My wife recently made the choice to donate her kidney. To her Earthly, biological mother, Marcia. Marcia is 69 years old and has suffered an insidious degradation of her quality of life due to 14 years of kidney disease. Despite years of trying to deflect attention from herself and of denying herself any other possibility other than pain, suffering, and inevitable demise, she finally acquiesced to outside pressures to make the choice of trying to improve her health and to prolong her life. A recent "close encounter" with death, coupled with the impending move into a "dream home" of her own design, gave Marcia the motivation to choose to place her name on the kidney transplant list. Both Toril and Marcia's adoring husband of 49 years, Toril's father, John, jumped at the opportunity to become Marcia's donor. Only Toril made it through the screening process.
On October 22, 2014, Toril "went under the knife." Though the kidney was removed laparoscopically through a "single port" (her belly-button!), the recovery has been challenging. "Ten times worse than child birth," she says. Marcia's recovery was much quicker--and the effect of the new kidney was immediate: Within a few hours after her surgery her copius urine was showing no signs of the toxins that had been breaking her bodily systems down for years. The morning after surgery she was attending post-operative education classes and her test numbers were indicating that her kidney function was better than those of a normal human being! Released from hospital only five days after receiving her new kidney, she came home saying, "Other than the pain at the surgical scar and some old arthritis, I am no longer sick." All 22 of the 24 symptoms of kidney failure that she had exhibited only five days before had disappeared. They were gone. No more nausea, poor sleep patterns, joint swelling, skin psoriasis, lack of energy, poor appetite, high blood pressure, and many other nagging and/or debilitating symptoms, gone!
Did you know that 64% of people on organ transplant lists die before they ever get a chance to receive their organ transplant? Apparently, this is not only due to the reluctance and delay that potential donors have for allowing their names to be placed on the list but more it is due to the extreme hardship the commitment places upon the donor. A living donor will miss four to six weeks of work. Becoming a living donor makes life and health insurance companies drop you or turn you away. A living donor's family is automatically and sometimes catastrophically (if one loses income or a job) absorbed into the recovery period as someone must look after the donor for the four to six weeks it takes to heal and get strength back. In the case of a kidney donation, the living donor is almost guaranteed to fall into the Stage One Kidney Disease category. It usually takes around six months for the donor to fully regain strength and energy.
With all of this in light, I want to open a discussion around the subject of the karmic or spiritual significances of becoming an organ donor. The human body is a vessel, a vehicle, that We use for Self-discovery and Self-realization. Like any vehicle, what's wrong with giving away a part or piece so long as it doesn't have any detrimental affect to the desired functioning of the host vehicle? If the body or vehicle is dead, then this really is a non-issue. But if I'm a healthy, living human, why not give you one of my spark plugs or one of my dual carburetors or my catalytic converter if it will help prolong the life span of your vehicle? So long as the intentions and desires of the recipient are to use the life extension and improved quality for continued gathering of adventures, experiences, learning and growth, right?
But--and this is a very big, seemingly cruel "but"--what about 'forcing' the diseased person to accept responsibility for and learning from the choices he or she made which brought them to the point of disease and demise? There is no right or wrong, no better or worse, no sooner or later. There is always a chance to learn our lessons. But, that "always" also includes the learning we can (and will) do after we have left our human vessel. Won't the impact of that death and dying experience be greater for the pain and suffering that our self-inflicted disease and corporeal destruction incurred?
Perhaps. And perhaps not. Learning can be done through suffering but it can also be done through joy. Again, neither choice is right or wrong, better or worse. One comes to acquire preferences. Partly out of familiarity and pattern, but even out of curiosity and courage (to conquer fear, to go some "place" you haven't gone before). With an extended life due to receiving an organ donation one might choose either, and both, suffering or joy as one's learning medium. It is more likely that the demise and death due to disease would involve pain and suffering--though even here some people find the mental and spiritual strength and detachment to choose to learn through Joy despite their physical pain and suffering.
Could you do it? Could you donate an organ? To loved one or a stranger? Would you? What would be your reasons and motivations? What would be your hesitations or fears? What might your lessons be through this process?
Fresh off the publication of Episode 41: Tough Love, I have to ask whether or not your saying "no" to organ donation causes you guilt or shame--and where do you think those feelings of guilt or shame comes from? Are you less brave, more selfish, less of a "humanitarian," more cruel and heartless if you choose not to consider donating an organ? What are the elements of codependency active in the process of donating an organ? I mean, the possibility of transplanting human, animal, or artificial organs is as amazing as creating machines with replaceable and interchangeable parts. Human ingenuity and the technological advances of the scientific approach are extraordinary for their advances. But, to what end? What is the purpose of healing or saving life, limb or property? Are we not just extending the inevitable? And in this day and age of capitalist greed, is the motivation of our "health care" and "insurance" industries truly altruistic? I mean, fame, power, self-gratification, wealth, and greed seem more the dominant motivators in our cultural paradigm at this time. Using others and their suffering from illness, accident and disease for personal gain seems a bit shady, doesn't it? But then, we are in the Dark Ages of our Sun's journey.
Though it seems only natural that one question the motivations behind one's organ donation, I must again remind you that there is no right or wrong. Every choice that you make sets in motion myriad waves of effects, offers myriad opportunities for learning, and myriad opportunities for more choices. Choices made in Ego consciousness have different effects from those made in Spiritual awareness. The more aware we are of our Spiritual origins, of our Divine Nature, the more able are we to think and act from higher forms of Love. Unconditional love is a place from which we think we would like to act, however, unconditional love is not achieved through the mere throwing down of the phrase. The "unconditional" part indicates a full knowledge and willingness to Love without expectation, without condition, with total detachment from any desire or outcome. I fear that the occasions of human love that transpire unconditionally (while consciously) are rare. I know that their occurrence will only increase as we learn to recognize more fully our Spiritual Nature, as we are able to reign Ego in and bring it under the full submission of Spirit.
With unconditional love something like a kidney donation is as easy and effortless as giving a stranger our last stick of gum. Aware of the Illusions of Duality in Creation, detachment from our own needs and desires becomes easy. And detaching from the choices that the recipient makes with regard to his or her use of that kidney (or stick of gum) is just as easy. As I've said all along, it's all a matter of perspective. Are you viewing the situation from a position of fear, need, and separation, or are you viewing the situation from a position of Love and detachment.
Tough Love is given that name for a reason: it's tough to master, tough to sustain, tough to break old habits--especially when they're conditioned in you by societal patterns. But, in all honesty, unconditional love is the true toughest form of love--at least for humans--because it entails letting go of any and all conditions, attachments, desires, expectations, and wishes for outcomes, returns, or effects. It entails a surety that your thought or deed is enacted in the full intention that it be according to the Highest Good of all Creation, and that it's effects will be equally perfect and Good. Actually, unconditional love requires a full and constant confidence that any thought or act is in fact always and in all ways exactly the most perfect and highest good for all of Creation. Being an act of creation which, as we know, is only possible because every act of creation comes from our Divine Nature, from the Creative Source from which we all come, from which we derive all of our power and strength and intelligence, every thought or action is always an act of our most recent version of our greatest definition of our Highest Understanding of our Highest Truth, Highest Beauty, Highest Love, and Highest Joy. Armed with this perspective, unconditional love is omnipotent and unfailing; armed with unconditional love all other forms of love merely fall into place. Then something as big as a kidney donation becomes as small as a wave lapping up onto a beach or an exploding supernova or a Big Bang or a leap of a lepton from one side of the Universe to the other or the life of a puny little human being on the puny little blue planet that revolves around this average little star in this average size galaxy we call the Milky Way. Big and little, important and inconsequential, right and wrong, better and worse. It's all just a matter of perspective.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
The Cosmological Answer to Everything
42.
42 is, of course, the number Douglas Adams gave us through his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe
as the answer to "The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, of Everything."
42.
42 is a number. In the Hitchhiker's Guide series, a mega-supercomputer took 7.5 million years to come up with this answer. A single number.
Wouldn't it be every scientist's wet dream if the answer to the ultimate question of Life, The Universe, of Everything came out to be a number--or, better yet, a mathematical equation. The Grand Unified Theory, too. Unfortunately, it might just take our real life human scientists about 7.5 million years to come up with a singular, unifying answer to everything.
The deeply mystifying and often nearly incomprehensible findings of science over the past century have hinted at something that writers and artists have been theorizing for a while now: The intangible abstracts of our world must be incorporated into the theories and formulae of science in order for science to have any chance at completing their grasp of Life, The Universe(s), of Everything. The fact that almost every scientist, even Einstein, eventually comes to admit that there is just "something more" or "something bigger" out there that has to be "pulling the strings"--that is responsible for at least setting all This in motion, if not orchestrating It, is reason enough to open one's mind to the consideration of a truly all-encompassing, Truly Grand, theory of Everything.
As I myself have alluded to from the beginning of this podcast series, abstracts like thought, emotion, faith and Love are glaringly missing from the mathematical language of science. On the obvious level, this is due to the inability of science and mathematics to quantify abstracts. We're not even sure we can observe them much less quantify them. Thought and love, faith and emotion, have no boundaries. They are not confined to brain, neurons, touch or even words. They are not confined to time or space. We can only observe the effects of them, not their essences. Were scientists able to use their minds to incorporate these abstracts into their theories--non-mathematical though they are--I think they would be able to leap into realms of understanding far beyond their limited theories. Shamans and yogis routinely do this. Writers and artists, too. They use the mind to travel beyond their corporeal material, empirical worlds. They use imagination to explore the infinite pathways of cosmic possibilities.
