attainment

“The only means of attaining the Absolute lies in adapting ourselves to It.”  --Recejac,  quoted in Underhill, Mysticism, p. 90

I am thinking that rather than an evolution of human consciousness, there is an infusion of  higher (transcendent) consciousness from realms other than genetic heredity and certainly from other than the human societal realm.

Some individuals are “struck” by it and have little choice in the matter, Others can, through specific methods, train themselves to develop a capacity for it. The latter is generally done through methods of quieting the mind or through encouraging the mind to greater excitation through imagery, sound, or substances.

While the evolution of human consciousness is one I would like to believe in (it certainly fits my bodhisattva tendencies –“I will not enter heaven until all go there”), and certainly relish the idea of all us two-leggeds dwelling in cosmic consciousness while tending to our earthly life, if there is an evolution of human consciousness, it is not only excruciatingly slow, it does not seem reflected in the daily news.

Of course, there is the concept within evolutionary thought of the stochastic leap, a phenomenon of  exceedingly rapid burst of change. This idea is popularized in the Hundredth Monkey story, loved by all new agers. Heaven appears suddenly in our midst.

My thought is that a heavenly, or a name I prefer, transcendent consciousness is already here. We are just too busy doing our stuff (making a living, searching for love, building up security, zoning out, and all the other absorptions we call “our lives”) to recognize it.

When will we change our minds?

objecting

We have made Christ an object and not surprisingly some object to that object and some subject (themselves) to that object. In addition, in objectifying the world, we have made ourselves an object. But neither are we nor is Christ an object. Christ is a Presence. When we stop objectifying ourselves, we are Presence.

shaman theologian

A theologian is one who studies issues of ultimate concern.
(I learned this definition from my spiritual friend, Beverly Lanzetta.)
In doing so, a theologian is both bold and foolish enough
to attempt to describe the ultimate (that beyond description).

Knowing that the Ultimate cannot be captured
in any combination of 5 vowels and 21 consonants (in the case of English),
the theologian goes ahead anyway,
knowing that the pointing finger is not The Point.

A theologian helps weave a conceptual structure,
helps create a frame, a jungle gym for spiritual play.

There are theistic theologians, non-theistic theologians, and a-theistic theologians.

Each spiritual gym represents a religion. Each person becomes comfortable in working out at a specific gym. Every human has a gym.

Each gym has its own set of theologians, who say what the gym structure and rules are, what workout machines exist, and how the gym is to be used for maximum spiritual exercise.

A shaman theologian may have a favorite gym, yet becomes acquainted with them all. A shaman theologian knows what is going on in each gym, respects them all, and sees the common purpose. A shaman theologian is interested in and promotes inter-gym dialogue.

trinity

Wellspring-Offspring-Lifeforce
Wu-Tai-Chi 
Mother-Daughter-Holy Spirit 
Source-Sourcing-Energy
Origin-Originating-Breath 
Formless-Forming-Joy
God-Godding-Laughter
Sun-Moon-Light 
Divine-Divining-Water
Father-Son-Holy Spirit
Sphere With No Bounds - Sphere With Permeable Membrane - Radiance
Chooser - Chosen - Action
Buddha - Bodhisattva - Compassion

new language

In viewing Christianity as a consciousness discipline, I see that much of its language is outmoded, requires new understanding.

Salvation: Transformation of consciousness. 

Sin: Remaining in divisive, dualistic consciousness. 

Trinity: Wellspring, Offspring, Radiance

Redemption: Embodying the Trinity; moving as the Radiance of the Offspring of the Wellspring.

Born again: A continuous process with the awareness that one is living/dying, constructing/destructing in and as every moment. Salvation (transformation of consciousness) continues.

Penance: The showing of Love.

Love: The feeling and action that occurs with the heartfelt understanding that one is an interflow with all that is.

all things become new

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

What does it mean to be in Christ? It means to open to Christ consciousness.What is Christ consciousness? To know that I and the Father are one. Who/what is the Father? The Father is the Origin, the Wellspring, beyond all gender. Christ consciousness is to know that I and the Wellspring are one.

What is Christ consciousness? To know that I am the Son of the Father, the Daughter of the Mother, the Offspring of the Wellspring.

What is Christ consciousness? To know that the Wellspring, the Origin, the Source is within me and I am within the Wellspring. Simultaneously.

Here abides the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit. Here abides the Wellspring, Offspring and Lifeforce.  We are the Wellspring, Offspring and Lifeforce.

