Ahamkara (I maker) but those aggregates of projections that cover us like a veil and blind us. This leads to what in Sanskrit is called nirvikalpa. Nir means not or none. "Vikalpa is an empty notion conveyed by words, but of which there can be no object corresponding to reality." This is a good description for much of our mental life and the whole of projection. Vikalpa is the antithesis of clear direct perception.
As a "cure of souls," I understand that the only thing needful of healing is MY response to life. I take as an article of faith that all souls are connected and I hold all souls perfect and blameless regardless of any immediate perception of them or reaction to them. If in recognizing my projections, I can dissolve them through compassionate and forgiving observation of my emotional responses to others, I may then heal what needs healing within and often without. I will no less attain to and remain increasingly in that right mindedness of love and joy, and this will purify karmic tendencies that bear fruit in further lives. This simple yet intricate process can often seem quite miraculous as its effects reverberate through the universe. So then, the cure of my own soul (Gr: psuche means both soul and life) opens awareness into the higher life (zoe) in which this mysterious connection with each other can be felt as an intimate communion and sacred presence. Faith becomes inspired gnosis and all things are freely released into the pristine clarity of limitless possibility, from which each moment is made anew.
Kama Rupa - The Form of Desire (quotes)
I am told by some that the Buddha called desire the cause of suffering. I believe this an error, it is desire misunderstood.
A student once asked a Zen master what was needed to become enlightened. The master grabbed the students head, submerged it in a nearby pool and forcibly held it there for some time. When the student was released, the master said "You must want it as much as you wanted the next breath."
Ananta :
Form provokes desire. Desire evokes form. Let form pass away and abide in desire. Burn in space thusly and know the Divine ardor that creates.
Unknown Author:
The poorest man is not without a cent, but without a dream.
Somerset Maugham:
It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
Raymond Hollingwell:
Desire creates the power.
Bill Cosby:
Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.
Helen Keller:
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.
John Locke:
The discipline of desire is the background of character.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
Eric Hoffer:
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
Robert Collier:
It sometimes seems that we have only to love a thing greatly to get it.
Ella Fitzgerald:
Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.
Kahlil Gibran:
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
Helen Keller:
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Claude M. Bristol:
One essential to success is that your desire be an all obsessing one, your thoughts and aims be co-ordinated, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup.
Confucius:
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
John Ruskin:
Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.
Raymond Holliwell:
The inner thought coming from the heart represents the real motives and desires.
These are the cause of action.
Christian Nevell Bovee:
We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.
Orison Swett Marden:
The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Sheila Graham:
You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.
Unknown Author:
We are told never to cross a bridge until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have "crossed bridges" in their imagination far ahead of the crowd.
The Phoenix
Partial repost, 2008 and present
I have always liked the Phoenix. It first came to my attention as the name of my birthplace. Let me visit this symbol through the lens of the perennial philosophy. There are two culturally distinct Phoenix's and it may interesting to compare them.
The bird in general has always represented airiness of spirit to me - as in the wings of an angel which indicate its sacred nature. The fire I see as the Hindus sacred fire Agni and the baptismal fire referred to by Jesu. Its archetypal associations are also those of light/enlightenment and symbol of the invisible light of G-d's Ardor, the Ain Soph as referred to in Kabbala. For Christians it was a common symbol of rebirth and renewal. Makes sense alchemically considered.
Actually the fire of Agni in the Tantric tradition is a Yoni (female) fire. The Fire that Jesu came to cast upon the earth was the image of one of the two Aramaic words Jesu used for love - it was the fire that consumed the dead things cast off from the living such as dead branches and leaves. This kind of love comes first, the ridding in ourselves or purification of the things of death, like our reactive emotions. Then can come forth the other kind of love which is like the sun, shinning on all things equally. Both these kinds of love are also feminine, as the Shekina or Presence of G-d as revealed in the burning bush, the glowing face of Moses or the Pillars of fire and smoke of the Exodus.
The Chinese Phoenix too is an immortal bird. It is called Fènghuáng. Actually it is two birds: The males are called Feng and the females Huang. The Chinese Phoenix is therefore an androgynous creature. When it is portrayed alone it is linguistically referred to as male - similarly to the androgynous Shiva of Hinduism. Yet as the Shiva-linga altar represents, the male (linga) proceed out of the female (yoni) and thus birth is given to duality. Likewise the Fènghuáng when paired with the dragon becomes female, that it may participate the in the play of Yin and Yang eternally joined. This phoenix and dragon pair is symbol of immortal love.
