There is an eternal cycle of the two and the axis - two extreme points tied together by a central axis that spins, thereby creating the cycles of life, death, existance, seasons, time, and so on.
Within our own lives there is a cycle as well, one less recognized and yet instantly recognized when we see one of its symbols - the phoenix.
The one thing that everyone immediately understands when they hear the word Phoenix is the idea of dying in a fire and then being reborn from the ashes. Even when the phoenix itself is not involved, there are many other archetypes and mythological figures who share this same characteristic - two immediate examples are Hercules and Jesus.
The rebirth of Jesus is extremely well known - he was crucified and rose again three days later, in a form not well described but nonetheless described as different from his physical body. Yet he had a special spiritual body that enabled him to interact here on earth after his death, so he did have a body, but it was a body that was God-like (or part of God).
Hercules died by burning - his wife had soaked his vest in poison that when Hercules put it on burned his skin, and even attached to his skin so that in removing the vest he also removed skin. Two alternate ideas state that he either tore off all of his human flesh leaving only his godly self, or that he died from his wounds and was raised (as promised) as a God by Zeus.
The cycle is of carnal birth and death, which are one and the same, and spiritual birth. Carnal birth and carnal death are the same - they are flip sides of the same coin. We continually move through one into the other, until spiritual rebirth happens. It is a smaller cycle within the greater cycle, just as all things reflect along the scale from minute to mighty, layered within themselves.
Carnal birth equates to death of the soul - and when it says that those who do not ascend to God will die, this is what is meant. So long as the soul is imprisoned in a physical body, it is bound and blinded, its wings clipped. This is death because it is not life - the soul cannot move (in its sense of movement, not ours), it cannot speak or see or even breathe. It lies malnurished within us, waiting for the day it is released and can once again be a part of the all.
We, the beings that we are, have a unique place in all of this. We have the capability to do anything we wish - free will - but it is only through relinquishing that will to the all that we can free our souls.
To be as plain as possible about the meaning, our conciousness - the "us" - must choose to set itself aside so that the soul can take over the focus of our being. When this happens, we begin to return the power to the soul that it lost by being trapped within our body.
This can be frightening, as the unconcious part of the mind, which thinks it is the soul, wants us to focus on it instead. It reacts to the soul with fear because of it's own desire to exist. There will be anxiety, paranoia, the feeling of coming too close to something too big for us to handle, and the overwhelming feeling that we need to turn to something concrete like a book or a spiritual leader or a religion. If the fear takes enough hold of us, we can potentially close ourselves off to the idea completely - and circumvent its attempts to appear in our life in every way possible.
This is truely what hell is. Locking ourselves into the physical world because we are afraid of what might happen if we let go -
Letting go is the only way to truely be free.
It is only in allowing ourselves to burn, to be crucified (even encouraging it by carrying our own cross), to be hurt, to be poor, to be weak, that we can experience the true rock of strength, compassion and love that is hiding deep within us. We would appear dead to the world before we could be reraised to the spirit. A person in this state would, in fact, not be dead. They would be like a catepillar within its coccoon - transmutating into a more beautiful form, one that can fly and create awe in others. Why do we all love butterflies and dragonflies so? Because they are a reminder of who and what we really are, a reminder that some day we'll burst forth from the coccoon and fly as well.
When we want to be as the phoenix, to burn away the unneccessary parts of our being to leave only the pure and crystalized beauty within, we must take it upon ourselves to do so.
There is no hero going to come along and save us - we must each be our own hero. We must give up everything (it does not need to be all at once, and it does take time). Give away all that we own, let go of the security which comes from jobs, homes, cars, phones, internet, etc. Let go of the relationships you are clinging to, walk away from the people that you know, explore solitude at length. It is ok to give everything up - it is something which is stated repeatedly in the bible, yet no one seems to hear the words. If you trust in God, have faith, and don't struggle or fight to keep anything to yourself, you will be provided for. If you fight and struggle, then what you are trying to keep will be taken away. It is that simple, and you already experience it every day. At the times you decide to leave things in God's hands, they are taken care of. When you try to protect yourself and your things, disasters small and large can strike to take them away.
This is especially true of money - how many times do we get extra, by gift or promotion or bonus, and immediately have an emergency that takes most of it away? It is the balance which causes this, and you cannot fight the balance. Those who manage to seem as if they have more than they need may keep the money or things, but will find themselves facing much greater hardships in terms of comfort, happiness, and spirit.
To conclude this long and meandering post, the catepillar must give up a comfortable, complacent and safe life of munching on leaves until he is fat and seem to die in order to transform into the stunning butterfly. There is always the risk that the catepillar, by being still, bound, and blind could be eaten or die, but he takes that risk because it is worth it considering what he could become.
We too must give up the comfortable and "safe" life and walk through the fire in order to gain our wings, to become a part of the kingdom of God, to find a life eternal that removes us from the cycle of carnal life and carnal death.
To be alive.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Embracing the Pain
As much as I hate to admit it, my blog has some definite self-help themes running through it. The only reason I don't like admitting that is because I don't want my message mistaken for something it is not...
I will never suggest that my discussions and advice here will make your life better, easier, or happier. I offer advice and speak about topics that will help you find the path that leads to knowing yourself, growing, and exploring.
I am a firm believer in the following concepts:
1. Humans need to evolve our state of consciousness through our own seeking.
2. The process of evolving ourselves can be fraught with pain and peril.
3. If you avoid change, you avoid the reason we are here.
4. Every person has the ability to experience fear and triumph despite that fear.
5. Everything we fear can be traced back to our inherent fear of death.
I propose a radical change in the way you view life.
When you feel afraid of something, instead of turning away or hiding from it, stare it down. If you can only handle a few seconds, that's enough for the first time. Try to turn away, calm down, and then look again. Do so until you can rationally consider what you are seeing without feeling panicked.
Then, try to figure out why it frightens you. Is it because of a prior bad experience? Is it because the object of your fear is dangerous to your physical or emotional health? Is it an instinct passed down from the time before we were conscious upright beings?
Now, an amazing thing can happen. Whatever it is that causes your fear, trace it back. Afraid of being bitten by a spider? That is because some spider bites have killed people. Afraid of germs? That is because some people have gotten sick and died from them. Afraid of heights? Afraid of flying? Afraid of having your heart broken? Afraid of your child dying? Every one of them goes back to the same thing. We don't want to die, we don't want to be alone, and we don't want to feel pain.
These are the three major fears to which all other fears can be traced, and the latter two (alone and pain) can be traced back to death as well. We could fear being alone because it means we could die without having a legacy and thereby immortality, through other's memories of us, through having children, through having done something important. Pain is a physical reminder of the possibility of death, it reminds us that death could happen at any moment, therefore we fear pain. (Obviously pain is uncomfortable, but I am speaking to the irrational fear and avoidance of pain, not "I'd rather not hurt" which is the more rational mindset)
We don't want to get to know the inner depths of our being for a big reason: it ties to every fear we have. It can alienate us if we change, thus triggering our alone fear, it could potentially make us crazy which triggers our death fear, and it can potentially hurt - a lot - triggering our pain fear.