What is the quality of the Lifeforce, that Energy radiating outward and inward from the Wellspring, the Origin? Love.

What is Christ consciousness? Opening to the fullness of being, the awareness that one is the Wellspring springing, the Offspring receiving and embodying, the Energy of Love flowing through and expanding out of one’s Heart, one’s Core.

when we

When we no longer stand and look
When we are the looking
When the we and the are and the looking
No longer exist
No longer exit Is ...

we each

We each are the Cosmic Christ. We open our eyes as Earth, die many deaths and continuously resurrect, born again and again and again as this Earth body ages and metamorphs into Pure Spirit it has always been.

journey

The Unnamable Becoming births all Life: the Universes, the Beings, the sustaining Energetic Flow. We call the Unnamable Becoming God.

God is a Great Consciousness, a Great Awareness. Human consciousness is a subset, a holographic bubble of this Vast Consciousness.

A portion of our sphere of awareness is unaware of God. Otherwise we would not exist (ex-ist: to come out of the ist). A portion of our sphere of awareness is aware of God. Out of this duality comes conflict; we reject while seeking. Out of this duality comes reassurance; we find and are found.

Our awareness and our unawareness ebb and flow. Sometimes more one than the other. Sometimes more the other than the one. We look for our eternal home while it resides within us.

This is our Journey. This is our Path. Individual embodyings of Awareness. We open our sphere of Awareness with no bounds and no end.

God

Just because there are cretinous bigots with pus filled brains of hatred who claim exclusive use of the word "God" does not mean that I cannot wrest the word from their clammy grasp, reclaim it, restore it to its proper place of honor. I so do. 

I know there are many who leap and snort and tremble like a horse confronted with a flapping plastic bag at the very mention of the word "God." Blessings to you but I will not let that stop me.

"God" is a beautiful word for The Wellspring, That Which Births Us. God is as near (and nearer) to us as our breath, is the very Life that animates our being. God is also a Personality. In fact, the entire Cosmos teems with personality. Why do some of us not see this? Because we do not care to look. Our attention is fastened elsewhere. Our third eye, so to speak, is not yet open. As Avicenna's "Recital of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan" says, this lack of vision is due to "the wretched state of (our) faculties." 

Contemplation (con-templum-ation), deliberately going to the templum, the clear open space of seeking, is essential. Like the augurs, the diviners, of old, one goes to this clear open space and sits expectantly with either a question in mind or no question at all. Revelation comes. The "third eye" opens.

A Presence is revealed. As Hafiz put it: "God and I are like two fat people in a boat bumping into each other and laughing."

synthronicity

True Christianity has little to do with following a set of external rules. One focuses on merging with Christ consciousness. One does this by reading the words attributed to Jesus. True reading is an alchemical process. Words, when deeply understood, transform one's consciousness. One's consciousness is synchronous and synthronous (sitting in each other's laps simultaneously) with the depth charges of the Living Word.

tuning forks

We are like tuning forks. A tuning fork has a handle and two prongs. The handle stays firm and relatively unmoving while its bifurcation, its twoness vibrates. (The handle vibrates up and down while the prongs vibrate back and forth.)

The handle is like the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. When in the Garden (and the garden is in us), we are like the Tree of Life, singular and powerful and clear, rooting and grounding while opening and receiving. We toss ourselves out of the Garden through our twoness: our male and female, our right and wrong, our us and them, our me and all else. The flaming sword that keeps us out of the Garden moves this way and that way. The vibrations of this duality are felt as anxiety, fear, restlessness, dissatisfaction.

Both realms, the realm of the handle and the realm of the vibrating prongs, exist as long as we are embodying. The trick is to open to the realm of the handle (and to who is holding it) while vibrating in the duality of this world. This is the spiritual path.

re-entry

He was thought to be "getting more mystical" as he grew older. In reality, he was shedding the clothes he had donned in being born into the matter world of dense spirit. He was opening to soul and the soul of the soul in not only preparation for re-entry but entry itself.

the game

A menu from which one chooses one’s life focus has been famously derived from consideration of the types of population that are present at the games of ancient Greece: those seeking glory and honor, those seeking gain and profit, and those detached few seeking to understand the entire process. Each of us, I perceive, contains elements of all three and goes about each day in pursuit of each. 

