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