How do you feel directing your own & your loved ones' lives, in what many perceive to be a challenging, at times hostile, and seemingly deteriorating world? Many today feel anxious, nervous, afraid, worried for themselves, their children & grandchildren.
What ifHOW we usually perceive & think is ALMOST ENTIRELY focused on DARKNESS: trying to grab, accumulate & survive at any cost AS IFwe were alone, struggling in a hostile, meaningless, mechanical universe? WELL, THIS IS our culture's, and thus our own personal defaultway of understanding, thinking & behaving, called "left-hemisphere dominant" by noted scholar / researcher / author / psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist MD (http://www.johnlovas.com/2025/10/hope-courage-patience-perseverance.html). This mindset is certain that we are alone in a meaningless, mechanical universe, struggling against all odds to survive. Being trapped in this narrow, robotic mindsetIS the nightmare! Sadly, those of us who have experienced major trauma, especially in early childhood, have tremendous difficulty trusting anyone, anything, including life itself. As a result, trauma survivors tend to rely exclusively on their intellect ie left hemisphere! This leaves their hearts armored, somewhat protected against re-injury, buteffectively blocked from feeling, receiving & giving love.
Balanced, well-adjusted, thriving societies & individuals are "right-hemisphere dominant" by default. This right-hemisphere perspective is RADICALLY DIFFERENT because it ISaware of & ISin harmony with ALL of life's INFINITELY WIDER contexts, like Beauty, Love, Meaning, Values, Relationships, the Arts, Spirituality, etc.
Mysticspast and present, are exemplars of right-hemisphere dominance,experiencing life radically differently than left-hemisphere dominant people.Mysticsfeel peacefully held in love; "at one" - Unitive Mystical Experience - with everyone, everything & the Divine;no separation from others & life;feelnohostility; no desperation to control anyone or anything; no fear of anyone, any "vengeful God" nor death; noneurotic compulsion to do anything, be anyone, go anywhere. They feel liberated, free to be appropriate toward everyone & everything in the present moment ie to embody Divine nurturing unconditional love. ALL of us can gradually open our minds & hearts to our own Divine nature. Watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLmOpCCJkuY
Instead of a steady diet of psychopathic politicians, billionaires, "influencers", and other nightmare visions, for the sake of sanity - how about reading about and listening to wise elders? My blogs are all about inspiring, mature, healthy, wise role models, like:
and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by.
It's OUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves inwisdom - OR - darkness (https://www.jonathanashford.com/post/the-darkness). Are we "too busy", yet doomscrolling for hours each day?; Is this wisdom stuff "too deep" or "too confusing", and again, are we "just too busy" to get into it and learn? We can procrastinate and aim at bestfor feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life isreallyabout.
I'm sure I'm not alone wanting a wise, big-picture overview of life, so I canlive my best life. Mystics of all wisdom traditions, passed & living, are connected to & sharethis wisdom.
One of the wisest quotes I've come across: "The most important question to ask ourselves, according to Einstein: 'Is the universea friendly placeor not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993.
Even intelligent, educated people seem overwhelmed bymysticism for many reasons. First and foremost, our culture is by and large ignorant about mystics&mysticism. Our "consumer society" trains us to buy as much as possible as fast as possible, "greed is good," even after 9/11 George W. told Americans to show the world what they're made of, "Go shopping!" We're starving on a restricted diet of junk food (shallow materialistic concerns), and don't even know the vocabulary of nutrition (metaphysics, spirituality). We fear what we don't know, and procrastinate & otherwise avoid learning about it.
"Nothing in life is to be feared,
it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that
we may fearless." Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes in Physics, & Chemistry
"... relax, allow life to be as it is, &open yourheart to yourself. It’s
easier than you might think, and it could change your life.” KristinNeff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011.
