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Going Deeper

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Going Deeper
By E. Raymond Rock

Where do we find our security? Where lurks our pleasurable experiences? What is it that we couldn’t do without? Many things might fall into this category; our family and friends, careers, cars and homes; but especially close to our hearts . . . our spiritual beliefs.

Whatever we find to be our security, especially if it is beliefs, perhaps based on actual spiritual experiences and therefore seemingly irrefutable, could we simply walk away from them? If we can’t, then we have formed an attachment, and if for some reason that attachment is broken, we suffer. Therefore, logically, we are not free; we are dependent upon whatever it is that keeps us happy.

This, actually, is a definition of bondage, even though that which makes us happy doesn’t seem to be bondage. Our spirituality, which, on one-hand, offers feelings of purpose and growth, actually stymies, on the other any advance toward authentic freedom if we are attached to it. This is not what anybody wants to hear, but it is factual. So, if not spiritual beliefs, what can we hold on to? Actually . . . nothing.

Holding on to anything closes the magic door to freedom, and that magic door is emptiness — not forlornness or hopelessness, but clear, bright emptiness — where we are not pressured to fill the void with stuff, and realize that happiness, like any emotion or feeling, comes and goes. Whatever fills us on this earth is not spiritual, i.e., just as thoughts of spirituality are not the same thing as a spiritual experience, anything having to do with bodies, or minds (or thoughts) restrict us to earthly existence, fraught as it is with so many problems. But we just can’t let go. Why should we; it’s all we seem to have, as untidy and unpredictable as earthly existence is!

So we remain anchored in our warm and fuzzy life, playing with the things of this terrestrial existence and praying that when our time comes, we can magically let it all go and transcend to another realm. Hah! Fat chance! If we are uncomfortable letting go while alive, why would it suddenly be easy to let go when we are looking down at it all? I’m afraid that our attachments, especially to our bodies and minds, aren’t broken that easily.

Personal transformation is a steady journey from the physical to the spiritual, while remaining on earth — a big order! Our hang-ups with the physical (our personal thoughts and physical bodies) will, of course, create problems on this journey until they are seen for what they are . . . transient, without an underlying reality, and stressful. After this is seen (with a lot of introspection), the problems will cease and we can naturally be what we are; a consciousness, free and bright, which merely bopped into a human body and mind this time around, but is unconditionally free.

Hey! Maybe just the realization of this will bring about unconditional love! Wouldn’t that be nice? Light yourself up, and don’t worry whether or not that will save the world. But it might . . .

E. Raymond Rock is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center in Fort Myers Florida. His 28 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. He has practiced with Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Maha Boowa, Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Tui, Bhante Gunaratana, Roshi Kennett, Seung Sahn Sunim, Trungpa Rinpoche, the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the Zen Center in San Francisco. His new book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books), is available at major bookstores and on-line.

Going Deeper

Copyright © E. Raymond Rock 2006. All rights reserved.

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The Question

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The Question
By E. Raymond Rock

When we hit middle age or thereabouts, it's not unusual to begin asking questions such as, "Is this it?"

Before that, we are busy with kids, careers, and all the things that, as we become older, begin slipping through our fingers like water - without our even realizing it at times.

Whatever we are doing, or have done, is only temporary, and this takes a while to sink in. Even the money we have accumulated only buys so many vacations, cruises, or second and third homes; and pretty soon we find ourselves saying, "been there done that" way too many times.

For questions such as, "Is this it?" to come up, something has to slow us down. As long as we can maintain our busyness, these kinds of questions may never come up. "Keep your mind busy, honey," (your grandmother might say), "A busy mind is a happy mind!" Good advice. Because once you begin to question things, busyness doesn't help so much - best to hold off these kinds of questions if you can, (unless you have guts!)

But try as we might, sure as heck something usually happens to wake us up, if we're fortunate, and it usually isn't pretty - usually traumatic actually. Nothing like a little financial disaster, serious illness, or losing something or someone that's very close, to alter our glass-half-full outlook on life!

Of course, the kneejerk reaction to coming face-to-face with these deep questions is to root out some answers from someone else in some book somewhere, or on the web - too much time and trouble to find the answers ourselves! This is a fatal error, simply because the process of the search, and the white beads that you will sweat in finding your own answers, is the only place where true answers can be found.

