|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:04:09 GMT
MY JOURNAL First post – Journal Intro:
I have traveled the world as warrior, explorer and capitalist. I have investigated the depths of time and space and that quiet inner sanctum of the mind. In these travels I have come to know it all means something more than meets the casual eye. When I look at the moon, it calls to me in such a way that I cannot deny the basic truth that there is something about the universe that is greater than the sum of its parts.
When I encounter others that believe as I do I strive to immerse myself in every aspect of the experience; taking every opportunity to grow and learn. I have encountered many great teachers along the path. In many forms they have come and gone. These corporeal and non-corporeal mentors were not necessarily great in and of themselves but presented in my path as opportunities for me to learn something more about myself. This is the true mystery of life.
It is not about a destination or a title or a status or station in life. It is about the journey. No one will find the answers they seek in a box or an ancient manuscript or in another. We must come to the fact that the answers lie within ourselves. Every mystery of life and the universe is contained in our very souls. What I seek is that one mythology; my mythology of wisdom and transcendence that will explain my very existence. It will be mine and mine alone.
This is my journey. The mythology that is Kyrin!
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:05:58 GMT
Lesson 1: Myth Please watch, listen or read the material 'The Power of Myth (Joseph Campbell Interview)' and write a few paragraphs on your understanding of the content of each part and what the message or purpose of the material is. Each part must be discussed separately so we advise that you write up your response to each part first before going onto the next one. It is strongly suggested you make notes as you go along.
Lesson 1 - Task 1 – Joseph Campbell’s work in Mythology in his Magnum Opus, “Hero with a Thousand Faces”
Part 1 - The Hero's Adventure Joseph Campbell is described by the narrator as one of the most spiritual men he has met but one lacking an ideology or a theology. I like this concept as it is one that I try to adopt in myself. There is a separation between the living of our spiritual lives and the poetic mythologies that we use to describe those pursuits. Many people do not understand this and so the doctrine becomes their spirituality and not the other way around.
Mythology is defined as the stories and legends told by human beings through the ages to explain the universe and their place in it. It is the song of the universe. Music so deeply embedded in our collective unconscious that we dance to it, even when we can’t name the tune. A major part of this is the journey of the hero. One aspect of this I find most interesting is the idea that one person’s hero may be another’s villain. Context is as relative as is the myth itself.
On this hero’s journey there are certain steps he must undertake. These acts entail either a Physical trial of some sort or the act of saving a life or sacrificing himself for a cause. This could include crossing the boundary of death and bringing back some unknown or lost knowledge. Some famous Mythologies of spiritual hero’s include Moses or Christ. Christ’s story is of a hero that was tempted and sacrificed which led to one of the most enduring doctrines of our time.
Even the act of birth is a heroic act as well as the transition from childhood to adulthood. In these transitions we are taking on new responsibilities. This could be considered the same as the path of some heroes who stumble into their path. It is the march of time that pushes them forward in this case. The Celtic mythologies of a boy chasing a deer deep into unknown territory to discover fairy realms also contain this element. Other heroes purposely set out on a quest or are pitched into the path. Examples of this include being drafted into an army.
These heroes have a moral objective; to save a people or person or an idea or a way of life, to sacrifice themselves for something. As mentioned before, from another side that may seem evil but it does not destroy that heroic act. All these acts have to do with a transformation of consciousness. Thinking in one way before the process of going through the trials or gaining the revelations changes them and now have to think in another way. The achievements of the hero is one that he is ready for and it’s a part of his intrinsic character In the past these stories go into realms and lands never before explored. So now we have conquered the planet, it’s natural for these stories to go into space where we have not explored. It’s the unknown. First steps of the hero are to leave the light that he is familiar with and move into the dark. He must control his unconscious self. In the dark whose examples include the belly of the whale or the trash compactor, the water is the unconscious self. This is a transformation of mind. The mind is really a secondary organ and it must relinquish control to the humanity of the body so that the hero can experience transcendence and become in tune with his environment. This seems a similar concept as Tarots “The Journey of the Fool”.
We all operate in this way. We face a system. Will the system eat us up or can we begin to use the system for human purposes? We must change the system or learn to live in the system so we no longer serve it, it serves us. This translates to our lives in such a way that if we don’t listen to the demands of our own spiritual and heart life and instead insists on a certain program you’re going to have a schizophrenic crackup. We have many opportunities to commit ourselves to a system and to obey it. We must resist these temptations and follow our hearts. Luke’s resistance to the dark side is a classic example of this.
Mythology is the edge, the interface between what can be known and what is never to be discovered because it is a mystery transcendent of all human research. The source of life… what is it? it’s important to live life with a knowledge of this mystery. It gives life a new zest, a new harmony and balance to do this. Building mythology around this mystery erases anxieties and puts one in accord with the inevitable's of one’s life. Killing the dragon so to speak, is just facing and conquering your fears. The real dragons are within. Saying “I couldn’t do this or that” is your dragon.
We need to find our center, our place of inner peace upon which our actions emanate. An athlete in peak performance finds that place of quiet and it allows him to perform great things. To not find that place means turmoil results and focus is lost. Different teachers can show you techniques in this but they may not work for you. You have to find your way.
These mythologies and stories that permeate all humanity point to a universal consciousness. Plants will turn their leaves to the sun, even the process of our stomach knowing to digest something are all forms of this consciousness. It shows us that the whole world in conscious. This is the Gaia principle.
We exist in a physical consciousness. Our daily lives are about survival, shelter, money, job etc. To raise our consciousness, to bring us to a place of spiritual awareness is what the myths are for. Spiritual places like churches, medicine wheels or Stonehenge can do this as well. When we spend time in these places we can grasp those higher functions and when we leave these places we can hold part of ourselves at that level through prayers or mantras.
All ritual entails the process of spiritually raising our consciousness. Ritual is any act that brings pleasure or a heightened awareness of self. It is the process of turning our minds inward. We need to strive to spend as much time as possible in spiritual places and doing spiritual things. This can be different for each of us. For some it may be performing a pagan ceremony in their back yard and for others it may be building a piece of furniture out of wood.
Myth and dreams come from this same place. They are an individual’s realization of some kind that has to find expression in symbolic form. Campbell mentions the journey from dependency to adulthood to maturity to the exit. This reminds me of the pagan concept of conception, birth, life, death and rebirth. These themes in different forms run through the subconscious minds of us all. We just need to learn to tap into that stream and pull from it in harmony with the universe.