I add a fourth item to the the menu, the menu itself. We are not just things, objects, isolated particles worshipping this personal trinity of glory, gain, and knowledge. We are in relationship. Though we like to think of ourselves as sovereign, we exist only as an interrelating, a continuous dynamic of ebb and flow with all that is.

We are not arriving at the game. We are the game personifying.

As the game personifying, we have five deep ways of moving. We can move toward. We can move away. We can move against. We can move with. We can move as. These are the five moves of Wu Chi Ku. Advance, Withdraw. Force. Dance. Merge.

flatline and exile theology

The "theology of the death of God" (Henry Corbin's phrase) is the theology of the Man-created world, historical, linear, flatlined. Flatline theology, which recognizes Man as Theos, as God, has no working concept of Origin. Flatline theology advocates death by consumption as the holiest communion. 

The "theology of the exiled" (Corbin) is the theology of those who exist in vertical realms while walking in a flatlined world. They know that they are in God and God is in them. God is neither dead nor sleeping. Resurrection is a continuous process.

drag queens all

For our comfort, we see familiar figures represented in the heavens. With the advent of industrial light, the heavens have disappeared from view for many. Lighting up the night has produced the slow death of constellations, the death of gods, and the death of God amongst the self-lit humanoids of the day. Self-lit, we have lost heavenly comfort.

We live in space-time. We insist upon it. We love to maneuver through space-time. It feels solid, real. We may call it a drag (and it is a place of friction) but we love its melodrama and are addicted to space-time “progress.” Drag queens all.

We no longer create constellations in the heavens. We surround ourselves with them and are, of course, the main or major star in their makeup. (Makeup as in made up and makeup as in cosmetics.) 

Our constellation decides who is IN and who is OUT. Those within our constellation are the only ones that matter. All others are mere backdrops, or at times, irritants to our constellation’s drama and worthy purpose. 

Some zoom out of the societal and personal constellations. (Some say they do but have merely created a zoom-out constellation with themselves as stars amongst the zoomers.) The particle-ular point of view is released. No new constellation is made. All is vibrancy. This was once known as being God-intoxicated. 

The athletic feat is to be God-intoxicated while living amidst one’s own and other’s constellations. Why athletic? Because this takes motivation, practice, and training. And who is one’s trainer? The Cosmos Itself, training us all the time.

If I am going to be in a constellation, I choose the one of star athletes, those who choose to amplify their skills and thereby open to ever newer realms, going beyond what was once thought impossible and going beyond the beyond.

the Gospel of God

"These are the things the blessed Savior said, and he disappeared from them. Then all the disciples were in great, ineffable joy in the spirit from that day on. And his disciples began to preach the Gospel of God, the eternal, imperishable Spirit. Amen." (The Sophia of Jesus, Nag Hammadi Library)

We know of the Gospel of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke, of John. We know of the Gospel of Thomas. We rarely hear of the Gospel of God.

Who / What is God? The "eternal, imperishable Spirit." The Life Force. Our Source Sourcing. That-Which-Breathes-Us. The Enlivener and Enlivening.

The disciples began to teach the Gospel of God, not the Gospel of Jesus. They did not form a cult of Jesus nor Jesus organizations. They loved and listened to Jesus and fastened their gaze upon the One to whom Jesus pointed.

And what is the gospel (good news) of God? We are the sons and daughters, the offspring of the Wellspring. We are embodyings of the Life Force, of Spirit. We are God godding, our Source sourcing, our Wellspring springing.

This produces "great, ineffable joy."

secular and theistic

The secular understanding is that we are emergents of the natural order and can be reduced to its elements. The theistic understanding is that we are emergents of the breath and will of God and can be reduced to those two elements, spirit and intent. When we consider that the natural order and God are the same, both and each an emerging process, the secular and the theistic are saying the same thing in different languages. The trap each can fall into is a subject-object split in which "the natural order" and "God" are seen as "out there." They both turn into religions at that point. Each defends its turf and rants and raves.

the universe that we are

God is our attempt to understand the universe.

We put all the power of movement, of thought, of creation on someone out there somewhere while that power is here, in co-relationship. Our out-breathing is God's in-breathing. Our in-breathing is God's out-breathing.

The situation, the place and setting in which we find ourselves (double meaning) is an interspiraling whose imagery is reflected in the double helix of DNA.

God is found in a whirlwind. We and God interwhirl.

