Choose worlds

Yesterday I watched a remarkable interview of Robert Young by Alan Steinfeld.  Robert Young is an Australian engineer, I think, who had a serious car accident and came out of the experience quite changed. His manner is so honest and real and his message unbelievably simple: we can play in the play world or we can live in the truth of the heart, it is our choice. Robert explains with great clarity the difference between living in a conventional way and being in the moment of truth at all times. Listening to Robert tweeks a mysterious memory in me of vast openness, freedom, absolute perfection and delight in the simpleness of just being. He says we can have this in an instant that it is ours to live and right there in our center available right now.

I keep thinking that an attitude change is what we need to come to that place of pure being and certainly holding a “cup half full” rather than a “cup half empty” attitude points us in the right direction but there is so much more to it than that. The pointers to that state of pure being which is a state where all is perfection are all around us and that’s only because we have a habit of looking outside for answers. Robert Young says that when we begin to quiet ourselves we begin to see. At first we are moving too fast and we are too absorbed to hear the birds, then once we have noticed their song we begin to see them. They are right there around us as they always were. What more is right around us all the time that we never notice? Subtle energies of support, love, caring, sharing wash over us everyday. The ground itself supports us, trees cool us and provide fresh, clean air. Gratitude for simple delights is another pointer toward the ocean of pure being.

The critical element though is choice, we must choose to shift our consciousness from looking out in the world to looking inside to our Source. “Let the Force be with you”. Be in the world but not of the world.  It is a way of being that we must choose again and again. To add to a metaphore that Robert referred to a couple of times, to keep the bicycle going we must peddle the wheels. Robert was speaking of how children learn to ride a bike with an adult holding them on the bike, then releasing when the child has the confidence and skill to keep going alone. He was using this as an example of how great teachers coach us into a pure way of being in ourselves and with our world. In my experience I have had that push from the Guru, I have been released to ride by myself but if I forget to peddle I fall off the bike. Peddling is merely holding onto the state of grace, making space for eternity to wash into my sphere and inform my daily moments. It is far less work than peddling a bike but somehow far more difficult. At first it’s easy to forget that we have a choice to live in grace, gratitude and joy and we get embroiled in the drama of life, there’s plenty there to distract us. With peddling practice we begin to relish the feeling of freedom and stillness within movement, wind in our hair, delightful views rushing by it gets easier.

On any spiritual path practice is key, like any sport or art or skill, practice leads to perfection.

You can see Alan’s interview with Robert here: http://www.newrealities.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=423&Itemid=1109.

Self Inquiry

The first step on the spiritual path is self inquiry. It is the dark night of the soul that is ironically embarked upon when the brilliant light of the Self shines inward. Suddenly all the places ignored where dust has gathered over millenia and lifetimes loom large and terrifying. Dragons of ancient judgements, expectations, fears, regrets and terrors lunge into our awareness and seem to drag us into the muck of despair and hopelessness. Where the heck did heaven go? But I assure you, heaven is here now.

In all things the divine resides, the divine resides in all things. Perfection.

“Om purna madah purna midam
Purnaat purnam udachyate
Purnasya purnam adaaya
Purnam eva vasishyate
Om shanti shanti shantih”

This is Perfect, That is Perfect.
Perfect becomes manifest;
Taking away Perfect from Perfect and Perfect remains.
Om peace peace peace

That from which we came to which we will return is beyond the appearance of good and evil. But if that is true then what mire of consciousness are we swimming in now where so much terror, fear, manipulation, deceit and control swamps our awareness? We are in the dark night of the soul of our community of man right now. Light of truth is washing through our frequency and zone of space and ruffling up the dross of our collective consciousness. Stuff that we have constructed together and tolerated for aeons is no longer appropriate. Darkness will no longer survive as the light of Truth/Love scrubs through every corner of our constructs; government, communication, financial, educational, communal and more. We will all see things come up that we would rather not see.

Right now I am reading the book, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein where she diligently describes the rise of disaster capitalism and outlines atrocious war mongering and disaster mismanagements designed to sweep away social governments and make room for unfettered laissez faire capitalism. Why? I wonder, am I reading this? It makes me feel terrible and yet I feel it is essential to know. I feel like Naomi, blessings to her for suffering through uncovering this material, that I am witnessing the inner dysfunction of this awakening collective being – Humanity. Part of the self-inquiry process is to watch to see our anger flare up unprovoked and taste it without judgement or action. Until we can see deep into our dysfunctional interaction and unveil the misguided self-interest of the ego we will not be able to still the mind and enter the heart where heaven is.