Note to self – Book I would love to investigate further. The Way of the Animal Powers – Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Volume One Hero with a Thousand Faces The Masks of God - 4 volume set
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:07:38 GMT
Lesson 1 - Tasks 2 – Joseph Campbell’s work in Mythology in his Magnum Opus, “Hero with a Thousand Faces”
Part 2 - The Message of the Myth Myths carry common themes from civilization to civilization. They are stories of the search by men and women through the ages for meaning, significance, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.
We are seeking the experience of being alive. Myths are clues to the spiritual potentiality of the human life. It is not the search for meaning but the experience of meaning. What is the meaning of a flower or a flea? Nothing, they are just there. We are just here as well. It is the joy of life, of being here.
The best things can’t be told because they transcend thought – These are things that can’t be known or named but we make attempts to solidify them in our feeble language. When one moves from the transcendent then opposites emerge. These manifest as male and female, good and evil, light and dark, past and future, dead and alive, being and nonbeing and so on.
The key is to remain in the transcendent where all things are balanced. But we as humans pick one pole. Mostly the good as opposed to the evil such as in Christianity But concepts of good and evil are just temporal apparitions. If the world is one of good and evil you do not put yourself in accord with it. You identify with the good and fight against the evil.
In the above scenario one is not with nature. In other mythologies one puts themselves in accord with the world. We must ask is nature fallen or is nature a part of divinity? Nature either is god or nature is not deity. Based on these questions we must decide to subdue nature or to live in harmony with it. Are we deity or is deity separate from us? These questions are not the search for who we are and where we came from. Rather they are the search for divinity itself either within or without
Many mythologies have the story of the 1 forbidden thing. This thing is given to humanity with divinity knowing very well that the temptation will be too great. Eat the fruit, open the box of Pandora or keep out of blue beards closet. When these things are breached man becomes the initiator of his own life.
The snake is a common initiator of this process. Snakes are seen as the symbol for fertility and rebirth and transformation as they shed their skin. The moon also sheds its shadow. The feminine form is associated with the moon and they are symbols of life as well. It is through woman that man enters the world so the female is seen as a temptress as well.
To deny the pain of life is to deny life itself. To live by killing and eating is evil. Whatever we do in life is evil to somebody or something else. We participate in acts of evil every day. If the whole of the universe is divinity itself how can we ever say no to anything within its realm? Brutality, stupidity, vulgarity, thoughtlessness - for you and I we must say yes. For who are we to judge. Our life is eternity… eternity is the here and now that time cuts out. All life is sorrow for all life is loss because it is temporal; a state of constant loss. Therefore life is as it is because that’s how it has to be.
This is not to say that we should ignore the “evil” in the world but that we should participate in the game. Existence is a wonderful opera but it hurts. It is the hero that can participate in this game without need for revenge or malice.
Campbell then refers to the story of the samurai that was to avenge his master’s death. As he was to deal the death blow to his masters killer the assassin spit in his face. The samurai immediately sheathed his sword and walked away. Why? Because he had been made angry and if he had killed him then it would not have been in the correct context. Yes, but that made me wonder about his original motives. What about the act of going after him for revenge? Is that a noble pursuit for a hero? Or in Japanese folklore is revenge a noble pursuit?
This session ends with the idea that every religion is true as a metaphorical interpretation of the human and cosmic mystery. We need to find the meanings behind them. We should not get stuck in the details of the story or take them as literal. Don’t read these in terms of prose but in terms of poetry!! All the gods are within us as is all the heavens and hells.
As human values evolve which in turn drive human morals, so to should these mythologies evolve. Sometimes this is not the case. Some try to “return to that old time religion” but instead we need to embrace a new religion. The new myths should replace the old to accommodate our new way of thinking. Every religion is only true for its time. These “doctrines” are the poetic interpretations of an underlying pursuit. This evolution of myth tell us as humans how to live a lifetime under any circumstances.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:10:26 GMT
Lesson 1 - Tasks 3 – Joseph Campbell’s work in Mythology in his Magnum Opus, “Hero with a Thousand Faces”
Part 3 - The First Storytellers In these modern times we no longer listen to our once important animal guides. At one time we held our animal brethren in high regard. We depended on them for food and warmth and lived in harmony with them. They were of religious importance and as mystical as the rest of the universe. That is not so today.
Am I the bulb that carries the light or am I the light that emanates from the bulb? Our bodies carry our consciousness. The body decays and dies but the consciousness goes on and resurrects or goes to the great meditation. We as humans see the body die and understand that something was there that now isn’t.
Animals have this experience as well but there is no evidence that they have any further thoughts about their companions. I would disagree with this. I think animals do miss their companions. This goes not only for their same species but others as well. A loyal dog looks for his dead master and I have seen animals looking for their dead companions. They understand that they were there and now they are not, but where did they go? These experiences bring us to the idea that there is an invisible plane that supports this visible one.
In this plane there are archetypes that send the food for us to consume. Different groups had different principle animals that provided this, from the buffalo to the salmon to the antelope. This process can be troubling so respect and appeasements were given to these animals. After the death of the animal certain rights have to be done; a ritual act which is recognition of the animals voluntary giving of itself for our continued life. In more modern times we thank god for our bounty. The animal worship was the earliest form of this. And its goal was the resurrection of the animal so that it could come and feed them again.
As this evolved certain animals begin to take on certain powers or personas. They began to play roles in the myths and the people began to desire taking on the animal traits as desirable or they sought out the help of the animal to accomplish something.
Campbell speaks of temple caves where great drawings and depictions were placed. It’s unclear how much of these drawings were intended as art or just the poetic manifestations of a primitive people. A spider making a web produces a beautiful work of art but the spider does not know it’s making an art piece. It’s just expressing its nature. These things equate to our modern day cathedrals where we strive to depict our spiritual natures. The form is secondary to the message.
These places were thought to be places of a rite of passage; to go into the womb of creation and overcome your fear. They are a place to learn to hunt and to become hunters themselves and to learn to respect the animal. To participate in these rituals is to participate in myth itself. For the females nature itself decides when this transformation is to occur through her first menstruation. They take on the powers of Creatrix. The female becomes the vehicle for nature and the male the vehicle of society.