These questions actually may never come up for people who know everything, or think that they do. If all of their questions have been answered ahead of time by their beliefs, or their philosophy, or their leader, no further inquiry is required . . . and then they are as good as dead! A philosophy or religion will never answer these deep, heartfelt questions.

When the questions come up for them, they can convince themselves that they already have the answers, and then they don't have to look! But they don't have the answers; they have someone else's answers that they have only accepted as truth. They don't have the courage to look for themselves, because looking at these things tears down everything that they have ever believed in the past.

Until we investigate ourselves, we will never experience that hot forge that tempers the true seeker. Without heat, we have only the answers of someone else; an escape, and therefore no fundamental change is made within. We remain a perpetual work in progress, where we continue barking, like hungry dogs, up the same ol' worldly trees, while espousing platitudes of divinity!

If, however, we are fortunate to have something awaken us from all of this; then we can expect the questions to really get dicey quicker than a New York minute, culminating in the classic one, "What am I?"

And only after this question comes up in our hearts do we realize the immensity of our inquiry, and that in time, only a true reversal of how we have been living can take us to our answer.

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

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The God Question (Part 3 of 3)

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The God Question (Part 3 of 3)
By E. Raymond Rock

For six years, the Buddha wandered the forests, first mastering deep states of concentration (jhanas), but he wasn’t satisfied, he had not yet achieved the deathless. Then he starved himself, spiritually making great strides but still not finding what he was looking for, and if he continued not eating, he would die before his quest was satisfied.

So he finally accepted some milk and rice from a maiden who found him close to death, which disgusted the ascetics that he was travelling with, and when they abandoned him, the Buddha promptly took a seat under a Pipal tree, promising himself that he would not move until he was either dead or enlightened.

But it wasn’t working. Then he remembered the plouging festival when he was just a child, and how he fell into a meditative trance naturally, and this is what he tied his mind to. He battled fear, and doubt and temptations of all kinds, but kept his mind tied to his meditation. Then he was able to recall all of his past lives, and could see the endless cycle of rebirths ahead for all beings, as he understood the intricate workings of karma. Finally, he realized the all the complexities of his Four Noble Truths, and he became the Buddha, the enlightened one.

This story parallels Jesus’ life in many ways. Both the Buddha and Christ had pure mothers that became divinely pregnant from a vision, and wise men foretold that each child would become a savior. In the bible, the Holy Ghost told Simeon that he should see the Lord Christ before he dies, so he attended the Jewish temple when Jesus was there for his naming ceremony. At that time, Simeon said that Jesus was destined to greatness. The Maji made their predictions as well.

Both men began their epic journeys at about age thirty. They were both intelligent, surprising their instructors with their prowess. Both also traveled from location to location, preaching on the way with neither of them interested in gainful employment. Instead, they depended on the generosity of their supporters. The Buddha fasted in the forest, while Jesus did likewise in the desert, and doubt and fear haunted them both.

After their seclusion, the Buddha established his monastic order where he asked his followers to leave both home and relatives behind for the greater search, while Jesus did likewise with his disciples. Entrenched, close-minded, conservative politicians criticized both men, as both were extremely liberal, fighting against class prejudice and standing up for the poor and destitute, and both were pacifists, espousing peace, non-violence, and purity, a both men also suffered abandonment by their fellow seekers.

Both the Buddha and Jesus were non-conformists, straying from their religions. The Buddha sided heavily with the original Indus River Civilization, repudiating the caste system of India, the holy books, the gods and the Atman, all fabrications of the old Aryan priests. The Buddha’s doctrine of Anatta (no soul . . . there is no separate soul that merges with the absolute) has befuddles Christians for years! Basically, the Buddha was saying that the absolute is ineffable, beyond description, and as long as we think that we are an individual, either in body or soul, we will never experience that absolute even though we might spend millions of lifetimes on earth or other planes of existence.

Therefore, he never said that God neither exists or doesn’t exist, only that whether God exists or not matters not at all, what matters is our understanding of ourselves, which is so hard to look at.

He preached that we, ourselves, are the ones who directly affect our lives and our destinies, not some authoritative god, and because this is so, we forge our own future.

*************************************************************************************

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

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The God Question (Part 2 of 3)

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The God Question (Part 2 of 3)
By E. Raymond Rock

Part one of this series described the era, about 1,000 to 500 BC, into which the Buddha was born. It was the quintessential spiritual era on earth, and world religions were sprouting up all over the place. It was as if a new consciousness had descended upon humankind.

