Krishnamurti said,"It is no measure of healthto be well-adjusted toa profoundly sick society." It is indeed sad, stressful, disgusting and terrifying that a 'crime boss' is ruling, at his whim, over the most powerful military & financial gang in the world. Many around the world must surely be amazed at the psycho-social-spiritual level of a nation that would not once, but twice elect such a leader.
“Worryin' is just prayin' backwards."David Chethlehe Paladin
Fortunately, a proportion of us also intuitively understand that there is ultimately only one real force or form of energy, and that is love. Like darkness is the lack of light, fear is the lack of love. There is an old Jewish legend that every generation has 36 saints (lamedvavnikim) on whose piety the fate of the world depends. By now, our world must surely have millions ofawakeningevolved human beings!
So when we witness consistently irrational, heartless, uncivilized behavior, it is best for us & everyone else to consider, 'What if this perpetrator were my only child?How would I want them to be treated?' Not beaten or murdered. We'd certainly want them to be arrested & securely restrained, and ideally, if at all possible, rehabilitated to become as functional as possible, & if possible, safely re-introduced into a decent, law-abiding society.
“If this world is to be healed through human efforts,
I am convinced it will be by ordinary people
whose love for life is even greater than their fear.”
Joanna Macy
Poetry, along with other arts, has the wonderful potential to connect us with our heart, right-hemisphere, body, the now, others, Nature and the Divine.
When she was a garden spider Terry Ofner and she hovered improbably above the patio on that autumn morning, she caught me with a filament across the brow. Now, here comes the longest night. People gather around solstice fires as sparks drift into whatever comes next. Angels, too, must have a ritual for this, the moment of perfect imbalance when the dark is collected in one place. They must lean into it, their weightlessness floating us through gravity’s fingers. For me, I need a face. One I can recognize. Take this photograph of my aunt Claudia who died in childbirth years before I was born. How do you know what’s no longer there? Or take the field mouse that nibbled on a seed under the feeder that late November evening. A blink of owl-white and it was gone. What we don’t know comes out of nowhere, takes us up to the other side of doubt. She’s gone, but traces of her remain. A dun-shaded egg sac tucked in a corner out of sight, full of now and hereafter. Or light. Or wings. Or that which floats or falls when let go into our cousin night.
Most of us like to have some control over our lives - some freedom. To actually exercise this freedom, we need courage. Fear can block all of this. Fear can keep us stuck as if in quicksand - for lengthy periods, even for life.
Caution is entirely reasonable. Climbing into a shopping cart on a city street, on top of a steep hill, then riding it down to see what happens is guaranteed to result in severe injury, pain or death. Extreme sports are far less ridiculous, yet offer transcendence:Maria Coffey. “Explorers of the Infinite. The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes – and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communications, and Touching the Beyond.” 2008. My blogs quoting this SUPERB book: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Coffey
Mercifully, deep spiritual practices eg deep meditation, are the safest, most tried-and-true paths by which seekers have, for thousands of years, attained transcendence - gone beyond ordinary limitations. ... a spiritual or religious state or condition of moving beyond physical needs & realities. Theheight of spiritual transcendence is described as a state of continuous, unshakable peace, joy, love & oneness that is independent of external circumstances - BEYOND FEAR! Again mercifully, regular meditation practice gradually brings about progressive felt improvements in our life reassuring us that we are indeed making progress along this well-trodden path.
“The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance. Karl A. Menninger MD, psychiatrist
The advice to 'be curious,' and instead of avoiding, to 'lean into challenges' cannot be overemphasized. The process of facing fears is called exposure. Exposure therapyinvolves gradually &
repeatedly exposing patients to feared situations until they feel less anxious.
After a while, anxiety naturally lessens. Meditationis
a form of exposure therapy. Our basic fear is honestly
meeting & being intimate with ‘the other’- our Self, people, animals, environment, life itself. We use gentle mindfulness practices to slowly ease ourselves back into intimacy with ourselves & others.
“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” Helen Keller
All of life is exposure therapy - if we allow it. It is well-known that people who suffer from anxiety are most anxious about being anxious; those who suffer from depression, are depressed about being depressed. Can we be less afraid of our fear? Can we take all of our neurosesfar less seriously, less personally?