In these societies it is the shaman’s that are the principle keepers and facilitators of these myths. Over the centuries these persons have also evolved into the artists of a society. They have experienced a great event in their lives that have turned them totally inward. A near death experience or great dream or other mystical encounter for example. These shaman a different than a priest because a priest is ordained by a society to carry on rituals in the name of a previously existing deity while the shaman is thrust into that role through a personal experience with their own personal familiar.
Ecstasy is a great part of this. Dance was a great facilitator of this and it is the rare time that men and women are brought together from their otherwise separate roles. In these modern times where ritual and myth has been so severely down played the chaos of our society is the result. Young men and women that don’t know how to behave and don’t feel they belong to anything.
Campbell closes with the story of Black Elk and his realization of the manifestation of Deity. To sit in that most high place is to experience the center of the universe. It is a place around the pole star where motion (time) meets stillness (eternity). We all sit in the very center of that hub. It is where the center of the sphere of Deity is and it experiences to circumference. I have read the book “Black Elk Speaks” and I would highly recommend it to anyone!
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:11:39 GMT
Lesson 1 - Task 4 – Joseph Campbell’s work in Mythology in his Magnum Opus, “Hero with a Thousand Faces”
Part 4 - Sacrifice and Bliss Earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. From death comes life, from sacrifice, myth.
We all need a sacred place; a place that we can disconnect ourselves from the world. This is a major tenant of Paganism and one I practice to a great extent. That place where you can meditate and reflect on the inner self. It’s a place of bliss and of creative incubation. To not have these places invites chaos into your life. For the American Indian the entire universe was their sacred place.
Ancient peoples participated in their environment and it became sacred to them. We have lost this today and because of it we are killing the planet, we are destroying nature and with it ourselves, over very humanity. Part of this evolution was that man found there were other ways to get food than hunting. Going from hunter gather to farmers was a big change in mythologies. To kill an animal meant that animal was dead but when a plant was harvested new sprouts came up. This led to the idea that an individual was not quite and individual.
These same stories pop up again and again in different cultures. Explanations for this include the idea that the human psyche is the same all over the world and those inner reflections are similar because of that or the idea or diffusion where these stories follow traditions and spread organically like that. Myths like John Barleycorn are like this; the cycle of life, death and rebirth. The death of the animal or plant nourishes the living and allows for further life and procreation of the next generation.
When we die in the flesh we are born to our spirit. Life and death are two aspects of the same thing. This duality is reflected in all nature. What shines through behind that is the idea of identity, the one. The sacrifice is the height of this. It can be considered as a great thing. Icons like Jesus celebrating unending life through death. You have to have death in order to have life. The sacrifices of old are the celebration of this idea.
In this dance of life and death a common theme emerges that one will sacrifice themselves for another. With the fact being that self-preservation is our number one priority this seems to be a contradiction that should not exist. Explanation of this could be that at those moments one can forego the previous tenant to sacrifice their life for another because they realize that the two seemingly separate entities are actually one. This temporal reality has not shown the true nature of reality that all life is one thing. These risks put you in touch with the experience of being alive.
These symbols of sacrifice permeate all action. When you sacrifice of yourself in marriage you’re not sacrificing to your spouse but to the relationship. When you enter into the relationship your no longer you but you are the relationship. True bliss comes when we conquer the fear of such things as death and begin to consider them just another aspect of life.
We can have success in different aspects of our life but if we do not follow our spirits and do things we want to do we will never discover our bliss. The marriage vows are a symbolic interpretation of this. I take you in all aspects, you are my bliss. No one can tell you what your bliss is going to be, you just discover it for yourself and once you discover it you need to pursue it relentlessly.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:12:39 GMT
Lesson 1 - Task 5 – Joseph Campbell’s work in Mythology in his Magnum Opus, “Hero with a Thousand Faces”
Part 5 - Love and the Goddess Romantic love is a person to person personal relationship. Other types of love include Eros (cupid or kama-deva), a lustfulness or desire and agape a brotherly love or platonic/spiritual love. In the past typical marriages were arranged by the families. These were typically sanctified by the church. So it was very dangerous to marry outside this system because it was considered heresy and adultery, punishable by death.
The legend of Tristan was a marked deviation from this tradition of arranged marriage. In it a prince is bringing his kings bride to him but they inject a love potion, fall in love and begin an affair. When confronted by this Tristan says he would choose death and even eternal damnation rather than give up this agony of love for his lover. It is the beginning of the idea of personal choice in who you marry.
The courage to love became the courage to stand against tradition. It begins to put the accent on the individual that he should have faith in his experience and not just parrot others. You begin to decide for yourself what life is about. The tale of the Holy Grail becomes one aspect of this. The Grail represents the personal fulfillment of the highest spiritual station in life. Pursuit of this becomes the focus. It is the idea that the impulses of nature are what give authenticity to life and not obeying rules coming from some supernatural authority.
Every act in life has both good and evil results. Every act in life yields pairs of opposites in its results. The best we can do is lean toward the light. The light is the harmonious relationships that come from compassion with suffering. Harm none do what ye will is a Wiccan Creed. I have never ascribed to it and this statement speaks to that I think. There is never a time when we have the ability to “harm none”. The best we can do is harm as few as possible.
It’s been said that God is love. An ancient Muslim text speaks of the idea that Iblis (Muslim name for Satan) was thrown into hell because he love god too much. That he was Gods greatest lover. Satan loved god so much that he could not bear to bow to anyone but god; even when god commanded him to bow to the humans. His punishment for this was to be cast into hell. Hell means to be separate from God. Satan can only sustain himself in hell by the echo of Gods voice commanding him to go. That is the ultimate sign of love. Our greatest hell is to be separated from the one you love.
Another aspect of this love is the Christian idea to love your enemy. The difficulty in this is to love him but still not condone his actions. This is done through not judging him. It goes to the idea that all acts contain both good and evil. From your enemies point of view you are the evil one. We must keep this in mind. I wonder how this equates to acts that are truly evil – something down in pure malice. The question must be asked, who am I to judge that malice? Do we ever have the capacity to judge this? Is it our place?
Campbell moves on from this to discuss Goddess. She is that symbol of life. The female form brings life to humans through birth and so it was natural to associate all creation with the female form. This translates to the earth itself that sustains us as a female form. It naturally equates then that it was the female form that gave birth to the universe from her own body. She represents time and space itself. It is beyond opposite so she becomes the embodiment of all – male and female, all opposite.