Nearly all scholarship indicates that the Holy Spirit is the denied feminine aspect of the Trinity in Unity of Christendom. And its importance is placed above the Father and the Son by the words of Jesu as they have come to us. As the dove, symbol of female Wisdom, it is She who christens Jesu at the baptism by John and confirms the Divine adoption. It is She that is custodian of the Gifts of the Spirit. It is She who is our Mother and we are justified in serving Her as such.
In Chivalry, the heart is Minne - "lady LOVE," and the mind is the grail questing knight. Using this analogy Goeth says: Man must learn to serve woman, then she will serve him. When mind dominates the heart, it is called the barren land. When the mind grants the heart sovereignty, sovereignty is accepted and sovereignty is returned as wisdom and in the form of the grail cup which heals the land, making it a paradise.
In Gan Eden, the "enclosure of Bliss," of the Old Testament it can be argued the "First Adama" was androgynous. When Eve separated, Adam became male and Eve female, also reminiscent of the Fènghuáng. Interesting that it was Adam who received the prohibition not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (duality) and not Eve. This reminds me of statements in the Upanishads that there are no sacrifices ordained for woman as there are for men, except that she be his helper/helpmeet. Like The Goddess Shakti re-awakening desire in Shiva, Eve offered Adam the apple that he might awaken to the serpent power of Knowledge (which she commands in the eastern traditions) - as both gnosis and intimacy - whereby the process of consciousness becoming self aware might proceed to partaking someday of the Fruit of the Tree of Life. Interesting that the vehicle seems to be that of erotic love symbolized by recognition of their nakedness and it is the flaming sword in itself as Eros which guards the Tree of Life - the Tree of Eve, for Eve means Life. Much purification is required certainly and is symbolized by the curse.
Although the Buddha Gautama is purported to have said that desire is the cause of suffering, it is actually desire misunderstood which causes suffering. This is central to the corrected Tantric approach. Shiva is said to have killed Kama (love desire) and the primal androgen retreated into a supreme interior Samadhi (trance) of the Void. When the Androgen separated as male and female, the Goddess as Shakti (power) required Shiva (consciousness) to restore Kama to life that they may engage the love play of creation - the bringing into being of all forms.
As it is said in the Book of the Law; "I am divided for loves sake, for the chance of union."
© Arjay 2008
I have always liked the Phoenix. It first came to my attention as the name of my birthplace. Let me visit this symbol through the lens of the perennial philosophy. There are two culturally distinct Phoenix's and it may interesting to compare them.
The bird in general has always represented airiness of spirit to me - as in the wings of an angel which indicate its sacred nature. The fire I see as the Hindus sacred fire Agni and the baptismal fire referred to by Jesu. Its archetypal associations are also those of light/enlightenment and symbol of the invisible light of G-d's Ardor, the Ain Soph as referred to in Kabbala. For Christians it was a common symbol of rebirth and renewal. Makes sense alchemically considered.
Actually the fire of Agni in the Tantric tradition is a Yoni (female) fire. The Fire that Jesu came to cast upon the earth was the image of one of the two Aramaic words Jesu used for love - it was the fire that consumed the dead things cast off from the living such as dead branches and leaves. This kind of love comes first, the ridding in ourselves or purification of the things of death, like our reactive emotions. Then can come forth the other kind of love which is like the sun, shinning on all things equally. Both these kinds of love are also feminine, as the Shekina or Presence of G-d as revealed in the burning bush, the glowing face of Moses or the Pillars of fire and smoke of the Exodus.
The Chinese Phoenix too is an immortal bird. It is called Fènghuáng. Actually it is two birds: The males are called Feng and the females Huang. The Chinese Phoenix is therefore an androgynous creature. When it is portrayed alone it is linguistically referred to as male - similarly to the androgynous Shiva of Hinduism. Yet as the Shiva-linga altar represents, the male (linga) proceed out of the female (yoni) and thus birth is given to duality. Likewise the Fènghuáng when paired with the dragon becomes female, that it may participate the in the play of Yin and Yang eternally joined. This phoenix and dragon pair is symbol of immortal love.
Nearly all scholarship indicates that the Holy Spirit is the denied feminine aspect of the Trinity in Unity of Christendom. And its importance is placed above the Father and the Son by the words of Jesu as they have come to us. As the dove, symbol of female Wisdom, it is She who christens Jesu at the baptism by John and confirms the Divine adoption. It is She that is custodian of the Gifts of the Spirit. It is She who is our Mother and we are justified in serving Her as such.
In Chivalry, the heart is Minne - "lady LOVE," and the mind is the grail questing knight. Using this analogy Goeth says: Man must learn to serve woman, then she will serve him. When mind dominates the heart, it is called the barren land. When the mind grants the heart sovereignty, sovereignty is accepted and sovereignty is returned as wisdom and in the form of the grail cup which heals the land, making it a paradise.