The question is: How does one measure, or quantify, thought, emotion, faith and Love? If they could, science would try (and may!) But until that time--until abstracts and unfixed, variable phenomena are included in science's scope of imagination, we are stuck being ... stuck. A Grand Unified Theory could not be so grand nor unified if it didn't account for thought and emotion, faith and love, could it?
What is needed is a bridge between the empirical and the abstract, the physical and the metaphysical, the subjective and the objective, the implicate and the explicate, here and there, this and that, church and state. One thing, one concept, to bridge--or unify--them all.
In the recently released science fiction film Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has his protagonists bring this subject into their conversations. The film begs for scientists to expand their thinking to incorporate abstracts--and especially love. Never before have I seen or heard presented so clearly how necessary it might be for the advancement and survival of Life and, perhaps, humankind, to rectify the gulf, to merge the dimensional thinking of science with the non-dimensional imagining of heart-based creative arts. Unfortunately, such a merger, such an event, is highly unlikely to come from humans coming out of our schools and school systems.
If you look at the science taught to our young in schools and textbooks, the information being disseminated there is still stuck in much out-dated Newtonian principles. Texts and curricula have not yet begun to include much less embrace the Quantum Era. And yet, quantum theory was born over a hundred years ago! It's hard, observable, empirical facts all the way. Black holes and The Big Bang (theory) may be taught. Atomic and subatomic news and theories are only be mentioned in relation to nuclear weapons and atomic energy. Relativity might be mentioned--and maybe Schrodinger's cat--but the real significance and applications that quantum findings have to our lives, to our society, to paradigms dependent on cause and effect (like consumerism, and history)--to thought and behavior--are absent from school and media borne information--and they are very much absent from curriculum-initiated classroom discussion. It's as if the powers-that-be don't think we, the masses, can handle the information, or, worse, that they can't trust us with it.
It wasn't always this way--and it won't be for much longer. According to my current and, yes, limited comprehension, Earth is in a place most distant from the embrace and power of Love and Light. This does not mean that Love and Light are absent from our time. Within the dualistic game that our sun is playing within Cosmic Creation--and, particularly, with its twin in the Pleiades star cluster--the effects of Love and Light are diminished by the "distance" our sun has traveled on its circuitous journey ("precession") around a Galactic Clock--a clock that the sun and its Pleiadean twin co-created for the express purpose of periodically testing themselves against the wide range of effects that can occur while "separated" from one's loving twin.
Of a journey that is approximately 24,000 Earth years long (on average), it has been 13,500 years since Sol was last "with" its twin. The effect on humankind while Sol travels away from its twin is a steady diminishment of spiritual understanding. At its furthest distance (which occurred, on Sol's current journey, in the so-called "Dark Ages," around the year 500 A.D.), the human mind is most fixated with everything material and materialistic, is least aware of its spiritual nature and purpose. It is, therefore, quite a testament to the power of Spirit that there is any Love and Light on the planet right now!
In my still limited comprehension of Life, The Universe, and Everything, Thought is an instrument of Creation. Perhaps it is the instrument of creation. It moves faster than light, faster than time. As a matter of fact, Thought has absolutely no allegiance to space, time, or dimensionality. It uses them, but it is not bound to their laws. And yet, Thought is a Creative force.
Love also exists beyond any space-time continuum. To my understanding, Love is the Glue that Binds, the matrix of "water" in the "ocean" of Cosmic Creation. Love is ever present and never not present. Love is the constant presence of Divinity. It is the reminder of the Sacred Unity binding us all together--the constant reminder of the Oneness from which we all came, the nourishment we took with us when we created the Illusion of Separation, the 'directional beacon' reminding us of the Home we think we left and to which we are always welcome (even though we have, in fact, never left it).
Now here comes the big leap: I posit before you that both Thought and Love are one in the same. That waves arising from the Heart and Mind are of the same origin as well as of the same substance. They are both creative forces. One, Love, is the power of Life, the power of Creation, the power to create; Thought is the conversion and direct focus of that power, of that potential energy, into Creation and creativity, into action.
Now the reader may react to this by asking, But what about hateful, hurtful thoughts? In this view where Thought and Love are one and the same--or at least one arises from the infinite source pool of the other, how could "bad" or "evil" things happen? In my view, the "world" beyond space and time, beyond duality, there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, no better or worse, which means that, ultimately, there can be no "hateful" or hurtful thoughts (or even actions--or events!) for every thought or action is an act of creation, which is an act of love in that it is joyfully making something where nothing was before, and an act of creation can only be an act of Divine Joy, Truth, Love, and Beauty. An act of creation offers something new and unique to the Cosmos. An act of creation is only possible because of the Divinity of all things and is always performed for the Divine expression of infinite possibilities and growth experiences to the other entities of consciousness who are using the Illusions of Duality to convince themselves that they are separate and individuated. The experiences and lessons available to "others" through thoughts or acts of "hate" or "hurt" are brought into Creation as gifts for others to use (or not) for their evolutionary adventures in self-definition, self-actualization, and Self-realization. It's okay: It's all good.
Going back to the stimulus of Christopher Nolan's provocative film, Interstellar, I can't help but question whether or not Thought and Love may also be one and the same with Gravity. Think about it: Gravity is the undeniable and irresistible mutual attraction of two (or more) things. To my understanding it is constant and invariable. Since all of the Cosmos' Creations arise from the same Source, doesn't it make sense that they all should be attracted to each other--that they all want to stay together, to joyfully acknowledge and revel in their Divine Source, their Ultimate Oneness--that Gravity should be an extension of the unifying Divine Consciousness of all Creation?
I believe that no formula is going to pin down or incapsulate the essence and power of Love, Thought, Faith, intention, imagination, or even gravity. Science is limited by its attachment to an underlying belief in the physicality of all things. Until this belief is suspended, is let go of, scientists will only be able to understand the Universe in physical terms.
I see a day in the not too distant future--a day in which Light and Love are permeating the fog of ignorance and materialism--a day in which scientists become mystics, a day in which mystics agree to play with observable, empirical data. The two camps will get together. They will hash things out for a long time, and they will, eventually, merge into one camp, into one group. It is then that they will finally come up with a unifying system that will satisfy our understanding of Life, The Universe, and Everything. The only problem with this is that once again, it will be just a system, just a box, just a temporary and limited expression of our most expanded understanding of our selves and our place in the Cosmos. There will always be more. There will always seem to be inadequacy. The Divine discontent. So long as we continue to choose to play within the dualistic Illusions of Creation, we will always feel this twinge of discontent, this feeling that something isn't quite right, that maybe this isn't really real. And we will be right.
42 is, of course, the number Douglas Adams gave us through his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe
as the answer to "The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, of Everything."
42.
42 is a number. In the Hitchhiker's Guide series, a mega-supercomputer took 7.5 million years to come up with this answer. A single number.
Wouldn't it be every scientist's wet dream if the answer to the ultimate question of Life, The Universe, of Everything came out to be a number--or, better yet, a mathematical equation. The Grand Unified Theory, too. Unfortunately, it might just take our real life human scientists about 7.5 million years to come up with a singular, unifying answer to everything.
The deeply mystifying and often nearly incomprehensible findings of science over the past century have hinted at something that writers and artists have been theorizing for a while now: The intangible abstracts of our world must be incorporated into the theories and formulae of science in order for science to have any chance at completing their grasp of Life, The Universe(s), of Everything. The fact that almost every scientist, even Einstein, eventually comes to admit that there is just "something more" or "something bigger" out there that has to be "pulling the strings"--that is responsible for at least setting all This in motion, if not orchestrating It, is reason enough to open one's mind to the consideration of a truly all-encompassing, Truly Grand, theory of Everything.
As I myself have alluded to from the beginning of this podcast series, abstracts like thought, emotion, faith and Love are glaringly missing from the mathematical language of science. On the obvious level, this is due to the inability of science and mathematics to quantify abstracts. We're not even sure we can observe them much less quantify them. Thought and love, faith and emotion, have no boundaries. They are not confined to brain, neurons, touch or even words. They are not confined to time or space. We can only observe the effects of them, not their essences. Were scientists able to use their minds to incorporate these abstracts into their theories--non-mathematical though they are--I think they would be able to leap into realms of understanding far beyond their limited theories. Shamans and yogis routinely do this. Writers and artists, too. They use the mind to travel beyond their corporeal material, empirical worlds. They use imagination to explore the infinite pathways of cosmic possibilities.
The question is: How does one measure, or quantify, thought, emotion, faith and Love? If they could, science would try (and may!) But until that time--until abstracts and unfixed, variable phenomena are included in science's scope of imagination, we are stuck being ... stuck. A Grand Unified Theory could not be so grand nor unified if it didn't account for thought and emotion, faith and love, could it?
What is needed is a bridge between the empirical and the abstract, the physical and the metaphysical, the subjective and the objective, the implicate and the explicate, here and there, this and that, church and state. One thing, one concept, to bridge--or unify--them all.
