Remaining Open and Curious

    "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination & understanding are filled with doubt & indecision." Bertrand Russell

    A simplistic, superficial, literal 'understanding' of even the most complex of mysteries is common. We dread uncertainty, rush to conclusions & hide in group-think for (false) security. Respected monk Thomas Merton said that even in monasteries, people of spiritual depth are very rare:
    “Once in a while you will find someone with whom you can talk about (spiritual experiences). But they are hard to find. And when you are fortunate enough to find such a person it will be a temporary arrangement. For you will spend most of your life without such a person, which will be your solitude in which you will learn from God how to depend on God to guide you into ever deeper communion with God.”
    James Finley. “The Healing Path. A Memoir and an Invitation.” Orbis, 2023.

    ‘Most human institutions, by the purely technical and professional manner in which they come to be administered, end by being obstacles to the very purposes which their founders had in view.’ William James 

    “Don’t carry away a conclusion unless it has been arrived at through your own experience. Rather, if there hasn’t been direct experience, carry away the question.”
    Toni Packer. “The Silent Question. Meditating in the Stillness of Not-Knowing.” Shambhala, 2007.

    “Throughout much of Western history, until the fourth century AD when early, ‘primitive’ Christianity began to be systematically stamped out beneath the jackboots of the Roman Catholic Church, ‘beatific visions’ were the primary recruitment tool of the enormously ancient and influential ‘religion with no name’ that is the subject of The Immortality Key. This religion could shift and morph into multiple forms – The Eleusinian and Dionysian Mysteries are among the examples … and to these I would add the much older religion of the painted caves explored in Supernatural – but the common factor in every case was a psychedelic sacrament (sometimes food, sometimes drink, sometimes both) consumed by all participants.
    ‘Primitive’ Christianity started out around two thousand years ago as merely the latest form or incarnation of this archaic religion, and – at least in some cases – seems to have made use of bread & wine infused with psychedelic plants & fungi as its sacrament. At that time, because Christianity was persecuted under the Roman Empire until the reign of Constantine (AD 306-337) it was normal practice for its adherents to meet secretly in small groups to eat the bread and drink the wine of Holy Communion, and afterward experience powerful & deeply meaningful beatific visions. And more often than not, these secret ceremonies of direct experiential communion with the divine were led by women with men playing a secondary role.

    Then, from the second half of the fourth century AD onward, came the rise of Roman Catholicism, dominated by men who took decisive steps to marginalize the role of women in the Church and to remove the psychedelic elements from the sacrament, reducing Holy Communion to the empty symbolic act, devoid of powerful experiential content, that hundreds of millions of Christians continue to perform.
    My friend, the visionary artist Alex Grey, whose work has been much influenced by Ayahuasca, describes the Old Testament story of the serpent, the forbidden fruit, and God’s expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as ‘the first psychedelic slapdown.’
    Pursuing that thought, Roman Catholicism’s persecution of ‘primitive’ Christians and the extirpation of their visionary Communion wine might be described as the second psychedelic slapdown.
    And then, in the twentieth century, just as we seemed to be freeing ourselves from the loveless iron grip of the Church and opening up to new spiritual possibilities, governments around the world waded in with the so-called ‘war on drugs’ – the third psychedelic slapdown.
    Over the centuries, therefore, enormous often deadly forces (with the power, for example, to burn people at the stake or imprison them for decades) have repeatedly been unleashed to prevent people from experiencing direct contact with realms & realities other than the mundane. At the same time, however, even when it must have seemed that the ‘religion with no name’ had been deleted completely from the human record, there were always – if I may extend the metaphor – multiple ‘backup disks’ in the form of psychedelic plants & fungi growing all over the planet. There might be long gaps, lacunae of centuries even, but the moment would always come when certain curious individuals, either by accident or by design, would sample the plants and mushrooms that serve as the permanent Hall of Records of the religion with no name, thus setting in motion the experiences & subsequent processes of social organization that would ultimately allow it to be rescued in full force.
    It is not an accident that the Mazatec shamans of southern Mexico refer to the psilocybe mushrooms used in their ceremonies as ‘little teachers,’ and, in a sense, that is what all psychedelic plants & fungi are – literally the ancient teachers of mankind. Whether we engage with Ayahuasca, or with Psilocybe Mexicana, or with peyote, or with LSD (which is itself derived from the fungus ergot) we are dealing with the biological agents of the religion with no name and with their numinous capacity to reawaken our spiritual appetites and potential.”
    Graham Hancock's Foreword to: Brian C. Muraresku “The Immortality Key. The Secret History of the Religion with No Name.” St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