In Gan Eden, the "enclosure of Bliss," of the Old Testament it can be argued the "First Adama" was androgynous. When Eve separated, Adam became male and Eve female, also reminiscent of the Fènghuáng. Interesting that it was Adam who received the prohibition not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (duality) and not Eve. This reminds me of statements in the Upanishads that there are no sacrifices ordained for woman as there are for men, except that she be his helper/helpmeet. Like The Goddess Shakti re-awakening desire in Shiva, Eve offered Adam the apple that he might awaken to the serpent power of Knowledge (which she commands in the eastern traditions) - as both gnosis and intimacy - whereby the process of consciousness becoming self aware might proceed to partaking someday of the Fruit of the Tree of Life. Interesting that the vehicle seems to be that of erotic love symbolized by recognition of their nakedness and it is the flaming sword in itself as Eros which guards the Tree of Life - the Tree of Eve, for Eve means Life. Much purification is required certainly and is symbolized by the curse.
Although the Buddha Gautama is purported to have said that desire is the cause of suffering, it is actually desire misunderstood which causes suffering. This is central to the corrected Tantric approach. Shiva is said to have killed Kama (love desire) and the primal androgen retreated into a supreme interior Samadhi (trance) of the Void. When the Androgen separated as male and female, the Goddess as Shakti (power) required Shiva (consciousness) to restore Kama to life that they may engage the love play of creation - the bringing into being of all forms.
As it is said in the Book of the Law; "I am divided for loves sake, for the chance of union."
© Arjay 2008
"True Will"Repost
Repost from 2008
In my Gnostic tradition, different from the Thelemites, "True Will" is "the will of the heart." In yogic term's there are two hearts; the Anahata chakra and the Hrit Pandma or spiritual heart. The Anahata links to the emotional body of desire and aversion and the Hrit Padma unites the spiritual Self with the True Will. The royal Rasa's (essences) of love and bliss manifest in and as the spiritual heart bringing balance and nonduality of view.
To find your True Will, look first to the things you love, that give you joy. Most of these will be found to be transient enjoyments and infatuations. The True will can be said to be ones purpose. It is not so much a thing to do however as to surrender to. Devotion frees says an ancient scripture. The True will is devotions solvent which dissolves all sense of separation and one's true place in the order of things is found as unchallenged truth.
All is a search for love and happiness. Ones true will is a multifaceted reflection of that. One is ever renewed in blissful abandon to it. One shall be reborn, deathless instrument of a Divine plan, participant in the Life of G-d. True Will is as inspired dream, an idea that even the grave is powerless to stop.
It may come first in the form of a symbol. It may come alloyed or corrupted by association with other things. And it is likely obscured by reactive emotion. Yet it is there to be found. It is the first intention of the spirit in the final analysis. Once found it is a thing to be followed. Where it points is to self knowledge. It is an unfolding of inspiration which does lead but does not command.
One does not have to "take thought," it is a matter of flow, flowing with the leading of spirit. It is a self abandonment in common parlance, such as is felt by artists absorbed in their labors. It is selfless in that it is not self centered, it is larger than any self one can imagine, always expanding its limits, connecting with other life essences like a growing neural net. It is also selfless in the sense that there is nothing to prove, nothing to defend, nothing to resist. There is no wavering, no second thought, no second guessing, no counter intention to be found in the heart. There may be to the contrary a sense of must do to be true to oneself.
It is the state of sahaja, the "open eyes" Samadhi (ecstatic trance - enstacy) of spontaneous action. It is quite unique to each individual. It may also manifest as "crazy wisdom" as it gives no quarter to the common view. It is truly a state of inner Peace in the midst of caos, like the center of a hurricane.
Obstacles may appear but none may crush it or derail it. Like water it will find its course, down underground by force of gravity or uplifted by the warmth of the sun. Like a plant embracing life, breaking through rock, naught can resist it. Time may make its progression seem slow yet in eternity it is already accomplished - a great fiat! A celebration of Amen.
Through time it may evolve with greater unfolding of understanding, greater flowering of vision but it is the same seed. It may have different expressions in body, mind and spirit but they are all congruent.
It is not so much to be discovered as to be revealed as the onion like layers of obscuring emotion, the judgments which deny life in one aspect or another, the sense of unworthiness, of feeling undeserving of that love and happiness, Ones right to Be.
One must suffer the fire of these afflictions of the soul until they are burnt away. Embrace them in love and forgiveness and gratitude for the service they have done to protect you from harm, yet through ignorance knew not how, for in some way they denied the spirit.