We understand and embody the universe that we are as an interwhirling.

mind renewal

"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2

One current of the renewal consists of switching from sensory perception to visionary intuition as our default mode. By doing so we open to a community of spiritual kin, beings of pure visionary intuition. We merge with a holoarchy of wisdom and compassion (love) while maintaining our individuality.

Mind renewal comes from this active practice of intuitive vision. In heaven-earth language, rather than focusing as an earth being looking to open to the heavens, one is a heavenly being living on earth. We turn in side out.

capacity

I cannot see what I cannot see.
I can see only what I can see.
I can see only what I have the capacity to see.

If I cannot see it, it does not exist for me.
Others can see it and I cannot.
If I trust the others, I can believe it exists but cannot see it.

If I expand my capacity I can see it.
I know this because I have expanded my capacity before.
I can become more capacious.

The Cosmos is a Who and not a What.
Others whom I trust can see this.
I see it somewhat. I open to seeing it somewho.

When I open to Who, it is no longer an it.
The Cosmos teems with Who's.
All is Who.

The Earth is a Who, not a What.
Animals are Who.
Mountains are Who.

All is Who-ly.

the cha-cha-cha and the hidden springs

In addition to ego consciousness (the encapsulated I-Me-Mine), we have/are ordinal (straight-line ordinary) or surface consciousness and depth consciousness. Depth consciousness is not swayed by the winds and currents of the surface. Depth consciousness is fed by hidden springs, hidden to the ego cha-cha-cha and to the surface make-a-buck-and-spend-it world. Depth consciousness is engaged in two ways: quiet stillness and vibrant openness. The quiet stillness is vibrantly open and the vibrant openness has calm stillness at its core. Thus the hidden springs keep flowing. The Aware Cosmos is ready to reveal itself and does.

the savior laughed

The Savior laughed and said to them: "What are you thinking about? Are you perplexed? What are you searching for?" Philip said: "For the underlying reality of the universe and the plan." [The Sophia (Wisdom) of Jesus Christ]

My soul glows every time I read those words. "The Savior" is the one who has all wisdom, who IS all wisdom. The Savior knows "the underlying reality of the universe and the plan" and evidently the ground of being and the forecast is good.

S/he (the Savior is androgynous) does not cry, weep, and mourn. The Savior laughs. The Wisdom of the cosmos laughs. This is not a laughing at. This is a laughing with.

What is "the underlying reality of the universe and the plan?" Read the rest of the text for a more complete answer if you wish. The answer I hear and have always heard is compassionate love and laughter.

lit

The Light that originally lit and now lights our cosmos is the same Light that lights our soul. "Let your light so shine." Get lit, darling! Get lit! We are the Light embodying.

the interest of the Mystery

The Mystery is not interested so much in WHAT we perceive but HOW we perceive: the HOW that makes us members of the Mage Eye Nation.

Yes

For every Yes there is a multitude of No which fade into insignificance when the Heart is in the Yes. The words of the Eternal Yes: When you abide in me, I abide in you. The Heart is in the Yes and the Yes is in the Heart. An unbeatable combo.

caduceus

The caduceus, the wand of healing, represents not just the energies of humankind (and each individual of the species) but, more importantly, the degrees or levels or dimensions of consciousness of which humans consist and both aspire and sink to.

The energies (and corresponding consciousness states) range from the angelic crown of glory to demonic numbness, from highly sensitive awareness with no bounds to locked-in agnosis (knowing nothing, not even knowing that one does not know). Between these two extremes, of which we are walking examples, lies the current mass hallucination of societal consciousness. I say current because the nature and quality of this social agreement as to reality has changed over time and will change, is changing, yet again.

The caduceus is a symbol depicting our consciousness capability, individually and collectively. We can get stuck, stick ourselves, at any point along its energetic flow. S/he who is the entire caduceus is a whole human. From whole humans, societies transform.

this peculiar flute

Divine or, if you prefer, Cosmic energies pour through continuously birthing all that Is. We wankle and workle the Energy we are, the Energy pouring through, according to our disposition, our personality, this peculiar flute through which the wind of the Cosmos flows. We sound the notes produced by the holes, the openings in our rigidity.

moment-um

Each of us lives our life in accord with an Energetic Flow. I capitalize because the Energetic Flows are archetypal in nature, eternally recurring.

We choose to live our lives in rebirth, reclamation, resurrection. We choose to live our lives in fear, despair, and alienation. We choose to live our lives in anger, turmoil, and rejection.