Seriously, going through what it takes to really find yourself, who you are inside, what you really are, will ultimately mean destroying the life you have today. Eventually, few scarce vestiges of the person you are now will remain, and you will be someone else. You will likely lose or give up most of your possessions, you'll probably end up living somewhere else, doing something else, even looking like a different person. You will probably distance yourself from family and friends - or they will distance themselves from you - and your priorities will not be the same.
But... we can't only look at that part of it. Even as you lose all of those things, you'll be gaining so much more. You will find new friends, new family, new priorities, a new place to live and a new way to live. You will find yourself to be stronger than you had thought, and you will learn that the changes you put yourself through have tempered your being like steel, making you stronger and bolder and calmer.
And then, you'll do it again. And again. And again. Each time becoming bolder, braver, freer, with less fear.
One small step, followed by another, is all it takes.
I will never suggest that my discussions and advice here will make your life better, easier, or happier. I offer advice and speak about topics that will help you find the path that leads to knowing yourself, growing, and exploring.
I am a firm believer in the following concepts:
1. Humans need to evolve our state of consciousness through our own seeking.
2. The process of evolving ourselves can be fraught with pain and peril.
3. If you avoid change, you avoid the reason we are here.
4. Every person has the ability to experience fear and triumph despite that fear.
5. Everything we fear can be traced back to our inherent fear of death.
I propose a radical change in the way you view life.
When you feel afraid of something, instead of turning away or hiding from it, stare it down. If you can only handle a few seconds, that's enough for the first time. Try to turn away, calm down, and then look again. Do so until you can rationally consider what you are seeing without feeling panicked.
Then, try to figure out why it frightens you. Is it because of a prior bad experience? Is it because the object of your fear is dangerous to your physical or emotional health? Is it an instinct passed down from the time before we were conscious upright beings?
Now, an amazing thing can happen. Whatever it is that causes your fear, trace it back. Afraid of being bitten by a spider? That is because some spider bites have killed people. Afraid of germs? That is because some people have gotten sick and died from them. Afraid of heights? Afraid of flying? Afraid of having your heart broken? Afraid of your child dying? Every one of them goes back to the same thing. We don't want to die, we don't want to be alone, and we don't want to feel pain.
These are the three major fears to which all other fears can be traced, and the latter two (alone and pain) can be traced back to death as well. We could fear being alone because it means we could die without having a legacy and thereby immortality, through other's memories of us, through having children, through having done something important. Pain is a physical reminder of the possibility of death, it reminds us that death could happen at any moment, therefore we fear pain. (Obviously pain is uncomfortable, but I am speaking to the irrational fear and avoidance of pain, not "I'd rather not hurt" which is the more rational mindset)
We don't want to get to know the inner depths of our being for a big reason: it ties to every fear we have. It can alienate us if we change, thus triggering our alone fear, it could potentially make us crazy which triggers our death fear, and it can potentially hurt - a lot - triggering our pain fear.
Seriously, going through what it takes to really find yourself, who you are inside, what you really are, will ultimately mean destroying the life you have today. Eventually, few scarce vestiges of the person you are now will remain, and you will be someone else. You will likely lose or give up most of your possessions, you'll probably end up living somewhere else, doing something else, even looking like a different person. You will probably distance yourself from family and friends - or they will distance themselves from you - and your priorities will not be the same.
But... we can't only look at that part of it. Even as you lose all of those things, you'll be gaining so much more. You will find new friends, new family, new priorities, a new place to live and a new way to live. You will find yourself to be stronger than you had thought, and you will learn that the changes you put yourself through have tempered your being like steel, making you stronger and bolder and calmer.
And then, you'll do it again. And again. And again. Each time becoming bolder, braver, freer, with less fear.
One small step, followed by another, is all it takes.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Technology: Is It Really The Minimalist's Friend?
I was reading a minimalism themed blog today and something made me pause...
It's the statement that technology makes minimalism so much easier, with e-books and digital files that can replace a large amount of physical books, cds, photos, etc.
I agree... it does make life much easier to have all of my music, photographs, and writings on a computer. It makes life much easier to be able to go to the Internet for reference rather than having encyclopedias gathering dust on the shelf.
But is it truly minimalist?
I realize that everyone has their definition of what "minimalism" means these days, but most people concur on the idea that it is to have only what you really need and to cut out the excess.
Lets look to the dictionary:
Minimalism is listed only in regards to music, art and design - minimalism as a lifestyle is a fairly new use of the term.
So, how about the root - minimal?
min·i·mal /ˈmɪnəməl/ Show Spelled[min-uh-muhl] adjective
1. constituting a minimum: a minimal mode of transportation.
2. barely adequate or the least possible: minimal care.
"barely adequate" seems to be a good baseline here - extreme minimalists live with not adequate - so barely adequate seems appropriate for non-extreme minimalists.
Having a library of photos, books and music at your fingertips is far more than adequate - it's having your cake and eating it too, as my mom would say. Is this a problem? Yes. Let me explain...
Minimalism as practiced today is a reaction to the common way of life in first world countries in the last century - and to a depressed economy. Sadly it has also become yet another source of over-inflated pride and a "I'm better than others" sort of chip on the shoulder. You know, like the episode of South Park when there was a giant cloud of smug hanging over the town? Hey, the show may be humerous and a bit gritty but their social commentary is often spot on.
Minimalism is a good idea. My concern is that people are doing it for the wrong reasons (see my post on buzzword/fad cause support), and thus will end up dropping it as they move through life and their focus changes. It isn't something that should be done on a whim, or because someone else is doing it and it seems like a good idea, or because it has become some sort of competition to who can have the least number of things. It certainly shouldn't be a way to sell books and make money.
In my opinion, and I know that others may or may not share it, minimalism is a tool to drag yourself out of consumerism, away from the tv, away from all the distractions and trappings of our culture. It's a way to find who you really are when there is nothing else to do but sit and think about it. Or not think about it, in the case of meditation.
You see, we are all being untrue to ourselves. We do what society says we should do, what our parents say we should do, what our friends and families and spouses say we should do. And even when they don't say it, we still do what we think they want, or what everyone else is doing. What we need is the freedom to be who we are when everything else is ripped away - whether we rip it away or someone else does. Only then can we go through the terrifying experience of not having a safety net - and it is terrifying - but it is also cleansing and focusing, it is baptism by fire. It will burn away all the slop and the bits and pieces within you that were put there by other people. This is not a quick or simple process - though starting it can be. It may need to happen multiple times, it can take half a lifetime, but casting yourself into the fire repeatedly will ultimately polish you into the true gem of who and what you really are.