Reacquaint them, these "spirits," companions of the wounded heart to the Spirit of love by acknowledging them fully and releasing them back to their spiritual source. Throw yourself into their fire as it reveals itself in your own psychic pain and their memory by loves power shall become holy ash to anoint your passing from a world of limitation to one of freedom and liberation. One may avoid nothing if consciousness is to evolve in its association with form.
It is not the yogas and the rituals that bring this about, though they have a purpose and offer some support. It is not the gifts and the altered states of awareness which reveal the True Will and lead to the truth of ones Being. I know I alienate some of my mystical and magical friends when I make statements like that. They likely see me as quite naive. Yet I see with ever growing certainty by application that the spiritual path is simply one of the healing of the heart, of the soul, that it may be the immaculate bride of the Spirit which courts it incessantly and matures in its love along beside it.
Birthing consciousness alone is the work of the Spiritual journey. Unconsciousness is what consciousness pushes against in its birthing process. Like an embryo it grows from the seed of the first ejaculation of G-d's Ardor; "I AM" and then rests in the Womb of the Mother of All Forms. It is through form that the I AM comes to know itself - to evolve itself in and as creation. Our search for self knowledge is only a reflection of G-d's.
Nietzsche said "God is Dead." Not quite, only the Understanding of G-d has changed and probably need to be respectfully buried. G-d was never born but is likewise birthing itself through the vehicle of time and space and our own consciousness included. At some Omega point of time G-d shall Be. Yet even now that Omega point resides in the ever present Great Mystery.
Even now the Omega form has a presence closer than a brother. G-d will give you all the space you need to grow in, or as you choose, be eminently reachable to share a communion of intimate thoughts as through pillow talk with the beloved. G-d is willing to be anything you need, anything you are open enough to receive, anything your current level of resistance to life will allow, for the cause of revealing your true will. It is your choice.
Thy Will be done!
© Arjay 2008
Epinoia Zoe Ekklesia
The Aramaic term for G-d is Alaha (The Unity) which in Arabic becomes Allah hu.
In The Gospel of Thomas - the "Fifth Gospel" - Jesu says:
"Split wood and I am there, lift a stone and you will find me."
One evening long ago, my spiritual guide took me to a bar and said in effect; I am not teaching you to be a monk, you were that before you joined the Order. I am not teaching you to be of service to other monks, to do as I do. Look here, this is your congregation, they surround us. What would you teach them? Thus was born ...
In The Gospel of Thomas - the "Fifth Gospel" - Jesu says:
"Split wood and I am there, lift a stone and you will find me."
O' thou my teacher,
I have sought thee through ages long,
but to realize thy face was always before me.
I have sought thee through ages long,
but to realize thy face was always before me.
One evening long ago, my spiritual guide took me to a bar and said in effect; I am not teaching you to be a monk, you were that before you joined the Order. I am not teaching you to be of service to other monks, to do as I do. Look here, this is your congregation, they surround us. What would you teach them? Thus was born ...
Epinoia Zoe Ekklesia
(Loose translation from the Greek : A higher thought of collective life.)
It was a "mystery school" with an actual historical life span of a year. I return to this memory now and then. Its vision grows as I grow...
Joseph Campbell said that "A myth is real event that never happened." In other words it is a story about an intangible reality.
This sentiment was not unique to him. The Greeks understood their
mystery religions in this light. The idea of the virgin born savior god
goes back at least to the Egyptians. Such archetypes exist because they
are real "Powers" (imho). To insist on the historicity of the archetypes
is to miss the point completely and deny oneself access to the Power.
History it is said is written by the victors. I could care less about
history... other than through my own victorious experience. Nor do I proselytize my view as mystery is my foundation.
I tell you a story now in brief. The full story I told no one for nearly 15 years for I would fill up iwith tears and no words would come.... Having found in myself no interest in the world - undergoing a spontaneous renunciation of its values - I quit the job I had trained so hard to acquire, put all my things in a storage shed, gave up my apartment and turned pleading to the Jesus of my understanding; the healer of myth that had so captured my imagination as a youth. "What now?" I asked, and the glow of a presence formed before me, and taught me how to meditate and bid me do so always. I walked, the streets for nearly 3 months, mind fixed moment to moment on my meditation and with each step a fiery glow made sensible to my minds eye, erupted from the locus of my heart, where my attention was bidden to rest. Shortly there was but one word my lips could easily speak and that word was Joy. I became run down, sick, and in great pain if I consulted my senses, but inwardly my attention was rapt in ever unfolding nuances of Bliss without reason. A friend found me and took me home where in time I learned to integrate this bliss with conventional life and navigate the ladder of its heights. I have tried to understand this and other things revealed for all these 30 years past. It has nothing to do with any religion I am sure. I have no theology I need to superimpose upon my experience. I have only the desire that somehow others might share in this mystery and find the unconditioned happiness I know to be the font from which we as loves image spring.