All other gods and the elements themselves are born of this Goddess. She represents the formless wisdom that all others are born from. This Goddess was prominent in most ancient agricultural cultures. That is until the wandering nomads began to enter these areas. They became invaders and enforced their will over the lands. At this point the Goddess was slowly displaced by warrior Gods. These warrior gods take over the role of Goddess.
It was not until concepts like the virgin birth came into being that the Goddess asserted any sort of power once again. The Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus was an act of Goddess being put into service for the will of God. Even though Goddess had a role in this she was still subservient to God. All of this symbology is not about the birth of Gods but it is about the birth of ourselves from our animal selves into our spiritual selves. Not only this but in following the cycles of nature in conception, birth, life, death and rebirth. This concept permeates ancient spirituality. All things are a never ending spiral.
The ritual, the priest, the teacher (Mentor/Master) are all designed to give us the clues to these concepts and symbols and enlighten the student to the roadmap of his spiritual life.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 16:13:21 GMT
Lesson 1 - Task 6 – Joseph Campbell’s work in Mythology in his Magnum Opus, “Hero with a Thousand Faces”
Part 6 - Masks of Eternity God is a thought, an idea but its reference is something that transcends being. To know that we do not know perfectly defines the path for me. There are no answers, there is no destination. It is the journey, the exploration of the questions that is important, and in the end, all we will ever be able to accomplish, fore there are no definitive answers. We are the transcendent, we are Goddess.
Myths are just as much masks of God as are the religions of our world. These things are all aspects of the one, the transcendent manifestation of life that is us. There are two major schools of thought in this. One is that God is the source of all energy, the other being that God is a manifestation of this energy. I view this as either God is outside creation or God is creation itself. In these analogies the first leaves God disconnected and cold. The second is one of a nurturing loving mother figure who is manifest as the universe and has brought forth life to experience herself.
In the end these are all just personifications of the energy we experience. These Gods and Myths are crude descriptions of something transcendent we experience in consciousness. God and the Devil are internal personifications of the conflicting thoughts and desires within us. A deity is a representation of an energy system.
One of the most powerful religious symbols is the circle. It is the center from which you have come and that which you must eventually go. More than this it is the implication of the spiral within that circle that is significant. The spiral represents the path to and from that center in a never ending path upwards. We repeat the same things over and over and yet they are different each time. The Wheel of the year is a classic example of this. It is the cycle of time. The cycle of Birth, life, death and rebirth encompass this idea as well.
The idea that certain concepts such as the circle of other spiritual practices emerge in totally separate cultures speaks to the idea that there is something in the human psyche that binds us in a most fundamental way. Jung called these concepts Archetypes. These are expressions of the structure of the human psyche and they transcend culture and time. Every human possesses these archetypes and these include not only manifestations of male and female within (balance) but also the hero.
These ideas are manifested in the birth of our spiritual lives. This “birth” is the awakening of the religious experience. This quest can go on to the experience of the mystery, which I think is a deeper experience than the religious one. The religious one is steeped in dogma, the mystery one is to experience the divine within. It can’t be quantified and it can’t be explained with language. This experience begins the journey of the exploration of self and the questions of the universe.
This path can lead to peak experiences or epiphanies. Those times in your life where you feel something has come through and you have grasped the meaning behind a question or a spiritual concept, even if only for a moment. It’s an experience of being fully in ourselves and accomplishing a perfect performance. It’s a sense of being a part of the whole and integrating into that in perfect order. These things can manifest as something of unbounded beauty or unimaginable sublime or monstrous power. If you are open to deity then you can experience these as bliss. If you are not and deity must forcefully open the ego it can manifest as a horrible experience. Both these experiences are valuable however.
Humans seem to have an innate need to want to live forever. It may be not so much that they want to love forever in this corporeal time stream but instead exist in that forever place of timeless eternity. We strive to return to that place from whence we came. When we can come to the understanding that our lives are driven by our will and structured as part of a grand intricate symphony that interacts with all other life then we come to the realization that we do exist in eternity. When we are gone the effect we had on other lives remains. And those influences continue to drive the will of the being that you were while in this world. The effects of our very simple existence ripple out through time into eternity.
Once again the idea comes through that it’s not the destination that counts, it’s the journey.
NOTE: The Tibetan monks sing a chant of aum. This is the cosmic sound of the universe. – A 4 element sound that is our lives. The ah –oo –mm – the birth, coming into being and the disillusionment. The forth element is the silence out of which it comes and back into which it goes. This is inception, birth, life, death.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:00:09 GMT
Lesson 1 - Bonus Material • The Mythology of Star Wars (1987) with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell (audio) • The Mythology of Star Wars (1999) with Bill Moyers and George Lucas (text) • The World of Joseph Campbell (video)
Lesson 1 – Bonus Material - Myth A question I think we all ask ourselves is “If the Jedi were a real part of our world would I be one of them?” That is the question we all wonder about - Am I capable of heroic acts or is that something not in my character? Am I the hero of my own story or do I need rescuing? Worse yet, am I one that refuses the journey out of fear and allows great harm and suffering to come to others… and in the end myself?
There are no great orders in our society that wield magical powers and protect the galaxy. But none the less we do have organizations in our midst whose members we admire and aspire to be like. Two prominent examples of our societies “Jedi Orders” might include groups like the Astronaut Corps or the Marine Corps. These are small elite groups of men and women that challenge themselves physically and mentally, face down danger, take chances, push envelopes and protect our world. They sacrifice a lot to be in the service of something greater than themselves and not many meet the challenge to be accepted into their orders.
The men and women in these brotherhoods don’t consider themselves to be on the hero’s journey. They do what they do for the man or woman next to them or because of an internally perceived higher calling or for humanity at large. However to an outsider they are absolutely perceived as those larger than life figures worthy to be called hero; they are the very substance of legend. But organizations such as these are not the only path to the hero’s journey. We each are presented with challenges every day that we must decide to either face or run from.
The question you must ask yourself is this. If you could step outside yourself and see your life from the point of view of a stranger, have you ever accepted the challenge to become part of something greater than yourself? Have you ever tested yourself to conquer a goal you felt might be beyond your capability; something that would put you on that hero’s path? No matter whether you succeeded or failed, have you taken that chance, left your comfort zone and put yourself out there? If not, I dare say you have failed to thrive in this life.