Right now we need powerful collective, self-inquiry. I am not here to say what’s right or wrong, who is good or bad but merely to say look within and discern the flavor of your heart. What’s the resonance there with your heaven? Does this outer noise promote heaven or scare it away? Ironically inspite of the dismay and shock I experience reading that book I keep gravitating to it, I feel compelled to finish it. It is like a joyful duty of clearing out a claustrophobic closet filled with the scariest, dangerous stuff that I just have to get out of my house.

The blessing here is that the light is becoming so bright and veils of illusion are thinning so much that truth cannot be squelched or spun. Truth will come out. When truth comes out constructs that used to support illusions will collapse. We have seen this already within the financial system. We are seeing it with the startling failure of government’s solvency from Iceland to Greece, to New Jersey and California. The unsustainable profiteer capitalism responsible for this is explained in, “The Shock Doctrine”.

Interesting times are here. Shocking changes are happening right now and more will come. Equanity, poise and self-inquiry are called for in times of distress. We must remember that we are not these constructs that we identify with; nation, job, spouse, parent, child, teacher, leader. We are responsible light beings here to play together and if the constructs of our imaginings seem to fall apart like a sand castle in the tide then let’s come together and build another better, sustainable (for a time) sand castle that we all can share the joys of.

I want to invite you to check out a superb inner resource that I personally love; http://www.emergingearthangels.com/ Karen Bishop regularly writes about the energetic shifts that we go through as a planet. Karen provides grounding, insightful and useful information on the energetic frequencies of the moment allowing us to connect to what is going on and understand the deeper reasons for various physical and emotional states of the ascension process. I was inspired by her postings to look out into the world to see what evidences of these shifts are becoming physically apparent.

More on, “The Shock Doctrine” at: http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

You can get there from here

The point of this blog is to explore the consciousness that heaven is Here but I do understand that that is a very strange concept. What we need to know is that getting to heaven in some future is not about accumulation of good deeds but is about being in a good state. Which means that the instant the state is in alignment with heaven, heaven is here, in this moment. We must vibrate with the frequency of heaven in order to be in Heaven and that takes commitment. There are some things we can do that will help us to create that state of heaven.

All esoteric teachings recommend practices that align us with heaven. Let’s have a look at some of the specific ways we can manifest heaven. There are simple and direct paths to heaven including chanting, meditating, service, devotion, yogic breath and slightly less direct is knowledge. Knowledge is only slightly less direct because it involves the mind and the mind can very quickly complicate any project. So we will look at the mind another time. The activities, with focus, that quickly shift our state function by circumventing the mind and by engaging the heart  and the Supermind, the gateway to which is the Sahasrar in the top of the head. The personal mind becomes surrounded and drowned in the joy of connection, or union. But any way, here I am talking about the deliciousness of an apple, it’s juicy tang, crisp bite, satisfying flavor and written that is meaningless. I recommend that you bite the apple. Find a way to do it.

What are the ways we are prevented from immersion in the heavenly states? These are frighteningly simple; fear, ego or karma. Instead of our natural state of Sat, Chit, Ananda – Being, Consciousness and Bliss we willingly even eagerly immerse ourselves in the ongoing dramas of duality. We see black and white, good and bad, I want this, I hate that, my friend, my enemy. We bite the drama of life and gnaw away without fulfillment. This is not ours to digest. Many great sages have said what goes on in the world is none of our business. Our business is how we respond to what is going on. This is where the mind gets involved, so again I defer that discussion to another time. Right now I want to focus on a delicious opportunity to bite the apple through chanting.

Many years ago I had a magical experience. I was chanting with a few thousand people in a huge and gorgeous outdoor temple. With my eyes closed I became acutely aware that I was in a certain different place. It was even more gorgeous than the physical site of the temple I was in. It was white marble, with a spectacular sky view from a very high place, whereas the physical place I was in was tucked near a stream amid trees. The inner place had a distinct feeling of being more real than real so much so that I was a bit confused when I opened my eyes. This inner place was intimately familiar. As we all chanted together I felt as though the sound was liquid gold, it welled up inside me and in everyone else. It spilled out over the marble floor pooled and poured over the sides of the temple to form a Niagara Falls of liquid gold blessings pouring from an impossible height onto the world. We were seated in a ball of compassionate light. This was  a vivid experience that stays with me and confirms the reality of heaven.

This weekend on February 14th, Valentine’s Day we all have a beautiful opportunity to experience the mystery of chanting by participating in World Sound Healing Day.  At noon EST take as much time as you want to sound “AHHHH” whereever you are. Do it by yourself or do it with friends and family but know that you are among thousands if not hundreds of thousands of others sounding with you. Set your mind on the image of peace and harmony, see a world healed of conflict and strife. We are in critical between times right now where we choose the world we will create. I choose heaven – will you choose with me?