To this end I have become a student of the sayings of Jesu and His myth. I have become a fixture in the UU Christian Study Group of my church and proclaim myself no Christian. Yet I am proud that the piece bellow is sometimes read to close our meetings (sans parenthesis) as it is a sentiment I hold now as when I fist penned it.
To this end I have become a student of the sayings of Jesu and His myth. I have become a fixture in the UU Christian Study Group of my church and proclaim myself no Christian. Yet I am proud that the piece bellow is sometimes read to close our meetings (sans parenthesis) as it is a sentiment I hold now as when I fist penned it.
Jesus did not teach a new LAW but an ancient One -
The Way. He showed us how to live it, and in so doing, release its
hidden power for the healing of community.
There is One G-d, one family of mankind, and one
bond of friendship between all creatures and their source which has
never depended on having the right doctrine, only the righteousness of
the heart.
In The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead by Frank J. Tipler a cosmological Physicist, the idea is presented that if Jesus never existed, he must never the less, someday become. I like that idea and think that fits with such ideas as Sheldrakes morphic fields.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Truth as Freedom
This was written for a friend who was not able to attend a talk on Truth & Freedom which I gave one "Red Letter Sunday" at my Unitarian church. (I
should add for any new readers that religion, Philosophy, science or
what have you are but tools for me to coach with. I have no affiliation
with any particular view or healing system.)
"You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free." ~Jesu
It
is typical that we assert facts and opinions as "Truth." then we
discuss or even argue about them exchanging proofs in support of our
position. I would like to present an alternative view based in the Jesus
saying above.
In the Aramaic tongue of Jesu, the term truth may be understood as "that which sets one free."
As
an example, if one is sick and then is healed, one has had AN ENCOUNTER WITH TRUTH - one is freed of the condition. This would apply if the
condition of dis-ease were say; one of paralyzingly fear, or chronic
reactive anger. So too if the issue was one of bondage to a limiting
belief and a shift occurred toward a clarity of perception which allowed a more empowering belief to replace it.
All
of these transitions may be viewed as a "healing", or a release from a
set limitation into a greater freedom of being/doing/having. Yet it is not the "method"
used to attain such a liberation of conditions, but the release itself
which is an "experience" of Truth. In other words, metaphysically speaking, Truth is the recognition and
restoration of the prior condition of wholeness and harmony - with that sense
of euphoria or well being, or peace, which mystics assert are our
birthright and the native state of spirit abiding in its purity.
Thus
the Buddhists search for Truth as nirvana or the Christians search for
heaven are both metaphors for that Truth which is the enduring and
original state of perfect freedom and the happiness attendant to it.
This is the essence of the Bodhisatva vow. It is a commitment to find skillful means to free living beings from the (self inflicted) illusion or projection of the conditioned bondage experienced as the suffering of body and mind ... which obscures the deathless spirit in which we participate in this sacred Unity as born-less and endless life. Therefore Truth as considered here is a spiritual reality which bids no argument.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Intro to Taction
The material below is a partial laying of the groundwork for something I
call Taction which is the tacit (felt) action of intelligence throughout
creation. More on this later.
For your consideration: Information as Felt Meaning
Matter = energy = information. A simple equation obscured by the intellect. The intellect can symbolize information by a binary series of 1's and 0's as in the yes/no two valued logic of a computer. There is also a three valued logic which includes AND (&) as a creative function. This may serve the logician and mathematician but how does it help the healer or the mystic? Not very well.
The biological basis for this symbolic logic is our natural capacity to notice (be aware) of similarities and differences. The input is through the 5 senses, which divide perception into these sensory categories. each category is then subdivided by distinguishing polarized states such as hot or cold as related to the sense of touch, or middle C vs F sharp as it relates to sound. Notice that each of these distinctions may be verbalized - thus language (the word) allows rapid throughput of sensory information via these symbolic packets of compressed information. Manipulation of these linguistic information packets allows the three valued logic (incl. &) to combine information sets in creative manipulations. All well and good so far, but this information is a step removed from direct experience.