In the recently released science fiction film Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has his protagonists bring this subject into their conversations. The film begs for scientists to expand their thinking to incorporate abstracts--and especially love. Never before have I seen or heard presented so clearly how necessary it might be for the advancement and survival of Life and, perhaps, humankind, to rectify the gulf, to merge the dimensional thinking of science with the non-dimensional imagining of heart-based creative arts. Unfortunately, such a merger, such an event, is highly unlikely to come from humans coming out of our schools and school systems.
If you look at the science taught to our young in schools and textbooks, the information being disseminated there is still stuck in much out-dated Newtonian principles. Texts and curricula have not yet begun to include much less embrace the Quantum Era. And yet, quantum theory was born over a hundred years ago! It's hard, observable, empirical facts all the way. Black holes and The Big Bang (theory) may be taught. Atomic and subatomic news and theories are only be mentioned in relation to nuclear weapons and atomic energy. Relativity might be mentioned--and maybe Schrodinger's cat--but the real significance and applications that quantum findings have to our lives, to our society, to paradigms dependent on cause and effect (like consumerism, and history)--to thought and behavior--are absent from school and media borne information--and they are very much absent from curriculum-initiated classroom discussion. It's as if the powers-that-be don't think we, the masses, can handle the information, or, worse, that they can't trust us with it.
What introductory and general science books and classes are more likely to do are to share the most significant figures of science in storybook form--perhaps as historical characters--accompanying their contributions to science with 'interesting' factoids while glossing over or ignoring the impact and significance these contributions should have to our perception and our interaction with the world.
Unfortunately, I believe that these facts-only, storybook versions of science's heroes and their accomplishments have been delivered in this meaningless, edited, trivial fashion on purpose. Teaching people that power is in the hands of the observer, the individual, would undermine the capitalist agenda of breeding mindless, perpetually dependent consumers. Therefore, any perceptual adjustments humankind should or could be making to an expanded understanding of Life, The Universe, and Everything--which might come as a result of the findings and insights revealed in the quantum era of science--have been purposely watered down or, more likely, just plain omitted. It is the same with anything that can be contrived as "spiritual:" it has been minimized, trivialized, or ignored. Instead, busyness, fear, helplessness, automation, entertainment, distraction, escape and addiction have been promoted, nurtured in our fast-paced, information-overload, rampant consumer society. Why? A confident, self-assured, self-reliant individual is not only difficult to control--difficult to 'herd'--but he usually makes a bad consumer. The current powers-that-be--our capitalist "Captains of Industry"--need easily manipulated consumers to sustain their power and wealth.
Unfortunately, I believe that these facts-only, storybook versions of science's heroes and their accomplishments have been delivered in this meaningless, edited, trivial fashion on purpose. Teaching people that power is in the hands of the observer, the individual, would undermine the capitalist agenda of breeding mindless, perpetually dependent consumers. Therefore, any perceptual adjustments humankind should or could be making to an expanded understanding of Life, The Universe, and Everything--which might come as a result of the findings and insights revealed in the quantum era of science--have been purposely watered down or, more likely, just plain omitted. It is the same with anything that can be contrived as "spiritual:" it has been minimized, trivialized, or ignored. Instead, busyness, fear, helplessness, automation, entertainment, distraction, escape and addiction have been promoted, nurtured in our fast-paced, information-overload, rampant consumer society. Why? A confident, self-assured, self-reliant individual is not only difficult to control--difficult to 'herd'--but he usually makes a bad consumer. The current powers-that-be--our capitalist "Captains of Industry"--need easily manipulated consumers to sustain their power and wealth.
It wasn't always this way--and it won't be for much longer. According to my current and, yes, limited comprehension, Earth is in a place most distant from the embrace and power of Love and Light. This does not mean that Love and Light are absent from our time. Within the dualistic game that our sun is playing within Cosmic Creation--and, particularly, with its twin in the Pleiades star cluster--the effects of Love and Light are diminished by the "distance" our sun has traveled on its circuitous journey ("precession") around a Galactic Clock--a clock that the sun and its Pleiadean twin co-created for the express purpose of periodically testing themselves against the wide range of effects that can occur while "separated" from one's loving twin.
Of a journey that is approximately 24,000 Earth years long (on average), it has been 13,500 years since Sol was last "with" its twin. The effect on humankind while Sol travels away from its twin is a steady diminishment of spiritual understanding. At its furthest distance (which occurred, on Sol's current journey, in the so-called "Dark Ages," around the year 500 A.D.), the human mind is most fixated with everything material and materialistic, is least aware of its spiritual nature and purpose. It is, therefore, quite a testament to the power of Spirit that there is any Love and Light on the planet right now!
In my still limited comprehension of Life, The Universe, and Everything, Thought is an instrument of Creation. Perhaps it is the instrument of creation. It moves faster than light, faster than time. As a matter of fact, Thought has absolutely no allegiance to space, time, or dimensionality. It uses them, but it is not bound to their laws. And yet, Thought is a Creative force.
Love also exists beyond any space-time continuum. To my understanding, Love is the Glue that Binds, the matrix of "water" in the "ocean" of Cosmic Creation. Love is ever present and never not present. Love is the constant presence of Divinity. It is the reminder of the Sacred Unity binding us all together--the constant reminder of the Oneness from which we all came, the nourishment we took with us when we created the Illusion of Separation, the 'directional beacon' reminding us of the Home we think we left and to which we are always welcome (even though we have, in fact, never left it).
Now here comes the big leap: I posit before you that both Thought and Love are one in the same. That waves arising from the Heart and Mind are of the same origin as well as of the same substance. They are both creative forces. One, Love, is the power of Life, the power of Creation, the power to create; Thought is the conversion and direct focus of that power, of that potential energy, into Creation and creativity, into action.
Now the reader may react to this by asking, But what about hateful, hurtful thoughts? In this view where Thought and Love are one and the same--or at least one arises from the infinite source pool of the other, how could "bad" or "evil" things happen? In my view, the "world" beyond space and time, beyond duality, there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, no better or worse, which means that, ultimately, there can be no "hateful" or hurtful thoughts (or even actions--or events!) for every thought or action is an act of creation, which is an act of love in that it is joyfully making something where nothing was before, and an act of creation can only be an act of Divine Joy, Truth, Love, and Beauty. An act of creation offers something new and unique to the Cosmos. An act of creation is only possible because of the Divinity of all things and is always performed for the Divine expression of infinite possibilities and growth experiences to the other entities of consciousness who are using the Illusions of Duality to convince themselves that they are separate and individuated. The experiences and lessons available to "others" through thoughts or acts of "hate" or "hurt" are brought into Creation as gifts for others to use (or not) for their evolutionary adventures in self-definition, self-actualization, and Self-realization. It's okay: It's all good.
Going back to the stimulus of Christopher Nolan's provocative film, Interstellar, I can't help but question whether or not Thought and Love may also be one and the same with Gravity. Think about it: Gravity is the undeniable and irresistible mutual attraction of two (or more) things. To my understanding it is constant and invariable. Since all of the Cosmos' Creations arise from the same Source, doesn't it make sense that they all should be attracted to each other--that they all want to stay together, to joyfully acknowledge and revel in their Divine Source, their Ultimate Oneness--that Gravity should be an extension of the unifying Divine Consciousness of all Creation?
I believe that no formula is going to pin down or incapsulate the essence and power of Love, Thought, Faith, intention, imagination, or even gravity. Science is limited by its attachment to an underlying belief in the physicality of all things. Until this belief is suspended, is let go of, scientists will only be able to understand the Universe in physical terms.
I see a day in the not too distant future--a day in which Light and Love are permeating the fog of ignorance and materialism--a day in which scientists become mystics, a day in which mystics agree to play with observable, empirical data. The two camps will get together. They will hash things out for a long time, and they will, eventually, merge into one camp, into one group. It is then that they will finally come up with a unifying system that will satisfy our understanding of Life, The Universe, and Everything. The only problem with this is that once again, it will be just a system, just a box, just a temporary and limited expression of our most expanded understanding of our selves and our place in the Cosmos. There will always be more. There will always seem to be inadequacy. The Divine discontent. So long as we continue to choose to play within the dualistic Illusions of Creation, we will always feel this twinge of discontent, this feeling that something isn't quite right, that maybe this isn't really real. And we will be right.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Tough Love
Years ago I received a powerful lesson from a book written by the enlightened Swiss master, Elisabeth Haich. In her autobiographical book, Initiation, Elisabeth describes her evolutionary path through recollections of two parallel Earth incarnations. Her journey through discovery and mastery of the "seven forms of Love" is amazing, but it is within that journey that one particular section has remained emblazoned on the scrolls of my mind: her personal struggle through the 'final' and most difficult form of Love, which is, Tough Love.
Tough Love is that form of love in which one must be able to find the strength to detach from the trials and tribulations of another person's journey, a loved one, and to then allow them the chance to suffer the consequences of their choices . . . on their own. In most cases, this challenging learning experience comes from within a relationship with a dear, beloved friend or relation--someone with whom we've fallen into patterns (usually unconscious and automatic) of helping a little too much--what psychologists today call "co-dependency." To fully evolve through the complete stages of love and loving, we must learn to recognize the fact that codependent behavior does little, truly, to help the growth and advancement of another soul. In fact, codependent behavior impedes personal progress because it allows the other person outside you to avoid struggle--and struggle is, after all, one of the main reasons we created and come to the Earth School. We grow through dealing with obstacles and adversity (which are, in fact, not real but exist as an illusory tool for self-reflection, self-awareness and Self-realization).
