Gathering the Means

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Growth

On the recent Action and Support post, I talked about Natures Support. Rick Archer reminded me of an old Vedic saying: the means gather around sattva. Let’s discuss. The means here is the ability to get things done effectively. The ability to solve problems and fulfill desires. While we all have levels of skills and abilities, if we don’t have support from the environment to get things done, we’ll struggle and thrash. For example, no matter how great a runner you are, if nature turns the track into mud you won’t do well. We also see this when people move … Continue Reading… →

Fixing Ourselves

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1950 Ford Convertible

On this blog, I regularly speak of the value of healing and cleaning up to support our spiritual journey and quality of life. However, when we have an identified ego, we’re driven by a mind and intellect who see themselves as separate and in need of protection. The intellect divides and the mind judges, often as bad. You see this in spiritual circles in insisting on the “one truth,” the “nonduality manscape,” spiritual materialism, and so on. When the ego co-opts the healing process, there is the tendency to see ourselves as broken and needing repair. Ego knows it’s not … Continue Reading… →

Action and Bliss

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Turtle.

Another conversation brought out further points around action.  They mentioned the “Law of Reversed Effort” in this short article*. “The harder we try the less we shall succeed.” “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent unknown quantity may take hold. We cannot make ourselves understand; the most we can do is to … Continue Reading… →

Action and Support

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Kalani.

The recent article Natures Support lead to some further questions and discussion that are worth exploring. Karma is an eastern word that means action. It is energy with a motivator in it. For every action there is an equal reaction, a consequence. Usually, when people are talking about karma, they’re talking consequences. When we resist what is arising in our life, we can prevent the flow of energy from completing. Thus it cycles around again in the future. This is the wheel of karma. If there has been a history of resistance, which is typical, a backlog builds up. This … Continue Reading… →

Awakening Attitude

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Jack-Jack.

Recently, I saw an excellent article by John Welwood in Tricycle magazine called The Psychology of Awakening. Too often, awakening and psychological health are seen as different worlds even though they’re closely entwined. “…even among advanced spiritual practitioners, certain islands — unexamined complexes of personal and cultural conditioning, blind spots, or areas of self-deception — may often remain intact within the pure stream of their realization.” This is very true. They can remain unseen until events trigger them. Yet even then, if we see ourselves as separate from our humanity, we may excuse our bad behaviour or blame others. I’ve … Continue Reading… →

Ways of Seeing, Modes of Living

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stairs

The world around us can be perceived through several distinct lenses. Our past experiences certainly are a major influence, not to mention our dominant sense, our culture (group consciousness), our stage of development, and so forth. Through an appropriate spiritual practice that brings transcendence (Samadhi, Turiya), we not only touch into consciousness (presence) but we refine the physiology and our senses of perception. Refinement takes place through purification of the subtle layers of our physiology and a shift in the overall tone or dominant guna we carry. This combination refines our perceptual abilities. Each of us comes into this life … Continue Reading… →

Chitheads Interview

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Chitheads

On December 11, I chatted with Jacob Kyle on the Chitheads* podcast from Embodied Philosophy. He suggested we’d chat for about 45 minutes but we went an hour and a half. Even there, we skimmed a lot of the territory he wanted to cover.   They list these topics: – Davidya’s continual journey of awakening – 7 stages of consciousness – Awakening inside and outside of a tradition – Chasing experience – “Feeling value” and its role in the process of awakening – Personal and impersonal – changing focus – Ethics and awakening – three folds of the ego – Rising … Continue Reading… →

The Yog Vasishtha

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a cloud

As most readers know, I started my path through Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He’s had a strong influence on my perspective as he brought great clarity to ancient philosophy and enlightenment. Maharishi spent a great deal of time translating the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutra in the 60s and early 70s (they have not published most of it). But it turns out much of Maharishi’s later programs came out of the Yog Vasishtha. The Yog Vasishtha is an ancient text describing the teachings of the sage Vasishtha to prince Rama. It is the core text of the Ramayana, the story … Continue Reading… →

Grace

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stork

Grace is an important element of the spiritual journey. Around the world, we see grace in one of two ways. The first type of grace is unexpected gifts or unmerited favour of the Divine. Peter Wehner described it as “unconditional love given to the undeserving.” For example, there is no manifest “cause” of awakening. It happens when the Divine gifts it. It is not personally earned but rather is given to move things along in the whole. In that sense, grace isn’t personal. Bono, the lead singer of U2, said “Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, … Continue Reading… →

Offering Back Everywhere

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rose garden path

Previously, I wrote about Offering it Back, then Offering Back Everything.   When we shift from being a “me” that wants to control into recognizing ourselves as wholeness, we can directly experience the benefits of offering everything that arises in life back to source. Our benefits, our achievements, our challenges – we can offer everything back. If you allow the flow of life, everything arises from source to help you heal, grow, or resolve. Curving it back to source continues the process. This amplifies the benefits and supports resolving what is completing.   Where do you offer it back to? … Continue Reading… →

Nature’s Support

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ocean of love

I wrote about Nature’s Support last spring but the topic has come around again from a different angle.   There is an idea in eastern philosophy known as the support of nature. As we stop resisting life and instead learn to work with what is arising, we cooperate with the flow of life in and around us. Our desires are then fulfilled more easily, we can work out problems faster, and what we need just shows up.   Keep in mind that everything that happens is being done. Our cooperation allows those who support us to support us more easily. … Continue Reading… →

The Soul Song

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Concerto in G minor

Every cell, every organ and system, every object in your environment, everything arises in a nested space with a specific vibration or “song.” These nested spaces are created by flowing awareness curving back on itself. Globally, this means becoming self-aware. Yet consciousness continues to flow and continues to curve back on itself in smaller and smaller loops, increasing in density until the space within the loops manifests as actual space. This continues in increasing density until it expresses as form. (There are various perspectives of this process.) “Curving Back on Myself, I Create Again and Again.” – Krishna, in the … Continue Reading… →