    “… in 2006, the (Johns) Hopkins team completed the first psilocybin (research) project since the 1970s, when research into the forbidden substance became largely impossible during the War on Drugs. Under tightly controlled conditions the psilocybin unleashed a profound, mystical experience that seemed to anchor the lasting emotional & psychological benefits recorded by the thirty-six volunteers. They had no life-threatening illness, and were otherwise free of the debilitating angst (morbid fear of death) that consumed (some previous research subjects with advanced cancer). But these early results were shockingly similar to the 2016 collaboration with NYU: one-third of the participants rated their experience ‘as the most spiritually significant of their lives,’ comparing it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent. Two-thirds placed it among the top five. When friends, family, & coworkers were interviewed, they confirmed the remarkable transformations in the volunteers’ mood & behavior for months, even years, following their single dose.
    From that moment on, Dr. Roland Griffiths upended his career to focus almost exclusively on psilocybin, creating what is now called the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Unit. More than 360 volunteers and fifty peer-reviewed publications later, he’s ready to call a spade a spade. In his 2016 TED Talk, Griffiths said the drug-induced ecstasy he routinely witnesses in the laboratory is ‘virtually identical’ to that reported by natural-born prophets & visionaries throughout human history. The underlying experience itself, whether activated by psilocybin or some spontaneous internal flood of neurotransmitters**, must be ‘biologically normal.’ If we are essentially wired for mystical experience, it raises the intriguing prospect that, under the right mind-set & environment, any curious soul can be instantly converted into a religious savant.
    Griffith’s colleague, Dr. William Richards, has been testing that hypothesis since the 1960s, when he codeveloped the very scale to measure these peak states of consciousness, the Mystical Experience Questionnaire. … In his 2015 book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences, Richards maps out the essential features of the perfect psilocybin journey: transcending time & space, accessing knowledge that is normally not available. Oftentimes there is a merging of the everyday personality with a larger, more fundamental whole. Words fail to capture the unsinkable conviction that the experiencer has somehow glimpsed the ultimate nature of reality, an insight that seems ‘blatantly obvious’ at the time, and is usually accompanied by intense feelings of joy, tranquility, exaltation, & awe.”
    Brian C. Muraresku “The Immortality Key. The Secret History of the Religion with No Name.” St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

    ** NOTE: Neurotransmitters mediate but are NOT the "ultimate cause" of mystical experiences any more than a TV set actually causes the Olympic Games, or anything else we watch on it.
    ALSO, shamans who for thousands of years have, & continue to facilitate such numinous experiences, actually do so far more often & widely with drumming & other non-pharmaceutical rituals than with plant medicines.
    AND, with the appropriate "set & setting" people for millennia have also achieved profound mystical experiences & insights by themselves through meditation & other spiritual practices and less often, even spontaneously. This strongly suggests that we are not only "wired for mystical experiences," but that "we are spiritual beings, having a physical experience."

    “When we are in contact with the ineffable, divine reality that is our source, we also know what state we shall return to. Without this knowledge we are indeed dead, even though we may show signs of physical life.”
    Stephan A. Hoeller. “Gnosticism. New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing.” Quest, 2002.

    In summary, direct mystical experiences may be essential prerequisites for us to open to deeper realities, which our 'usual' way of perceiving & thinking these days, can rarely access or comprehend.
    A wide variety of spiritual practices - from yogic breathing techniques, various meditation techniques, chanting, drumming, dancing, tai chi / qi gong, yoga, sweat lodge ceremonies, and plant medicines in appropriate set & settings, with appropriately-trained traditional shamans or health-care professionals - pave the way to profoundly life-altering, life-affirming direct mystical experiences and insights.

Infinitely Greater

“Take away the fear,
only love remains.”

John McKay, Whole Foods CEO


“... as self decreases,
the Divine increases.”

