Perception and Enlightenment

Enlightenment (or awakening) means to emerge from a state of unconsciousness—a state of ignorance. The world isn’t anything like what most people think it is, and nearly everything we perceive on this side of the abyss is an illusion—or, more accurately, layers upon layers of illusion. Some of that perception is due to the limitations of our physical senses, but much of it is based on lies and misdirection crafted by people with vested interest in keeping humanity unaware or even unconscious. When we cross the abyss, we see through all of this and look upon reality with the clear sight of our infinite, true nature. It’s not an intellectual process. It’s not something we can get by reading or thinking about it. We experience enlightenment directly, and only because we have completely refined our consciousness.

Damien Echols. Angels & Archangels

Beltane and the Lovers

Since today is Beltane, I thought I would share my thoughts on a short essay published in Llewellyn’s Witches’ Datebook 2020.

Beltane is the celebration of union and fertility, a symbolic wedding of the God and Goddess. During this holiday, we celebrate the things that delight our hearts as well as our bodies. We do things for the joy of them and not out of obligation or any other unhealthy reasons. The Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine join to create the Great Divine. In the Lovers card, some see a man and woman’s union blessed by a higher being. Another way to see it is that their union creates the presence of the Divine. While the Lovers card does suggest passion, sex, and romance, it is, at its root, about the joy and beauty of choosing wisely. In particular, it represents the act of choosing that which most satisfies the heart. Connect with this card to remember that it isn’t that the Divine has a “plan” for you but that you, through your choices, help create how the Divine is expressed in the physical world. When we realize that, we realize that we have so much power, and consequently, so much responsibility.

(Barbara Moore)

I am a firm believer that the Divine One is a dyad consisting of masculine and feminine. I would go so far as to assert that this concept is supported by Judeo-Christian text. If you read Genesis closely, God creates man in his image, which is both male and female: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:26-28 King James Version)

Now, I have to stop myself before I get too deep into theological discussion, because that is not really what I wanted to focus on. I do want to call attention to what Ms. Moore asserts at the end of her essay: “… you, through your choices, help create how the Divine is expressed in the physical world.” This statement is a truth that cannot be overemphasized. Every act that we engage in—in fact, every thought we have—directly impacts our reality. Nothing that we do is trivial. Everything is of great consequence. I try my best to remain mindful of this fact at all times, understanding that each choice I make has far-reaching implications and should be treated as such. Just my decision to write this blog post instead of watching Netflix affects the world, in the same way that your decision to read this also will have an impact on our reality.

Having said that, I hope you will take some time to consider what is important and what is not. These weird times have caused many of us to reevaluate what we should focus on and what is a waste of time and energy. Our days are limited in this incarnation. Don’t waste a moment.

Many blessings.

Thoughts on “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse

I originally read this book as a teenager and figured it was high time I read it again. It made an impression on me all those years ago, but I knew that reading it at this stage in my life would be a completely different experience.

So now I face the problem of writing a post about this book. This text is so rich, and there is such a wealth of wisdom contained in its 149 pages, how could I possibly do this book justice? But as I begin writing, I realize that it doesn’t really matter what I write. This book transcends anything I could possibly say about it. It will resonate differently for each person who reads it, based upon where they are on their individual paths. So I will just share what resonated with me during this reading.

He saw people going through their lives in the manner of a child or an animal, and he both loved and disdained this at the same time. He saw them striving—and suffering and getting gray—over things that seemed to him completely unworthy of this price: over money, over small pleasures, over a little respect.

(p. 71)

How many of us have wasted much of our lives chasing after these types of things, distractions that only offer us a brief respite from our unhappiness? And then, once the novelty has worn off, the void returns and we continue the dismal cycle of striving after things that we think will bring us happiness, but only cause more suffering. It seems that we are all destined to go through this to some extent. I certainly did for a while, and if I am honest, I still do, although thankfully to a lesser extent. I still seek and enjoy my “small pleasures”: books, music, good food, etc. But I try to keep this in perspective and not let it become the focus of my life. There is so much more to experience, and what feels like precious little time left. I refuse to waste any more time chasing phantoms, trying to acquire things that in the end will mean nothing to me.