"I was born when all I once feared I could love.”Rabia Basri
"Once we are willing
to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of
the simplest of life experiences."Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara
During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda
"To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things."Zen Master Dogen
SO, what CAN we do?Not should, not must - although our time as individual mortal beings, as well as a species is running out - but absolutely CAN do, because wisdom that is IN ALL of US, the wisdom that is in fact who/what we actually are, is amazingly what we mostly, and in some almost entirely, have forgotten. Here's some of what I've understood from the many imho wise elders I've been reading about, listening to on the web, occasionally meeting, and more recently, blogging about:
Don't Judge. Every day we see outrageous, disgusting behavior on the news. It's disorienting to see how almost half of the US population fervently supports behavior, that in a few years (as Germans did after WWII) they will categorically deny having even known anything about it. So it's hard not tojudge terrible behavior. Butfrom a much higher, non-dual perspective,what if we're each born to play a certain role, with a certain set of talents, a certain set of limitations & no matter how wonderful or horrible it appeared, we all did our best. And what if most of our ridiculous behavior was because most (but mercifully not all) of us completely forgot that we took on our role freely, including the fact that we are actually producers & executive directors of the entire play - almost identical to the Jesus being fully human andfully Divine story, except the he had almost complete recall of who he actually was, where he came from, and where he would return to. Bewildered? This blog & its video might help: http://www.johnlovas.com/2023/01/the-nearly-unforgivables.html
Be Discerning. Many of us spend a great deal of time watching / listening to the news & comments about the news. While it's important to perhaps watch / listen to the CBC or BBC news for 30 minutes a day, much more than that is probably masochistic or even an addiction. Doing more & more of what makes you feel sick is not a recipe for optimal healthy. Instead of a steady diet of psychopathic politicians, billionaires, "influencers", and other nightmare visions, for the sake of sanity - how about reading about and listening to wise elders? My blogs are all about inspiring, mature, healthy, wise role models, like:
and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by.
It'sOUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves inwisdom - OR - indarkness. "Too busy", yet doomscrolling for hours each day?; is this wisdom stuff "too deep" or "too confusing", and again, "just too busy" to get into it and learn? You can procrastinate and aim at bestfor feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life isreallyabout.
Learn & Do Spiritual Practices. Theory is important BUT not enough. We need to intentionally PRACTICE shiftingfrom beingfearful consumer robotstobecoming wise elder human beings. Our culture is not big on "practices." Some of us might admire the dedication it takes to become world class athletes, dancers, surgeons etc, but most of us just don't have the dedication to put in the time & effort. The ONE area where ALL of us would massively benefit is putting in dedicated time & effort into spiritual practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=spiritual+practice
Be a Nurturing Presence. Only by waking up to who/what we truly are, can we help instead of hinder others to wake up and help others. “… we have to allow our higher nature to show before we can do anything real, before we can be truly responsible people.” Jiyu-Kennett. “The Wild, White Goose. The Diary of a Female Zen Priest.” ed 2. Shasta Abbey Press. 2002.
Be Humble. The ego is a tricky, sticky, persistent trickster. We must regularly check our own BS-meter. A common problem is assuming a massive group ego - thinking one can do even horrible things because "I'm doing God's work." But such "crazy wisdom" is just crazy. To paraphrase Forest Gump, "Crazy is as crazy does." Humility, gentleness, empathy, wisdom & kindness are rarely promoted or even recognized in our consumer culture & partisan religions.
Learn Self-compassion. The tough, aggressively self-reliant, workaholic individual is venerated these days, while a decent, nurturing, humble person would be branded "a loser" by today's dictators & billionaire CEOs. So decent human beings need to intentionally practice self-compassion, in order to survive & be effective in today's crass, superficial, heartless environment.
Practice Self-awareness. With self-awareness practice, your talk & your walk are kept aligned. Again, humility is crucial. "Self-inquiry" is a specialized, key, self-awareness practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Self-inquiry
Become More Discerning, More Self-compassionate. The more neuroses & "story of me" burdens we shed, the more clearly we see ourselves & what's going on around us. The more clearly we see, the more magnified our remaining (though diminishing) neuroses & other burdens appear to us, so it can seem like we're regressing instead of "getting ahead." So we need more self-compassion & patience with ourself. “Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgmentsslip away in the tracks of tears. And when we cry, we are revealing our truest, most loving self.” Richard Rohr. “The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage” Convergent Books, 2025.
Live in Joy. Gradually, you will be progressively more peaceful & joyful, regardless of the many challenges & sorrows in your own & loved ones' life, as well as that of the human race. The major, even crippling burdenthat you will shed is your identification with & constant rehashing of your own 'story of me' AS WELL AS its twin, the constant anxiety of 'what will happen to me?' and of course, vividly imagining the worst possibilities. As this HEAVY PSYCHOLOGIC BURDENstarts to lift, you start to experience 'the peace that surpasses all understanding' ie it must be experienced to be understood. Even this has, if you will, a 'dark side': while you'll see as your own past, no matter how miserable, as just a story, your empathy towards others (even actors playing a sad role in a movie) becomes progressively more powerful. Your job now is embodyingpeace & joymodelingequanimityeven in the midst of chaos, when it's the most essential.