Bernadette Roberts

     Our survival instincts - a conglomerate of life lessons (conditioning), reflexes & genetics - is our 'self-centered survivalist' operating system that runs our mostly autopilot existence. Rarely do we stop to consider, 'Wait a minute, I always respond to situations like this - why? What if I consciously decide on the most appropriate tailor-made response to each new situation to optimize results for myself & others affected?'
    Now, each situation is new, as it can't ever be exactly the same, and we change from one moment to the next, so each moment is always a brand new ballgame. Intentionally considering how others are affected requires our fear-based survival instinct to abate temporarily, so our wiser, more spacious love-based 'tend & befriend' operating system can come online. 

    When an individual or group is criticized, especially if the criticism is valid, instead of using the criticism constructively & making necessary corrections, the usual tendency is to automatically double-down in 'self-centered survivalist' mode, and rationalize past behaviors - 'intellectual bypassing' - like lawyers using legal loopholes to keep guilty clients out of prison.
    Such self-centered blindness to values is how a small friendly business that starts by selling nutritious whole foods, degenerates into a multinational corporation, pushing addictive salt, fat & sugar-laden snacks, and viciously defending its market share. Anything tends to similarly degenerate, even our great mystics' direct experience of the Divine.

    “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” Rainer Maria Rilke

     There are many reasons why the above will sound counter-intuitive, counter-cultural, even nonsensical to our usual way of thinking & being. Of course this "usual way" - the separate self or left-hemisphere-dominant operating system - is narrowly specialized to control the external environment to optimize survival & procreation. Deeper values, wisdom, spirituality & meaning, and ideas like beauty, truth & goodness are foreign, irritatingly irrelevant, abstract, impractical concepts to this pragmatic level of thinking & being, and indeed to many in our current society.

     Unlike the troubled characters we see daily in the news, we actually do have some wisdom-keeper elders actually worth listening to. But they're rather modest & quiet, and so we must take time out to search them out, listen deeply to what they say, and read slowly & carefully the things they write.
    Among the wisest of these imho is James Hollis PhD, an 84 year-old psychologist & Jungian analyst, who's written 20 wonderful books, all while working full time and doing many excellent interviews:

    “In an age of great material excess, we suffer dislocations from energies of our deepest being and, in return, suffer emptiness, anomie, aimlessness – all sicknesses of the soul.

    On a collective level, our culture’s treatment plans for the absence of a personal, intimate relationship with the (Divine) are materialism, hedonism, narcissism & nationalism, as well as a coursing nostalgia for a world that never really existed.”
    James Hollis. “Living Between Worlds. Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times.” Sounds True, 2020.

 The Highwaymen "The Highwayman"

 

Spiritual Evolution

Reality is more complex than we would like.
If we insist upon it making sense,
we will find ourselves despairing.
Reality cannot be neatly packaged ...
Reality is all that is, and this is often at odds
with what we imagine it should be.
Rabbi Yannai, an early Jewish sage 

 

 

    “Always keep an open mind about whatever you experience. Try not to jump to conclusions. Simply keep observing & investigating your experience thoroughly & continuously. Jumping to conclusions will prevent your understanding from deepening.”
    Ashin Tejaniya “Don’t Look Down on the Defilements – They Will Laugh at You." http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/

      In medicine, a well-recognized source of diagnostic error is "premature closure" - when physicians fail to listen to patients long enough to hear the full history, wrongly assuming they already "know" because they've "heard it all before." 

    It takes effort & humility to patiently, intentionally retain an open, beginner's mind, especially for 'experts' burdened by dogma.

     One definition of an expert is one who's incapable of further learning. This patronizing, colonializing hubris keeps governments, religions, professions & other large institutions fossilized decades, if not centuries behind progressive ideas.

      “While religion at its best calls us to a community of the curious and a unity beyond dogma & tribalism; religion at its worst calls us to worship the very things that divide us and to pit people against one another in the name of one fantasy or other.”
       Rami Shapiro. “Holy Rascals. Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries.” Sounds True, 2017.  

    Dogmatic secular scientism & dogmatic religions are equally captivating, both promising certainty. For both, it's an open & shut case, all other worldviews are fiercely denounced, now adherents can get back to being busy doing stuff, end of discussion, thank you & good night!

      Reality is far too complex, paradoxical, and takes way too much effort for the vast majority to spend a lifetime exploring with an open mind / heart!  