The origin of religion is classified into three main groupings: Polytheism (many gods), monotheism (one god), and pantheism (all is god).

Polytheism originated with Hinduism about 2500 BC. Egypt, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Assyria , and Babylonia were polytheistic as well.

Monotheism originated with numerous ancient cultures, and is the basis of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity . . . many of the Old Testament stories can be traced to ancient myths from what is now Iraq. Over a period of years, legends, myths and prophesies were made by various individuals, and eventually these oral traditions were organized, edited and written down in the Jewish bible about 800 BC. The Christ church was established about 100 AD, and about 600 AD, Islam’s prophet Muhammad began preaching in Mecca, his utterings being recorded in the Qur’an.

Pantheism originated with numerous ancient cultures as well, including Buddhism about 550 BC, also Confucianism, Taoism, and the American Indian.

So this is the scene into which the Buddha (a name given to him later in life which translates as; enlightened one) showed up! His name was Siddhartha Gautama, and he was an Aryan warrior, indoctrinated by that time into the Indus River Civilization. Siddhartha was conceived divinely (you might notice some parallels between the Buddhist legends and the Christian legends, although the Buddhist legends predate Christianity by about 500 years) as the story goes, by a vision that his mother had. Ten months later, as she was meditating in a grove, a great light appeared as the Buddha was born out of her side.

When the Buddha’s mother died a week later, her sister took charge of raising him. During the Childs naming ceremony, his father, who was a king-like figure ruling that part of India, brought in a wise man to predict the child’s destiny. The wise man predicted that the child would either become a powerful king, ruling all of India, or become a great sage, a savior to the world.

At age seven, while attending a ploughing festival, the Buddha noticed how the plow damaged plants and small animals as it tore through the earth, and how men must work very hard in order to survive in this world. He also observed a salamander eating an insect, a snake eating the salamander, followed by a vulture attacking the snake . . . and the Buddha suddenly fell into a meditative state.

The Buddha’s father, wanting no part of this Great Sage prophecy mentioned during the Buddha’s naming ceremony, trained the boy as a warrior, and built three castles for him in different parts of the kingdom so that the boy would not develop wanderlust and want to travel. He only exposed the boy to wealth and power, and the luxuries of life, carefully not exposing him to common life outside of his castles and his sheltered world. The king wanted the boy shielded from any influences that would sw ay him toward the spiritual life.

Surprisingly, this lavish attention never spoiled the child, who was extremely bright, often amazing his instructors with his mathematical prowess. But he had the desires of a young man, and soon chose, from all the women at his disposal, the one he would wed, and at the tender age of sixteen, he married his cousin.

When he was in his late twenties, and with his wife carrying their first child, the Buddha talked his charioteer, Channa, into a little excursion outside the castle; the first time he had ever stepped away from his sheltered life. Once outside, he immediately noticed an old man, and asked his charioteer why the man was so infirm. Channa said that this is what happens to all of us as we age, and even the great Buddha will experience this.

On their next venture outside, the Buddha saw a sick person, and Channa explained that illness can strike anyone at anytime, even the great Buddha.

The third trip brought the Buddha face-to-face with a dead person, a corpse on its way to the charnel ground. Channa said that the Buddha would succumb to this fate as well.

This all came as a terrible shock to the sheltered young man who had been shielded from life's realities by his father, for his father feared that the young man's exposure to the realities of human existence would cause his intelligent son to quickly see through the illusions of wealth and power, and embrace the spiritual life. As it turned out, his fathers fears were well founded!

The Buddha could not erase the images from his mind, they affected him deeply. How could anyone be truly happy knowing that these terrible things awaited him? He agonized on how to escape this apparently certain fate, and decided to take one more trip outside the castle.

This time he ran across a monk in rags. But the monk was very happy! How could this monk be happy, wondered the Buddha, without the power, wealth, and security that the Buddha enjoyed? This monk was so different from the men that the Buddha was acquainted with; men that were powerful and wealthy, the only ones that the Buddha had ever known. Old age, disease, and death seemed to have no impact on this old monk . . . he seemed oblivious to it all. How could this be?

The Buddha began to see that there was a great disparity between what he and this old monk valued, a this disparity had something to do with the freedom from death that the Buddha was now seeking.