These archetypal figures and great undertakings and noble sacrifices are something that we as humans find deeply meaningful. To aspire to be on this journey and the reverence for those on the path capture our imagination and enthrall us in wonder. It seems to be in our very nature to find a fascination in these great feats of courage, selflessness and sacrifice.
We hold them in the highest regard and yet we fail to see them in ourselves. Even when we are in the midst of these experiences we still perceive them as something beyond our capabilities or “something that others achieve”. We need to learn to shed the fear of failure and recognize the greatness in ourselves. This is what allows us to step onto the path of the hero no matter whether that path is going into space or taking that Calculus college class.
It is the very essence of these myths and stories that facilitate the birth of religions. The problem is that people forget these ideas and begin to focus on the dogma, not the deeper hidden meanings in the message. Christ preached peace and love, yet Christians have killed and hated in his name for centuries. Other religions are the same. To die for a metaphor just makes no sense to me. Any time a religious ideal leads to violence in any form it has been corrupted. They have missed the point of the thing they aspire to.
Out of fear they have chosen the dark path. It only leads to suffering, the evidence of which is everywhere in this world. I hope one day we can shed these dogmatic religions and find our spiritual balance of peace and harmony within and without. This is not to say that I ever expect the world to be a perfect place; just one where we don’t kill each other over meaningless posturing. We need strife and loss and suffering and a challenge in order to grow. In this idea we are already perfect in our imperfection.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:07:40 GMT
Lesson 2: The Self Please watch, listen or read the material 'The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, by Alan Watts' and write a few paragraphs on your understanding of the content of each chapter and what the message or purpose of the material is. Each chapter must be discussed separately so we advise that you write up your response to each part first before going onto the next one. We strongly suggest you make notes as you go along. Alan Watts - The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are A study aid to assist in your understanding of The Book: Alan Watts - The Book: Extracts
Lesson 2 – Chapter 1 – The Self
The Book – Inside Information This book starts out speaking of something I am intimately familiar with. This is the idea that someone somewhere has all the answers and I just need to find that person and get them to teach those answers to me. You can find a myriad of people that will claim they have the special knowledge and for one price or another they can teach it to you. It has taken me a long time and several Masters to finally realize that no one has these answers, that in fact there are no answers, only the questions.
Anything we ‘know’ about our existence we can never know with perfect or absolute certainty. The best we can do is to make objective assumptions based on consensus as a species. We agree upon the assumption that the physical universe around us exists based on a shared collection of evidence. We also assume that we as beings in this universe can learn something about this place we exist in. Because we are forced to make these basic assumptions we have to accept the fact that we are actually really only exploring the reflection of absolute reality; that we in our corporeal state can never experience absolute true reality.
But that still does not keep us from searching. It’s in our inherent nature to seek the mysteries of the universe out. In the process of exploration we come to conclusions and we write mythologies and religious doctrines around those conclusions. These are forms of expression that we can use to commonly discuss these things. It’s a way to bind us together so we can speak a common language. The problem in this is that we begin to take these dogmas as fact. We begin to worship the doctrine and we forget about the pursuit of the question. In our hubris we decide that we have discovered true reality when in fact this is impossible.
We can only ever know that we exist in some form. It does not matter whether that existence is in the form of a blob of energy on a rock in space or the dream of another. Each of these realities has a central binding theme; that we are connected. In fact any reality we can comprehend leads us to the idea that somehow we are all actually one. We may never know what ultimate form this might take but that is not important. All that we need to know is that we are.
It is my wife that was finally able to lead me to this simple truth; that our most important pursuit is to know ourselves and to truly understand our greater connection. That no one else can tell you these things. They are within each of us. To discover that place in ourselves where we can experience the body falling away so that we may see ourselves for what we truly are. The book speaks of each of us being a nerve ending in a massive nervous system. We are each a conduit for the “transcendent whole” to experience the feeling of being alive. I call this the will of the universe to experience itself. That is what we are, the consciousness of the universe.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:09:29 GMT
Lesson 2 – Chapter 2 – The Self
The Book – The Game of Black and White For me Chapter 2 was all about the concept of Good VS Evil. The book speaks about the idea that what we consider opposites are not really that at all. They are really two aspects of the same thing. Black and white are connected just as the crest of a wave is connected to the trough. You can’t have one without the other. It leads us to the idea that all things are connected. It follows then that we cannot have good without having evil. They are intrinsically connected. Because of this the attributes we assign to them may be as arbitrary as the idea that they are separate things. Good and evil are relative - one person’s good is another person’s evil. We as humans also possess varying combinations of both of these qualities. From our perspective we are a combination of desirable and non-desirable qualities. So what do we really mean when we use these simplistic terms, good and evil? Good qualities all stem from our sense of empathy. These virtues could include a lack of self-centeredness, compassion, altruism, selflessness, benevolence. They manifest themselves in many forms such as putting another’s needs before your own, sacrificing your own well-being for the sake of others, or self-sacrifice towards a greater cause. It means being able to see beyond the superficial differences and relate to a common human essence beneath them. Evil, on the other hand, would be the inability to empathize with others. As a result their own needs and desires become of principal importance. They are selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic. In fact, other people only have value for them to the extent that they can help them satisfy their own desires. They find a means to an end in the exploitation of others. They can’t sense other people’s emotions or their suffering and they are not able to see the world from another’s perspective. Others beings become just objects to them. It makes them brutal and cruel. Most of us lie somewhere between these two extremes. We may behave badly at times when egocentric impulses cause us to put our needs before the welfare of others. This happens when we are broken off from one another into disconnected fragments, unable to sense each other. Other times we behave in a virtuous fashion, when empathy and compassion impel us to put the needs of others before our own, resulting in altruism and kindness. Our empathy is a quality that can be cultivated as we practice meditation and mindfulness and focus less on materialism. Through these vehicles we become more open to ourselves and thus more connected to others. The problem lies in humanities idea that we need to eradicate one behavior in favor of the other. While it is true that we have a desire to cultivate the empathy within us we must understand that our empathy would not exist if not for our psychopathic tendencies. So to suppress one aspect of ourselves is to suppress our entire self. The key to harmony is balance. We must acknowledge the darkness in ourselves and balance that with the light. Use it to our advantage and not ignore it or push it down. To do so only invites chaos. So called dark traits such as aggression, lust, envy and anger when channeled correctly and balanced with their positive aspects can be powerful tools in our lives. We just need to recognize them for what they are and not let them rule us.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:10:05 GMT
Lesson 2 – Chapter 3 – The Self
The Book – How to be a Genuine Fake This chapter of the book really begins to get into the idea that we are all really just one thing. Our concept of ego existing as a separate thing within our bodies is an illusion. We are not separate entities that emerge into this world and reside for a time within a “bag of skin”. This is an incorrect way to view things because any one thing is inseparable from the whole. The only real “you” or “self” is the whole.