Once we are able to recognize the disservice that our codependent, "enabling" behaviors provide to our loved ones, we must then learn to be able to catch these behaviors before they come out. Then, of course, comes the most difficult challenge of all: disabling our codependent behaviors--learning to let go, to detach, to hold back from our usual tendencies of stepping in with advice or assistance we need to learn to stop stepping into "other people's business." And then comes the most difficult part of all: learning to keep a distance as we watch the inevitable "pain" and "failures" and struggles that our loved ones may attract. The reward comes in seeing their progress. Without our intercession they will be forced to take on responsibility. As they find successes--and build upon them--you will see your loved one grow in confidence, independence, self-reliance, and creativity. With self-assurance comes self-discovery. With self-discovery comes self-realization. With self-realization comes the eschewing of tools such as fear, pain and suffering as they are replaced by Joy and Love for the self-realizing human is recognizing his or her own power with its Infinite dimensions, he or she is opening to his or her innate curiosity and creativity and is, naturally, attracting information and experiences which promote expanding awareness, expanded understanding, and expanded Love.
By helping others avoid their pain, suffering, and struggles, we are also helping them to avoid learning the valuable lessons that they may need--that They may have prescribed for themselves--in order to experience their own growth and development. Again, the Earth School is a place that was created expressly for the difficult emotion-based experiences--experiences that can provide very powerful opportunities for significant spiritual growth (which means "re-recognition of ever-expanding versions of our True Self, our Divine Essence"). Every time we step in to "rescue" someone else--whether out of love or pity--we may think that we're doing a good thing, but that good deed is really just a stroke for our Ego selves; that act of kindness or generosity or pity does far more to boost our own esteem than to help the other person. Our intercessions may, in fact, serve to attract more harm to the other person because they are taking away opportunities for them to achieve their own success, to build confidence; our intercessions may only serve to contribute to their low self-esteem and lack of motivation to try--as well as to reinforcing the dependent behaviors they've already formed. (Often dependents come to believe that they cannot in fact do anything for themselves. They will form increasing dependencies on others constructing patterns of always looking to others to help or rescue them, of avoiding responsibility altogether.)
We live in a society--in an era--that has championed selfishness and Ego-centricity. The "Me generation" has evolved into the "borderline" "Yo-yo" society in which addiction and codependency have seized the day. We are just as likely to hear--in the same flow--"Come here and help me. I need you!" followed by, "Leave me alone. I hate you." And this will loop over and over. And it comes from so-called "loved ones!"
Our cultural paradigms have become specialists in reinforcing patterns in which individuals have given their power away to other "experts" and "authorities" who are, naturally, "better," "smarter" and "stronger" than we individuals. Consequently, our society has given Tough Love a reputation of coldness and cruelty, and, ironically, of selfishness. But there is a strength in Tough Love that is very difficult to comprehend because it requires abdication of any attachment to all that Western "civilization" has come to value, e.g. material possessions, power, anthropocentricity, fashion and technology, unlimited extraction and exploitation, bigger, better, newer, etc.
"The meek shall inherit the Earth" was not said as a claim that poor, depressed, weak, "sub-humans" were going to be given possession and control of the planet. Nor was it meant to mean that the meek will be the last ones standing after the rest of humankind has finished killing each other (though metaphorically and perhaps even literally this may not be far from the reality of events as they transpire in the near future). No, the meek are ones who are doing their work, who are recognizing the limiting human behaviors of attachment to material and physical things, who are learning that there are no spiritual rewards in greed, violence, and avarice. The so-called "meek" are those who are learning to detach from the "rules" of the "game" that human society was created for. Though the "game" was created by us, for our use, it was created as a test. We created the four-dimensional human condition in order to give our Selves the opportunity to try to figure out, over time, just how to recognize the impermanent and illusory nature inherent in the Earth Plane's "physical" and "material" confines--and then to learn how to detach from these Illusions.
As in the case of Elisabeth Haich, parenting often offers the ideal opportunities to learn and practice Tough Love. Modern "civilization" has done a wonderful job of miring the human species in the muck of emotional baggage. We are actually conditioned to learn to acquire addictions and codependencies. This occurrence is one of many natural consequences of the Earth's passing through the darker "hours" of its circuitous journey around the Galactic Clock. As we are currently about as far as we could be from the nurturing Light of Sol's Pleiadean twin, this is a time in which the murky forces of "maya"--of ignorance and Ego attachment--have ascended and the Radiant Light of Spiritual knowledge and Spiritual awareness is most distant from us. Addictive and codependent behaviors are outcomes of Ego dominance.
Those of us who have chosen to incarnate on Earth during the current era of human experience are immersed in the Shadow of Ignorance and Fear. But this condition offers opportunities for tremendous growth. To succeed in conquering Ignorance and Fear, in opening to Light and Love despite the presence of Ignorance and Fear, shows tremendous strength and fortitude. Would that we all could succeed in these attempts, but, again, there is no right or wrong, no sooner or later, no better or worse. We will ALL eventually re-member our Divine Source, our Unified Oneness.
So, whatever you are doing, wherever you find yourself, just remember that it is in perfect accord with the process of evolution--with the process of Being and Becoming. You are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing. All of the learning opportunities--all of the information 'necessary' for growth and Self-realization, are around you and within you. At each and every moment! Always! It is always up to you to choose what to give your power and attention to. And it is always up to you and you alone to decide what to use for the continued development of your latest version of your greatest vision of Who You Want To Be (which you already are, you're just taking your time realizing it).
So, whenever you're ready! We're all waiting!
"Let the Sunshine in!"
Tough Love is that form of love in which one must be able to find the strength to detach from the trials and tribulations of another person's journey, a loved one, and to then allow them the chance to suffer the consequences of their choices . . . on their own. In most cases, this challenging learning experience comes from within a relationship with a dear, beloved friend or relation--someone with whom we've fallen into patterns (usually unconscious and automatic) of helping a little too much--what psychologists today call "co-dependency." To fully evolve through the complete stages of love and loving, we must learn to recognize the fact that codependent behavior does little, truly, to help the growth and advancement of another soul. In fact, codependent behavior impedes personal progress because it allows the other person outside you to avoid struggle--and struggle is, after all, one of the main reasons we created and come to the Earth School. We grow through dealing with obstacles and adversity (which are, in fact, not real but exist as an illusory tool for self-reflection, self-awareness and Self-realization).
Once we are able to recognize the disservice that our codependent, "enabling" behaviors provide to our loved ones, we must then learn to be able to catch these behaviors before they come out. Then, of course, comes the most difficult challenge of all: disabling our codependent behaviors--learning to let go, to detach, to hold back from our usual tendencies of stepping in with advice or assistance we need to learn to stop stepping into "other people's business." And then comes the most difficult part of all: learning to keep a distance as we watch the inevitable "pain" and "failures" and struggles that our loved ones may attract. The reward comes in seeing their progress. Without our intercession they will be forced to take on responsibility. As they find successes--and build upon them--you will see your loved one grow in confidence, independence, self-reliance, and creativity. With self-assurance comes self-discovery. With self-discovery comes self-realization. With self-realization comes the eschewing of tools such as fear, pain and suffering as they are replaced by Joy and Love for the self-realizing human is recognizing his or her own power with its Infinite dimensions, he or she is opening to his or her innate curiosity and creativity and is, naturally, attracting information and experiences which promote expanding awareness, expanded understanding, and expanded Love.
By helping others avoid their pain, suffering, and struggles, we are also helping them to avoid learning the valuable lessons that they may need--that They may have prescribed for themselves--in order to experience their own growth and development. Again, the Earth School is a place that was created expressly for the difficult emotion-based experiences--experiences that can provide very powerful opportunities for significant spiritual growth (which means "re-recognition of ever-expanding versions of our True Self, our Divine Essence"). Every time we step in to "rescue" someone else--whether out of love or pity--we may think that we're doing a good thing, but that good deed is really just a stroke for our Ego selves; that act of kindness or generosity or pity does far more to boost our own esteem than to help the other person. Our intercessions may, in fact, serve to attract more harm to the other person because they are taking away opportunities for them to achieve their own success, to build confidence; our intercessions may only serve to contribute to their low self-esteem and lack of motivation to try--as well as to reinforcing the dependent behaviors they've already formed. (Often dependents come to believe that they cannot in fact do anything for themselves. They will form increasing dependencies on others constructing patterns of always looking to others to help or rescue them, of avoiding responsibility altogether.)
We live in a society--in an era--that has championed selfishness and Ego-centricity. The "Me generation" has evolved into the "borderline" "Yo-yo" society in which addiction and codependency have seized the day. We are just as likely to hear--in the same flow--"Come here and help me. I need you!" followed by, "Leave me alone. I hate you." And this will loop over and over. And it comes from so-called "loved ones!"