So like many of his Aryan brothers at the time, the Buddha dove headlong into the spiritual life. On a very auspicious night, the night that his only son was born, he quietly kissed his wife and son goodbye as they slept, and stole out of the castle. He cut off his long black hair, swapped his expensive clothes for those of a hunter he met on the road, and began his search for truth and freedom.

(Part 3 the Buddhas revelations)

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

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The God Question

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The God Question
By E. Raymond Rock

Many Christians wonder if Buddhists believe in God, an interesting and relevant question and one that I will attempt to address here.

To give you a little background of the culture into which the Buddha was born, well have to go back 5,000 years to the cradle of the great civilizations. One of these great civilizations was the Indus River Civilization in India. Another was the Aryan Civilization to the north of India -- two civilizations that were destined to clash.

The Indians were a settled, peaceful, agrarian culture literate, well off materially, and advanced spiritually. They were experts in irrigation and farming, and experts in designing and building their cities.

The Aryans, on the other hand, were tribal and nomadic, travelling from place to place and living off the spoils of war, as they pillaged any culture that they came across. They migrated down from southern Russia and Central Asia and were extremely militaristic, reflected by their lifestyles and values.

The Aryans, during their wandering, lived out in the open, so their three gods were based on nature; a god of lightening, a god of fire, and a god of water. Their priests were the leaders of the culture, who practiced animal sacrifices to appease and communicate with their gods. The priests proclaimed that a perfect life revolved around family (and having many offspring!) especially sons who could become warriors. The Aryan ideal was loyalty and community, which fit into their military culture.

The ultimate goal for an Aryan was Aryan heaven; a conceptualized version of all the pleasures that a perfect Aryan life on earth could provide. However, access to information on how to achieve this heaven was restricted to only Aryans of status by the Aryan priests who held the power, and apparently, the divine knowledge. The priests developed a caste system where their citizens were segregated into four categories; priests, warriors, tradesmen, and food gatherers. The holy book that recorded all of gods' communications to the divinely inspired priests was called the Vedas, held in secret by the priests in order to maintain their power. Only the priests were privy to this information and doled it out miserly to only the higher classes that could pay.

The Indians, on the other hand, had no priests. They farmed and peacefully lived together in cities, and subsequently established no gods that they had to make animal sacrifices for, or holy books. Where the priest was the most important and powerful figure in the Aryan society, in the Indian society, the wandering, ascetic truth seeker was the most revered.

These ascetics sought inwardly for truth, not relying on any books or priests or outside sources such as gods. They practiced meditation, and used meditation as their vehicle to search inwardly. They were celibate, homeless, renunciates living very austere lives many times naked or clothed in rags, and professed their inner revelations of karma and rebirth freely to whomever was interested. They sought no power for themselves.

Karma was a mysterious law of the universe that extended over many lifetimes, created by ones own actions. Depending on the quality of those actions, one would either wander from lifetime to lifetime, or gain freedom from this wandering. Therefore, rather than a heavenly goal, such as that which the Aryans looked forward to, the ascetic wanderers goal was freedom from human existence, never explaining exactly what the ultimate destination would be, except that it was a reality and ineffable, or impossible to describe.

As you can imagine, when the Aryans invaded the Indian culture, the poor Indians didnt have a chance. But the Aryans misjudged the strength of the Indus River civilization and its values, and interesting things developed.

There were serious differences between the cultures in the beginning. The Aryans valued material well being, wealth, power, fame, and they practiced animal sacrifices as a means for their priest to gain wisdom by recording the nature gods' messages in their holy book. Other than the priests, the rest of the culture simply believed what the priests said, which released the warriors from the work of communicating directly to their gods, and therefore the warriors could devote their lives to pillaging and plundering!

The Indians, in contrast, stressed renunciation, meditation, karma, rebirth and freedom from the human condition, and as a result enjoyed a caste-free, egalitarian society that looked both inwardly in meditation, and outwardly toward those who dedicated their lives to their own inner searching for answers, not relying on gods, priests and books.

As time went on, after the invasion, these two cultures melded into what is now known as modern India. Side by side, you will find a caste system, meditation, yoga, numerous gods, a firm belief in karma and rebirth, and even a holy book; the Vedanta. The original Aryan warriors, unbelievably and over time, became the wandering ascetics of the old Indus River Civilization. This was a natural sequence of events, as the old warriors discovered how much courage is involved to navigate successfully inwardly!