In other words, we choose to move with, move away, move against. (We also have the choice of moving toward: we separate ourselves out in perpetual resolution.)

The fate of the universe we are depends upon our choices, the choices of each moment, of this moment now. The choice of each moment provides moment-um.

This is who we are: an eternal energetic flow. Each moment we create the universe we are.

the reclaiming of outer darkness

Can we step outside the Story? Not spurn it, stay inclusive? Nor yield to its dualistic theme, of war of This against That and the necessity, at soul's peril, of choosing sides? Can we swallow all the Stories at one gulp and stand with them inside this cosmic body? Can we reclaim the outer darkness and bring it home at last, welcoming the prodigal while knowing we are the prodigal returning home? Can we rather than building a hedge around us let all walls fall down? Can we become a circle with no circumference whose center is here and everywhere? Can we welcome all kin home and all are kin?

Wrestling for the Angel

Riffing off one of the themes (a major one) of Henry Corbin this morning, my mind reverberates within angelic realms. Each of us has (and is) an Angel of our Being. (Capitalizing is generally anathema today since all is reduced to the plebeian, the LCD, Lowest Common Denominator. Yet some realms call for capitalization.)

Mister Seven reminded me this morning in our all too brief but enlightening talk of those invisible to most, but not to some: beings who live outside the circle  of the accepted wisdom of the current  occidental society. There are many, waiting to be welcomed back in. I wish to speak at the moment only of the Angel of y(our) Being.

My repeated use of parentheses reminds me that we tend to lead a parenthetical existence. We isolate ourselves within our bounds, our self-imposed bounds, our limits to our existence, and we call that Reality.

The Angel of our Being sits patiently outside that self-created circumscription, awaiting our awakening.

The Angel of our Being is our twin, our heavenly twin. We are its counterpart, our legs dangling down into this more solidified experience we call Life. We have, in some sense, the tougher role as a solidification into denser spirit, which we call matter. Solidification is difficult, yet the Angel of our Being also has a tough job, mourning and in pain when we lose our Vision, lose our Way.

Rejoicing (re-juicing) occurs when we finally (intermittently?) awaken and full fill our rightly role: wrestling for the Angel. We are the protrusion of Spirit into this dense dense world and reclaim it, enthuse it as we acknowledge and open to the Angel of our Being.

To do so requires total vulnerability, a state of existing that is, on first consideration, repugnant and fear provoking to many. Yet the Samurai of yore and today proclaim: the best defense is total vulnerability. Vulnerable to Death. Vulnerable to Love. Vulnerable to all that arises. To be hard and strong is to succumb to rigor mortis. Mongols in silk shirts were able to defeat knights in armor. Wu wei.

Ancient wisdom is to live as if you have already gone on. Die before you die. Then who can do a thing with you, a person of no thing? We become Nothing, Nothing Doing. The Angel of our Being rejoices. The world is transformed.

(Written with a borrowed freshly sharpened pencil on provided paper at the Weatherford Hotel -- if it's good enough for Zane Grey, it's mighty fine for me.  First Tuesday in June, 2013)

the capaciousness of the imaginary

We see what is visible to us. We do not see what is not visible to us. Some things (a vastness) are not visible to us.

We may intuit the invisible. This intuition is a form of seeing. What is intuitive to some is clearly visible to others. What is intuitive to or clearly visible to some may be completely unknown to others. What is visible may be invisible. One can see only what one has the capacity to see.

Capaciousness is a gift from the invisible. The invisible wants to be known. As we disclose ourselves to the invisible, the invisible discloses itself to us. Reciprocity. Mutual disclosure. The visible yearns to know the invisible. The invisible yearns to be known.

The eye for seeing the invisible is the soul. The body provides the base; the intellect provides conceptual birth and manipulation; the soul provides the imagination, the eye-magi-nation.

The realm of the imaginary is the place of mutual disclosure between the visible and the invisible. The realm of the imaginary is the place of mutual encounter. The invisible becomes visible.

Contemplation means to reside in the temple (con-templ-ation). The temple is the sacred space, the mutual meeting ground of the visible and the invisible.

Fantasy occurs when we are outside the temple (pro-fanum). Fantasy is self-generated imagery. The imaginary is the realm of mutual encounter within the temple, the meeting place of the visible and the invisible. Fantasy is cotton candy poofery. The imaginary is solid and powerful, life-changing.

Our capaciousness is expanded by our dwelling in the templum. Mutual disclosure with the invisible expands our soul. We are heartened, deepened, transformed.