But what a journey that was! I had to pass through so much ignorance, so much vice, such great misunderstanding, so much revulsion and disappointment and misery—just to become a child again and start over. But it was right. My heart affirms it. My eyes laugh upon it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the level of the stupidest of all thoughts, the thought of suicide, in order to be able to experience grace, to hear OM again, to sleep properly and be able to awaken properly.

(pp. 95 – 96)

Spiritual growth and enlightenment is not a result of denying and rejecting the material world. One is graced with spiritual enlightenment as a result of going through the challenges and difficulties that life presents. When I look back on my life, I went through a lot of hard times, a lot of pain, and a lot of deep despair. But had I not gone through it all, I would not be the person I am today. We do not grow as individuals through ease and comfort. It is adversity and difficulty that forces us to search deep within ourselves for the strength to take another step. It is through learning to deal with life’s challenges that we gain wisdom. After all, we are spiritual beings having a worldly experience.

No, a true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could not accept any doctrine. But he who had found realization could look with favor on any teaching, any path, any goal. Nothing any longer separated him from a thousand others who lived the eternal, who breathed the divine.

(p. 109)

Everyone must follow their own path, and all true spiritual paths lead to the same destination. We seek the same thing. We all need to encourage others to follow their paths, and not come from a place of fear where we need to argue the validity of our own paths. Judging others because of the spiritual paths they choose does not strengthen our individual faith; it only diminishes someone else’s and makes their journey more difficult than it need be.

I’m really glad I read this again. This is one of those universal books which every human being should read, at least once. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my words. May you find happiness on your journey.

Spring Equinox: Ostara and Temperance

Today is the Spring Equinox, symbolic of balance and rebirth, themes that seem even more important as we grapple with the rapid changes that COVID-19 is bringing to our world. Anyway, after my morning meditation and journal writing, I read a short essay entitled “Ostara and Temperance” published in Llewellyn’s Witches’ Datebook 2020, and figured I would share part of it in today’s post.

At Ostara, the Goddess returns from the underworld, bringing with her a celebration of miracles, spring, new life, and balance. The Temperance tarot card beautifully represents these themes. Birth is considered a kind of miracle, a mixing of life and death (for the minute anything is born, it begins to die) that creates our experience on this planet. The angel in Temperance holds two cups, their liquid blending at a scientifically impossible angle, representing an alchemical mystery. Although equinoxes represent balance, and at this time life and light are becoming stronger than death and darkness, each equinox contains the seed of its opposite. Like an eggshell—which is strong enough to protect new life but at the right moment is weak enough to be broken through—something is destroyed and the old existence of the newly born creature dies.

(Barbara Moore)

For me, it is evident that our old way of life has cracked like a fragile eggshell, and is dying to make way for something new. It is a scary time, because all birth and all things new are scary. None of us can envision what our new world will look like. But clearly, our consumer-driven capitalist society is the thing that is actually dying right now as a result of this virus. That said, we all have a role in manifesting what will rise from these ashes. It is crucial that we nurture the new growth, and not let fear and self-centeredness dictate our actions in the coming days.

Have a blessed Equinox, and may you be a conscious participant in the change to come.

Thoughts on “The Impact of Awakening” by Adyashanti

I have been meditating on a daily basis for about three years now, and as part of my practice, I’ve been reading more books and listening to podcasts that are supportive of my practice. I had heard the name Adyashanti mentioned in some podcasts and when I was unpacking all our books, noticed this one. I asked my wife about it, since I had not bought it, and she said that she read it and that I would enjoy reading it too.

The short book teaches some profound Zen Buddhist concepts through dialogue, where the student is asking questions of Adyashanti, and the teacher conveys his wisdom through the responses. The format works really well, and it does not seem contrived, as is often the case with this style of writing.

While there is a lot of wisdom in these pages, and I encourage you to explore on your own if you have an interest, I figured I would share a couple passages that resonated particularly deeply for me.

If you choose Freedom, life will become magical. The life you’ll step into is one in which the Self is in hidden agreement with your humanness. The Self begins to harmonize with your life, and it may proceed in a way that you could never have predicted. The magical part is that the more you let go, the better it feels. The more you step into insecurity, the more you notice how secure and safe it is. Where you stepped out of was unsafe. Everyone is so miserable because they seek security in things that are always moving and changing unpredictably.