Alan then goes on to explain how this hoax of separateness begins. It has to do with how people experience their own existence. People express their existence as a function of parts. They say I have a body, not I am a body. “I” refers to a place in the body which is a driver of function of the body. This component is commonly called the soul or ego. It is almost universally agreed upon that “I” is nothingness outside of the body; that the skin is the boundary of “I”.
We perceive the world and the universe for that matter as a collection of pieces and parts that we can identify, quantify and organize. This brings order to what we see as an otherwise chaotic mess. In fact we use this very same process for every process of our lives from naming galaxies to planning cities to creating a grocery list. But all these collections are really just an image. It’s only a way of thinking about the world but it does not necessarily reflect the true nature of the world. Our world is never actually divided.
Another way we have learned to look at the world is as so many forms of substances. Things created from substances such as the idea that the body is created out of or from the soul. This has led to puzzle of figuring out how energy affects matter? How has this matter come to orderly forms? What is the relationship between mind and body? Alan says these are the wrong questions. In fact these are not separate process but we treat them as such and then forget we did that and then puzzle as to how it all works.
We have never discovered any formless matter (matter without energy) or immaterial form (energy without matter). We need to understand that the world is neither made of form nor matter. These are two clumsy terms for the same process called existence. This idea has led to the great mystery of how formlessness can organize itself and so we come to the conclusion that an outside force in the form of a conscious spirit must have assembled it. This is the crack-pot model. God is the one that created existence and he is the one responsible for creating the stuff from which it is made.
In this model the concept of evil becomes an issue. If a perfect being created this existence why is there evil? Since it could not have come from God it must have arisen from the model itself. And so the concept of a personal God comes into existence; one that is a counter balance for the evil in the world and gives us purpose. He has planned an everlasting life of bliss as a reward for this existence but there are strings attached to this for those who purposely deny or disobey his divine will shall suffer eternities in an equivalent agony. In the end we must come to realize that this hypothesis of God is of no help in describing or predicting the course of nature.
This leads to the fully automatic model. The idea that possibly God created the world and then went away or that the universe constructed itself quite by accident. But what then holds this creation together and keeps it functioning at it does. If energy and matter or not aware of itself how could this self-organization happen?
What we need to become aware of is that neither of these models accurately reflects existence or reality. We perceive the universe as bits of matter but to study these bits and come to the above conclusions is not the way we should be going about this process. Eastern philosophies have understood this for centuries. They don’t see the whole of the cosmos as a collection of separate beings that all floated together and became the universe. They see it as one being.
The universe is an eternal process of one being. The very forces and laws of nature are a form of intelligence just as we perceive our own minds to be. We have been sold on having a completely flawed sense of who we are. Our society instills the conviction that beyond our wall of flesh there is an alien world when in actuality there is no other “I” than the entire universe.
We are not in the universe but of it. We need to see ourselves as one particular focal point at which the whole of the universe expresses itself. Every individual is a unique manifestation of the whole but that does not lessen our connection to everything else. And in this the process without the transmutation of all forms of life in birth and death the universe would be a static and rhythm less dead thing.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:10:56 GMT
Lesson 2 – Chapter 4 – The Self
The Book – The World is Your Body If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? This seems to be the premise of this chapter. Alan reiterates the point that how we commonly perceive ourselves, as a separate entity from the universe, is a fiction. We use these fictions about reality simply as a common way to communicate to one another about the world. But we should not confuse this fiction with the reality of what we truly are.
We know the world in terms of the body and in accordance with its structure. This is interpreted through our nervous system and brain. And without “brain”, some brain, to interpret the world, it is void of all corporeal manifestations. Heat, light, space, time are all just interactions of vibrations with a specific arrangement of neurons we call brain. These corporeal manifestations do not actually become anything until they interact with a living organism. This is the same idea that a light beam does not exist until it is reflected through particles of dust. It takes both sides of this interaction for the phenomenon to exist.
So the external world works in conjunction with a life form to observe it just as a back goes with a front. One cannot exist without the other. How would there be light if there were no eyes? How would vibrations in the air be sound if there were no ears? It’s only in relation to eyes that there is light and it’s only in relation to ears that there is sound. The way we are constituted, the way we are formed calls into being the phenomena of light or sound.
The relationship between an organism and its environment is mutual. Neither one is the cause or determinate of the other since one cannot exist without the other. Their relationship is reciprocal. So the question put forth by this is “Did the universe exist before there was life”? If there was universe before life does this reduce the universe to mere extrapolation of what would have happened if it had been observed? A better conclusion becomes the idea that because every organism evokes its own environment it must be reciprocated with the idea that the total environment evokes the organism.
This leads to the conclusion that the universe would not have created itself unless it was going to include organisms just as the current in an electrical circuit will not flow unless both the positive and negative ends are terminated. This is a fascinating concept in and of itself. I heard many times over the years people commenting on how improbable it is that life “accidentally” emerged on this planet; that the probability for evolution to have happened the way it did is astronomical without some intelligent designer guiding it all.
I have always intuitively felt this to be wrong. Life was not “put here” or some random accident but an integral and necessary part of the very fabric of the universe itself. It could not help but exist because without it the universe would not exist. The concept of life served as valid a function and was organized according to as important a force as gravity or electromagnetism. Alan does a wonderful job of solidifying this concept I have always felt to be the true nature of life in this chapter!
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:11:25 GMT
Lesson 2 – Chapter 5 – The Self
The Book – So What Alan then asks the question so what? To come to the realization of a new vision or new way of looking at our existential lives, what good does it do in practical reality? For some, especially those practicing eastern forms of spirituality, this is not such an issue but for others that have been the most deeply indoctrinated into the mythology of the world of separate objects this is a much harder dilemma to overcome.