Much more information is needed for the higher creative functions of the genius, mystic or healer. Synesthesias are one resolution to the coding of complex information sets - being able to convert a sound into a visual pattern. Still there is a ways to go. So far we are at the stage of being able to work with the psychological equivalent of digitizing information - as for example rendering a picture with dots or pixels. But the world is an analogue experience, and its information density is much greater than our limited linguistic or symbolic representations can account for. Our sensory acuity, or perceptual discernment, needs to be able to make distinctions at pre-verbal, pre-conceptual levels - distinctions as gradations of experience we may have as yet no language for. At high levels of discernment, perception is predominantly sensory based, and rich in synesthesias, extended frequency ranges (of the so called 6th sense) and sometimes coded and stored also in temporary information saturated symbols - a kind of abstract shorthand notation of will/intent especially.
It is in our ability to become aware of this information as present time direct experience, and then through combining, separating, comparing and recombining, these wordless sensory inputs (which are pure information derived from the IS-ness of awareness) that higher orders of intelligence can operate through us. I say through us because intelligence is not "ours," but a function of the information available for use at any given time. The more information we can perceive the higher the probabilities of this functional intelligence being expressed via linking (&/AND) operations in a consciousness stream.
The main point in this complex argument is that such information is most fundamentally a knowable aspect of direct experience, whether you are doing an ME two point or peering into the void of formlessness. I submit, it is only this direct experience which qualifies as knowledge in spiritual teachings. Once again this is not reducible to cognition but is a wide awake revelation of direct experiencing. Cognition/Thinking is actually a reduction of the usable information available, which is why mystics say the truth can not be told.
And "The medium is the message,"as Marshall McCluhan said. Or one might say the medium is a tacit (felt) experience and the form such experience takes is its complete, precise and inherent meaning. It is literally "felt" because all physical senses are derivations of skin cells. Even visual experience is a contact between photons and cones, etc. in the eye. And as above, so below. So likewise every aspect of experience is contact based - even non local phenomenon are remotely "connected." The simplicity of this idea is very helpful in cultivating task oriented awareness trainings.
Blog Notes:
The object of presenting the Taction model is to help people get out of their heads and into direct experience.
Things appear non local by virtue of the con-tact unobserved/filtered out by a narrowing or omission of awareness. For example, the smell of the rose is a real contact event by virtue of scent molecules fitting into receptor sites of the nose. I literally feel the smell. And it may appear that the stop-light is at some distance from me, yet I am in direct and immediate contact with its light through the eyes. The same applies to all the senses including "psychic" perceptions which are connections with things through the unity of the life-field.The object of presenting the Taction model is to help people get out of their heads and into direct experience.
Things appear non local by virtue of the con-tact unobserved/filtered out by a narrowing or omission of awareness. For example, the smell of the rose is a real contact event by virtue of scent molecules fitting into receptor sites of the nose. I literally feel the smell. And it may appear that the stop-light is at some distance from me, yet I am in direct and immediate contact with its light through the eyes. The same applies to all the senses including "psychic" perceptions which are connections with things through the unity of the life-field.
Comment:
I use the word Taction for every form of experience (active participation) as being in some way a con (with) tact ( Archaic: The sense of touch), Even vision as the most intellectually separative of the senses is at root a contact event as understood above. As the Sufi says; G-d is closer than your juggler, meaning in intimate contact - not separate - which is historically the pan cultural definition of Knowledge.
Further, experience is from the root meaning to prove. Taction is how I prove things for myself. That which I can not "connect" with is unknowable to me. This touch connection is even in our verbal exchanges as in a complement can a metaphorical "stroking" of another.
I didn't think this would be so difficult to get, but I never tried to explain this to anyone before, so I am learning something about presentation.
Perhaps it took my experience of blindness to be able to "see" this connection.
Digital > pixel, particle, position, distancing > image (boundary) construct.
Analogue > whole, wave, momentum, unified > tacit (felt) meaning.
For your consideration: Information as Felt Meaning
Matter = energy = information. A simple equation obscured by the intellect. The intellect can symbolize information by a binary series of 1's and 0's as in the yes/no two valued logic of a computer. There is also a three valued logic which includes AND (&) as a creative function. This may serve the logician and mathematician but how does it help the healer or the mystic? Not very well.
The biological basis for this symbolic logic is our natural capacity to notice (be aware) of similarities and differences. The input is through the 5 senses, which divide perception into these sensory categories. each category is then subdivided by distinguishing polarized states such as hot or cold as related to the sense of touch, or middle C vs F sharp as it relates to sound. Notice that each of these distinctions may be verbalized - thus language (the word) allows rapid throughput of sensory information via these symbolic packets of compressed information. Manipulation of these linguistic information packets allows the three valued logic (incl. &) to combine information sets in creative manipulations. All well and good so far, but this information is a step removed from direct experience.