(p. 21)

We all want to feel secure, because we are conditioned to believe that this will increase our happiness. The problem is, as Adyashanti points out, is that we seek security in things that are ever changing. Relationships, jobs, money, etc. Like everything else in the universe, these are changing all the time. If we can loosen our grip on these things, and not rely on them for our happiness, then we are sparing ourselves from a world of anxiety and stress. It is freeing to embrace the uncertainty which is life.

The other passage I want to share is somewhat long, but I feel is incredibly important for anyone practicing meditation.

True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited, impermanent, and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial consciousness.

True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not fixated on objects of perception. When you first start to meditate you notice that awareness is always focused on objects: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets what it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.

In true meditation, all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation, the emphasis in on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness, consciousness, is the source in which all objects arise and subside.

(p. 25)

This reminds me of the famous quote by William Blake: If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. Our minds construct our realities, based upon our trained conditioning. It is only by letting go, not allowing the endless internal dialogue to dictate how we perceive the world around us, that we begin to see the true essence of all that is.

I believe we all read what we need to read at certain stages in our lives. I opened this book at exactly the right time.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a blessed day.

“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 53” by Lao Tzu

If only I had the tiniest grain of wisdom,
I should walk in the Great Way,
And my only fear would be to stray from it.

The Great Way is very smooth and straight;
And yet the people prefer devious paths.

The court is very clean and well garnished,
But the fields are very weedy and wild,
And the granaries are very empty!
They wear gorgeous clothes,
They carry sharp swords,
They surfeit themselves with food and drink,
They possess more riches than they can use!
They are the heralds of brigandage!
As for Tao, what do they know about it?

The first stanza of this passage is a beautiful expression of humility. One does not need to seek lofty goals of some grandiose idea of enlightenment; all that is needed is one tiny grain of wisdom to keep you on the spiritual path.

The idea of simplicity is put forth in the second stanza. Lao Tzu asserts that while many people seek the paths of dogma and structured religious practice, the simpler way is preferred. All one needs to do is sit alone quietly, or gaze upon a stream, or walk along a forest path, and one can discover the Great Way.

The third stanza is more of an admonishment to those who strive after riches and material overabundance. These become such all-encompassing obsessions that those who follow the path of material gain become blind to the Way of the Tao. Basically, in common terms, dying with the most toys does not make one the winner.

I hope you found this post inspiring. Have a blessed day, and keep reading and thinking.

Thoughts on “Into the Twilight” by William Butler Yeats

Image Source: Wikipedia

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh heart again in the gray twilight,
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

Your mother Eire is always young,
Dew ever shining and twilight gray;
Though hope fall from you and love decay,
Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:
For there the mystical brotherhood
Of sun and moon and hollow and wood
And river and stream work out their will;

And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the gray twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

This is a deeply mystical poem, in which Yeats envisions the world as being at the threshold of a new age of magic and mysticism. As with Yeats’ great works, there are layers and layers of meaning woven in to this short poem. In this post, I will highlight the general meaning of each stanza, and allow you to explore the deeper symbolism on your own.

The first stanza sets the overall tone of the poem. Twilight can either be the transition from night to day, or from day to night. The last line of this stanza lets the reader know that Yeats is using twilight as a symbol for dawn. What Yeats is conveying here is that humanity is currently in a state of darkness, which means that we have lost our connection to the divine light. But we are on the brink of moving back into a period of enlightenment, where humanity will again embrace the mystic.

In the second stanza, Yeats asserts that Ireland will be the source of this spiritual reawakening. He sees himself as being right in the midst of this paradigm shift, a shift in the collective consciousness, where all humanity will become aware of the divine essence sleeping within.

In the third stanza, Yeats builds upon the symbol of Ireland as the birthplace for the new spiritual renaissance by evoking images of the ancient Druids (the “mystical brotherhood”). The first line describes the Druid burial mounds in Ireland (see image). Yeats uses this to symbolize that the power and knowledge of the Druids is still buried within Ireland, waiting to be reborn. The last two lines describe Druid mystical ceremonies, practiced outside and calling upon the elements to help manifest their will. The importance of the will in magic and the occult is something Yeats would have been very familiar with.