    “The old gods are dead or dying and people everywhere are searching…” Joseph Campbell 

    Increasingly, people are becoming "spiritual revolutionaries, spiritually independent" or "mystics" - no longer followers, and find marching lock-step with any crowd spiritually confining, even suffocating. Their individual ego (small self) is sufficiently secure, so they do not depend on a group ego, a charismatic guru, or an all-powerful separate "other." Nor do they "other" the Divine, but instead experience Oneness with Source. This felt sense is often referred to as "Self" by mystics, Jung, Internal Family Systems, etc. Some of them resonate with the mystical level of some spiritual traditions, which may or may not be one in which we were raised.

    We ALL have firm opinions about people & things, based on minimal or wrong information.
    AND, we ALL consider others with such baseless opinions, to be bigots, red necks, etc.
    So, in the spirit of open-mindedness, I invite you to watch this 68 minute documentary about a couple who spent a very productive lifetime actually being open-minded enough to learn a great deal of valuable, worthwhile information about shamanism - about which our materialist culture only has disparaging innuendo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNloOTQoRzA

    “There is widespread agreement that seven kinds of practices are central & essential for anyone who would live a life to the fullest. These seven practices are:
        1) Living ethically,
        2) Transforming emotions,
        3) Redirecting motivation,
        4) Training attention,
        5) Refining awareness,
        6) Cultivating wisdom,
        7) Serving others.
    These are the seven practices that sages the world over emphasize as central & essential for a full spiritual life. Together they constitute a ‘technology of transcendence’ for awakening our potentials and living life to the fullest. Shamans were the first to develop this art …

    Shamanism can be defined as a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirit(s) interacting with other entities, often by traveling to other realms, in order to serve their community.”
    Roger Walsh MD, PhD. “The World of Shamanism. New Views of an Ancient Tradition.” Llewellyn Publications, 2007.

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell,
don’t go back to sleep!
You have to ask for what you really want,
don’t go back to sleep!
You know, there are those who go back and forth
over the threshold where the two worlds meet,
and the door, it’s always open, and it’s round,
don’t go back to sleep!”

Jalal al-Din Rumi

 

      “Spiritual practices are methods that can begin to soften our stance toward our self, toward life in general, and to open us to what transcends the habitual. They are invitations to become intimate with the wisdom of silence & stillness.”
      Dorothy Hunt. “Ending the Search. From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.” Sounds True, 2018. 

      “Silence is the basis and the background of everything. We are an expression of this primordial silence & stillness. But the habits of our mind overlay this simple truth & keep us from experiencing ourselves as a full-spectrum human being."          Sharon Landrith

 

 

SO Much to Learn, So Little Time

     Even if we've been on a serious spiritual journey for decades, we may still periodically realize that we still harbor outrage against, what our "ordinary mind" (survivalist brain, small self, separate self, ego, left hemisphere) perceives as, cruel injustices to ourselves, loved ones, the world in general. Others will recognize our outrage (even when we ourselves rationalize it), when we have violently angry reactions to any contradiction of our cruel, unjust universe belief (or any other dogma).
    Most of us know, intellectually, that arguing, resisting & trying to change things that cannot be changed is not only a useless waste of time & energy, but creates unnecessary suffering. AND roughly 95% of all suffering is this self-created unnecessary suffering.
    Intentionally practicing "radical acceptance" of even the harshest unchangable things we encounter CAN spectacularly prevent & alleviate MOST of our suffering, anxiety, cynicism, meaninglessness & depression!

    Unfortunately, though we all consider ourselves "open minded," as soon as we face one of our taboos, most of us are instantly triggered to shut down & run the other way. This reflexive avoidance prevents us from being curious & learning, and keeps us in the prison of our own (or tribal) echo-chamber. "Radical acceptance" has to INCLUDE EVERYTHING including topics which our secular taboos consider "impossible, can't happen," and our religious taboos consider "heretical, off-limits." But most basic of all, is the Homer Simpson taboo by which we're triggered when encountering anyone or anything "different," and instantly we "don't like" him/her/it! This cartoon is funny because this tendency is so common & obvious in others. Self-reflection (very slowly) deflates egos.

    It's helpful to remember how common it is to hear young children conclusively declare, "I'll never be able to: ride a bike, swim, read, tolerate a root canal, etc, etc!" As long as rigid, constricting mindsets rule, the simplest tasks remain impossible.