Angelology

Henry Corbin and Suhrawardi's Angelology (Roberts Avens)

becoming the hyphen of the subject-object split

Many see Jesus as an intermediary, rather than example. This is a subtle, yet blatant, evasion of responsibility.

the Angel of one's Being

Revelation does not come through logical cogitation but through direct encounter with the Angel of one's Being. As and when one encounters the Angel of one's Being, one is in the realm of God, of the Source, the Wellspring. One is living in the hierocosmos, the eternal and ever present spiritual community all but invisible to the horizontal busy busy makeado world.

the curing of paralysis

Take a look at Mark 2: 1-12. Read those 12 verses first.
Here is the Amplified version of the Bible I am using.

Of course, this is a story about Jesus, but I am going to view it for the moment as a parable.

Regard the house in these verses as the human body, your body. In the heart of the house resides Heartfelt Wisdom. At the roof of the house (the head) there is much consternation, even destruction.

The roof gives way and the paralysis of the head is lowered into the heart for healing. It has to allow itself to be lowered (humbled). It can get in no other way. The front door, the external entrance, is blocked. This is an internal matter.

Heartful Wisdom does not get upset, seems to regard this as a natural course of events. The open-hearted Wisdom says the exact right words to the head paralysis.

The closed minded suspicious aspect of ourselves, our resident cynic, mutters however: "This can't be happening! And anyway if it can, you used the wrong words, Wisdom! You should say it this way!"

The cynic cracks me up. What a clown. Won't do anything to help and when help comes, says the help should have been administered this way, not that way! What a bozo, trying to be so correct and proper while playing the utter fool.

In this story/parable, Heartfelt Wisdom says to the cynic, "Okay, I'll do it that way too." And does. No more is heard from the cynic.

The sick, confused, and  paralyzed head is released from all its junk, takes up its bed of paralysis (provides no room for it anymore), and goes out the front door, obeying Heartfelt Wisdom's instructions:"Be going on home."

I love it!

enthusiasm

enthusiasm : en-thus-iasm : en-theos-iasm : to be filled with the energies of the theos, of our source, of the wellspring

shifting to overdrive

The reading  of Ewert Cousins' "Global Spirituality" turned my awareness to the four senses of understanding that can and do occur when reading the writings and teachings of any sacred path. There is the literal sense, in which one takes the words at face value and does not attempt to go to deeper meaning. The eye scans a particular writing and it says what it says and that's that. "Don't bother my mind with further comprehension." Beyond that is the moral meaning, in which one takes the words to heart and attempts to live by them. Third is opening to the understanding of the writings as parable or allegory, as pointing to a deeper and more cosmic story. Fourth is the anagogic or transcendental experiencing of the words and writings as union with the Divine, with our Source.

For example, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The literalist says yeah, yeah, sure, of course and moves on, having successfully tefloned the words. The moralist looks to apply the words in the human interactions of daily life. The visionary senses, sees that all of life, human and nonhuman, physical and beyond, is neighbor, that all is interconnection and interconnecting, and love extends within and beyond all realms. The mystic drops away all distinction, all separation: the words transport beyond the beyond.

The scriptures of the world are called sacred because they have the power to transport, transform. But they won't do so unless one shifts gears from first, through second, into third, and then to overdrive.

transport

Vehicle -- transport device.   Jacob had his ladder of angels, Elijah had his chariot, Ezekiel his revolving wheels, Buddha his body of bliss, Muhammad his night journey to heaven, Jesus his resurrection body. We trundle around in the physical. This meat will drop back to the ground; and then we soar. No need to wait around. We develop our transport vehicle now. This is done in the realm called spiritual. We put our awareness there. We go wherever our awareness goes. Beyond the body, beyond the horizontal world, we are caught up in our chariot of fire and light, in the bliss body. Our eyes see the Eye that sees us. Mutual recognition. Transport. Happiness. Strength. Awe.

all the way up

It may be "turtles all the way down" but it's Angels (Messengers of Light) all the way up.

real eye zing

One of the hardest things for us humans to do is to recognize, to realize that "I am That" (tat tvam asi). We like to think of ourselves as isolated protoplasmic blobs in an implacable alien universe and engage our full repertoire of responses to such (from raising our spiritual middle finger to falling to our knees in pleading supplication). We cling to our individuality, our persona (mask), as a drowning person clings to a toothpick in the ocean. We seek relief (salvation) in the gods we make for ourselves; the supreme god of all being our sense of isolated self, the sufferer whom no one understands and whose will is rarely if ever followed. We make a god out of Jesus, out of Buddha, out of the Tao, out of anything outside of ourselves. One of the hardest things for us humans to do is to recognize, to realize that "I am That," that the hand of the Source is within the glove of "me." When the real-eye-zing occurs, both hand and glove merge as one.