The discovery came when the warriors took a long look at the ascetics, what else did they have to do since there was no more civilizations to conquer! (One influence of the Indians over the Aryans was that the Aryans settled down). The warriors then utilized their natural instincts to explore, except this time it was the great inner exploration. The warriors would hide away in caves and forests seeking that personal experience of truth, starving themselves, and meditating and participating in many kinds of practices, hoping for a glimpse of that direct knowledge that the Indians discovered thousands of years previously.

As these warriors succeeded in their solitary pursuits, they returned, individually and in groups, to report on what they discovered which was unfortunately ineffable! However, they did confirm that rebirth, karma, and past lives were a certainty, which they were able to see clearly during meditation . . . all of their past lives!

The politically minded priests were not letting this go unnoticed! They knew how the wind was blowing, so they incorporated these new revelations into their books which became the Upanishads, or the Vedanta about 800 BC. The priests, never experiencing meditation for themselves, interpreted the warriors revelations incorrectly and introduced a self into what was, for the warrior, a selfless experience. That was the only way that the priests could hold on to their power. They called this new "self" that they fabricated an Atman, which was supposedly a vehicle, like a soul, that traveled from lifetime to lifetime perfecting itself until it finally lost all its accumulated karma and merged with the priests newly fashioned god: Brahma!

Now the priests could hold on to their power . . . and their gods as well.

(Part 2 the Buddha enters the scene and shakes things up!)

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E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

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In God's Image

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In God's Image
By Charles P.

As physical creatures, it is difficult for us to visualize identity that does not have physical form. We just do not relate well to perceiving identity that has no relationship with our five physical senses. The greatest challenge for this is visualizing God. Instead, when we picture God, we think of Him in our image and likeness, as all our Art of God shows. Our reasoning for this is since He stated He made us in His Image and Likeness, we think it must be reciprocal. Besides, how do you paint the Image of God if it's not physical?

What really is the Image of God? Biblically, it is that of an incomprehensible intelligence that created everything that exists by merely thinking it into existence. Genesis clearly depicts this. His Image and Likeness is the ability to make whatever He wishes to appear physical, as well as all the relationships, limitations, and physical laws that govern all these creations and their relationships with each other.

When He created the heavens and the earth, and every living creature, it automatically included all the structures each of these are composed of from the sub atomic to the molecular, and included the limitations these each have with each other. In other words He created everything that is in all it's entirety and complexity.

Last, but not least He created Man, male and female. He created us, and only us, in His Image and Likeness. That means He gave us the ability to create just as He created. We are His co-creators therefore. And this is exactly what we've been doing from the beginning. When we rejected God in Eden and choose to go our own way rather then allow Him to provide for us, we've taken this ability and added to what He created by all the creations that have ever originated from mankind. While everything He created is perfect, we fall considerably short of incorporating this in our own creations. This is to let us know Who is perfect, and who just wishes they were.

How does this help us understand His Image and Likeness and how it is incorporated in our own identity?

We must refer back to Reology and The Three Grand Illusions to understand this.

As we have already realized, matter and energy, and space and time are illusions, but with definite real appearance as physical reality. This of course must include the matter and energy of our own physical form, and the space and time we use to give it physical appearing function. It also must include the process with which we have perceptive reality; the seeming ability to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell that confirms the reality of matter and energy in space and time. This is all only possible because of this present instant of observation. Even though all of physical reality is an illusion, in this present instant of observing it, it is real and valid appearing, and conforms to all the ideas we have of physical reality. But only in the right now.

Everything we think about or are aware of that does not appear as a physical event in the present instant is not valid physical reality. Instead it is the ideas we have of physical reality we call memory or imagination. There simply is no other time but the present moment of observation, regardless if we are observing what we perceive as real or remembered or imagined experience What makes this so difficult to comprehend is the fact that the only time we can try to comprehend this is in this present instant of observation, which is also the instant we are physically focused. It is a conflict in which we are trying to deny physical identity while we are convinced we are physical identity in the same instant.

Our individual identity and reality then is something we each co create with God, through the ability He gave us; through His Image and Likeness. While this may not be easy to understand, we have no difficulty understanding how we create new experience as physical identity operating in a physical reality. We know our discoveries and inventions and how we devised them. It is no different then our creative ability as God's co-creators. What makes it seem difficult to understand is we are not used to seeing ourselves as who we each are without physical form. Like God, our true identity is not physical. The physical forms we so endear ourselves to are actually just the ideas we have of ourselves as physical creatures, just as all of physical reality is just God's idea of how it should appear.