Our cultural paradigms have become specialists in reinforcing patterns in which individuals have given their power away to other "experts" and "authorities" who are, naturally, "better," "smarter" and "stronger" than we individuals. Consequently, our society has given Tough Love a reputation of coldness and cruelty, and, ironically, of selfishness. But there is a strength in Tough Love that is very difficult to comprehend because it requires abdication of any attachment to all that Western "civilization" has come to value, e.g. material possessions, power, anthropocentricity, fashion and technology, unlimited extraction and exploitation, bigger, better, newer, etc.
"The meek shall inherit the Earth" was not said as a claim that poor, depressed, weak, "sub-humans" were going to be given possession and control of the planet. Nor was it meant to mean that the meek will be the last ones standing after the rest of humankind has finished killing each other (though metaphorically and perhaps even literally this may not be far from the reality of events as they transpire in the near future). No, the meek are ones who are doing their work, who are recognizing the limiting human behaviors of attachment to material and physical things, who are learning that there are no spiritual rewards in greed, violence, and avarice. The so-called "meek" are those who are learning to detach from the "rules" of the "game" that human society was created for. Though the "game" was created by us, for our use, it was created as a test. We created the four-dimensional human condition in order to give our Selves the opportunity to try to figure out, over time, just how to recognize the impermanent and illusory nature inherent in the Earth Plane's "physical" and "material" confines--and then to learn how to detach from these Illusions.
As in the case of Elisabeth Haich, parenting often offers the ideal opportunities to learn and practice Tough Love. Modern "civilization" has done a wonderful job of miring the human species in the muck of emotional baggage. We are actually conditioned to learn to acquire addictions and codependencies. This occurrence is one of many natural consequences of the Earth's passing through the darker "hours" of its circuitous journey around the Galactic Clock. As we are currently about as far as we could be from the nurturing Light of Sol's Pleiadean twin, this is a time in which the murky forces of "maya"--of ignorance and Ego attachment--have ascended and the Radiant Light of Spiritual knowledge and Spiritual awareness is most distant from us. Addictive and codependent behaviors are outcomes of Ego dominance.
Those of us who have chosen to incarnate on Earth during the current era of human experience are immersed in the Shadow of Ignorance and Fear. But this condition offers opportunities for tremendous growth. To succeed in conquering Ignorance and Fear, in opening to Light and Love despite the presence of Ignorance and Fear, shows tremendous strength and fortitude. Would that we all could succeed in these attempts, but, again, there is no right or wrong, no sooner or later, no better or worse. We will ALL eventually re-member our Divine Source, our Unified Oneness.
So, whatever you are doing, wherever you find yourself, just remember that it is in perfect accord with the process of evolution--with the process of Being and Becoming. You are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing. All of the learning opportunities--all of the information 'necessary' for growth and Self-realization, are around you and within you. At each and every moment! Always! It is always up to you to choose what to give your power and attention to. And it is always up to you and you alone to decide what to use for the continued development of your latest version of your greatest vision of Who You Want To Be (which you already are, you're just taking your time realizing it).
So, whenever you're ready! We're all waiting!
"Let the Sunshine in!"
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Journeyman Paul and His Messianic Heroes
I, Drew Fisher, have been inexplicably and irresistibly attracted to messianic characters my entire life. For those of you who may not be used to hearing the term "messianic" I will tell you that it has the root word "messiah" within it, which comes from ancient references within the Judaic religion. From Hebrew, messiah, literally, means "the anointed." It has come to be seen as a saviour or liberator of a group of people, most commonly in the Abrahamic religions. Jesus of Nazareth is called "The Messiah" throughout Christian literature, but the term has since been absorbed into languages to refer to any larger-than-life, selflessly heroic figure--in both history, folklore and literature.
As a child this attraction was served by contact with cartoon and comic book superheroes. Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Green Lantern, Iron Man, Aquaman, etc., etc. Before puberty I found great awe and inspiration in the religious heroes of my parents' Roman Catholic lore. Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Francis, and many of the angels, martyrs and saints. As a teen my worship was transferred to historical heroes. Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha), Mohandas Gandhi, Martin L. King, Jr., Anwar Sadat (and, later, to Vinoba Bhave, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ralph Nader, and even sports heroes like Sandy Koufax, Magic Johnson, Wayne Gretzky, Roger Federer and Derek Jeter). In my twenties my inspiration came from characters I encountered in film and literature, for example, Chauncy Gardiner from the film Being There, Michael Valentine Smith from Robert Heinlein's A Stranger in A Strange Land, Paul Atreides from Frank Herbert's Dune series, Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, Prince Myshkin from Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, Donald Shimoda from Richard Bach's Illusions, and many others. And still later, as a fledgling writer, the protagonists of my own writing seemed to always reflect these same altruistic ambitions and aspirations. Humans making choices to do or think extraordinary, one might say, "heroic" things, in mostly natural, self-less and unegotistical ways.
I believe that there are people doing heroic things every day in every country, town or village around the globe. There are many, many people who stand fast to high-minded, altruistic, one might call, "spiritual" principles. Admirable, life-affecting deeds are accomplished, words are spoken and written, and prayers and benevolent thoughts are forged every day. The planet is not short on heroes. But I think at some level I really wanted to be a saint. Like Thomas à Kempis, I really thought it possible. I feel that past life patterns--the work Journeyman Paul has done and the goals he and his team have set forth--have all served to create a natural yearning within me, Drew Fisher, to aspire to saint-like, or messianic-type life choices. And yet I have made many un-saintly life choices.
My journey into marriage and parenthood was truly prompted by the continually nagging voice within that kept telling me that the solitary, monastic, or lone-wolf life style to which I gravitated and within which I felt so comfortable was due to familiarity and comfort--because I had done it so many times before. Though I had often chosen this path from a place of sincere selflessness and sacrifice, more often it was out of self-pity, self-doubt, lack of confidence and low self-esteem. Journeyman Paul had made choices that led to lives lived on the fringes--cooped up safely in monasteries, or living the nomadic, anchoritic life in the wilds, or as the self-imposed outcast--because I had thought that was all I was worthy of, that I was unworthy of human love and companionship.
As Drew Fisher I have often found myself filled with convicted thoughts and impulsive desires to run way, to choose solitary life scenarios. In art I am always drawn into similar fantasy worlds, into the strongly self-sufficient characters. But a far deeper voice--a far more constant and sensible voice--has always counseled me, almost confidingly, that the reason I feel so drawn to those choices, those impulses, those fantasies, is because they are easy, they are comfortable, they are familiar. But, I am counseled, those are not the choices that will bring me the greatest opportunities for growth; it is in the choices that seem difficult and fearful that I will find the greatest opportunities for self-improvement and growth--and this is, after all, the kind of growth I had designed for my Self when planning this foray into the Earth School emotion-based human experience.
Every choice yields a learning opportunity. Every choice reveals some aspect of yourself that could be reflected upon, learned from, improved upon, expanded. The events of having to make choices while interacting with other humans are the most potent. Interactions with other humans are less predictable, less controllable, and, therefore, more risk-inducing than those with less animated consciousness.
And my model for participation within human society, my hero, has been the benevolent angel, the self-sacrificing saint, the brave, selfless hero, the Christ-like messiah.
Lahiri Mahasaiya was a renowned Indian saint who lived and worked his spiritual work from within the structures and confines of social constructs. He held a desk job in a railway company by day, went home to a wife and children by night, all the while pursuing an extraordinary practice of meditation and teaching. One of his students, Sri Yukteswar, was the teacher of Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of A Yogi and founder of the Self Realization Fellowship.
Lahiri Mahasaiya has been an inspiration for me. His example gave me the final impetus for me to feel committed to my life choices within family, within society, within this time of peak materialism. His example made me feel confident that it was indeed possible to lead a saintly life, to offer spiritual example to others, while living within the mainstream of modern society.
The characters, legends, and personas that humans have created, shaped and preserved into elevated, revered heroes have always felt to me as very real examples of true human potential. To my mind, heroes are models that we can and should emulate and aspire to. Joseph Campbell spoke of the "hero within" or the "hero with a thousand faces." That's what I'm talking about. These heroes come from stories that feed or serve the hero archetypes that are within all of us. Campbell and psychologist Carl Jung believed that these stories are actually necessary to us--that it is through these stories, through our dreams, that we awaken these archetypes, that we awaken the hero within. What they're saying is that each of us is attracted to heroic figures precisely because we believe, at a very deep level, that we can be--that we are--these heroes. The potential to be a hero--to do heroic things--rests within each of us. Stories and examples 'outside' of us merely stir this 'knowing'--remind us of another one of our infinite potentials. I believe that awakening or acquiring a spiritual perspective is another way of unleashing our "hero within." The recognition and heart-felt understanding that we are Spirits merely using these human bodies and our Earth-based physical surroundings is tremendously liberating in terms of being able to detach from the basic fears that usually prevent us from taking the risks that one associates with heroes and messiahs. When we can remember that we come from The Divine, that we are animated by a spark of The Divine, that we are, in fact, co-creators of our universe since we are truthfully a part of God, then we can do godly things.
A problem that modern humankind is faced with is that we need more examples of cultures and societies that have raised consciousness to a level from which life could be and is lived out of love and enthusiasm rather than fear and trepidation. As Paul Atreides was taught to say, "Fear is the mind killer." This is exactly what I see in every day life in the majority of people around me: the fear of all of the threats and implied threats that are bombarding humans each and every day is killing the "mind," distracting us from hearing the voice of Spirit--the voices of Truth, Beauty, Joy, and Love--which is constantly being whispered to us--which is, in truth, animating us, giving us Life itself.