Make no mistake - I'm not speaking from a point of having completed this path - I'm still on it. In fact, all of this had me thinking...
What if I could only have one book? One CD? One article of clothing? One pair of shoes? One tool for creating art?
What would they be?
Book: Patterns of Happiness (given to me by my great-grandmother) It's a small book, maybe 20 pages, with captivating illustrations and inspirations of inner growth and enlightenment.
Music: A burned CD including Me and a Gun by Tori Amos, Not an Addict by Jane's Choice, Whirlwind by The Gits, Good Riddance by Green Day
Clothing: For a woman it's easier, a dress can work. But if we discount basic articles of clothing and were talking about one decorative article, then a blue sari would be my choice.
Shoes: I'd prefer barefoot, second choice being moccasins.
Single tool for creating art: Either a pocket knife/multi-tool for carving wood or my little watercolor field set.
The importance of this exercises is not so much what you'd keep but why. That is the real beauty of minimalism - when you can't or don't want to have it all, you realize what is most important to you and you learn why you value those things thanks to the process of weighing your options.
My book choice come from my fascination with spirituality and my love of certain types of illustration, my music choices relate to connecting emotions to sound and my enjoyment of singing along, my clothing choice is because the sari can be worn so many ways and is a strikingly beautiful piece. My selection of shoe comes from respect for the historical Native American way of life.
My choice of a tool for art is perfectly in line with how I have always created - I use what is at hand and I shape it into my heartfelt vision. It doesn't matter what the tools are and it almost doesn't matter what the end result is. What matters is how I feel while I am creating.
If you've read many of my posts, you know that minimalism isn't my focus, but is part of a spectrum of ideas that are points on the road of my journey. I cannot look at minimalism simply as a lifestyle because it is reflected so heavly in every religion I am aware of. Our great teachers including Jesus and the Buddah not only speak of minimalism, they emphasize the lack of posessions as a key to unlocking their teachings. The minimalism that they speak of does not allow for keeping carbon copies of everything on a hard drive somewhere - it speaks of letting everything go. Completely, utterly, without back up or rewind, deleting everything until all that is left is you.
Ultimately our technology can help us and hinder us. It can allow us to drop our safety net of having things, but technology is a safety net of another color. Because of our technology, we can give up our things and think that we are making a huge internal change by doing so ... but we have the solid backup of the electronic versions. In other words, we haven't given the item up - we have only changed its form.
It's the statement that technology makes minimalism so much easier, with e-books and digital files that can replace a large amount of physical books, cds, photos, etc.
I agree... it does make life much easier to have all of my music, photographs, and writings on a computer. It makes life much easier to be able to go to the Internet for reference rather than having encyclopedias gathering dust on the shelf.
But is it truly minimalist?
I realize that everyone has their definition of what "minimalism" means these days, but most people concur on the idea that it is to have only what you really need and to cut out the excess.
Lets look to the dictionary:
Minimalism is listed only in regards to music, art and design - minimalism as a lifestyle is a fairly new use of the term.
So, how about the root - minimal?
min·i·mal /ˈmɪnəməl/ Show Spelled[min-uh-muhl] adjective
1. constituting a minimum: a minimal mode of transportation.
2. barely adequate or the least possible: minimal care.
"barely adequate" seems to be a good baseline here - extreme minimalists live with not adequate - so barely adequate seems appropriate for non-extreme minimalists.
Having a library of photos, books and music at your fingertips is far more than adequate - it's having your cake and eating it too, as my mom would say. Is this a problem? Yes. Let me explain...
Minimalism as practiced today is a reaction to the common way of life in first world countries in the last century - and to a depressed economy. Sadly it has also become yet another source of over-inflated pride and a "I'm better than others" sort of chip on the shoulder. You know, like the episode of South Park when there was a giant cloud of smug hanging over the town? Hey, the show may be humerous and a bit gritty but their social commentary is often spot on.
Minimalism is a good idea. My concern is that people are doing it for the wrong reasons (see my post on buzzword/fad cause support), and thus will end up dropping it as they move through life and their focus changes. It isn't something that should be done on a whim, or because someone else is doing it and it seems like a good idea, or because it has become some sort of competition to who can have the least number of things. It certainly shouldn't be a way to sell books and make money.
In my opinion, and I know that others may or may not share it, minimalism is a tool to drag yourself out of consumerism, away from the tv, away from all the distractions and trappings of our culture. It's a way to find who you really are when there is nothing else to do but sit and think about it. Or not think about it, in the case of meditation.
You see, we are all being untrue to ourselves. We do what society says we should do, what our parents say we should do, what our friends and families and spouses say we should do. And even when they don't say it, we still do what we think they want, or what everyone else is doing. What we need is the freedom to be who we are when everything else is ripped away - whether we rip it away or someone else does. Only then can we go through the terrifying experience of not having a safety net - and it is terrifying - but it is also cleansing and focusing, it is baptism by fire. It will burn away all the slop and the bits and pieces within you that were put there by other people. This is not a quick or simple process - though starting it can be. It may need to happen multiple times, it can take half a lifetime, but casting yourself into the fire repeatedly will ultimately polish you into the true gem of who and what you really are.
Make no mistake - I'm not speaking from a point of having completed this path - I'm still on it. In fact, all of this had me thinking...
What if I could only have one book? One CD? One article of clothing? One pair of shoes? One tool for creating art?
What would they be?
Book: Patterns of Happiness (given to me by my great-grandmother) It's a small book, maybe 20 pages, with captivating illustrations and inspirations of inner growth and enlightenment.
Music: A burned CD including Me and a Gun by Tori Amos, Not an Addict by Jane's Choice, Whirlwind by The Gits, Good Riddance by Green Day
Clothing: For a woman it's easier, a dress can work. But if we discount basic articles of clothing and were talking about one decorative article, then a blue sari would be my choice.
Shoes: I'd prefer barefoot, second choice being moccasins.
Single tool for creating art: Either a pocket knife/multi-tool for carving wood or my little watercolor field set.
The importance of this exercises is not so much what you'd keep but why. That is the real beauty of minimalism - when you can't or don't want to have it all, you realize what is most important to you and you learn why you value those things thanks to the process of weighing your options.
My book choice come from my fascination with spirituality and my love of certain types of illustration, my music choices relate to connecting emotions to sound and my enjoyment of singing along, my clothing choice is because the sari can be worn so many ways and is a strikingly beautiful piece. My selection of shoe comes from respect for the historical Native American way of life.
My choice of a tool for art is perfectly in line with how I have always created - I use what is at hand and I shape it into my heartfelt vision. It doesn't matter what the tools are and it almost doesn't matter what the end result is. What matters is how I feel while I am creating.