While we can crate new experience, it can only be within the limitations God established for us. This includes God's limitations on physical ability, heredity, genetics, etc. We must first discover these limitations before we can use them in our creations. This occurs based upon our own understanding of reality and our own ideas of our ingenuity. God tells is to take this path is not in our best interests, that relying on His Word is the wisest choice to make, but He doesn't prevent us from defying Him either. He allows the free will that also is part of His Image and Likeness.

If it were not for our conviction that it is our objective experience that is absolute, we would easily understand our non physical identity as being our true identity, and our physical form originates from it. Reology has clearly shown how there is no objective reality. It is just illusion we co-create with God to make it seem the most real. What value would a physical reality have if it did not appear as real and absolute? It would be unquestionably make believe and false, and there would be no motivation to take it seriously.

Our direct evidence of this is in the make believe games we play as children. We know we are pretending to make the game true, yet most of all we know we are pretending. We make extra effort to "act" out our role in such games as if it was real, yet we know we are acting. While we may play the game seriously, we also know it is not real. We know it is make believe and do not take it as seriously as we do when we are not pretending. On the adult level, we have theater where actors make their best efforts to make us believe what we are watching is real, but despite how real the theater may seem, we know it is just acting, we know it isn't real..

The only real experience we can have is completely subjective. No experience can be perceived in any other way. Despite how real the physical senses appear to us, they each only represent ideas we have about physical reality in our minds, our non physical identity. This then is the identity in which God made us and it is in His Image and Likeness.

http://www.ReologyOfReality.com

Pistis; Reology, The Three Grand Illusions, and The Power to Choose - A Book About Reality

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Many Splendors of Love

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Many Splendors of Love
By Dharmbir Sharma

‘Love Is A Many Splendored Thing’ is one of the most poignant movies I have ever seen. At the time (which was several decades ago) the real significance of the title did not register with me. Now after all these years it has dawned on me that it was not just a movie title but also the statement of a universal truth. Love is such a common word. Everyone uses it in some context or other; but do we really understand what love is? To put it more bluntly, can we ever understand love? Understanding is always of the mind and in its true sense love transcends mind.

The graphic representation of this transcendence is seen in the practice of using the heart symbol in the context of love. But the significance of this symbolism is lost in its commercialization. The marketing of products related to the observance of Valentine’s Day is a perfect example of exploitation of this symbol. It is an unfortunate fact that in the modern world anything, however sublime, is exploited for material gain. Love is essentially spiritual; when brought to the material level it ceases to be love.

In the normal usage of the word ‘love’ there is an inherent tendency to associate it with an object. But love is a sublime feeling that is not directed to anything or anyone. Leaving that aspect aside for the moment let us consider love only from the common human perspective. In this limited usage also it has many, almost infinite hues and colors. There is mother’s love for the child, sister’s love for brother, husband’s love for wife, friend’s love for friend, and so on. The list is as long as that of relationships. Then there is the love for abstract things – love for nature, love for music, love for books, love for work, love for country, and so on.

In all these categories of love there is a relationship involved. Whenever love has an object it involves a sense of gratification consciously or subconsciously. Even if it is a selfless love in a worldly sense, the self is involved through the desire for gratification. True love does not have a motive of any kind.

Love is often described as a (or the most) sublime emotion. However, emotion by its very nature involves feelings for someone or something and thus it is related to some object. But love can be devoid of any emotion even in this context. Love for mankind or for life in general need not have any emotion involved. Emotions come into play only if there is some form of attachment. When there is no motive and no desire love is not an emotion but the innate human nature in action. In that sense love is divine.

When love is considered only in terms of physical relationships it gets to its lowest denominator. It then becomes lust and loses all its purity. Unfortunately in this material world that has become the most frequent degeneration of the concept of love. The modern epidemic of broken marriages is a sad reminder of the difference between lust and love. To be an enduring relationship a marriage needs some substantial values to rest on when lust and passion die, as they inevitably do.

In this so-called civilized world the societies are based on relationships, which are reciprocal. So love is also considered a reciprocal relationship; but true love does not require reciprocation. It is like sunshine, it is not directed toward anything in particular and does not expect any return.