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.” Thich Nhat Hanh “Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.” W. Clement Stone “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” Louisa May Alcott
With loving awareness we do what is appropriate, which is always nurturing whoever & whatever is around us, so that we may all flourish. We must FIRSTlearn to let go of fearfully obsessing over 'me, myself & I.' This is a far more profound step than can be accomplished by a guilt-tripping sermon to stop being so selfish & self-centered. It requires a qualitative shift in consciousness:Dr. Jeffery A. Martin. “The Finders.” Integration Press, 2019. My blog on this PROFOUND book : http://www.johnlovas.com/2024/01/seriously.html . “What is fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity & spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” Maya Angelou
“See how we are called to not run from the discomfort, and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear. If we can be fearless to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn’t stay. It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it. When we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it, when we keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face. And the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world. Our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.” Joanna Macy
“Lovecures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” Karl A. Menninger MD, psychiatrist
“… one of the experiences people have on (meditation) retreats is a very intimate experience with the breath, with the body, with emotions, because there’s no separation. That’s kind of the essence of intimacy: nonseparation. It’s just oneself getting out of the way. The Chinese poet Li Po ended a poem with these words: ‘We live together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.’ So that’s kind of meditative. When we take ourselves out of the picture, then all that’s left is everything. To me, that is the definition of intimacy.” Joseph Goldstein
Ultimately, we know that matter, including our own body, is a form or expression of energy. Each of us operates at, and thus is able to safely handle, benefit from, understand & resonate with, aspecific levelofenergy or power. Too far above one's level feels unpleasant, disorienting, dangerous; too far below feels uninteresting, has little benefit. And the power or energy level at which each of us operates is somewhere along the spectrum, from brutishly greedy & destructive, to sublimely nurturing & creative. Spiritual evolution appears aimed towards progressively increasing our vibrational energy, ultimately to perfect harmony withthe Divinenurturing, creative source.
There are some who, for example, dogmatically believe
that the earth is flat; that science is just one of many conspiracies
of the intellectual elite, etc. Most of us (in a generous moment)
would consider such beliefs to be caused by lack of education, resulting in scientificnaivete.
"Knowledge is power" has long been the mantra for those hoping to get rich & powerful ASAP. Materialism is exclusively concerned with this base level of knowledge. According to materialism, nothing exists beyond the physical. Again according to materialism, the spiritual or metaphysical are nothing more than irrational wishes like children's belief in Santa Clause.
So manymaterialistsdogmatically believe that if something can't be measured / counted, then it can't exist, can't be 'real.' Not only spirituality, but all the other most meaningful aspects of life fit this category: love, empathy, generosity, beauty, inspiration, creativity, all of the arts, etc. No problem, because materialists consider life itself to be completely meaningless. Many of us simply have not had any education in even the social sciences, never mind spiritual matters, so our society as a whole, lacks basic knowledge & understanding in these fundamentally important matters - we are stunninglynaivespiritually.
Scientism's dogmatic exclusivist claim (if science can't prove it's existence, then it doesn't & can't exist. Anyone who says otherwise is childish, irrational, or delusional.) is a reaction to theistic religions' equally problematicdogmatic claims of religious exclusivism (every religious sect asserting exclusive claims on their one & only true 'God.' All other 'Gods' being labelled heretical, wrong, evil).
Legitimate science has nothing to do with dogma. Spirituality has nothing to do with dogma or religious exclusivism.Science clearly has a very important role to help us survive in comfort & safety. Spirituality is crucially important, allowing us to understand our true nature, the meaning of life, and how to live together in love & harmony.
BOTH science & spirituality are absolutely necessary for a wholesome, healthy, balanced life.
Our almost exclusive reliance on the left hemisphere's narrow materialistic perspective, while disparaging the broadly inclusive perspective of the right hemisphere of our brain is ourpresent global blind spot & the ultimate cause of our presentglobal crises, that Iain McGilchrist has researched, written & spoken about most intelligently & eloquently: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/
“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.” Omar N. Bradley, General US Army
“Although the final breakthrough is not in our power, yet we move toward this end when we strive for the open mind. Striving for this objectivity is a difficult movement, it means leaving behind mental constructs & security blankets that, until now, we never knew we had… I know of no other path than that of the open mind which leads to this end.”Bernadette Roberts, “The Path to No Self”
Many are only capable of resonating with their own sect which is personally & tribally self-serving ("spiritual materialism"). We build up a lot of creds in our tribe over a lifetime. So thinking & especially speaking & behaving outside of our tribe's narrow little box requires a lot of strength & bravery. One identifies with & dependsmore than one realizes on one's public persona: 'respected church elder,' 'respected man of science,' 'secular atheist cynic,' etc. The thought of being being excluded from & shunned by one's tribe, being labelled 'heretic,' 'fallen' or 'irrational,' 'soft in the head' or 'senile' is often considered too high a price to pay for becoming authentic - true to oneself.
Mystics& rapidly increasing numbers of spiritually-independent seekers of Truth - like Rami Shapiro - are sufficiently open mind-hearted to clearly see what mystics of all traditions & ages have been pointing to. http://www.johnlovas.com/2015/06/perennial-philosophy.html “A Judaism without tribalism accepts as true only those Torah teachings that promote justice & compassion. Everything else we understand to be the pronouncements of tribal leaders in search of (self-serving) power. Both, however, are worthy of study. We study the Torah of justice & compassion to see the best that we are capable of. We study the Torah of power to see the worst.” Rami Shapiro. “Judaism Without Tribalism: A Guide to Being a Blessing to All the Peoples of the Earth” Monkfish, 2022.