    You can easily practice shifting your perspective to a FAR WISER, more JOYFUL one, the next time you see your dentist or dental hygienist: http://www.johnlovas.com/2022/05/just-shift-of-perception-away.html

    BELOW is a POWERFUL lesson in how "radical acceptance" can be practiced, as told by Claude Poncelet PhD, a physicist and shaman, beautifully modeling grace under great pressure.
    Instead of shutting down & running at the sight of "shaman," IF you can smile at your inner Homer, & don't take him seriously, you may just learn the LESSON of a LIFETIME:

     “What has become clear to me is that one’s attitude, one’s behavior, are essential crucial elements of self-healing.
    What I will offer in terms of shamanism and self-healing is based on my own personal experience. This follows a diagnosis, almost 4 years ago now, of stage 4 lung cancer, metastasized to the brain & several vertebrae.
    Now in exploring shamanism and self-healing, I will not focus on shamanic healings themselves, although such healings have been an important part of my overall self-healing, including work with a shaman and medicine man from the Safara tribe in the Northern Amazon. In this presentation, what I want to do is focus on my own work with spirits, and what I learned about self-healing from the shamanic worldview.

    Well for me, the preface “there is only self-healing” means in a sense that the body, the mind, the ego, heal with the help of healers, doctors, treatments, etc. And this has been reinforced throughout my 4 years of living with cancer. Hence, shamanic healers, and for that matter, energy & other spiritual healers who understand the breadth & depths of self-healing approaches, can help their patients in the awesome responsibility of self-healing.

    Now I know that each journey with cancer, and for that matter, each journey with any illness, is unique & individual, and so is one’s way with self-healing. Self-healing is unique and individual. I can only share my own experience and hope it will stimulate among my listeners a deeper understanding of self-healing for each of you in your own ways. 

    My learning has been continuous since the early cancer diagnosis 4 years ago, and it continues today. I am thankful to the cancer for the deep learning I have received. Now while my learning has been deepened over time, it has come over time. I will offer my thoughts in this presentation not chronologically, but according to what for me are major aspects of the shamanic worldview, or the shamanic practice if you wish.
    As a physicist I admit that I still need a structure and a framework for my knowing and teachings. So the 3 major aspects of the shamanic worldview that I will use in making my presentation are:

    One – everything is sacred, everything has a spiritual dimension, everything has spirit.

    Two – everything is interconnected. There is no separation.

    Three – there are 2 worlds we live in: the physical world and the spiritual world. We have full responsibility for our thoughts & actions in both worlds.

    I’ve been engaged in a multifaceted approach to self-healing that I label ‘partnering with cancer.’ What has become clear to me, as you will see in my presentation, is that one’s attitude, one’s behavior, are essential, crucial elements of self-healing.

    Let me start with my first category, ‘everything is sacred, everything is spirit, spirits are everywhere.’ Since my first cancer diagnosis 4 years ago, I’ve been communicating daily, & several times a day, with my spirit helpers, spirit guides, and teachers, asking for help, protection & guidance. As I have, since the very start of my shamanic practice, I never ask for a specific outcome. What I ask for is the most appropriate outcome, in light of the welfare of the whole, now & into the future. I know that spirits know better than I do. I also journey regularly to spirits of nature and of the cosmos, asking for guidance.

    And I see the sacred in everything. Since the start, I’ve journeyed to the spirit of cancer. I do this daily. And the spirit of cancer has become one of my major teachers, particularly on how to approach my illness. I have learned early that my cancer is not a random happening, but that it is, in a way, an initiation. And I am grateful for what I have learned, not only about self-healing, but also about myself, my life, and my role in this world.

    As I became aware early in my shamanic practice, and I talk about this in my book, all man-made objects have a spirit, have a spiritual dimension, are sacred. Nature creates forms, such as rocks, mountains, lakes, rivers, that have a spiritual dimension, have a spirit. Everything we humans create such as buildings, computers, cell phones, cars, medication, is made from material coming from the Sacred Mother Earth. We humans are a part of nature, we are not separate, we are nature, we are a part of nature. Forms we create therefore are sacred, have a spirit, if only we are willing to acknowledge this, become aware of it.

