A reader sent me this excellent talk by Brené Brown on The Anatomy of Trust:
A few notes:
Trust is built in small moments – do you avert and betray or connect and build trust.
What is trust? Choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else.
Distrust – what I have shared with you that is important to me is not safe with you.
Acronym “BRAVING” – when we trust we are braving connection with someone.
Continue Reading…
Atman or the Cosmic Self has a three-fold nature. It has a subject or observer aspect, the process of observation, and the object or observed aspect. I illustrated this here.
As consciousness is aware of itself both globally and at every point, it can observe its own dynamics and experience this directly.
“Locally” or personally, we experience this as the ego or I-sense, the intellect, and the mind.
Samkhya describes how Buddhi (intellect) recognizes self as different from other, creating Ahamkara, the I-sense or ego. This arises in early childhood as a baby distinguishes itself from mother.
Manas … Continue Reading…
I’ve written or commented on the gunas in a variety of articles. This includes The Gunas and Emotions, Karma and the Gunas, and The Gunas in Awakening. I talk about them regularly because they play a key roll in our style of awakening.
The gunas are the fundamental qualities of consciousness as it begins to express. As vibration arises, it has 3 qualities:
Sattva: purity or clarity of the flow (golden)
balance, harmony, goodness, purity, universalizing, holistic, constructive, creative, building, positive, peaceful, virtuous, light, buoyant
– Jupiter, Moon, Sun
Rajas: movement itself, energy or … Continue Reading…
Some interesting new research is finding that the brain [actually mind] creates virtual spaces into which it produces geometric forms as a way to process complex thinking. When the process is complete, the spaces are deleted.
The graphic is of particular interest.
R. Buckminster Fuller wrote the 2-volume Synergetics which he subtitled “Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking.” He mapped how the mind and the world were structured with “all-space filling geometry.”
I’ve also talked about how form is created through vibration, then interrelated in geometric patterns with a form … Continue Reading…
One of the curious things about the spiritual journey is that the reality of one stage is not the reality of another. As each stage is a shift in being, it brings its own sense of self and the world. As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi used to say, “Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness.” For example, we can easily compare waking and dreaming states. The reality in each is quite distinct.
This also means that terminology that well-suits one stage doesn’t work as well for another. My book editor, for example, steered me away from a few phrasings … Continue Reading…
Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 was a revolution in its day. Even today we don’t really understand it. Most people still have a strong materialist world-view, putting their faith in what they can see and touch. Many physicists seek to find particles for any style of energy they discover. Does gravity really need a particle?
And yet the equation tells us that energy and matter are just different states of the same thing.
If we flip the equation, we can understand it in a different way. E/c2 = m
The m stands for matter, which is a “substance that has mass and … Continue Reading…
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 13
Verse 24
Some realize the Self by the Self in the Self through meditation, others through Samkhya yoga, yet others through Karma yoga.
Verse 25
Others, however, not knowing thus, sit near Me [Krishna], having heard from others, they also do cross beyond death, devoted to what they have heard.
This lays out the Yogas or paths to liberation.
The first is Dhyana Yoga, the path of meditation covered in Chapter 6 of the Gita. These days, it is often taught as Raja … Continue Reading…
There can be said to be two trees of life.
The first tree is the one most of us know better. It is rooted in the “world of men.” The roots originate in action, born of attachment to its fruits. We act to achieve a desired result. Seems natural, right?
Yet by grasping at what we want and avoiding pain, we impede the smooth flow of life. We build a web of unresolved energy that ties us to our past and others around us. It gets much harder to fulfill desires and action often leads to undesired consequences. … Continue Reading…
In the mists of ancient time, group consciousness was in a downward cycle and took a somewhat distinct fall. There was a great deal of confusion and discord as cultures collapsed. Some entities took control over many people energetically and physically. It was a short, messy time but until recently, consciousness was not high enough to clear the residual effects of that time. It has cast a shadow for centuries.
Current world events are partly about bringing those old power and control dynamics to the surface to be seen and released.
As always, the desire for power and … Continue Reading…
Recently, I heard a song from my favorite Donovan album, Essence to Essence. I saw him play this live in Vancouver in the early 70’s.
Not the greatest dub:
The lyrics:
There is an ocean of vast proportion
And she flows within ourselves.
To take dips daily we dive in gaily,
He knows who goes within himself.
The abode of Angels,
The mystical Promised Land,
The one and only Heaven, the God of man
Is but the closing of an eyelid … Continue Reading…
I’ve spoken before about the five subtle elements or constituents of form. In the process of becoming or manifesting, consciousness creates a subtle “space” by recognition of itself as subject and object. This is much like you noticing objects around you now. They exist in space because perception inherits from the qualities of consciousness.
Flowing attention brings the quality of movement in space or ‘air’. The light of consciousness brings ‘fire’ and so forth, collapsing into increasing levels of density. Space, air, fire, water, earth.
Parallel to this in the structure of life is Continue Reading…
Many religious and spiritual traditions describe God with a specific gender. For example, although there are those who worship Mother Mary, Christianity is dominated by a Father God. A lot of modern Hinduism is also directed at male deities like Shiva or forms of Vishnu.
Some modern faiths speak in terms of a Father-Mother God, likening it to a personal choice or a genderless or androgynous divinity.
What this is leaving out is direct experience. When the means to direct experience is lost, traditions devolve into systems of belief. This has happened repeatedly throughout the ages.
However, … Continue Reading…