"The kingdom of heaven is within you."

seeds of new life

1:28 a.m.
Words spoken to me as I awoke:
"The Seven Sermons of the Dead."
"Seeds of new life are found in old jars."

I got up. The book was marked. I opened it.
"Since God is in the soul rather than in a remote heaven
it would be injurious to the health of the soul to deny Him."

God is not dead, but lives within us,
has always lived within us,
is not floating out there with the asteroids.

Until I claim and reclaim the God and gods within,
I have no soul.
I am these gods and they are me.

God is not dead.
It is we who died.
And now we come to life again.

Seeds of new life are found in old jars.

emergence

Let the compassion and grace of That Which Births Us, that is ever birthing us, move through our hearts for right action in this world.

Meditation on Psalm 3

Consider that we are composed of and surrounded by various energies. Energies of construction. Energies of destruction. We are those energies.

Then how is it that we are surrounded? Because we choose. We choose to make our home, our central point, in the energies of construction or in the energies of destruction. We choose for all time and we choose moment by moment.

When we make our home in the energies of construction, we are surrounded by destruction, that which wishes to destroy. When we make our home in the energies of destruction, we are surrounded by construction, that which wishes to bring to life rather than bring to death.

When we choose construction, though surrounded and seemingly in imminent peril, we can lie down and sleep without fear and then awake to face the day. The forces of construction will slap the face of the forces of destruction and break its teeth. We continue on our way embodying the energies of construction with no fear.

the ternal

1. Here is action. Action exists. Action is here. Action unfolds. Here.

2. Action is internal and external. We call the internal action thought. We call the external action the world.

3. The internal and the external are the same ternal. The internal and the external are eternal.

4. We make order of the action through story. Story orders the chaos of action. We live in story land.

5. Stories are neither true nor false. Stories are real.

6. Stories have juice: energy, fascination, believability.

7. The stories with the most juice adopt us. We become those stories and act out our part.

8. This action of our act is both internal and external. They are the same ternal.

Setting Up And Becoming A Cosmic Energy Circuit

Five of us have been meeting over the last few months to focus on the practices of consciousness transformation. I wrote this for us and thought I would share.

Setting Up And Becoming A Cosmic Energy Circuit

By cosmic energy circuit, I mean the interflow of us and the Tao, of us and our Source, of the particular and the Universal. I mean the deliberate setting up of and becoming a spiraling dynamic of Tao flow.

This is not foreign to the martial arts, the healing arts, the spiritual arts. All three arts are applications of, embodyings of, this method. For us, daily life is the practice arena, the crucible, the alchemical furnace for becoming and being a cosmic energy circuit.

Circuit means exactly that. Think of a circle composed of two curved arrows. You stand at the bottom of the circle. An energetic arrow curves out to your left and around the first half of the circle to God, to the Tao, to our Source. The energy of this arrow is Love. (“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30) This is energy extended outward. This is Step One.

Step Two is detachment, not being attached to anything. Even to being detached. Continuously letting go. No clinging. In martial arts, if one wishes someone to come closer, one creates a vacuum. One detaches from any desire for them to come closer, is immobile while wide awake, like a cat at a mouse hole, unmoving. An air of expectancy with no attachment to the expectancy.

Immense room is created in this way. God, the Tao, our Source, the Cosmic Energy Flow cannot help but come in. This is the second arrow of the circle, curving around from the Above where your Love “ends” and filling the emptiness you have co-created.

Meister Eckhart put this two step process this way: “Love constrains me to love God, but detachment compels God to love me.” The Tao will always fill a Void. Our Source will always move in to fill our Capaciousness.

So there you have it. How to set up and become a Cosmic Energy Circuit.

Simple, huh?

Doable.

Blessings,
George

Time-honored methods exist for practicing and opening to this cosmic interflow. Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer, Mindfulness, Mindful Awareness, Creative Visualization, Silence, Creative Imagination. Practicing the Presence, Meditation, Fasting of the Mind are the names of a few.