Much more information is needed for the higher creative functions of the genius, mystic or healer. Synesthesias are one resolution to the coding of complex information sets - being able to convert a sound into a visual pattern. Still there is a ways to go. So far we are at the stage of being able to work with the psychological equivalent of digitizing information - as for example rendering a picture with dots or pixels. But the world is an analogue experience, and its information density is much greater than our limited linguistic or symbolic representations can account for. Our sensory acuity, or perceptual discernment, needs to be able to make distinctions at pre-verbal, pre-conceptual levels - distinctions as gradations of experience we may have as yet no language for. At high levels of discernment, perception is predominantly sensory based, and rich in synesthesias, extended frequency ranges (of the so called 6th sense) and sometimes coded and stored also in temporary information saturated symbols - a kind of abstract shorthand notation of will/intent especially.
It is in our ability to become aware of this information as present time direct experience, and then through combining, separating, comparing and recombining, these wordless sensory inputs (which are pure information derived from the IS-ness of awareness) that higher orders of intelligence can operate through us. I say through us because intelligence is not "ours," but a function of the information available for use at any given time. The more information we can perceive the higher the probabilities of this functional intelligence being expressed via linking (&/AND) operations in a consciousness stream.
The main point in this complex argument is that such information is most fundamentally a knowable aspect of direct experience, whether you are doing an ME two point or peering into the void of formlessness. I submit, it is only this direct experience which qualifies as knowledge in spiritual teachings. Once again this is not reducible to cognition but is a wide awake revelation of direct experiencing. Cognition/Thinking is actually a reduction of the usable information available, which is why mystics say the truth can not be told.
And "The medium is the message,"as Marshall McCluhan said. Or one might say the medium is a tacit (felt) experience and the form such experience takes is its complete, precise and inherent meaning. It is literally "felt" because all physical senses are derivations of skin cells. Even visual experience is a contact between photons and cones, etc. in the eye. And as above, so below. So likewise every aspect of experience is contact based - even non local phenomenon are remotely "connected." The simplicity of this idea is very helpful in cultivating task oriented awareness trainings.
Blog Notes:
The object of presenting the Taction model is to help people get out of their heads and into direct experience.
Things appear non local by virtue of the con-tact unobserved/filtered out by a narrowing or omission of awareness. For example, the smell of the rose is a real contact event by virtue of scent molecules fitting into receptor sites of the nose. I literally feel the smell. And it may appear that the stop-light is at some distance from me, yet I am in direct and immediate contact with its light through the eyes. The same applies to all the senses including "psychic" perceptions which are connections with things through the unity of the life-field.The object of presenting the Taction model is to help people get out of their heads and into direct experience.
Things appear non local by virtue of the con-tact unobserved/filtered out by a narrowing or omission of awareness. For example, the smell of the rose is a real contact event by virtue of scent molecules fitting into receptor sites of the nose. I literally feel the smell. And it may appear that the stop-light is at some distance from me, yet I am in direct and immediate contact with its light through the eyes. The same applies to all the senses including "psychic" perceptions which are connections with things through the unity of the life-field.
Comment:
I use the word Taction for every form of experience (active participation) as being in some way a con (with) tact ( Archaic: The sense of touch), Even vision as the most intellectually separative of the senses is at root a contact event as understood above. As the Sufi says; G-d is closer than your juggler, meaning in intimate contact - not separate - which is historically the pan cultural definition of Knowledge.
Further, experience is from the root meaning to prove. Taction is how I prove things for myself. That which I can not "connect" with is unknowable to me. This touch connection is even in our verbal exchanges as in a complement can a metaphorical "stroking" of another.
I didn't think this would be so difficult to get, but I never tried to explain this to anyone before, so I am learning something about presentation.
Perhaps it took my experience of blindness to be able to "see" this connection.
Digital > pixel, particle, position, distancing > image (boundary) construct.
Analogue > whole, wave, momentum, unified > tacit (felt) meaning.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Rasa Coaching & Thinker or Tinkerer
Once had I a savored thought
Then Lo' I plumb forgot.
And in the struggle of remembering
Found the thinker tinkering.
Rarely do we THINK, we "tink." Our conscious mind tinkers with its symbolic reality. Sometimes quite creatively and otherwise to our detriment.
I might compare this to my tinkering with the computer. I tinker with the programs at times and then wonder why they do not work as well. It would be advisable to learn how the program is designed to function first. Unfortunately we are not always given an instruction manual or are in to big of a hurry to consult it. The same may apply to our use of the human mind.
In my coaching practice it imperative that I find a working model of the mind if I seek to help a client make healthy changes and have more choices. The simpler this madel the easier it is to work with, yet it must be flexible enough to embrace the complexity of the human condition.
The most basic model I use is derived from the the idea of the "rasa's - by way of which, the name Rasa Coaching is derived.