In the fourth and final stanza, we are presented with an image of an old god, blowing a horn to call forth the mystical beings that have slipped into the mists of time. One gets the sense of Druids, faeries, and such, rising and gathering in the presence of the old god, reborn, to help return humanity to its original state of divine power.

Again, I am just scratching the surface of this beautiful and powerful poem. I encourage you to read and re-read this many times, since you will discover more each time you do.

Blessings!

“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 47” by Lao Tzu

Image Source: Wikipedia

Without going out of your door,
You can know the ways of the world.
Without peeping through your window,
You can see the Way of Heaven.
The farther you go,
The less you know.

Thus, the Sage knows without travelling,
Sees without looking,
And achieves without Ado.

In this passage, Lao Tzu uses a house as a metaphor for the individual. Essentially, this can be summed up by saying that the spiritual path lies within, and the more that a person searches outside the self for the divine connection, the farther away one will wander from the path to enlightenment.

There’s really not much else to say about this passage. It is succinct and focused. Cheers!

“Meditation is Not What You Think” by Jon Kabat-Zinn

I picked this book up on a whim. I was at a Barnes & Noble café getting a coffee, and they were offering $5 off this book with any café purchase, so I could not pass it up. I had not read any Kabat-Zinn books, but had heard great things about him and was eager to read his work.

Overall, I really liked the book, a lot. It is the first in a four-book series, and was originally published as part of a larger book called Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness. It seems like it is the appropriate length, and that it might have lost some of its impact if buried within a bigger tome.

In his introduction to the book, Jon eloquently expresses something that I have been feeling, that humanity is at a crossroads, or a threshold, and that the collective choices we make now will impact the course of humankind.

I don’t know about you, but for myself, it feels like we are at a critical juncture of life on this planet. It could go any number of different ways. It seems that the world is on fire and so are our hearts, inflamed with fear and uncertainty, lacking all conviction, and often filled with passionate but unwise intensity. How we manage to see ourselves and the world at this juncture will make a huge difference in the way things unfold. What emerges for us as individuals and as a society in future moments will be shaped in large measure by whether and how we make use of our innate and incomparable capacity for awareness in this moment. It will be shaped by what we choose to do to heal the underlying distress, dissatisfaction, and outright dis-ease of our lives and our times, even as we nourish and protect all that is good and beautiful and healthy in ourselves and in the world.

(p. xxiii)

While there is a wealth of insight and information in this short book, for me, there is one critical paragraph that, although long, really encapsulates everything that this book coveys: that collectively, we need to slow down, become more mindful of our thoughts and actions, and begin to shift the direction of humanity toward the kind of sane, sustainable, and supportive future that we so desperately need.

As the pace of our lives continues to accelerate, driven by a host of forces seemingly beyond our control, more and more of us are finding ourselves drawn to engage in meditation, in this radical act of being, this radical act of love, astonishing as it may seem given the materialistic “can do,” speed-obsessed, progress-obsessed, celebrity-and-other-people’s-lives-obsessed, social media-obsessed orientation of our culture. We are moving in the direction of meditative awareness for many reasons, not the least of which may be to maintain our individual and collective sanity, or recover our perspective and sense of meaning, or simply to deal with the outrageous stress and insecurity of this age. By stopping and intentionally falling awake to how things are in this moment, purposefully, without succumbing to our own reactions and judgments, and by working wisely with such occurrences with a healthy dose of self-compassion when we do succumb, and by our willingness to take up residency for a time in the present moment in spite of all our plans and activities aimed at getting somewhere else, completing a project or pursuing desired objects or goals, we discover that such an act is both immensely, discouragingly difficult yet utterly simple, profound, hugely possible after all, and restorative of mind and body, soul and spirit right in that moment.