"This is actually instruction from the Buddha, where he says, ‘Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. Live in joy, in health,even among the afflicted. Live in joy and peace, even among the troubled. Look within. Be still, freefrom fears and attachments. Know the sweet joy of living in the way things are in the Way, the Dharma.' And so this is also a challenge. He doesn’t say, let’s get rid of disease and all these problems, butto find a joyfulway to be aliveamidst it all.” Jack Kornfield - Finding Your Self on the Spiritual Path - Point of Relation with Thomas Hüblhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fjz7WaTyX4WONDERFUL MATURE WISDOM - Jack Kornfield at his best
And some 500 years later, in another incarnation of the Divine, Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us." Fixating on quickly eliminating age-old problems is in itselfproblematic, akin to "seeing a splinter in another's eye," again from Jesus, advising that we should first address our own significant flaws (‘the beam’ in our own eye) before attempting tocorrect / "save"others.
“The teachings on Buddha Nature do not mean that there is some nucleus of Buddhhood enclosed in sentient beings behind the temporary obscuring stains. Rather, our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself the sum of temporary stains that float like cloudsin the infinite, bright sky of Buddha Nature, the luminous, open expanse of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. Once theseclouds dissolve from the warm rays of the sun of wisdom shining in this space, nothing within sentient beings has been freed or developed, but there is just thisradiant expanse without any reference points of cloud-like sentient beings or cloud-free Buddhas." Sthiramati, 6th century Indian Buddhist scholar-monk
Watching David Ditchfield's 40-minute BBC interview about his Near-Death Experience (NDE) is imho wise use of your precious time: https://www.shineonthestory.com/
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 conclusionswill 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 failto 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 hubriskeeps 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.
Dogmaticsecularscientism & dogmaticreligions are equally captivating, both promisingcertainty. 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 arebecoming"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 experienceOneness 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
We feel most alive & joyful when we're most intimately, naturally connected to who / what we truly are, and feel most at home in our own skin, independent of external circumstances. Sadly, this is far from our common, shared experience, even if we live in the relatively safe & affluent West. Rather, at best we feel a low, yet chronic persistent level of anxiety, time-poverty, and sense of 'lack.' Butauthentic spiritual practices, such as self-inquiry, are specifically-designed to lead us back home to who / what we truly are.
“... behind the conventional religions with their myths, rituals, beliefs and dogmas, are these hidden disciplines for practices for training the mind to induce the same states of consciousness that the founders had realized, and thereby opening up similar possibilities for all of us. Religions tend to get started when an individual has some sort of breakthrough of some kind. Different founders have different kinds of breakthroughs, but they have spiritual breakthroughs of one kind or another. And the people who are effective in initiating traditions that have lasting power provide several things. First they provide an insight, a vision, a spiritually-informed understanding. Then they’re also able to transmit partly charismatically, partly technically – that is they offer a variety of practices by which other people can have the same realizations for themselves, so that they transmit two things. One is insight, understanding, a visionof the way the world & we look from that awakened place, but secondly, a set of practices which allow others to have the same insight, understanding & state of consciousness and test it out for themselves.” Roger Walsh (2hr) interview : https://batgap.com/roger-walsh/
“All authentic religions – including revealed traditions such as Christianity & Islam – contain contemplative or mystical branches. These are crucially important because they practice contemplative disciplines – for example, meditation, contemplation, and yoga – that foster an array of psychological and spiritual skills such as concentration, insight, emotional maturity, & wisdom. When these skills mature, they result in maturation to transpersonal states & stages that can culminate in a direct insight into reality. This insight yields a radically different (transrational, transconceptual, or transcendental) kind of wisdom known, for example, as jnana (Hinduism), prajna (Buddhism), ma rifah (Islam), or gnosis (Christianity).” Roger Walsh ed. “The World’s Great Wisdom: Timeless Teachings from Religions and Philosophies.” State Univ of New York Press, 2014.