"Once we have died to the false self, we have a hope of getting out of our own way and meeting the Holy One face to face.” Mirabai Starr. “Caravan of No Despair. A Memoir of Loss and Transformation.” Sounds True, 2015.
“Within each of us, in the ground of our being, powers reside for the healing of our world. These powers do not arise from any ideology, access to the occult, or passion for social activism. They are inevitable powers. Because we are part of the web of life, we can draw on the strength — and the pain — of every creature. This interconnection constitutes our ‘deep ecology’: it is the source of our pain for the world as well as our love and appetite for life.” Joanna Macy
"These
grace moments that happen to all of us are very powerful. Sometimes there’s a
moment of oneness, in the aftermath of which we’re never quite the same. But almost always
these moments are extremely delicate, very subtle. And we can’t make
them happen. The thing is, we can freely choose to assume
the stancethat offers theleast resistanceto being
overtaken by the onenesswe can’t attain."
“In Presence, you are One with all life. And from this place of fullness, completeness, wholeness, you create - or rather, you allow creation to happen. You manifest – or rather, you allow manifestation to move through you - with a spirit of playfulness, ease, lightness. You let go ofgoals, comparisons, all ideas of success, even the idea of manifestation itself! Manifestation through relaxation. Creation through surrender. Building up through letting go. Power through effortlessness. These are the wonderful paradoxes of your creative heart.” Jeff Foster
“Surrender – what an amazingly powerful word. It often engenders the thought of weakness and cowardice. In my case, it required all the strength I had to be brave enough to follow the invisible into the unknown. Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart & soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it were given to you by the universe itself – because it was. By now, I had become thoroughly convinced that the constant act of letting go of one’s self-centered thoughts & emotions was all that was needed for profound personal, professional, & spiritual growth.” Michael A. Singer “The Surrender Experiment. My Journey into Life’s Perfection,” Harmony, 2015.
"The beautiful thing about compassion is that when it spontaneously arises in you, an inner door opens into an experience of love, which is our part of fundamental reality.... When the inner door opens, it becomes effortless to reach out & connect with others. This is why the greatest antidote to insecurity and sense of fear is compassion. It brings one back to the basis of one's inner strength. A truly compassionate person embodies a carefree spirit of fearlessness, born of the freedom from egoistic self concern." The Dalai Lama
“‘Alo’ means ‘in the presence of’, ‘ha’ is the ‘breath.’ The power of the breath is identified by Hawaiian people as more than the air one draws in and expels from the lungs - It is the impulse to breathe, the very life force itself, the divine spirit in us." Alice Holokai
And now, a simple yet powerfulbreathing practice for you. With each in breath, feel the nurturing energy you attract. With each, much slower exhalation, feel the warm energy rising from the base of your belly (hara / dantien), up your spine, further warmed up by your heart center, spreading outward to all the rest of your body, and finally up to and outwards from between your eyebrows (third eye). Keep repeating gently, patiently, effortlessly, nurturing your entire body, and the world.
No matter how it appears to others, we're all doing the best we can with what we've got. After all, we're all trying to be happy. Now our ideas about what happiness means & what level of happiness we can realistically achieve differ greatly! I once asked a young woman what she hoped for in the future. Her response: 'a Lazy-Boy recliner.' Many just want to be as comfortable as possible in what they believe to be a hostile, machine-like, meaningless world. Because they have little or no knowledge or experience in these matters, they're absolutely certain that worldviews & self-concepts centering around loving inter-connection & universal consciousness are simple-minded, deluded & mere wishful thinking.
“I don’t believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is too small.” Terence McKenna
More & more people - including the brightest & most highly educated - are continuously experiencing intimate, loving, nurturing connection with everyone & everything, and their peace & joy have become independent of their circumstances, including pain, sickness, aging & death. This highly-desirable & sought-after state - awakening / enlightenment - is considered the pinnacle of human consciousness maturation / evolution, shared by shamans / healers, mystics, saints & "ordinary folks" of all cultures & traditions throughout the ages (see 'perennial philosophy' below).
Despite such vast differences in worldviews & self-concepts people hold, each individual tends to be absolutely certain that they are right, regardless of evidence to the contrary. Our minds seem far more interested in consistency than truth, so we often 'fail to see' or devalue data that contradicts, but gravitate towards & magnify data that confirms our stance.
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anais Nin
“Whatever I believe to be true is immediately true for me. Whatever I know and am certain is real will be experienced as real to me.” Helen Hamilton. “Reality Check. A Simple Guide to Final Enlightenment.” Balboa Press, 2021.