To find out more about World Sound Healing Day check out
http://www.healingsounds.com/sounds/worlddayinfo.asp

Good Company

Today I have been rudderless, unable to stick myself to a project. Disinterested in sticking to any project except perhaps reading a very enticing book that I am in the middle of. I have felt myself spiral into a kind of apathy and for some reason I find that state very distressing. I always have. All day I have been thinking, “Write the blog” but I feel I kind of have to be in the heavenly mood or something. But if this exercise in recognizing heaven is not going to work for me and I choose to avoid it if I’m feeling a bit lost then what’s the point. So here we are.

A beautiful teacher, perhaps my favorite teacher used to say that good company is essential for spiritual progress. It seems to me today that the idea of good company extends far beyond the idea of who you hang out with but into the realm of what we feed our minds. I mentioned the engrossing book, it’s great but macabre and depressing – not good company. Since I was a kid I have been keenly aware of what the consumption of entertainments does to my system. There are many movies that made me feel like I want to take a bath after I have seen them, there were books that thoroughly depressed me. I find myself wondering if I really need to read this stuff, do I need to go into those distressing places.  I want to know what’s going on in the world, I want to know what other people are finding engrossing and what’s on the New York Times best seller list but I am determined to watch my state while I do and not to slide into even a tiny abyss.

I was about to pick up the book again, I will finish it. But right now I am taking a mood lifting break. I remembered that often when I feel a bit down I can put the qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on and instantly my heart soars. I feel blessed to have found a sure shot mood lifting fix for myself. Music is an easy reminder that heaven is here.

Simplicity

I think we all recognize today that a rising commodity is simplicity. Once on a job we were trying to solve a complex prop/costume trick, I can’t even remember the trick but the prop/special effects guy kept saying to his team “KISS” “KISS”. Finally I asked him – “What are you saying?” – “Keep it simple, stupid”, was his reponse. Well, of course, I don’t love being called stupid, especially if it’s true and I am being stupid, but I love the idea of keeping it simple. I had a great artist friend many years ago who lived by that mantra and regularly simplified his life by purging all unnecessary elements. I respected him for it but I didn’t understand it back then. Now I do. However, I understand it on a much more profound level than by the face value of keeping things simple.

It is a far greater challenge to keep the mind simple, to keep the inner dialogue simple, to keep the connection to the heart simple than it is to clean up our outer world. Interestingly in the process of my own spiritual practice I have learned that the two, the inner and outer are magically interlaced. One time I was weeding my garden and I had a visceral experience of weeding my inner being. Each weed plucked from the garden felt like a cleansing of old nonsensical concepts or ideas or judgments. Who knows what it all was exactly but clearly something was going on. It was as if the outer moved inside me. Simplicity has an alluring quality of ease about it. It is a welcome into a natural state of comfort, understanding and authenticity. Heaven is not complex, it’s answers come easily and naturally, you know it already.

It’s odd that in a world of so many advantages, conveniences, connections, entertainments, and diversities that the stress level of complexity would become so heightened. Yet, with all our multiple choices we forget how to connect to the simplest delights. The mind becomes infatuated by the dizzying array of challenges and leaps into the fray. I am very practiced at stilling my mind and still I get caught up, it’s the greatest challenge of city life. But really it is not at all about cleaning up the outside, the world can and will get crazier, busier, more demanding, more exciting and our job is to meet it with increasing stillness and simplicity. The simple understanding of the heart is profound. Yes, that is oxymoronic isn’t it? But the heart understands this, the mind will never.

The easiest way to keep it simple is to go for the delightful, the elegant solution. Working with what presents on the outside helps, afterall we have inherited heaven, it is our birthright so why not manifest it around us? In my old apartment I hired a Feng Shui master to sort us out. We discovered that the “money” corner was a disaster. It was a complete mess of stacks of incomplete art projects. It was crowded, unattended and inaccessible. Our finances were in similar shape. We immediately went to work to clean up the physical space of that area and after time our relationship to the financial has shifted remarkably. Meanwhile in the marriage corner which was quite a cramped part of the apartment everything was beautiful. The Feng Shui master approached that corner with a look of great concern on his face then he stood for a long time looking at it. When he was done he pointed out how we had naturally mitigated the effects of the tight space with all the appropriate items; plants, natural objects of stone, pictures of our ourselves and even all in the appropriate numbers and colors of items. He was impressed. I have since learned a tiny bit about Feng Shui and make sure to pay attention to the effects of the objects in my space. It is a powerful practice of awareness that beautifully serves to uplift our experience of our spaces. I recommend it.

Without ordering a Feng Shui master though we can in very simple ways begin to align with heaven, to call it into our sphere in a more pronounced and recognized way. You have heard it said, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Notice that in yourself. I know I feel so much better when my apartment is clean, my clothes and self are clean. My mother’s dog used to run around in a maniacal delight after her bath, even she loved being clean. Flowers lift my spirits, especially in winter. We are so blessed that we can get such a thing in winter. Even princes were hard pressed to come up with fresh flowers in the Middle Ages. Inspiring art is another simple delight, a great piece of art brightens a room, usually requires no fossil fuel power and can provide many hours of joy. I love looking at my new wall of art.  A candle can provide warmth and comfort and a guide into meditation. These are some of the ways I create heaven in my own space.