Where did all these fear-based thought, motivation, behavior patterns com from--and why? How and Why have we bought into them? Why have we accepted and allowed these paradigms to take hold? Is it because our shadow side has been so repressed, so denied, that we have succumbed to a disease of guilt and shame--to a pattern of numb somnambulance? What is the meaning and significance of the fact that fear-based behavior patterns have been so convincingly proselytized and that the masses have listened and succumbed? What will it take for the loving, spirit-minded side of human nature to reawaken and reassert itself? When will fear have been served?
The hero-savior or "messiah" figure is the personified metaphor for the rise and ascendance of Light, Love, Truth, Beauty, Courage, Wisdom, and Sacrifice. It is also the projection of those very powers and purifications that reside within each one of us. The best we can do in the present place in human history is to learn and practice (and, hopefully, master) detachment. Detachment from all things attached to the "physical" "material" world. Detachment from expectations--from expectations of any and all outcomes. It is a tough battle, though in fact it requires merely the flip of a psychic switch. No more expectations, no more disappointments. Detachment.
Messianic figures are usually very good practitioners of detachment. They are even fairly masterful at detaching from the ultimate fear: death. Most heroes know full well that they are risking bodily harm and even death in making the choices they make. Many of them have learned to not fear death, to not only accept it as inevitable, but to have "risen above" its hold on them--which is to say, many heroes or messianic figures have found a spiritual, metaphysical, or aphysical perspective which allows them to even detach from their bodies, their surroundings, the so-called 'physical' element of this Earth life. With the strength of this perspective they are able to confidently go into any dangerous situation, detached from all outcomes--even death!
With that in mind, I hope you are all able to awaken and realize the messianic hero within you. I wish you all the heroic powers that detachment can avail to you. Potentially, we are all Christs, Buddhas, Mohammeds, Gandhis, Martin Luther Kings, and Michael Valentine Smiths. In order to become such we must use Love and Spirit while learning to detach from Fear and Ego. Good luck! We're all counting on you!
As a child this attraction was served by contact with cartoon and comic book superheroes. Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Green Lantern, Iron Man, Aquaman, etc., etc. Before puberty I found great awe and inspiration in the religious heroes of my parents' Roman Catholic lore. Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Francis, and many of the angels, martyrs and saints. As a teen my worship was transferred to historical heroes. Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha), Mohandas Gandhi, Martin L. King, Jr., Anwar Sadat (and, later, to Vinoba Bhave, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ralph Nader, and even sports heroes like Sandy Koufax, Magic Johnson, Wayne Gretzky, Roger Federer and Derek Jeter). In my twenties my inspiration came from characters I encountered in film and literature, for example, Chauncy Gardiner from the film Being There, Michael Valentine Smith from Robert Heinlein's A Stranger in A Strange Land, Paul Atreides from Frank Herbert's Dune series, Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, Prince Myshkin from Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, Donald Shimoda from Richard Bach's Illusions, and many others. And still later, as a fledgling writer, the protagonists of my own writing seemed to always reflect these same altruistic ambitions and aspirations. Humans making choices to do or think extraordinary, one might say, "heroic" things, in mostly natural, self-less and unegotistical ways.
I believe that there are people doing heroic things every day in every country, town or village around the globe. There are many, many people who stand fast to high-minded, altruistic, one might call, "spiritual" principles. Admirable, life-affecting deeds are accomplished, words are spoken and written, and prayers and benevolent thoughts are forged every day. The planet is not short on heroes. But I think at some level I really wanted to be a saint. Like Thomas à Kempis, I really thought it possible. I feel that past life patterns--the work Journeyman Paul has done and the goals he and his team have set forth--have all served to create a natural yearning within me, Drew Fisher, to aspire to saint-like, or messianic-type life choices. And yet I have made many un-saintly life choices.
My journey into marriage and parenthood was truly prompted by the continually nagging voice within that kept telling me that the solitary, monastic, or lone-wolf life style to which I gravitated and within which I felt so comfortable was due to familiarity and comfort--because I had done it so many times before. Though I had often chosen this path from a place of sincere selflessness and sacrifice, more often it was out of self-pity, self-doubt, lack of confidence and low self-esteem. Journeyman Paul had made choices that led to lives lived on the fringes--cooped up safely in monasteries, or living the nomadic, anchoritic life in the wilds, or as the self-imposed outcast--because I had thought that was all I was worthy of, that I was unworthy of human love and companionship.
As Drew Fisher I have often found myself filled with convicted thoughts and impulsive desires to run way, to choose solitary life scenarios. In art I am always drawn into similar fantasy worlds, into the strongly self-sufficient characters. But a far deeper voice--a far more constant and sensible voice--has always counseled me, almost confidingly, that the reason I feel so drawn to those choices, those impulses, those fantasies, is because they are easy, they are comfortable, they are familiar. But, I am counseled, those are not the choices that will bring me the greatest opportunities for growth; it is in the choices that seem difficult and fearful that I will find the greatest opportunities for self-improvement and growth--and this is, after all, the kind of growth I had designed for my Self when planning this foray into the Earth School emotion-based human experience.
Every choice yields a learning opportunity. Every choice reveals some aspect of yourself that could be reflected upon, learned from, improved upon, expanded. The events of having to make choices while interacting with other humans are the most potent. Interactions with other humans are less predictable, less controllable, and, therefore, more risk-inducing than those with less animated consciousness.
And my model for participation within human society, my hero, has been the benevolent angel, the self-sacrificing saint, the brave, selfless hero, the Christ-like messiah.
Lahiri Mahasaiya was a renowned Indian saint who lived and worked his spiritual work from within the structures and confines of social constructs. He held a desk job in a railway company by day, went home to a wife and children by night, all the while pursuing an extraordinary practice of meditation and teaching. One of his students, Sri Yukteswar, was the teacher of Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of A Yogi and founder of the Self Realization Fellowship.
Lahiri Mahasaiya has been an inspiration for me. His example gave me the final impetus for me to feel committed to my life choices within family, within society, within this time of peak materialism. His example made me feel confident that it was indeed possible to lead a saintly life, to offer spiritual example to others, while living within the mainstream of modern society.
The characters, legends, and personas that humans have created, shaped and preserved into elevated, revered heroes have always felt to me as very real examples of true human potential. To my mind, heroes are models that we can and should emulate and aspire to. Joseph Campbell spoke of the "hero within" or the "hero with a thousand faces." That's what I'm talking about. These heroes come from stories that feed or serve the hero archetypes that are within all of us. Campbell and psychologist Carl Jung believed that these stories are actually necessary to us--that it is through these stories, through our dreams, that we awaken these archetypes, that we awaken the hero within. What they're saying is that each of us is attracted to heroic figures precisely because we believe, at a very deep level, that we can be--that we are--these heroes. The potential to be a hero--to do heroic things--rests within each of us. Stories and examples 'outside' of us merely stir this 'knowing'--remind us of another one of our infinite potentials. I believe that awakening or acquiring a spiritual perspective is another way of unleashing our "hero within." The recognition and heart-felt understanding that we are Spirits merely using these human bodies and our Earth-based physical surroundings is tremendously liberating in terms of being able to detach from the basic fears that usually prevent us from taking the risks that one associates with heroes and messiahs. When we can remember that we come from The Divine, that we are animated by a spark of The Divine, that we are, in fact, co-creators of our universe since we are truthfully a part of God, then we can do godly things.
A problem that modern humankind is faced with is that we need more examples of cultures and societies that have raised consciousness to a level from which life could be and is lived out of love and enthusiasm rather than fear and trepidation. As Paul Atreides was taught to say, "Fear is the mind killer." This is exactly what I see in every day life in the majority of people around me: the fear of all of the threats and implied threats that are bombarding humans each and every day is killing the "mind," distracting us from hearing the voice of Spirit--the voices of Truth, Beauty, Joy, and Love--which is constantly being whispered to us--which is, in truth, animating us, giving us Life itself.
Where did all these fear-based thought, motivation, behavior patterns com from--and why? How and Why have we bought into them? Why have we accepted and allowed these paradigms to take hold? Is it because our shadow side has been so repressed, so denied, that we have succumbed to a disease of guilt and shame--to a pattern of numb somnambulance? What is the meaning and significance of the fact that fear-based behavior patterns have been so convincingly proselytized and that the masses have listened and succumbed? What will it take for the loving, spirit-minded side of human nature to reawaken and reassert itself? When will fear have been served?
The hero-savior or "messiah" figure is the personified metaphor for the rise and ascendance of Light, Love, Truth, Beauty, Courage, Wisdom, and Sacrifice. It is also the projection of those very powers and purifications that reside within each one of us. The best we can do in the present place in human history is to learn and practice (and, hopefully, master) detachment. Detachment from all things attached to the "physical" "material" world. Detachment from expectations--from expectations of any and all outcomes. It is a tough battle, though in fact it requires merely the flip of a psychic switch. No more expectations, no more disappointments. Detachment.