Rasa defined:
Rasa: (lit. 'juice' or 'essence') a Sanskrit theological concept specific to Krishna-centered bhakti (devotional) traditions. "Truly, the Lord is rasa" (raso vai sah) of the Brahma Sutra’s. This statement expresses the view that G-d is the one who enjoys the ultimate rasa, or spiritual rapture and emotions.
Rasa is relational, in describing relationships with the divinity in devotional love. Such rasa’s closely resemble the variety of loving feelings that humans experience with one another, such as beloved-lover, friend-friend, parent-child, and master-servant, etc,. For example; Jesus Seemed partial to relating to Source as Servant.
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Rasa’s are also distinguished as lower/common and higher (raj/royal) according to Bhagavad Gita. The Raj rasa’s are described as loving (incl. erotic - shringara), friendly, and fraternal types of relationships along with an ample infusion of Joy. The common rasa's are also called 'obscuring' because they obscure our native joy and ability to perceive the reality of our living universe.
To this I add the idea of the Tabula Rasa, a clean or blank slate, as representative of the Buddhist sunyata or emptying which allows the awakening to the perception of the underlying reality, prior to our conditional existence. Releasing or letting go is the fundamental idea here, an erasure or voidance of the limiting reactive programming of the human condition in response to pain and even overwhelming pleasure. (Both of which occurs through clouded judgements or decisions during moments of trauma or even a simple "startle response").
Rasa: aesthetics - denotes an essential mental state and is the dominant emotional theme of a work of art or the primary feeling that is evoked in the person that views, reads or hears such a work. take note that art mirrors life (as In movies) and allows us to experience the rasa's selectively and safely (as n watching a "scary" movie). We are here viewing emotional patterns much like other addictive behaviors.
Comment: emotions are the ‘Juice’ of life, the true food which nourishes the soul. It is energy in motion. It is the driver - our motivation.
“It is never the thing we want but the feeling.” says Edward L. Krammer.
Lacking the freedom of creatively choosing the energy of feeling - due to our ignorance - we seek outside for something to artificially evoke it. It is always our choice and capacity to choose happiness for example, regardless of the presence or lack of external conditions.
Rasa Coaching then, I sometimes call "happiness coaching" after the inspiration of the late Bruce Di'Marsico.
This is achieved through the release of sabotaging Sensations, Emotions and Attitudes, or SEA's.
Contemplative practices, Energy Psychology and Energy healing methods are incorporated to assist this releasing.
Our subjective fulfillment lies in happiness, freedom and achievement as the power of choice without opposition from within. This is the aspiration of Rasa Coaching.
On Sacrifice
Re-post from: Energy Medicine Exchange (A Facebook group)
"The
important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for
what we could become." ~Charles DuBois
The way of the fool is the way without stain, without karma, without suffering. It is (loosely interpreted) the 0 (unnumbered) card in the Taro deck with the image of a man walking peacefully over a cliff into oblivion which is the womb of da'at (knowledge). I have always had an affinity for this card. It is the abandonment of form and embracing of the emptiness of the Buddha. It is the mastery of self abandon after the first work of learning, of self making - like a sky divers jump after all preparations have been made. It is the love beyond the imaginings of love, the beauty that remains when when all is turned to ashes in the minds light, the original perfection prior to any need of healing. It is a pristine clarity where everything is reborn. It is Wisdom's way, the Tabula Rasa, the way of space... I call it too the sky dancers way. This way can not be taught only prepared for. Everyone comes to their own cliff(s) which marks a grand departure from the merely believed into the unknown. In the willingness to leap is the test. In the free fall lies the graduation. Is there a net below to catch us? Only Fools could tell - to trust the intellects counsel here is vanity.
The way of the fool is the way without stain, without karma, without suffering. It is (loosely interpreted) the 0 (unnumbered) card in the Taro deck with the image of a man walking peacefully over a cliff into oblivion which is the womb of da'at (knowledge). I have always had an affinity for this card. It is the abandonment of form and embracing of the emptiness of the Buddha. It is the mastery of self abandon after the first work of learning, of self making - like a sky divers jump after all preparations have been made. It is the love beyond the imaginings of love, the beauty that remains when when all is turned to ashes in the minds light, the original perfection prior to any need of healing. It is a pristine clarity where everything is reborn. It is Wisdom's way, the Tabula Rasa, the way of space... I call it too the sky dancers way. This way can not be taught only prepared for. Everyone comes to their own cliff(s) which marks a grand departure from the merely believed into the unknown. In the willingness to leap is the test. In the free fall lies the graduation. Is there a net below to catch us? Only Fools could tell - to trust the intellects counsel here is vanity.
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