If you've read many of my posts, you know that minimalism isn't my focus, but is part of a spectrum of ideas that are points on the road of my journey. I cannot look at minimalism simply as a lifestyle because it is reflected so heavly in every religion I am aware of. Our great teachers including Jesus and the Buddah not only speak of minimalism, they emphasize the lack of posessions as a key to unlocking their teachings. The minimalism that they speak of does not allow for keeping carbon copies of everything on a hard drive somewhere - it speaks of letting everything go. Completely, utterly, without back up or rewind, deleting everything until all that is left is you.
Ultimately our technology can help us and hinder us. It can allow us to drop our safety net of having things, but technology is a safety net of another color. Because of our technology, we can give up our things and think that we are making a huge internal change by doing so ... but we have the solid backup of the electronic versions. In other words, we haven't given the item up - we have only changed its form.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Gnosis
If you want to see,
close your eyes.
If you want to hear,
plug your ears.
If you want to know,
be silent.
close your eyes.
If you want to hear,
plug your ears.
If you want to know,
be silent.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
2012
I was very torn about what I wanted to post today...
Either way it was going to be about 2012 and I actually wrote two different posts...
One was about the movements of venus and the different ways it ties in to the various cultures that have existed...and that it's travels are often viewed as significant.
The other post was a plea to everyone that we shouldn't sit and wait for a specific date, for God, a comet, or zombies to come along and wipe the slate clean for us, or to give us a radical mindset change.
Both of my posts were valid, and each as a whole bore it's own perspective of the 2012 discussion which has been going on in many circles for quite some time.
The bottom line is this:
Something incredible could happen in 2012. But it's entirely possible nothing will happen. Our calendar could be off by several years in either direction, and it is a possiblity that the roll-over of the Mayan long count calendar actually happened in 2009 or some other year.
Maybe it happened in 2001. There was an event at that time which has changed many aspects of our lives since. Some of us feel like we've got big brother watching over our shoulders even harder now, and others still don't feel safe so long as there are Muslims in this country. It's only in retrospect that massive changes look as completely massive as they really are...
And it's also true that huge changes in the direction of humanity can happen over a period of years... even centuries. The universe takes its time... I can't imagine that everything is going to change dramatically in just one night -
((One caveat - if a large comet or asteroid were to slam into the Earth, it would cause huge changes and not for the better. We're also probably going to see something like that on its way to us... though that isn't a guarantee either.))
We can't sit and wait for something to happen... to make it all better or to make it worse. Each one of us is an individual, a part of the whole, but still an individual. That means we each have the power to change our own lives. I know that most people will immediately have excuses.... in fact I bet I can list many of them right now:
I have kids
I have bills to pay
Where would I live if I didn't have a job?
I need a car
I need a house
I need a job
I need a tv
I need running water
I need a grocery store
I need my family
I need my pets
I need security
I need safety
I need a phone
I need my friends
I need the internet
My significant other wouldn't be ok with it
My parents wouldn't understand
And that's ok... it just means you aren't ready yet. But if you aren't ready enough to make that change right now, then you aren't ready for something major to happen in 2012 either. I mean, it's only about a year and a half away, can you see yourself walking away from your life as it is in that amount of time from now?
So instead of wishing, watching and waiting for a radical event to force us all to change our lives (or kill off half of us before we get the chance), take action today. It doesn't have to be anything big, it doesn't have to be a major departure from your life as it is. It's ok to take baby steps. Focus on one small thing at a time, and eliminate it from your life - or add something beneficial like yoga or meditiation or walking in solitude with nature.
You can eliminate something by reducing your posessions, becoming vegetarian or otherwise simplifying your diet, reducing the number of obligations you put on yourself for social events, spending time alone, volunteering to help others, giving up driving (walking or getting a bike) at least part of the time, and so forth.
Once you make a small step and become comfortable with it, take another. Take time to feel the difference in yourself from the change that you've made, notice how your mood is different and whether it lightens your spirits or makes you feel more grounded. After a few steps, you'll find that your priorities change and your old ways just don't interest you any longer. Once you get the ball rolling, it will take less effort to keep it rolling and as you progress through greater challenges you'll find you have more and more strength to conquer them.
Eventually, you may be able to walk the earth as Jesus did or as the Buddha's did, regardless of what happens next December.
Either way it was going to be about 2012 and I actually wrote two different posts...
One was about the movements of venus and the different ways it ties in to the various cultures that have existed...and that it's travels are often viewed as significant.
The other post was a plea to everyone that we shouldn't sit and wait for a specific date, for God, a comet, or zombies to come along and wipe the slate clean for us, or to give us a radical mindset change.
Both of my posts were valid, and each as a whole bore it's own perspective of the 2012 discussion which has been going on in many circles for quite some time.
The bottom line is this:
Something incredible could happen in 2012. But it's entirely possible nothing will happen. Our calendar could be off by several years in either direction, and it is a possiblity that the roll-over of the Mayan long count calendar actually happened in 2009 or some other year.
Maybe it happened in 2001. There was an event at that time which has changed many aspects of our lives since. Some of us feel like we've got big brother watching over our shoulders even harder now, and others still don't feel safe so long as there are Muslims in this country. It's only in retrospect that massive changes look as completely massive as they really are...
And it's also true that huge changes in the direction of humanity can happen over a period of years... even centuries. The universe takes its time... I can't imagine that everything is going to change dramatically in just one night -
((One caveat - if a large comet or asteroid were to slam into the Earth, it would cause huge changes and not for the better. We're also probably going to see something like that on its way to us... though that isn't a guarantee either.))
We can't sit and wait for something to happen... to make it all better or to make it worse. Each one of us is an individual, a part of the whole, but still an individual. That means we each have the power to change our own lives. I know that most people will immediately have excuses.... in fact I bet I can list many of them right now:
I have kids
I have bills to pay
Where would I live if I didn't have a job?
I need a car
I need a house
I need a job
I need a tv
I need running water
I need a grocery store
I need my family
I need my pets
I need security
I need safety
I need a phone
I need my friends
I need the internet
My significant other wouldn't be ok with it
My parents wouldn't understand
And that's ok... it just means you aren't ready yet. But if you aren't ready enough to make that change right now, then you aren't ready for something major to happen in 2012 either. I mean, it's only about a year and a half away, can you see yourself walking away from your life as it is in that amount of time from now?
So instead of wishing, watching and waiting for a radical event to force us all to change our lives (or kill off half of us before we get the chance), take action today. It doesn't have to be anything big, it doesn't have to be a major departure from your life as it is. It's ok to take baby steps. Focus on one small thing at a time, and eliminate it from your life - or add something beneficial like yoga or meditiation or walking in solitude with nature.
You can eliminate something by reducing your posessions, becoming vegetarian or otherwise simplifying your diet, reducing the number of obligations you put on yourself for social events, spending time alone, volunteering to help others, giving up driving (walking or getting a bike) at least part of the time, and so forth.