Messianic figures are usually very good practitioners of detachment. They are even fairly masterful at detaching from the ultimate fear: death. Most heroes know full well that they are risking bodily harm and even death in making the choices they make. Many of them have learned to not fear death, to not only accept it as inevitable, but to have "risen above" its hold on them--which is to say, many heroes or messianic figures have found a spiritual, metaphysical, or aphysical perspective which allows them to even detach from their bodies, their surroundings, the so-called 'physical' element of this Earth life. With the strength of this perspective they are able to confidently go into any dangerous situation, detached from all outcomes--even death!
With that in mind, I hope you are all able to awaken and realize the messianic hero within you. I wish you all the heroic powers that detachment can avail to you. Potentially, we are all Christs, Buddhas, Mohammeds, Gandhis, Martin Luther Kings, and Michael Valentine Smiths. In order to become such we must use Love and Spirit while learning to detach from Fear and Ego. Good luck! We're all counting on you!
Everything Is You
Everything is you. Isn't it obvious? I mean, how could anything other than this be true. Everything we perceive--both consciously and unconsciously--is received and processed through our human neural network. Ingested and digested. Just like food. We sense it and it becomes ours to use. (Or not).
Everything "outside" of our sensory perception is "there" for our information and use. And yet, by noticing it, by bringing it into our awareness, we are bringing it into our own being, into our consciousness. Even our body will involuntarily react, adjust itself, in accordance to how it thinks we need to ready ourselves for action and/or interaction. Likewise, everything "within"--every thought, feeling, impression, intuition, memory, dream, image or inspiration that seems to come from somewhere "inside" us--is equally present--is drawn to us (one might say, "co-created" by us) for our information and use. With all of this in mind, how could anything (here tying into the word "everything") not be for us, a part of us, and, therefore, us?
A common phrase that is often heard from ancient religious texts is, "I AM THAT." I believe this phrase is saying basically the same thing as "everything is you." I am that. Everything is you. The two statements differ only in perspective. "I am that" comes from a center that is our singularly, seemingly independent, personal viewing point, allowing the beam of our "flashlight of attention" to fall lovingly and inclusively onto anything and everything that it might "illuminate." "Everything is you" begins with every single possibility within Creation (past, present or future; here, there and everywhere) and bundles them up into a package that is singular: that is, "you."
To test my assertion, let's try an exercise. Think of anything--any thought, any memory, any fleeting image or idea, any sensory or emotional feeling--and observe: Your attention to that "thing" brings it into the total package that makes up what we call "you." By noticing that thing, you have ingested it--you have "swallowed" it into your neural network, into your human computer for storage, comparison, processing, categorization, and recall. The information that you noticed is now yours and, therefore, a part of "you."
Hypnosis and psychology have proven that even the things that we do not think that we notice, that we do not think that we have control over, that we take for granted because they seem automatic or because they seem to be in the background and periphery and, therefore, unimportant, these things too have been ingested, have been categorized, and can be recalled and manipulated. The world that the human 'supercomputer'--that we helped choose and design--comes in contact with--external and internal--is a tool for our Soul's information gathering. Or, rather, the human bodymind that we chose to drive for a while is our Soul's learning tool. The Soul is using the human vehicle as a collector and filter of information and experiences. The Soul then uses this information to test itself against its goals along an evolutionary path that eventually leads back to its full re-realization of our Divine Origins--that is, to its full reacquaintance with the fact that We are all everything and that we are all One. Everything is you!
I can't help but look at a thing, feel a sensation in my body, taste a taste in my mouth, remember a memory from a near or distant past, think up an idea for a sentence or a word to share in conversation, without remembering that that thing, that sensation, that thing I'm tasting, that image in my mind, that word I'm thinking of using, that person I'm in conversation with, are all a part of me--are all present and available to me for my use, for my growth, for my lessons, for my choices, for my participation in the Illusions of Creation, for my play in the Cosmic Game of Cause and Effect. It is such a liberating, joyous realization when these reminding rememberings occur. Such a help in the process of learning detachment from outcomes and expectations.
Many of us have become entranced with the belief that you are your body and its senses, that you are your emotions and feelings, that you are your thoughts and beliefs. We identify with these features as if this is the absolute truth, an unassailable reality. And yet what is it, do you think, that animates--that give energy, awareness, and consciousness--to these bodies, these emotions, your thoughts? Is it electricity? Chemistry? Higgs bosons? I profess to you that none of these would or could exist without a Higher Consciousness, without spiritual backing, without your soul.
A soul? What, then, would you say is a soul? What is 'spirit?'
Spirit is the animating force of humans, animals, plants, and, some might argue, all matter. You have an individuated spiritual being who has invested energy or 'ensouled' your human body mind. This spiritual being chose your particular bodymind in this particular time and within this particular culture for very specific reasons: that these conditions offer the best opportunity for certain lesson-bearing experiences to unfold. The experiences you planned to attract to your human vehicle during this journey through the Earth School are most likely to occur through the particular vehicle (human body) and matrix (four-dimensional emotion-based) in which you find yourself.
Your spiritual body has ensouled the bodymind you currently occupy with very defined goals in mind. You have also come onto the planet with 'contracts' between you and other souls with whom you planned to interact in order to serve one another's learning desires. The human form you chose comes with certain conditions and rules as does the Earth Plane on which it travels.
As the spirit ensouls the human form it finds itself 'veiled' from certain spiritual information as a condition to help one remain committed to the often overwhelming and certainly challenging rules and limitation that come with the human Earth experience. Were we to arrive in the human host with full spiritual awareness we might find ourselves unwittingly using our Higher Creativity to perform acts that don't really conform to or honor and respect the conditions we've all co-created for the precise kinds of experiential learning that we desire.
The freshly humanified soul is, as you might imagine, quite unused to and frustrated by the extremely confining and limited capabilities of its new human form. This is why there is the rather polarized infancy and childhood stage of human development, to allow the soul time to get used to the confines and limitations of the human body and Earth Plane.
Everything "outside" of our sensory perception is "there" for our information and use. And yet, by noticing it, by bringing it into our awareness, we are bringing it into our own being, into our consciousness. Even our body will involuntarily react, adjust itself, in accordance to how it thinks we need to ready ourselves for action and/or interaction. Likewise, everything "within"--every thought, feeling, impression, intuition, memory, dream, image or inspiration that seems to come from somewhere "inside" us--is equally present--is drawn to us (one might say, "co-created" by us) for our information and use. With all of this in mind, how could anything (here tying into the word "everything") not be for us, a part of us, and, therefore, us?
A common phrase that is often heard from ancient religious texts is, "I AM THAT." I believe this phrase is saying basically the same thing as "everything is you." I am that. Everything is you. The two statements differ only in perspective. "I am that" comes from a center that is our singularly, seemingly independent, personal viewing point, allowing the beam of our "flashlight of attention" to fall lovingly and inclusively onto anything and everything that it might "illuminate." "Everything is you" begins with every single possibility within Creation (past, present or future; here, there and everywhere) and bundles them up into a package that is singular: that is, "you."
To test my assertion, let's try an exercise. Think of anything--any thought, any memory, any fleeting image or idea, any sensory or emotional feeling--and observe: Your attention to that "thing" brings it into the total package that makes up what we call "you." By noticing that thing, you have ingested it--you have "swallowed" it into your neural network, into your human computer for storage, comparison, processing, categorization, and recall. The information that you noticed is now yours and, therefore, a part of "you."
Hypnosis and psychology have proven that even the things that we do not think that we notice, that we do not think that we have control over, that we take for granted because they seem automatic or because they seem to be in the background and periphery and, therefore, unimportant, these things too have been ingested, have been categorized, and can be recalled and manipulated. The world that the human 'supercomputer'--that we helped choose and design--comes in contact with--external and internal--is a tool for our Soul's information gathering. Or, rather, the human bodymind that we chose to drive for a while is our Soul's learning tool. The Soul is using the human vehicle as a collector and filter of information and experiences. The Soul then uses this information to test itself against its goals along an evolutionary path that eventually leads back to its full re-realization of our Divine Origins--that is, to its full reacquaintance with the fact that We are all everything and that we are all One. Everything is you!
I can't help but look at a thing, feel a sensation in my body, taste a taste in my mouth, remember a memory from a near or distant past, think up an idea for a sentence or a word to share in conversation, without remembering that that thing, that sensation, that thing I'm tasting, that image in my mind, that word I'm thinking of using, that person I'm in conversation with, are all a part of me--are all present and available to me for my use, for my growth, for my lessons, for my choices, for my participation in the Illusions of Creation, for my play in the Cosmic Game of Cause and Effect. It is such a liberating, joyous realization when these reminding rememberings occur. Such a help in the process of learning detachment from outcomes and expectations.
Many of us have become entranced with the belief that you are your body and its senses, that you are your emotions and feelings, that you are your thoughts and beliefs. We identify with these features as if this is the absolute truth, an unassailable reality. And yet what is it, do you think, that animates--that give energy, awareness, and consciousness--to these bodies, these emotions, your thoughts? Is it electricity? Chemistry? Higgs bosons? I profess to you that none of these would or could exist without a Higher Consciousness, without spiritual backing, without your soul.
A soul? What, then, would you say is a soul? What is 'spirit?'