Each person sees themselves as a separate ego. But the separate person is incapable of pleasure and contentment. Instead they live perpetually on hope, looking only towards tomorrow. They become so enthralled in their compartmentalized rituals that they cannot see the true nature of things around them. Expectations are most often less satisfying than what they promise. They miss the fact that it is the simple truths of life that are important.
But this compartmentalized ego trick is a hoax. We need to come to the understanding that the individual and the universe are actually one. In doing this we can shed expectation and we can become capable of enjoyment. We can live in the moment. We can begin to focus on our awareness. Enhance our consciousness to truly begin to experience this oneness. It will not come by force of will. This only leads to hypocrisy. This would be a spiritual form of Pascal’s Wager.
But in this pursuit the question becomes how do we get to that place of oneness when we are constantly bombarded with the corporeal experience of separateness and compartmentalization? There seem to be a myriad of solutions that one will offer to you to accomplish this; everything from religion, to drugs to hypnosis. But the more we strive to find some "master" teacher or method to attain this thing the more we fall into the ego game. It seems we can’t find the solution in a technique or a process or in another. There is one other possibility however.
When you come to the point that you understand that your idea of yourself is a delusion we do nothing about it. So then what follows? The only thing that can follow is to just observe what is going on. Become aware of yourself and your surroundings. Watch people and nature and begin to feel that flow of oneness. The process of the ebb and flow of energy is such that it does not need anyone to govern it. It does not need something separate from itself to make it do what it does. We are all part of that energy flow. When you truly begin to see this idea that we are the stream; that in fact everything in existence is also the stream this idea of a separate ego that functions somewhere outside that flow becomes meaningless. You can begin to feel yourself as the whole process and pattern of life. Experience and experiencer become one.
It takes one facing the feeling of separateness and accepting it for what it is to cause this sensation to dissolve. Like an onion the layers will peel away only to reveal nothing at the center. A new sensation of self will emerge from this experience. A sense of being the whole, that the world outside your skin is just as much you as inside the skin. You become the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view. The universe experiencing itself, you are the universe and the universe is you. It expands our awareness of our own existence an uncounted fold. We experience ourselves in a way that I refer to “as Goddess”.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:12:17 GMT
Lesson 2 – Chapter 6 – The Self
The Book – It In chapter six I cannot help but think of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. To phrase that theorem in terms of reality I think it would go something like this:
If we have a set of truths which we can list individually, and these truths are sufficient to develop the basic laws of reality or existence, then our list of truths cannot be both consistent and complete. In other words, if our truths are consistent then in every model of these truths there is a statement which is true but not provable. Basically this means the actual truth of our existence can only be believed and never proven. If it could be completely proven it would not be coherent or comprehensible.
Because we can always ask one more question, why, we can never prove anything without a doubt. Instead we are forced to accept some “truths” as obviously correct, or we just assume they are correct and from there we see what happens. These are the "rules of deduction" that let us take some stuff, which we perceive as true, and deduce some other stuff, which is then also true, if the original rules are any good.
We perceive the world as a vast array of pieces and parts. But when you take the whole of those pieces and parts what is there outside of that? Where did the pieces and the “outsideness” beyond that come from? Where are they going? What happens to them after that? Why? Because we perceive the world in these pieces we think of everything as having an inside and an outside. But this is a never ending regression when it comes to existence itself. We could go on forever asking ourselves; “What is there outside of that”?
We must finally come to some epiphany of understanding that what we perceive as pieces each possessing an inside and an outside is not actually reality at all. That at some point the lines of “this and that” and polar opposites break down and no longer function. This is a concept that is beyond our imagination since we live in a world where we only experience things as “black or white” but never both at the same time.
We must come to the basic truth that somewhere in this regression, the illusion of “pieces and parts” and “this and that” and “black and white” cease to exist. At this moment we realize that we are truly one thing. We are the universe, we are Goddess and Goddess is us. The reality of components we perceive is but an illusion and what stands behind that illusion is something we can never know or experience or even comprehend. The best we can hope for is a glimpse into this eternal truth of existence.
Many will never be bothered to look behind the curtain and take on the challenge of exploring this idea. But for those of us that dare to step into the void we will come away as different people, changed forever by the boggle of it all. We will see our fellow life forms in a new way and come to realize our own glory as we see the glory in them. We are everything and we are nothing at the same time, but while we enjoy this particular blink of manifestation in fleshy form we should do all we can to make the ride enjoyable for ourselves and others. After all, it is not “we” that exist, it is “I” and I am everything.
NOTE: What lies beyond opposites must be discussed in terms of opposites, specifically by using tools such as analogy, metaphor, and myth. Myth exists to communicate ideas not possibly known directly to the mind. Although “the singularity” beyond opposites is beyond description, it is not without features.
|
|
|
Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 13, 2018 17:15:49 GMT
Lesson 3: Meditation To complete this lesson ('Meditation') please complete either the part entitled 'Alan Watts Teaches Meditation' or the part entitled 'Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Beginning of Meditation'. You may do both parts if you wish but only completing one part is required for completing the lesson.
Alan Watts Teaches Meditation Please listen to the material 'Meditation by Alan Watts' and write a few paragraphs on your understanding of the content and what the message or purpose of the material is. We strongly suggest you make notes as you go along. Alan Watts - Meditation
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Beginning of Meditation Please listen to the material 'Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Beginning of Meditation' and write a few paragraphs on your understanding of the content and what the message or purpose of the material is We strongly suggest you make notes as you go along. Jiddu Krishnamurti - Meditation
Lesson 3 – Alan Watts and Jiddu Krishnamurti - Meditation
I went ahead and did both versions to contrast and compare them. Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Beginning of Meditation Quite frankly I found Jiddu very condescending and his rambling manner incoherent at times. His constant weird way of asking, “Does anyone understand”? “Is anyone getting this”? really put me off. However that is not to say that I did not get some epiphanies from his teaching.
Beyond that the main points of what he was saying are that meditation is not about prayer. It’s a completely different thing. We don’t meditate to ask for things. It’s not about focusing our will on a task or a goal. It’s about putting our minds in a state outside of time; peeling the layers of normal reality and life away until there is nothing left but the mind and thought.
Thought comes from memory which is experience. Thought is responsible for the most amazing things in our reality. It has created amazing technologies and invention. However thought is also responsible for the most devastating destructions as well. All wars are a product of thought. Beyond these things thought has created the psychological structure of “Self”. Thought has packaged all our desires, emotions, fears and experiences into a separate entity that we call “Me”. This is our consciousness. This is a result of time.