“The perennial philosophy, which lies at the heart of the great religions and is increasingly said to represent their deepest thinking, suggests that consciousness is central and its development is the primary goal of existence. This development will culminate in the condition variously known in different traditions as enlightenment, liberation, salvation, moksha, or satori. The descriptions of this condition show remarkable similarities across cultures and centuries. Its essence is the recognition that the distortions of our usual state of mind are such that we have been suffering from a case of mistaken identity. Our true nature is something much greater, an aspect of a universal consciousness, Self, Being, Mind, or God. The awakening to this true nature, claimed a Zen master, is ‘the direct awareness that you are more than this puny body or limited mind. Stated negatively, it is the realization that the universe is not external to you. Positively, it is experiencing the universe as yourself.’ … Typical is the claim by an Englishman that to realize our true identity is to ‘find that the I, one’s real, most intimate self, pervades the universe and all other beings. That the mountains, and the sea, and the stars are a part of one’s body, and that one’s soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures.’ Nor are such descriptions the exclusive province of mystics. They have been echoed by philosophers, psychologists, and physicists. ‘Out of my experience … one final conclusion dogmatically emerges,’ said the great American philosopher William James (1960). ‘There is a continuum of cosmic consciousness against which our individuality builds but accidental forces, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother sea.’ From this perspective, evolution is a vast journey of growing self-awareness and a return to our true identity. Our current crises are seen as expressions that arise from our mistaken identity. But they can also be seen as self-created challenges that may speed us on our evolutionary journey toward ultimate self-recognition.” Roger Walsh. "Human Survival: A Psychoevolutionary Analysis." ReVision 1985; 8: 7-10.
“turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.” Adyashanti
Imho, we all have one of 3 dominant worldviews: 1) The world's a mess & getting worse, we're all going to die anyway, end of story - nihilism. 2) Things aren't too bad for me, I'll get by, my goal is to be happy with as little stress as possible - self-centeredness. 3) Things are perfect AND could use some improvement - awakening.
Many people are nihilistic - they've given up all hope because they realize that self-centeredness cannot make them happy. The vast majority of people are self-centered because they still haven't realized that self-centeredness is a dead end. Self-centeredness just morphs into nihilism. Increasing numbers of people are awakening to the realization that we are far, far greater than what our usual state of mind ("egoic rational mind") is capable of understanding. In fact, this liberating realization is qualitatively beyond, & is thereforestrongly opposed by our ego. It can take a lot of meditation practice, & sometimes challengingcircumstances that defeat the ego, before the ego becomes quiet enough to allow us to see "outside the box."
"Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender our attacks & defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are." Marianne Williamson
"The perennial philosophy, which lies at the heart of the great religions and is increasingly said to represent their deepest thinking, suggests that consciousness is central and its development is the primary goal of existence. This development will culminate in the condition variously known in different traditions as enlightenment, liberation, salvation, moksha, or satori. The descriptions of this condition show remarkable similarities across cultures and centuries. Its essence is the recognition that the distortions of our usual state of mind are such that we have been suffering from a case of mistaken identity. Our true nature is something much greater, an aspect of a universal consciousness, Self, Being, Mind, or God. The awakening to this true nature, claimed a Zen master, is ‘the direct awareness that you are more than this puny body or limited mind. Stated negatively, it is the realization that the universe is not external to you. Positively, it is experiencing the universe as yourself.’ … Typical is the claim by an Englishman that to realize our true identity is to ‘find that the I, one’s real, most intimate self, pervades the universe and all other beings. That the mountains, and the sea, and the stars are a part of one’s body, and that one’s soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures.’ Nor are such descriptions the exclusive province of mystics. They have been echoed by philosophers, psychologists, & physicists. ‘Out of my experience … one final conclusion dogmatically emerges,’ said the great American philosopher William James (1960). ‘There is a continuum of cosmic consciousness against which our individuality builds but accidental forces, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother sea.’ From this perspective, evolution is a vast journey of growing self-awareness & a return to our true identity. Our current crises are seen as expressions that arise from our mistaken identity. But they can also be seen as self-created challenges that may speed us on our evolutionary journey toward ultimate self-recognition.” Roger Walsh. "Human Survival: A Psychoevolutionary Analysis." ReVision 1985; 8: 7-10.
Only when we recognize our true Self can we start to find peace, real happiness, & effectively help ourselves & our world. There are excellent contemporary guides - one of the finest imho is Helen Hamilton.
Helen Hamilton's EXCELLENT talk on recognizing our true Self :