Spirit is the animating force of humans, animals, plants, and, some might argue, all matter. You have an individuated spiritual being who has invested energy or 'ensouled' your human body mind. This spiritual being chose your particular bodymind in this particular time and within this particular culture for very specific reasons: that these conditions offer the best opportunity for certain lesson-bearing experiences to unfold. The experiences you planned to attract to your human vehicle during this journey through the Earth School are most likely to occur through the particular vehicle (human body) and matrix (four-dimensional emotion-based) in which you find yourself.
Your spiritual body has ensouled the bodymind you currently occupy with very defined goals in mind. You have also come onto the planet with 'contracts' between you and other souls with whom you planned to interact in order to serve one another's learning desires. The human form you chose comes with certain conditions and rules as does the Earth Plane on which it travels.
As the spirit ensouls the human form it finds itself 'veiled' from certain spiritual information as a condition to help one remain committed to the often overwhelming and certainly challenging rules and limitation that come with the human Earth experience. Were we to arrive in the human host with full spiritual awareness we might find ourselves unwittingly using our Higher Creativity to perform acts that don't really conform to or honor and respect the conditions we've all co-created for the precise kinds of experiential learning that we desire.
The freshly humanified soul is, as you might imagine, quite unused to and frustrated by the extremely confining and limited capabilities of its new human form. This is why there is the rather polarized infancy and childhood stage of human development, to allow the soul time to get used to the confines and limitations of the human body and Earth Plane.
You have a body, you have emotions and you have a brain but you are more than your senses, feelings, and thoughts.
Another exercise that is often useful in helping people begin to glimpse the fact that their body is but a tool--that it is a vehicle that we are using but not forever attached to--involves a concept called "bilocation." Bilocation describes the phenomenon of being in one place while the mind is in a totally different place. That "other" place could be memory, dream, projection, or even that object or idea "outside" you that is attracting all of your conscious attention. "Losing yourself" in a book or a film or watching a child on the playground are other examples of bilocality. It is when our attention is so focused "outside" of your own body that you could, in fact, "forget" that you have a body, you could be so totally disconnected from your body that, if you think about it, you could, in fact, be using any body, any viewing point other than your own body.
Think of driving a car. You drive an hour or two to a certain destination and somewhere along the way we get so focused on our thoughts or on a story we're listening to or the memories that are conjured up by a particular song that we are hearing that when we "wake up" to our immediate surroundings--to the task of driving our car--we are mystified by the fact that we have gotten "here"--to point B--with no memory of the miles we have just driven. We all have done this. This is bilocality: mentally being in a place different from that of our body yet all at the same time.
Bilocality is a phenomenon that scientists have recognized for some time. Albert Einstein on his death bed even admitted that he had no scientific explanation for this phenomenon. And yet it was a phenomenon that he fully acknowledged and accepted. By closing your eyes and giving any thought, memory, goal or plan your fullest attention you are in fact bilocating--you are proving that the mind is not confined to--is, in fact, bigger than--the body that supposedly houses it. To me, this phenomenon is proof that the body is not really a house or container for the mind, it is just a vehicle for it; the Mind is using the body of its human host for its view. It is using your body and its senses as a specific viewing point, just as you might use a car or a computer, for the filtration and gathering of information.
Larry Dossey, M.D., has spent the better part of his medical career championing the concept that mind is something beyond the body, that the mind plays a major part in health and healing. In the 1980s Dr. Dossey came up with the term "nonlocal mind" to describe his belief that mind is unconfined to the brain and body, that mind is spread infinitely throughout space and time. He has dedicated his time since then to finding and leading scientific research to support his theories and beliefs as well as expanding upon and explaining better the "nonlocal mind" concept.
The nonlocal mind is not confined to nor is it defined by the body that it is using. It may be tethered to that body but the string of its tether is infinite in its elasticity and is very easily broken--which merely sets mind free to find another host, another viewing point, another anchoring point. Or not. Set free among the unified field of the One Mind, the nonlocal mind is like the water that once made up the wave--it is exhilarated by its contact with and view of alternate information coming from this other viewpoint of its wave crest--but then, after a brief time, it descends back into the ocean where it is comfortably re-merged within the unified wholeness of its foundational substance, the water.
The minds of all creatures on this planet, including humans, do not have borders, they are neither discrete nor private. Instead, we are all fundamentally united. This statement supports my original premise: everything is you. My mind is using this Drew Fisher body and neural network for information and experience gathering but it could just as easily use any other body or reference point for said task. As explained in podcast Episode 38, in the Akashic Library it does exactly this. The Self-identifying Spiritual Entity I call the Monad uses the "records" in the Akashic Library to access an infinite variety of reference points from which to observe, gather, react, act or interact as it wills.
If you substitute the word "soul" or "Monad" for the word "mind" in the above paragraphs you get the full gist of my meaning--the reason for my doing these podcasts/blogposts. We souls/Monads/ "minds" are using these human bodies with their wonderful senses, the rich emotional field with its immense variety of feelings and conundra, these wonderfully elastic brains, all for the purpose of experience. And we do! We experience so many things at so many levels. But remember: The human vehicle is a bridge for the two-way flow of information. Information--Beauty, Truth, Joy and Love--can be found and gathered by the Monadic oversoul through the human vehicle, but it can also be given. As the Monad decides to participate in the Earth School experience it is not its intention to only take from its experiences, it hopes to figure out how to give something in return for its use. Therefore, think of yourselves as a bearer, a deliverer, of Truth, Beauty, Joy and Love. In your infinite wisdom, in your natural state, from within the matrix of your Original Substance--which is the Great Ocean of Cosmic Consciousness, you are Truth, Beauty, Joy and Love. So, express yourself!--by expressing your Self! Express your Truth, your Beauty, your Joy, and your Love!
Think of driving a car. You drive an hour or two to a certain destination and somewhere along the way we get so focused on our thoughts or on a story we're listening to or the memories that are conjured up by a particular song that we are hearing that when we "wake up" to our immediate surroundings--to the task of driving our car--we are mystified by the fact that we have gotten "here"--to point B--with no memory of the miles we have just driven. We all have done this. This is bilocality: mentally being in a place different from that of our body yet all at the same time.
Bilocality is a phenomenon that scientists have recognized for some time. Albert Einstein on his death bed even admitted that he had no scientific explanation for this phenomenon. And yet it was a phenomenon that he fully acknowledged and accepted. By closing your eyes and giving any thought, memory, goal or plan your fullest attention you are in fact bilocating--you are proving that the mind is not confined to--is, in fact, bigger than--the body that supposedly houses it. To me, this phenomenon is proof that the body is not really a house or container for the mind, it is just a vehicle for it; the Mind is using the body of its human host for its view. It is using your body and its senses as a specific viewing point, just as you might use a car or a computer, for the filtration and gathering of information.
Larry Dossey, M.D., has spent the better part of his medical career championing the concept that mind is something beyond the body, that the mind plays a major part in health and healing. In the 1980s Dr. Dossey came up with the term "nonlocal mind" to describe his belief that mind is unconfined to the brain and body, that mind is spread infinitely throughout space and time. He has dedicated his time since then to finding and leading scientific research to support his theories and beliefs as well as expanding upon and explaining better the "nonlocal mind" concept.
The nonlocal mind is not confined to nor is it defined by the body that it is using. It may be tethered to that body but the string of its tether is infinite in its elasticity and is very easily broken--which merely sets mind free to find another host, another viewing point, another anchoring point. Or not. Set free among the unified field of the One Mind, the nonlocal mind is like the water that once made up the wave--it is exhilarated by its contact with and view of alternate information coming from this other viewpoint of its wave crest--but then, after a brief time, it descends back into the ocean where it is comfortably re-merged within the unified wholeness of its foundational substance, the water.
The minds of all creatures on this planet, including humans, do not have borders, they are neither discrete nor private. Instead, we are all fundamentally united. This statement supports my original premise: everything is you. My mind is using this Drew Fisher body and neural network for information and experience gathering but it could just as easily use any other body or reference point for said task. As explained in podcast Episode 38, in the Akashic Library it does exactly this. The Self-identifying Spiritual Entity I call the Monad uses the "records" in the Akashic Library to access an infinite variety of reference points from which to observe, gather, react, act or interact as it wills.
If you substitute the word "soul" or "Monad" for the word "mind" in the above paragraphs you get the full gist of my meaning--the reason for my doing these podcasts/blogposts. We souls/Monads/ "minds" are using these human bodies with their wonderful senses, the rich emotional field with its immense variety of feelings and conundra, these wonderfully elastic brains, all for the purpose of experience. And we do! We experience so many things at so many levels. But remember: The human vehicle is a bridge for the two-way flow of information. Information--Beauty, Truth, Joy and Love--can be found and gathered by the Monadic oversoul through the human vehicle, but it can also be given. As the Monad decides to participate in the Earth School experience it is not its intention to only take from its experiences, it hopes to figure out how to give something in return for its use. Therefore, think of yourselves as a bearer, a deliverer, of Truth, Beauty, Joy and Love. In your infinite wisdom, in your natural state, from within the matrix of your Original Substance--which is the Great Ocean of Cosmic Consciousness, you are Truth, Beauty, Joy and Love. So, express yourself!--by expressing your Self! Express your Truth, your Beauty, your Joy, and your Love!
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