We all inevitably experience hardships severe enough to cause our immature worldviews & self-concepts to shatter, forcing us to rebuild more mature, more realistic, more trauma-proof ones. It is often a very slow road to discovering our true self &real happiness, which are independent of conditions.
If we're fortunate enough to live past middle age, then nagging aches, pains, stiffness, & progressive physical & mental deterioration will test us increasingly. Under 60 years of age & used to good health, you may think, 'No problem, I'll be able to handle it.' But in fact it gets tiresomely unpleasant as a wide assortment of barnacles relentlessly stick, progressively weighing down one's only leaky old rowboat! There are many valid reasons for old folks to feel grumpy - temporarily.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” Joe Klaas
Seniors' conversations often revolve around symptoms, disabilities, illnesses, surgeries,
prescriptions, medical appointments, death & dying.And it's
unbelievably easy 'to contract around' - to obsessively focus exclusively on one's own & loved ones'
problems, desperately wanting to get rid of them ASAP, while feeling frustrated, angry, tired, hopeless & sad.
This is especially so as pains & disabilities no longer quickly heal
& resolve
as they did in youth, but instead relentlessly eat
away at one's body, mind & patience. Our usual egoic mind (small self) is
specialized to survive & mate. In old age, we're no longer giving
birth, and the fact & proximity of death is absolutely obvious. This profoundly unsettles one's ordinary egoic mind. And sadly, this limited, isolated sense of self is ALL many people are aware of!
BUTa solid spiritual practice, ideally established before stuff hits the fan, can make the "difference betweenheaven & hell" during trying times. Despite the current dogma of materialism, one's quality of life CAN be independent of circumstances.
“The term 'perennial philosophy' (Agostino Steuco 1497-1548), refers to these four realizations: (1) there is only one Reality (God, Mother, Awareness, Self, Tao, Dharmakaya, Brahman, Great Spirit, Allah ...) that is the source & substance of all creation; (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego (the 'small self'); (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and (4) that peace, compassion, & justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, & violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality. The great sages & mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time & culture. It is the universality & timelessness of this wisdom that makes it the perfect focus for the spiritually independent seeker." Rami Shapiro. “Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent.” SkyLight Paths, 2013.
"Our true nature is far more ancient & encompassing than the separate self defined by habit & society. We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind. Having evolved us into self-reflective consciousness, the world can now know itself through us, behold its own majesty, tell its own stories, and also respond to its own suffering." Joanna Macy
“... grief, if you are afraid of it and pave it over, clamp down, you shut down. And the kind of apathy and closed down denial or difficulty in looking at what we’re doing to our world stems not from callous indifference or ignorance so much as it stems from fear of pain. …. That became perhaps the most pivotal point in the landscape of my life: that dance with despair. To see how we are called to not run from the discomfort, and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear. If we can be fearless to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn’t stay. It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it. When we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it, when we keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face. And the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world. Our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.” Joanna Macy, interviewed by Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast https://onbeing.org/programs/joanna-macy-a-wild-love-for-the-world
"To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it - is a wonder beyond words. Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. Furthermore, it is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world." Joanna Macy
The underlying crisis in the world today is an unspoken feeling of being afraid, alone & powerless in a messed-up, meaninglessness world. Individually & culturally, we're naturally averse to complicated unpleasant emotions; reject anything deeply meaningful as if it were taboo; are seriously addicted to distractions; and have very low attention spans. So most of us "keep busy" which somewhat distracts us from this corrosive feeling in our gut. "FOMO" (fear of missing out) is actually a legitimate fear, but most of us MISINTERPRET this as missing out on owning 10,000 square foot mansions, $150,000 cars, trips of a lifetime, etc, etc. These are just bigger, shinier distractions. Only the rich can directly experience the fact that these don't work any better than playing video games, getting drunk or being a workaholic. HOWEVER, as in many other serious challenges, the only way to get past our aching dys-ease, is to go throughit. And it requires courage, patience & perseverance - stepping up, waking up & growing up.
“If this world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people whose love for life is even greater than their fear.” Joanna Macy
“... grief, if you are afraid of it and pave it over, clamp down, you shut down. And the kind of apathy and closed down denial or difficulty in looking at what we’re doing to our world stems not from callous indifference or ignorance so much as it stems from fear of pain. …. That became perhaps the most pivotal point in the landscape of my life: that dance with despair. To see how we are called to not run from the discomfort, and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear. If we can be fearless to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn’t stay.It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it. When we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it, when we keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face. And the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world. Our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.” Joanna Macy, interview by Krista Tippett, On Being podcast: https://onbeing.org/programs/joanna-macy-a-wild-love-for-the-world