Once you make a small step and become comfortable with it, take another. Take time to feel the difference in yourself from the change that you've made, notice how your mood is different and whether it lightens your spirits or makes you feel more grounded. After a few steps, you'll find that your priorities change and your old ways just don't interest you any longer. Once you get the ball rolling, it will take less effort to keep it rolling and as you progress through greater challenges you'll find you have more and more strength to conquer them.
Eventually, you may be able to walk the earth as Jesus did or as the Buddha's did, regardless of what happens next December.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Tending the Seed
He set another parable before them, saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is smaller than all seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches."
Matthew 13:31-32
Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, some an hundred. He said unto them, He that has ears to hear, let him hear.
Mark 4:3-9
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20
A few examples of Jesus mentioning seeds as compared to spiritual development. His disciples ask him why he teaches in parables, and he tells them that the parables are for the purpose of allowing only those who genuinely follow him to understand his word. He also tells his disciples that the number who will understand his words are very, very few.
To see a fully awakened person, a Buddha, is so rare that it is like seeing an udumbara flower. In the Tu Hieu Monastery in Hue, there is a scroll which says: "The udumbara flower, although fallen from the stem, is still fragrant." Just as the fragrance of the udumbara flower cannot be destroyed, our capacity for enlightenment is always present. The Buddha taught that everyone is a Buddha, everyone is an udumbara flower.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Both Jesus and the Buddha have taught that each of us has a bit of potential inside us - like a seed - that with proper tending can grow and burst forth the kingdom of God (enlightenment) within us. Both have taught that in order for this to happen, we have to cast off our trappings and desires of the physical world. Just as the Udumbara flower is inside the fruit of the fig and is rarely seen, our seed of potential is buried within us and wrapped up so tightly that we only occasionally hear it's whispers.
But like the fruit of the fig, we can peel away the layers wrapped around our potential, the seed of the soul, so that it can flourish within us.
Giving everything up and becoming an enlightened being sounds like a gigantic task - and frankly, it is. However as with any goal one could have, there is always a starting point, and small steps that can be taken towards the whole goal. It's not something you can do all at once, so it is better to focus on single, smaller tasks first, and you will find that as your seed begins to bloom, the next steps will make themselves obvious.
How does one start on the path?
Just being here - reading this - you've already begun. Even if you scoff at these ideas and walk away from the subject, the words you read are already imprinted on your mind and when you are ready, you'll seek this knowledge out again.
You see, your soul - the real real you is paying attention right now. It's hiding within you, trying to tell you "Please hear me!" and it gets louder each time you touch upon a fragment of the truth. Even if you stop reading at this moment, it is going to latch on to this bit of information within your mind and it is going to cause it to take root, to grow.
Buddhism teaches mindfulness - paying complete attention to your task at hand, noticing how your body feels as you do the task, noticing where your mind tries to go as you work at your task, noticing the beauty of every detail of what you are doing. This mindfulness is about learning observation - because observation is one of the keys to enlightenment.
All knowledge, all knowing, comes from our souls - when we "learn" something, we aren't adding new information to our memory banks, we're opening up channels and pathways to knowledge we already had access to but did not know how to reach. Through learning, we remember the things we've already known. It is possible to tell whether something you are learning is absolute truth or human truth, by listening for the ping or echo within your soul.
If you've ever had the sensation of knowing someone before you knew them, it is like that feeling. In a way, it's also similar to the feeling of deja vu (and probably related to it). It's reading something and have the sensation that you know it in a way that goes beyond simple understanding. As if it is a part of you you haven't seen in a while.
It's the aha! moment - having knowledge spring forth from somewhere you cannot name. For artists, writers, poets, and songwriters, it is those moments when a piece of work comes to us unannounced and complete - the idea is already fully formed and just appears within our minds. Those pieces of knowledge, those ideas - they come directly from our soul. That, is how you can start to feel your soul within you and begin to understand the quality of its presence.
Once you have a grasp of the way it feels when your soul communicates with you, you can use the concept of mindfulness to listen for it more often. If you are going about a task in a mindful manner, you will be better able to hear what your soul is trying to tell you.
Developing this interal dialogue between your mind and your soul (because they are indeed two seperate things) will assist you in making further progress in developing and maturing your soul-seed so that it can one day blossom and transform your conciousness to a higher order.
This is truely what it means to know thyself.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Change
Artwork © Jonathon Earl Bowser - www.JonathonArt.com
“The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.” – Confucius
If everyone that complains about the government refused to pay their taxes, it might actually make them listen.
If everyone who posts about their religious beliefs were to donate $5 to the needy each time they post, it would be an active following of those beliefs.
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” – Abraham Lincoln
If, instead of stressing about disasters happening in far away places, people stopped when they saw a car on the side of the road in distress or an accident, or helps someone who has too much to carry, or any other random acts of kindness, it can create a hurricane of good will to counteract the forces of nature.
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” – Buddha
Instead of cutting someone off or not pausing to let someone pull out onto the road, remember that those actions may save you minutes but they spread ill will and bad moods.
Instead of complaining that someone has irritated or annoyed you, try understanding what was going on with them at the time.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato
“A jug fills drop by drop.” – Buddha
People say "be the change you want to see in the world" but we are all too quick to think that just saying something is enough. If we raise awareness, those other people will do the actuall changes and we can sit back and relax, thinking we've done our part by opening our mouths.
The problem is, everyone thinks that... and so few people actually make any change at all. We look to a figurehead to make changes for us but then we complain that the government isn't doing what we wanted them to do.
We complain that our freedoms are being limited and then we complain when someone exercises their own freedom in a way we don't agree with.
“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” – Chinese Proverb
The lovely painting I've added to this post is by one of my favorite artists - Jonathon Earl Bowser. It's title is "Invariance and Enlightenment" and though I normally do not use other people's images on my posts I felt this one was an appropriate visual to my message.
You can sit in stone and do the same thing you've always done, and get the same thing you've always gotten. Or, you can let go and release the fear of not having that which you desire. You will find that when you let go of what you consider precious, what you gain is something more precious to you than you could have realized.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammed Ali
It is through challenging ourselves, casting off our safety nets and protective gear that we can grow and genuinely receive truth and light into our lives.
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.
Actions speak louder than words.
“Action will remove the doubt that theory cannot solve.” – Petryl Hsieh
Be the change you want to see in the world.
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Albert Einstein
It is not possible to grow if you are comfortable - necessity is the mother of invention not just in physical objects but in the way we think and live.