And Oh! I almost forgot, I am sitting next to a beautiful fishtank with a world of lively fish in it. Living beings, plants, fish, cats and dogs provide the simplest loving interactions that point us toward understanding heaven.

Unconditional Love

Love is the fabric of the universe, it is the frequency of the universe and it is the flow of communication between beings. So much of love is discussed in popular culture, in songs and in entertainment but is that really love? We are not talking about romantic love here although that is a very small part of the love equation. Any part of the love pie can lead us to the true nature of love; romantic love, familial love, love of pets, love of tribe and especially love of self, as long as the ego is held in check. Unfortunately the ego can derail any of these paths of love with tragic consequences and it takes discipline to walk the knife’s edge toward enlightened understanding of the nature of love.

The closest that we can get to the concept of primordial love or of the kind of love that the Mother Creator has for her beings is unconditional love. Yet even that does not begin to express it fully. In the Vedic tradition we hear that our true nature is that of the unknowable divine, of Shiva, the one unmanifest God and we learn that that nature is Sat Chit Ananda – Being, Consciousness and Bliss. This is the kind of love we are talking about. It is a natural state of awareness, isness and acceptance. This is the state of Heaven, it is a state that is your natural birthright. It is a state that we all know, that we often chase after without really knowing how to get it.

Tiny hits of this bliss of heaven, our natural state can be tasted. We may feel it in a perfect piece of chocolate, the warmth of our loving interactions,  in profound gratitude or in meditation and yet the feeling is fleeting. We chase it in even more dangerous ways, through drugs, sex and dangerous forms of stimulation that can never provide that lasting connection. One of the most delicious paths to cultivating this understanding and ultimate immersion is through the ancient Indian Bhakti tradition which simply prescribes love; love through service, love through chanting, love through dancing and love through worship. It is an easy and a most delicious path.

I feel singularly blessed to have experienced the primordial nature of love as there was a time in my life when I would lie awake at night and feel blissful waves of the energy of the universe roll over and past me. I have felt breathed by the universe and like a rushing river flowed through me. These are experiences of the natural and perpetual movement of love that is a conscious force of creativity, that permeates all things and nourishes all that is created. Once the impetus of creation moves from the stillness of the emptiness, which is really the universal field of potentiality then it becomes that love; a kind of nourishment, glue, substrate and consciousness all at once out of which we become.

So there it is, perhaps, the easiest way to know heaven is to commit to love. Commit to love unconditionally, commit to “love the one you’re with”. Commit to love anyone you can – family, friends,  pets, enemies, co-workers and your self. If you don’t or can’t then focus really diligently on where you can love because where you focus is where seeds will grow. Commit to love in all circumstances. Seek out circumstances that foster love and while you are a fledgling unconditional lover avoid circumstances that circumvent your natural love. Be selfish with your cultivation of love. By this I mean selfishly cultivate love rather than fear or hate or jealousy or competition or any other state that chases your love away.  Your love is more important than any other state, be grateful for it. Be grateful to those that provide you the opportunity to explore and expand it. Love will save you, it will save the world, Love is the world.

I want to share something with you that I was working on for a while starting in 2006. One day I picked up a Bible and it occurred to me that the creation story could be retold from a different point of view. Imagine that instead of a vengeful, judgmental God the Creator is a Mother – a loving, generous Mother whose only hope is that her creation will succeed and flourish and know its own greatness within her. Here is the result of my first few verses. I hope that you enjoy them.

BIRTH

Chapter 1

  1. First and always there was The Immaculate Womb,And this principle includes both male and female; for That Immaculate Divine Creator truly includes all and all is made from That. The Immaculate is all that ever was, is or will be as well as all that might and may never be as well as the potential for all that is and is not.And Its nature was, is and will always be perfect Love.
  2. The Immaculate Divine Creator is eternal absolute bliss where no thing and all things rest together in vast potential.
  3. All is merged in bliss and at once knew and did not know its fullest nature.
  4. Then in one eternal moment She inhaled and an extraordinary light burst from no being into being.
  5. When She saw this light she was overwhelmed with perfect Love and She knew that this was good.
  6. In this way the Immaculate Mother and her beloved, now separated may see and know each other. And the Divine Mother marked the birth of the first dawn.
  7. With sudden knowing and seeing by this extraordinary light came her divine desire to create, so out of her Immaculate Womb came the first thought.
  8. And She determined to reflect the unknown bliss of her non-being within this new thought that her fullest love might be known.