Dharmbir Rai Sharma is a retired professor with electrical engineering and physics background. He maintains a website http://www.cosmosebooks.com devoted mainly to philosophy, science, and self-development.

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Materialism or Spirit

Materialism or Spirit
By Ellen Besso

"If you begin to watch your life from the perspective of the Stargazer, you'll find that simple materialism is pitifully inadequate to describe your own experience." Martha Beck

The Stargazer is a name Martha uses to describe the deep part of ourself that holds the knowledge of our destiny, or North Star. It can't be grasped by the intellect. Finding our Stargazer and remaining grounded in it can be a challenge. I know what gets me there, as I suspect you do, but I tend to take a laissez-faire approach, letting my Stargazer appear randomly rather than self-initiating. Paying more attention to my spontaneous voice within makes a significant difference in my life nowadays though. I always feel happier when I follow it's direction. At times the message is to begin something new, other times it tells me to stop what I'm doing and refocus. For example, yesterday, I was 'told' to cut greenery in the garden for my studio. I always know I'm on the right track when I get that excited feeling, the sense that what I'm creating is just perfect for me in that moment.

The abundance and vibrancy of India had a profound effect on me on my recent trip...from the bright colours to the residents and fellow travellers we encountered, to the dirt, dust and poverty. What impacted me above all were not the material things but the connections I made with people, animals and nature. After waiting 30 years to visit India I embraced it with an openness that made me receptive to all it had to offer. During every stage of our trip my partner and I attracted people and circumstances that fed our spirits. The splendour of the Himalayas, the cycle of life & death in Varanasi, the abandoned babies in Delhi's Paharganj district, the disenfranchised Tibetans, the red sands of southern Kerala and the gentle groundedness of the elephants...these are the things that inspired me and changed me.

What was reinforced deeply for me in India was the theme of spiritual interconnectedness. Our hearts open and our spirit soars when given the right opportunities. I've realized that my daily interactions with friends, family and clients now that I'm back home seem different. I feel that I've been able to bring that feeling of connectedness back with me.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love says that we have access to God through the "thin places" and that we need stillness each day to find those sacred moments. The thin places are different for each of us. For some it may be nature, for others meditation, for others closeness with friends and family and for yet others creating beauty through an artistic endeavour. Marianne Williamson, one of my favourite authors calls this process "a spiritual stillness that takes root in our souls."

I hope you find your "spiritual stillness".

Copyright 2008 Ellen Besso

Through her 'Odyssey of Change' coaching program, Ellen Besso offers Midlife Women the opportunity to navigate the midlife maze and find joy & fullness in their lives.

Personal action plans include strengthening the body-mind connection; releasing beliefs that limit growth; & specific actions to move you forward into your ideal life.

Ellen is uniquely qualified to be your guide because she has personally journeyed through perimenopause and into an inspired life as a menopausal crone! Her professional credentials include certification as a Martha Beck Coach and an M.A. in Counselling from City University.

To find out more about Ellen's work and read articles written by her contact:
http://www.ellenbesso.com or ellenbesso.com/midlifemaze
info@ellenbesso.com 800 961 1364 - N.Am. or
604 886 1916 - Gibsons, BC

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Am I My Sister's Keeper?

Am I My Sister's Keeper?
By Ellen Besso

"There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful." - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

As I view the poverty of India first-hand, I wonder anew, "What is my responsibility, as one of the very privileged, to help others in this world of ours?"

Yes, I do donate money and sometimes give of my time to worthwhile causes, but until lately, my approach has mostly been avoidance. I have defended myself against the suffering in the world by simply putting it out of my mind.

Coincidentally, during the first part of our travels in chaotic cities rife with poverty, I read the July issue of Vanity Fair which focused on Africa and was edited by Bono. The articles noted the tremendous accomplishments and talents now emerging from Africa. They also demonstrated clearly the life and death issues dominating the continent. Early childhood mortality from malaria to aids seems to be the primary concern.

Another horrific issue caught our attention in McLeod Ganj, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile (of which he is the head). Not only have one million Tibetans lost their lives due to the Chinese occupation, but China's methodical decimation of the country is leading to serious environmental ramifications for other parts of the world (Lhasang Tsering, McLeod Ganj).

We met a Tibetan activist, formerly part of the government in exile, who broke away from the group, as he believes the peaceful methods of the Dalai Lama will not result in change. His own plan is to the extreme: one member of each Tibetan family in exile would go back to Tibet and sabotage the infrastructure of the country by doing simple things such as cutting electrical wires or pouring water into mailboxes.