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” – Unknown
"We can't all see things the same way, but we should all see them for ourselves" -Ri
"We're all searcing for something we may never find, but I'll give you my best if you give me yours." -Ri
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Deception Pt 2
(Continued from Yesterday)
The deception occurred long ago. Jesus taught his disciples to share the words he gave them, the words that came from God and were holy above all others, and they did so. He warned that they and their works would be persecuted, just as he had, and they were. But in that persecution a great deception occurred:
The true meaning of Jesus's life and death, of the kingdom of God, of his words; it was buried, destroyed, burned, hidden, and locked away. Those who wanted to perpetuate their own agenda of control and power and greed twisted the message, deadened the good news and began to form a new religion from bits and pieces of the truth that they thought were harmless.
They took the truth and they flattened it into a two dimensional idea: If you believe in Jesus, you will be saved.
But this is only a half truth: salvation does come in belief in Jesus, but we no longer understand what belief truly means! Belief describes a multi dimensional action, not a two dimensional thought process.
Jesus attempted to describe for us what the completeness and wholeness of belief was through parables, stories and words of guidance. He explained that we had to release everything - from our possessions to our fears to our very lives in order to experience faith, belief, and ultimately the kingdom of God.
Imagine that you have never seen the color green before. You ask "Is it like blue" and someone who has seen it says "it is like blue, and like yellow, but it is neither blue nor yellow."
All you can imagine are the colors which you have seen, but because this color is not known to you, you cannot comprehend what that color looks like without seeing it. So, you call it blue because it is the closest thing your understanding can grasp. But the color is not blue. You'll share the words that shed merely a shadow upon the whole of the idea, and those words may sound amazing to other humans, and they'll say "yes, I understand, it is blue!" but because of their understanding they can only ever think of blue, and never of green.
In this case, green is the kingdom of God. In other cases those who have glimpsed it say "it is like a grand tree that reaches to the sky" and you picture a grand tree that reaches to the sky, not what they actually saw. So you draw trees and search for trees and familiarize yourself with trees, and you completely miss the point of the kingdom of God itself.
As long as you are searching for blue or searching for trees, you will overlook the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus told us, and yet most religions are still looking for blue and looking for trees.
The description became the weapon of the deception. That flat two dimensional idea about great things became the only thing people could see. The other knowledge and ideas were destroyed (or at least they attempted to destroy them) and just in case they'd resurface, rigors of fear and distrust were woven into the two dimensional idea that was shared. That way, if the original ideas resurfaced, those who believed in the two dimensional idea would do it so blindly that they would rather destroy themselves than consider any other possibility to be true.
In this way, it is the religions of the world which are largely the biggest deception of all - they are the wolf in sheep's clothing, those claiming to be good and to be the one true path but actually being nothing more than someone holding a feather and calling it a bird. Don't harbor hatred towards them, they honestly believe that feather is a bird, they can't see that it is only a feather. Through generations, they have been deceived and the deceivers who started it are long gone - though I am sure there are some out there who understand the deception and still perpetuate it.
Finding the kingdom of God is like this: realizing that the feather is not a bird, putting down the feather and then laying back and waiting for a real bird to fly past so you can see what it really looks like. It is giving up all the drawings of feathers, all the books about feathers, the place you kept your feather, and the people who only care about feathers : because all of those things scare away the actual birds - they won't come near because loose feathers say to them a potentially injurious place for birds to be- and it's true! If a bird came near people who honor feathers as if they are truly birds, they will pluck the bird for its feathers and remain blind to the fact it was a bird! After all, that isn't what a bird looks like, a bird looks like this feather!
And so, those who have a preconceived idea of what the kingdom is or looks like will look only for that idea and will overlook, even destroy, the kingdom. They may even fear the bird for it's feathers, saying "look at this greedy one who is keeping all of the bird (feathers) for himself! It is unfair that so much "truth" not be spread amongst us. We'll take it for ourselves, so that we can all be as enlightened as the other."
So they pluck away all of its feathers and leave the bird for dead, never realizing that it was the beautiful thing they had been seeking all along...
This happened to Jesus when he began to show his beauty to man. It took a mere three years before they destroyed him, and maybe twenty to fifty more years before they had buried and destroyed any of his message they could get their hands on, placing a headdress of feathers on the throne after having plucked and killed the bird to whom the throne belonged.
As Jesus said many times: He who has ears, let him hear.
The deception occurred long ago. Jesus taught his disciples to share the words he gave them, the words that came from God and were holy above all others, and they did so. He warned that they and their works would be persecuted, just as he had, and they were. But in that persecution a great deception occurred:
The true meaning of Jesus's life and death, of the kingdom of God, of his words; it was buried, destroyed, burned, hidden, and locked away. Those who wanted to perpetuate their own agenda of control and power and greed twisted the message, deadened the good news and began to form a new religion from bits and pieces of the truth that they thought were harmless.
They took the truth and they flattened it into a two dimensional idea: If you believe in Jesus, you will be saved.
But this is only a half truth: salvation does come in belief in Jesus, but we no longer understand what belief truly means! Belief describes a multi dimensional action, not a two dimensional thought process.
Jesus attempted to describe for us what the completeness and wholeness of belief was through parables, stories and words of guidance. He explained that we had to release everything - from our possessions to our fears to our very lives in order to experience faith, belief, and ultimately the kingdom of God.
Imagine that you have never seen the color green before. You ask "Is it like blue" and someone who has seen it says "it is like blue, and like yellow, but it is neither blue nor yellow."
All you can imagine are the colors which you have seen, but because this color is not known to you, you cannot comprehend what that color looks like without seeing it. So, you call it blue because it is the closest thing your understanding can grasp. But the color is not blue. You'll share the words that shed merely a shadow upon the whole of the idea, and those words may sound amazing to other humans, and they'll say "yes, I understand, it is blue!" but because of their understanding they can only ever think of blue, and never of green.
In this case, green is the kingdom of God. In other cases those who have glimpsed it say "it is like a grand tree that reaches to the sky" and you picture a grand tree that reaches to the sky, not what they actually saw. So you draw trees and search for trees and familiarize yourself with trees, and you completely miss the point of the kingdom of God itself.
As long as you are searching for blue or searching for trees, you will overlook the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus told us, and yet most religions are still looking for blue and looking for trees.
The description became the weapon of the deception. That flat two dimensional idea about great things became the only thing people could see. The other knowledge and ideas were destroyed (or at least they attempted to destroy them) and just in case they'd resurface, rigors of fear and distrust were woven into the two dimensional idea that was shared. That way, if the original ideas resurfaced, those who believed in the two dimensional idea would do it so blindly that they would rather destroy themselves than consider any other possibility to be true.
In this way, it is the religions of the world which are largely the biggest deception of all - they are the wolf in sheep's clothing, those claiming to be good and to be the one true path but actually being nothing more than someone holding a feather and calling it a bird. Don't harbor hatred towards them, they honestly believe that feather is a bird, they can't see that it is only a feather. Through generations, they have been deceived and the deceivers who started it are long gone - though I am sure there are some out there who understand the deception and still perpetuate it.