The beginning of meditation is a place where we can shed all these layers. Our layers or consciousness, what we did yesterday, what we’re going to do tomorrow, our joys, our hurts, fears, pain, anger and aggressions we need to peel away until we can reach a place where there is no time. We need to empty the contents of our consciousness that have been built up through time.
The question he then asks is if it’s possible to disconnect ourselves from all these things; to end our wounds or physiological hurts? We need take these things investigate the source of them and realize the wound is the image you have about yourself and then end that image. We can’t take these things one at a time but we must do this out of time with all of them at once.
If we are willing to go deep enough into ourselves we will be able to see the entirety of our consciousness which is made up of the content of everything we experience in our lives through time. When we are able to do that it disintegrates in an instant. We have an instant perception of the nature of consciousness and this in itself dissolves the problem.
We are obsessed with measure or comparison; I’m tall, I’m short, I must be different than I am. These are all forms of control and they move into our psychological field. We measure ourselves against others and decide we need or want to be like that. Measurement is the movement of form. We need to put ourselves in a place where measurement disappears.
We try to make ourselves stop thinking but this is an artificial standard. We can’t force ourselves to stop thinking. We may get away with it for a few seconds but then we think “ah I did not think for a few seconds” and then we are back in time again. Instead we must empty the content of our consciousness. It is a place of totally anomininity and humility.
Innocence is a brain that has never been wounded. To be holy is to be untouched by form. We as conscious beings make many things sacred through forms. Our religions, and museums and locations we make sacred, but they are not holy. Only the deep silence of formlessness is holy.
Alan Watts Teaches Meditation We need to come to the understanding that there is reality and then there are our perceptions of reality. We describe reality with symbols but we must not confuse those symbols with reality itself. In the real world there are no things or no events. It is a marvelous system of “wiggles” that we use symbols to describe. The difference between us and our environment is nothing more than an idea. It is not a real difference. We only use the concept of parts to describe our reality but reality itself has no name. It is ohm or mu.
Meditation is the way in which we come to feel our inseparability from the whole universe. We talk to ourselves constantly in a process we call thinking. What meditation requires is that we “shut up”. Meditation is not a goal. In this sense there is no “reason” for it. It is the journey of meditation that is important not the goal of its purpose. It teaches us that the point of life is what we are experiencing in the moment. Meditation has no purpose other than to be totally and completely in the “now”. The future and the past fall away. They simply do not exist except as an idea or a thought in our mind.
We should not meditate to improve our minds or character or to be more efficient you have your focus on the future and you are not meditating. It is not a task to be performed to make ourselves better, it is just a way to enjoy the “now” that we constantly experience. This puts us into a state of peace. The past is a memory and the future is an expectation. Neither really exists. We exist only in the now.
We begin the meditation by simply listening to all the sounds around us. This will not stop our thoughts altogether but instead of trying to push those thoughts out take them in as part of the sound you are listening to. Just let your mind go where it wants. By doing this you can begin to merge the outside and inside worlds. Everything becomes a happening that you are simply watching.
We can then use our senses to take us deeper. A constant sound helps us to quiet the chatter of the mind; music or a gong or chanting. One of our most powerful senses is smell so we can use a smell to help put us in a meditative state. Incense for example, works well. If we use it during meditation many times we begin to associate the smell with the state and it helps us to achieve that state. Beads can be used to time yourself. Move one bead for each breath. Let your senses wander as they will. Sit on the ground with an erect back to give us a feeling of grounding. Relax but remain just uncomfortable enough to keep from going to sleep.
As this is happening we begin to focus on our breathing. Breathing is both a voluntary conscious process and an involuntary subconscious process. This makes breathe a very important part of meditation because we can take both those aspects and begin to realize they are really one thing. Everything is happening to you and you are causing everything to happen at the same time. Our eyes cause the light of the sun for example. It takes both aspects, sun and eyes, for light to exist.
Slowly you will begin to notice that your breath becomes regular and deep. You get the sensation that it is falling in and out of you. Go with that sensation and focus on it. Take in regular deep breaths, hold them for a moment and then release them. Just be aware of what is and focus on nothing else. We can then begin to use a gong or mantra along with our breath. Ohm, the sound of the universe works well for this but there are many others. The point in these chants is not what it means but how it feels.
We must come to the idea that we cannot control our mind. That even the want to desire nothing is a desire in itself. We have to take it a step further to realize there is no controller. The thinker of thoughts is actually just one of the thoughts. An object can’t put anything into action. When we say I am feeling, what we really mean is there is feeling here. There is no feeler of the emotion, it just is. It exists naturally in nature without the need of a feeler.
Reality is not physical nor is it spiritual. These are just ideas. Reality is the sound of the gong. It is the indescribable and we live in the eternal now. There is no future or past. When we come to this place it is a deeper silence and we begin to see no difference between ourselves and the rest of reality. Those things are just ideas. We are the universe and others actions are our actions.
I love Alan’s comments here. He says that if we are not theologically sophisticated we may come to the idea that we are god. This is what happened to Jesus! He only had an Old Testament view of God as a monarchical boss. And you just can’t go around and tell everyone you’re the boss’s son. If you’re going to say you are God you must allow this for everyone else as well.
He then brings up the point that the transformation of human consciousness through meditation is frustrated so long as we think of in terms of something that I, myself, can bring about by some sort of process or gimmick or trick. This only leads to spiritual one-up-man-ship’ “I’m more aware of myself than you are”, “I’m more spiritually evolved than you are”. It was this exact notion that ended my relationship with my last master. He was a consummate narcissist in this idea.
I this process we get a glimpse of the fact that we are creating the universe in every moment. There is no future or past but like a ship cutting through the water we are forging forward in the moment and creating a wake of the past that trails behind and then disappears. We begin to take responsibility for ourselves. No longer can we blame others for who we are or for us being the way we are. We are everything and we are responsible for who and how we are. We can’t blame anyone else for the kind of world we are in and because of this fact no one else owes us anything either!
The Ancients left rice for ants and did not light lamps out of sympathy for moths. I think this is the most basic form of respect for all life and it’s something I do in my own spiritual practice. The last act of ritual is always a symbolic offering of food and drink to Goddess, nature and the life and spirits that dwell there.
|
|