Well, that's not going to happen any time soon, but if our western governments imposed heavy trade sanctions on China, it would have an impact over time. Most countries won't do this however, because so much of what they import is from China...from kids' toys to electrical components.

But back to my original question of what my responsibility is to others. This question often feels huge, even overwhelming. How can one person or group make a difference? I believe we can make a difference by focusing on what speaks to us personally and by following or gut feelings.

As I learn to honour these internal awarenesses more, I respond in an increasingly spontaneous way to what's unfolding around me, and self monitor less. I plan to follow my inclinations to do volunteer work in Africa and India in the future, to write letters to my government representatives about the situation in Tibet, and to research and educate myself about the conditions of women and children in these countries. I will no longer compartmentalize the issues and put them out of my mind.

For how can I become my best self, my true or Essential Self, if I ignore the part of me that yearns to attempt to make a difference in the world?

Do you have personal ways of helping others? Share them often with others. You may inspire other women to help.

Copyright 2008 Ellen Besso

Through her 'Odyssey of Change' coaching program, Ellen Besso offers Midlife Women the opportunity to navigate the midlife maze and find joy & fullness in their lives.

Personal action plans include strengthening the body-mind connection; releasing beliefs that limit growth; & specific actions to move you forward into your ideal life.

Ellen is uniquely qualified to be your guide because she has personally journeyed through perimenopause and into an inspired life as a menopausal crone! Her professional credentials include certification as a Martha Beck Coach and an M.A. in Counselling from City University.

To find out more about Ellen's work and read articles written by her contact: http://www.ellenbesso.com or ellenbesso.com/midlifemaze
info@ellenbesso.com 800 961 1364 - N.Am. or
604 886 1916 - Gibsons, BC

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Body-Mind-Spirit Balance

Body-Mind-Spirit Balance
By Ellen Besso

How do we balance our bodies, our minds and our spirits? You know those wheels that help us delineate the 'slice' of time we spend on various activities such as work, social, kids and partners etc. Well perhaps we could divide the pie into body, mind and spirit segments and track the portions we spend on the three.

Many of us try to exercise more nowadays because we know that's an important part of living long, healthy lives. We feed our minds by reading, dialoguing and with various multi-media presentations. But how much time do we spend on things that feed our spirit?

Spirituality means different things to different people. Spiritual expression can take many form, from formal and religious to informal and secular - to individual or group activities. . When I took my counseling program at City University in 1998, many of our instructors were Narrative Therapists. They spoke often of meaning, asking, "What gives your life meaning?"

In the broader definition of spirituality that I prefer, anything that gives us meaning, in the positive sense of the word, is spiritual. To some women this might mean walking in the woods, gardening, special time with our child or partner. For others meditation, mountain climbing or retraining for a career of service meets spiritual needs.

In his wonderfully inclusive book Beyond Religion: 10 Paths to the Sacred,David Elkins describes the many choices we have in our search for spirituality. His definition of spirituality is a broad concept. He includes nature, the body (including sexuality and movement), relationships, art, nature and more.

In the past two years I have been invigorating and awakening my body, mind and spirit by participating in movement classes several times a week...a combination of dance and energy awareness. The spiraling of the dance can't help but rejuvenate as it clears old energies out of our bodies.

I invite you to choose whatever type of spirituality resonates with you, whatever that may be. Check in with your internal knowing and you will get the answers. And honour those answers as much as possible. It is your right to celebrate spirituality in a way that honours you body, mind and soul.

Copyright Ellen Besso 2007

Through her 'Odyssey of Change' coaching program, Ellen Besso offers Midlife Women the opportunity to navigate the midlife maze and find joy & fullness in their lives.

Personal action plans include strengthening the body-mind connection; releasing beliefs that limit growth; & specific actions to move you forward into your ideal life.

Ellen is uniquely qualified to be your guide because she has personally journeyed through perimenopause and into an inspired life as a menopausal crone! Her professional credentials include certification as a Martha Beck Coach and an M.A. in Counseling from City University.

To find out more about Ellen's work and read articles written by her contact:

www.ellenbesso.com or http://www.ellenbesso.com/midlifemaze
info@ellenbesso.com - 800 961 1364 - N.Am. or 604 886 1916 - Gibsons, BC

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