Finding the kingdom of God is like this: realizing that the feather is not a bird, putting down the feather and then laying back and waiting for a real bird to fly past so you can see what it really looks like. It is giving up all the drawings of feathers, all the books about feathers, the place you kept your feather, and the people who only care about feathers : because all of those things scare away the actual birds - they won't come near because loose feathers say to them a potentially injurious place for birds to be- and it's true! If a bird came near people who honor feathers as if they are truly birds, they will pluck the bird for its feathers and remain blind to the fact it was a bird! After all, that isn't what a bird looks like, a bird looks like this feather!
And so, those who have a preconceived idea of what the kingdom is or looks like will look only for that idea and will overlook, even destroy, the kingdom. They may even fear the bird for it's feathers, saying "look at this greedy one who is keeping all of the bird (feathers) for himself! It is unfair that so much "truth" not be spread amongst us. We'll take it for ourselves, so that we can all be as enlightened as the other."
So they pluck away all of its feathers and leave the bird for dead, never realizing that it was the beautiful thing they had been seeking all along...
This happened to Jesus when he began to show his beauty to man. It took a mere three years before they destroyed him, and maybe twenty to fifty more years before they had buried and destroyed any of his message they could get their hands on, placing a headdress of feathers on the throne after having plucked and killed the bird to whom the throne belonged.
As Jesus said many times: He who has ears, let him hear.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Deception Pt. 1
Long ago, a deception was made. A hiding of a simple truth. Documents were destroyed, people were killed to silence them, fear was bred to drive men away from the truth.
Why? So that people who had power could retain that power. So that people who had money could retain that money. So that people in control could keep that control.
So that people who were afraid of the true meaning of Jesus' message wouldn't be the only ones left when everyone else accepted and practiced them.
In the words of Jesus Christ:
"The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21 NKJ
But a deception was made, a change in the way the words were understood. People were taught that seeking the kingdom within themselves, seeking the truth, was akin to paganism (and thusly akin to satanism).
People were persecuted for not believing what the orthodox Christian church attempted to put in place. Jesus himself said to the pharisees that only he without sin could cast the first stone, and the early church (and the church today!) goes about casting stones in every direction, as if it believes itself to be without sin.
But who really does this church worship?
Matthew 13:22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
2 Corinthians 4:4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God
2 Corinthians 3:14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (note that Jehovah wasn't described as an invisible god. He made himself aware and known and had to physically hide his face from Moses on the mount. He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, his presence on Earth was repeatedly recorded.)
Those who blindly follow where they are taken, listen to the words they are told without comprehension and believe what they are taught are being mislead.
They have been brought to the point of blindly following because they have been conditioned to think that questioning, seeking on your own and exploring all of the other beliefs and possibilities is evil. They speak the words of enlightenment but are blinded from comprehension by fear. If they attempt to comprehend a greater understanding, they frighten themselves by touching something unique, something special, something unknown and foreign, and when that happens they snap back into line, hiding under their fear, convinced if they just say the name Jesus over and over again it will somehow protect them.
If only they knew that they are seeking protection from the truth, and seeking shelter provided by the world... which only hides God from them.
What is really going on here?
Jesus and others in the Bible warned that mankind would be decieved into thinking that they were serving god but in fact serving the world itself... and if you can open your eyes and look around, you can see that many religions are of the world and are serving the world, rather than serving God or even trying to seek him.
Churches of brick and mortar that call for money and call for support and cry out to be trusted and believed and who promise salvation while bonding in slavery are not churches of God. We have been raised and programmed to think that these organizations are here for our benefit, that they want the best for us, that they would not mislead us, that they can be trusted. It is true that they do a lot of good in the world, but they do so while also pushing their agenda - their religion - on the people whom they help. It is not necessarily with malice that any of this happens, most of those who preach and profess these messages believe them just as much as the rest of the congregation.
To be continued...
Why? So that people who had power could retain that power. So that people who had money could retain that money. So that people in control could keep that control.
So that people who were afraid of the true meaning of Jesus' message wouldn't be the only ones left when everyone else accepted and practiced them.
In the words of Jesus Christ:
"The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21 NKJ
But a deception was made, a change in the way the words were understood. People were taught that seeking the kingdom within themselves, seeking the truth, was akin to paganism (and thusly akin to satanism).
People were persecuted for not believing what the orthodox Christian church attempted to put in place. Jesus himself said to the pharisees that only he without sin could cast the first stone, and the early church (and the church today!) goes about casting stones in every direction, as if it believes itself to be without sin.
But who really does this church worship?
Matthew 13:22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
2 Corinthians 4:4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God
2 Corinthians 3:14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (note that Jehovah wasn't described as an invisible god. He made himself aware and known and had to physically hide his face from Moses on the mount. He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, his presence on Earth was repeatedly recorded.)
Those who blindly follow where they are taken, listen to the words they are told without comprehension and believe what they are taught are being mislead.
They have been brought to the point of blindly following because they have been conditioned to think that questioning, seeking on your own and exploring all of the other beliefs and possibilities is evil. They speak the words of enlightenment but are blinded from comprehension by fear. If they attempt to comprehend a greater understanding, they frighten themselves by touching something unique, something special, something unknown and foreign, and when that happens they snap back into line, hiding under their fear, convinced if they just say the name Jesus over and over again it will somehow protect them.
If only they knew that they are seeking protection from the truth, and seeking shelter provided by the world... which only hides God from them.
What is really going on here?
Jesus and others in the Bible warned that mankind would be decieved into thinking that they were serving god but in fact serving the world itself... and if you can open your eyes and look around, you can see that many religions are of the world and are serving the world, rather than serving God or even trying to seek him.
Churches of brick and mortar that call for money and call for support and cry out to be trusted and believed and who promise salvation while bonding in slavery are not churches of God. We have been raised and programmed to think that these organizations are here for our benefit, that they want the best for us, that they would not mislead us, that they can be trusted. It is true that they do a lot of good in the world, but they do so while also pushing their agenda - their religion - on the people whom they help. It is not necessarily with malice that any of this happens, most of those who preach and profess these messages believe them just as much as the rest of the congregation.
To be continued...
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The Heart
It is common today to believe that we are our brains. All of that exciting electrical activity, synapses firing must surely be the home of all thought and feeling, especially because we can trace the movement of that electrical activity to certain areas when we are feeling or thinking about specific things.
The brain is indeed an important central organ for our bodies, it keeps everything in pace and in check, it processes our experiences and stores our memories. But is it really the whole of who we are?
Past cultures didn't think so: (quotes from around the web)
The Egyptians believed that the heart, rather than the brain, was the source of human wisdom, as well as emotions, memory, the soul and the personality itself. Notions of physiology and disease were all connected in concept to the heart, and it was through the heart that God spoke, giving ancient Egyptians knowledge of God and God's will.
Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason or emotion, often rejecting the value of the brain.
The Christian religions also embraced heart symbology early in their history. An example is the Catholic belief in Jesus' "Sacred Heart." Christians also recognize the heart as the center of human emotion. Eastern religions observed a similar symbology in the "Sacred Heart of Shiva." And the Islam religion considers the heart to be the center of spirituality.
Lets think about a computer: It has a mother board on which is a processor, memory chips, and various other components which affect and allow its operation. It is a conduit and storage for data, but a computer is not data, and data is not a computer.
I think that we are like this, we have brains and hearts and stomachs and all these busy things working to keep us walking and talking and thinking. They provide us energy to fuel the brain, pump the heart and move the muscles, and the signals that cause us to use these abilities are electrical and are traced from the brain. However, in a computer those signals are traced to and from the processor...
But that still doesn't mean that the processor and the data are one and the same. If you understand how a processor works, it makes it easier to understand what I'm saying. Essentially all computer components function from an extremely simplistic system - binary - and they can process more complex data by (essentially) stacking binary on binary on binary until we get nibbles and bits and bites and eventually giga-quads of data processing capability.
The data itself is understood by the system in binary, but again, the data itself is not binary it is only described that way. So the synapses in our brains are describing our thoughts and feelings to the body so that we can experience them in a conscious way - but the synapses and electricity that jumps between them is still not our actual thoughts and feelings and memories. Those are something else, something more, something that is managing to interact with our phsyical bodies somehow...
We have an ancient description of how: It's called the chakras, or the tree of life. We are believed to have seven open chakras - and at the center, the hinge, the meeting place is the heart chakra.
When ancient mythology was read and compared to our own understanding, we thought that they must have been mistaken to think that the essence of our being resides in the heart: after all, they thought the brain was a useless organ and here we are finding all this mystery and activity there! So how do these two views reconcile?
Our soul is not contained within any one organ of our body: rather it meshes into our body at node points which have been called chakras by some. The strongest node point is that of the heart, the one of the most overlap and thusly the center of our emotional contact from our souls.
It is also the place from which our intuition or gnosis springs, and the most open channel of communication between the two parts of us. This is part of the reason that we are not quite so aware of what is beyond the physical world... our perceptions and interperetations of the world around us are processed in our brains, which has an indirect connection to the soul. The information that comes through at the heart chakra is transfered to the brain, but often remains a bit obscured for the journey. We cannot clearly see anything beyond that which is in our heads because our consciousness is obscured from the soul and vice versa.
Through the advancement of evolution, the soul progresses across the chakras, continously connecting to the body at higher points. Our next progression will be to the throat chakra, putting us even closer to a connection of soul and consciousness. Rather than just feeling truth from our soul, we'll be able to express it. After that we'll hit the third eye, allowing us to not only feel and express truth from our soul, but to see it in the world around us. At the top of our phsyical body is the crown chakra - which will enable us to know all truth and begin to leave our bodies as they are behind. It is like the slow climbing out of a chrysalis, or the slow climb up a ladder from within a cave to the surface. As you climb you can see more and more light, hear more of the sounds going on up there, and eventually you reach the top and you can join in the festivities.
The brain is indeed an important central organ for our bodies, it keeps everything in pace and in check, it processes our experiences and stores our memories. But is it really the whole of who we are?
Past cultures didn't think so: (quotes from around the web)
The Egyptians believed that the heart, rather than the brain, was the source of human wisdom, as well as emotions, memory, the soul and the personality itself. Notions of physiology and disease were all connected in concept to the heart, and it was through the heart that God spoke, giving ancient Egyptians knowledge of God and God's will.
Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason or emotion, often rejecting the value of the brain.
The Christian religions also embraced heart symbology early in their history. An example is the Catholic belief in Jesus' "Sacred Heart." Christians also recognize the heart as the center of human emotion. Eastern religions observed a similar symbology in the "Sacred Heart of Shiva." And the Islam religion considers the heart to be the center of spirituality.
Lets think about a computer: It has a mother board on which is a processor, memory chips, and various other components which affect and allow its operation. It is a conduit and storage for data, but a computer is not data, and data is not a computer.
I think that we are like this, we have brains and hearts and stomachs and all these busy things working to keep us walking and talking and thinking. They provide us energy to fuel the brain, pump the heart and move the muscles, and the signals that cause us to use these abilities are electrical and are traced from the brain. However, in a computer those signals are traced to and from the processor...
But that still doesn't mean that the processor and the data are one and the same. If you understand how a processor works, it makes it easier to understand what I'm saying. Essentially all computer components function from an extremely simplistic system - binary - and they can process more complex data by (essentially) stacking binary on binary on binary until we get nibbles and bits and bites and eventually giga-quads of data processing capability.
The data itself is understood by the system in binary, but again, the data itself is not binary it is only described that way. So the synapses in our brains are describing our thoughts and feelings to the body so that we can experience them in a conscious way - but the synapses and electricity that jumps between them is still not our actual thoughts and feelings and memories. Those are something else, something more, something that is managing to interact with our phsyical bodies somehow...
We have an ancient description of how: It's called the chakras, or the tree of life. We are believed to have seven open chakras - and at the center, the hinge, the meeting place is the heart chakra.
When ancient mythology was read and compared to our own understanding, we thought that they must have been mistaken to think that the essence of our being resides in the heart: after all, they thought the brain was a useless organ and here we are finding all this mystery and activity there! So how do these two views reconcile?
Our soul is not contained within any one organ of our body: rather it meshes into our body at node points which have been called chakras by some. The strongest node point is that of the heart, the one of the most overlap and thusly the center of our emotional contact from our souls.
It is also the place from which our intuition or gnosis springs, and the most open channel of communication between the two parts of us. This is part of the reason that we are not quite so aware of what is beyond the physical world... our perceptions and interperetations of the world around us are processed in our brains, which has an indirect connection to the soul. The information that comes through at the heart chakra is transfered to the brain, but often remains a bit obscured for the journey. We cannot clearly see anything beyond that which is in our heads because our consciousness is obscured from the soul and vice versa.
Through the advancement of evolution, the soul progresses across the chakras, continously connecting to the body at higher points. Our next progression will be to the throat chakra, putting us even closer to a connection of soul and consciousness. Rather than just feeling truth from our soul, we'll be able to express it. After that we'll hit the third eye, allowing us to not only feel and express truth from our soul, but to see it in the world around us. At the top of our phsyical body is the crown chakra - which will enable us to know all truth and begin to leave our bodies as they are behind. It is like the slow climbing out of a chrysalis, or the slow climb up a ladder from within a cave to the surface. As you climb you can see more and more light, hear more of the sounds going on up there, and eventually you reach the top and you can join in the festivities.
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