    The Safara shaman, from the Northern Amazon, with whom I work, prepares for me a sacred liquid plant medicine consisting of 5 plants (doesn’t include Ayahuasca), and I take this sacred medicine three times a day. I contact daily, when I take the medicine, the spirit of the plant medicine. I’ve been on chemotherapy in the form of daily pills since the start, 4 years ago. Daily, when I take my chemotherapy pill, I journey to the spirit of my chemotherapy. The chemotherapy for me is a sacred medicine. That is part of my self-healing. I’ve been on a second type of chemo for 2 years, after the first type became less effective, and the spirit of the second chemo has become a major teacher for me. As I take my plant medicine and my chemotherapy daily, I carry out rituals to honor the spirits, and to ask for the most appropriate outcome in the light of universal welfare. And I ask that my healing be shared with all beings. The spirit of my chemo, which is called Tagrisso – it’s important to have a name – has been the main guide in creating this ritual, which the spirit of my chemo modifies every now and then.

    Let me give you more examples of the kind of spirits in our journey to self-healing. I undergo regular medical tests and procedures, and I work with the various spirits involved in these procedures. Every 2 or 3 months, I have CT scans and MRIs. And I always contact, when I go for these procedures, the spirit of the hospital, the spirit of the room where the machine is located, the spirit of the CT scan machine, the spirit of the MRI machine. By the way, when I’m contacting the spirit of the MRI machine, I also ask if the spirit would help those patients who are claustrophobic in the MRI machine (which fortunately I am not).

    Now let me give you a specific example in some detail. After the first cancer diagnosis 4 years ago, I had a radiation treatment for my brain tumors – all 26 of them. This is an advanced medical procedure called gamma knife, which uses high-energy gamma radiation that is focused specifically on the tumors, and hence, has no effect on healthy neurons. Because of the number of tumors, the procedure took nearly 5 hours, as I lay immobile, for about 90 minutes at a time, under the radiation dome. In preparation for the treatment procedure, I had done several shamanic journeys to various spirits, such as the spirit of the hospital, the spirit of the radiation dome, the spirit of gamma radiation, to honor them, bless them, thank them and ask for the most appropriate outcome, in accordance with the greater harmony of the whole. When the procedure started, and I was under the radiation dome, I started again journeying to the spirit of gamma radiation. While in earlier journeys I could not quite distinguish the spirit’s form or how it presented itself, this time the spirit clearly showed itself as an elder woman. I asked for guidance as I underwent the procedure. The spirit reminded me – and remember I’m a physicist – that right after the Big Bang at the birth of our Universe, the very first manifestation of matter or energy was in the form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation – and that is gamma rays. Also, some of these gamma rays, as described by Einstein’s equation e=mc2 – energy and matter can transform into one another. So some of these gamma rays were transformed very quickly into matter and anti-matter. The matter, which was quarks and electrons, became the building blocks of photons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, starts, planets, our own bodies. Now the spirit of gamma radiation told me, and I quote, ‘You are being healed by your Cosmic ancestors.’ We all came down from those primordial gamma rays – all the atoms in our bodies came from those gamma rays. Now hearing this, brought a fundamental change to the medical procedure I was undertaking. I was no longer being bombarded by radiation with all the scary aspects of this. My Cosmic ancestors were healing me. This was a sacred treatment. The 5 hours in the dome were filled with joy, wonder & gratitude. The 26 tumors, by the way, have all gone away, and have not reappeared since. I am grateful.”
    Claude Poncelet shares his Powerful Cancer Story: "Shamanism and Self-Healing" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKKGQ3W4Pc8

 

You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places
I guess it must be so
But still, I cannot see
If the savage one is me
How can there be so much that you don't know?

 
"Colors of the Wind" Songwriters: Alan Menken / Stephen Laurence Schwartz

 

Connie Talbot singing "Colors Of The Wind"

Sweet Lullaby of Routine and Comfort

"In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers."

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

 

“Take away the fear,
only love remains.” 

John McKay, Whole Foods CEO

     It's remarkable how often we wrongly assume that if something comes naturally & feels comfortable then it has to be what we need.  

    A good friend in university would, as soon as he sat down with a book in the library, put his face down on the book and be fast asleep until it was time to leave. When I mentioned this as a potentially serious problem, he'd rationalize this as a necessity. Sleeping felt more comfortable than studying.