(pp. 71 – 72)

Our paradigm is about to shift in a huge way, and I for one will do everything I can to attempt to make this shift a positive one, and that begins by changing myself. I have made a lot of conscious changes in my life over the past couple years, and continue to examine myself honestly to see where I can continue to grow and improve. Meditation and mindfulness practice have played an important role in these personal changes. I encourage you to pick up this book and begin to manifest changes in the world by changing yourself, if you have not already begun to do so. If you have already started on this path, I encourage you to continue. What we do today is important.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my musings.

“King Solomon’s Mines” by H. Rider Haggard: A Hero’s Journey into the Subconscious

I picked this book up on a whim, basically because it was on sale and I had heard of it, and also because I liked the character of Allan Quatermain (the protagonist in this book) from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The notes on the back cover also state that this book influenced the Indiana Jones movies. All in all, it seemed like something I should read.

It’s basically a story about a small group of adventurers in Africa who go on a quest to find the fabled diamond mines of King Solomon. The writing is great, the story is exciting, and the imagery is dazzling; but what I found most fascinating about this book is the symbolism concerning the archetypal hero’s journey into the underworld.

For me, the hero’s journey into the underworld is symbolic of a person’s exploration of the hidden realms of the subconscious mind and is frequently associated with images of death and rebirth. This book is brimming with these types of symbols.

Before the intrepid crew sets out, Sir Henry Curtis lets everyone know that this journey they are about to undertake is the strangest on which a human can embark.

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Henry, presently, in his low, deep voice, “we are going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who will stand together for good or for evil to the last. And now before we start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies of men, and who for ages since has marked out our paths, that it may please Him to direct our steps in accordance with His will.”

(p. 53)

As they set out on the journey, Quatermain attempts to describe the mountain landscape, symbolic of the border realm between the two states of consciousness. But because this lies on the border of the subconscious, it is ineffable and beyond the ability to describe in words.

To describe the grandeur of the whole view is beyond my powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering about those huge volcanoes—for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes—that it fairly took our breath away. For a while the morning lights played upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange mists and clouds gathered and increased around them, till presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outline swelling ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards discovered, they were normally wrapped in this curious gauzy mist, which doubtless accounted for one not having made them out before.

(p. 61)

Consciousness is eternal, and a symbol that frequently is used to represent the continuity of consciousness is the ourosboros, or the snake devouring its tail. This symbol is tattooed upon the body of Umbopa.

“Look,” he said: “what is this?” and he pointed to the mark of a great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail disappearing in its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the body.

(p. 103)

Later, Quatermain contemplates the eternal nature of the soul, or the subconscious.

Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable and immortal elements of life, which, having once been, can never die, though they blend and change and change again for ever.

(p. 132)

When the adventurers finally enter the cave, they marvel at the forms, the strange creations of the subconscious, reminiscent of the forms in Plato’s cave. These forms are described as strange, since they exist beyond the realm of our ordinary waking consciousness.

Sometimes the stalactites took strange forms, presumably where the dropping of the water had not always been in the same spot.

(p. 173)

It is also worth noting that water is another symbol of the subconscious. Essentially, the hidden divine aspect of our consciousness is what creates the forms which eventually manifest in the material realm.

Quatermain then contemplates how the inside of the cave is illuminated.

… I was particularly anxious to discover, if possible, by what system the light was admitted into the place, and whether it was by the hand of man or of nature that this was done, also if it had been used in any way in ancient times, as seemed probable.

(p. 174)

This symbolizes one of the most important questions for humankind: From where did consciousness arise? Light is the symbol of consciousness, or the divine intellect. It casts light into the darker regions of the subconscious and enlightens us with the divine knowledge. But is this the result of our own doing, a construct of our own minds? Did we evolve this way? Or was some divine “nature” responsible for the gift of enlightenment?

When the group emerges from the cave, they are greeted by a friend who acknowledges the importance of their return to the world of normal consciousness, which is the symbolic end of the hero’s journey, the return from the land of the dead, or the deep reaches of the subconscious.

“Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the dead!—come back from the dead!”

(p. 196)

I have to say, I really loved this book. It spoke to my sense of adventure, but also inspired me with its rich symbolism. And the quality of the writing is outstanding. I highly recommend this book if you have not read it. It’s short and quick, and definitely worth it.