    The basis of all our procrastination, intellectual bypassing, & other forms of avoidance is fear. One of the world's most celebrated extreme skiers has this advice:

    "... put down those books that are trying to help you understand or rationalize Fear, and stop, at least for now, expecting a definition of what I even mean by Fear, except you know it when you feel it. Because those intellectual desires only keep you in your head and make your experience with it more diluted & lost. Let’s focus instead on what does work, which is feeling and experiencing Fear, the way a rider intimately feels & experiences a horse.”
    ... become a warrior. This is about turning away from your old belief that Fear is a hindrance and walking in the opposite direction, toward recognizing that Fear is not only an asset and an ally, but one of the greatest experiences you’ll have in your lifetime.
    If you’re willing to enter into such unknown territory, the changes that will occur in your life and the new views you have will be shocking. At some point, you will even arrive at a place where you are truly free.
    Whatever cement you’ve been encased in will finally be gone.”
    Kristen Ulmer. “The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What to Do Instead.” Harper Wave, 2018.

    "The spirit of evil is negation of the life force by fear. Only boldness can deliver us from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is violated." Carl Jung 1912

    “The loss of a sense of being is the most serious side effect of the quantified, commodified, & industrialized life we have manufactured in recent times.

    As Mary Shelley describes so precisely in her metaphor of the monster (the commodified & industrialized person), we live in an age when schools and businesses stitch together the fragments of a personality and call it a human being, useful for production. But when Frankenstein’s monster one day witnesses the tender emotions of a family and begins to read the great poets, he can no longer bear his monstrosity. He becomes aware of the distance between his manufactured self and his sublime possibilities.”
    Thomas Moore. “Original Self. Living with Paradox and Authenticity.” HarperCollins, 2000. 

 
    “By adulthood, we have developed sophisticated psychological strategies & patterns to deal with the uncertainties & unpredictability of life. These strategies shape the person we become and, unfortunately, can do so in increasingly limiting and rigid ways. … our capacity for adaptation & change also slows & freezes. … limitations that actually accentuate our suffering. Life then presents us with a further challenge.
    Are we ready & willing to wake up, to let go & open to our intrinsically fleeting, illusory nature and allow ourselves to change? If we do not do so willingly, then it is inevitable that life circumstances will eventually demand that we face ourselves & shed the skin of our limiting self-conceptions to discover our true nature. Some may take up this challenge, this call, while others choose to do otherwise.

    The intellect is one dimension of ego control that dominates many individuals, particularly men. This form of ego control can be expressed as a kind of arrogance that believes it is always possible to find an intellectual, scientific, rational answer that will give a sense of security. When the intellect provides a rational answer to what is going on, it creates a sense of being in control and, therefore, safe. Refuge in the intellect serves us to some degree but eventually becomes painfully inadequate.
    One man I knew who suffered this habit was able to use his intellect to rationalize every aspect of his emotional life in such a way that he had created an intellectual armor that was almost impenetrable. His capacity to intellectually dodge and weave to avoid real contact with both his feelings and his existential fear gave him a sense of invulnerability. The challenge came when his intellectual defense began to show its limitations. As he looked through the cracks that appeared, he could see that in order to resolve his emotional and existential predicament, he would need to simply surrender his ego’s precarious position. Suddenly he could see that all of his 'understanding' was actually an obstacle to direct experience. He stood on the edge of a precipice and knew he needed to leap. His intellectual knowledge had pushed him up to the edge & left him stranded.
    This was his moment of surrender, when he knew he needed to actually let go & jump: he needed to commit himself to the process. He could see that his intellectual knowledge was a defense against real commitment. To step across this threshold, however, required that he relinquish his pride in the capacity to always find a solution that closed even the smallest chink in his reality. Essentially his intellect was finally failing him, which was terrifying. As his mind began to release its grip, rather than going insane, as he feared, he did not disappear. He felt that he began to open to a more relaxed, more present, more spacious quality that could bear the paradoxes of his existence without panic.”
    Preece R. “The Wisdom of Imperfection. The Challenge of Individuation in Buddhist Life.” Snow Lion Publications, 2006.

    “If something bursts in from another reality, that’s a regrettable embarrassment to recover from as quickly as possible; to rationalize away with our skillful choice of labels & words so we can keep clinging to the thread of what’s most familiar by breaking the thread of the sacred.
    And, of course, this is a problem for everyone without exception because we all need continuity so we at least can seem to function. But even those of us who think we’re most awake are so easily lulled asleep by the sweet lullaby of routine – never quite able to take the next steps needed.”
    Peter Kingsley “A Book of Life.” Catafalque Press, 2021.

“Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and … ”

Paul Simon "The Boy in the Bubble"