This video is about the wildflower Garden I'm creating as part of the celebration of the November 2017 release of War & Grace. War & Grace is the final installment in my epic fantasy trilogy, Daughter of Light. Daughter of Light was inspired by my beloved Grandma who was a gardener.
More about Grandma: Over a decade ago, when I was a singer/songwriter I produced a quirky CD. Here is an excerpt from that CD where I talk and sing about the time we spend with the ones we love and ... Broken Dolls ...
Enjoy this video update on War & Grace, the final release in my epic fantasy trilogy Daughter of Light. Notice the slip at 0:41 when I suggested my husband was an objective beta reader; I meant to say he might be subjective!
Whether its our spouses, partners, children, pets, homes, states, country, freedom, constitution, bill of rights, we are a passionate people.
I saw a headline the other day claiming that “Americans don’t recognize their country anymore.” Supposedly because we’re divided.
Who in their right mind would expect 320 plus million diverse peoples to agree on most things?!?! Anything?!?!? (Oh, that's what all that nifty surveillance is far ... they're going to try to use our buying habits, reading habits, posting habits, watching habits to herd us like cats ... hehe!)
If you study our history, Americans have been “divided” since the birth of our nation. Politics has, since our country’s inception, been rife with nastiness and name-calling, i.e. the more things change the more things stay the same … So don’t let anyone hoodwink you into believing “these times are somehow different — more awful — so bad —blah blah blah blah blah blah blah”.
Years ago M. Scott Peck wrote a book titled The Road Less Traveled, the title a line from a Robert Frost poem. It was a bestseller. An analysis of why it was a best seller back in the day claimed it was because the first line of the book was: Life is difficult.
And those three words hooked millions of book buyers because it confirmed an innate truth that at the time, perhaps, was not readily acknowledged in public. Remember all those silly saccharine sitcoms they used to foist upon us …
See, we’re always hungry and scavenging for Truth. We really don’t want or need or thrive on sugar-coated, palliative make me-feel good solipsism.
We really want the Truth, even when it hurts. Even when it breaks our hearts.
It reminds me that to love is the most magnificent thing on this planet. And whether that love is for your precious child, your loyal dog, or the freedom to voice your Truth, that love is the only thing that tethers us to the Divine.
So love someone or something with everything you've got.
Quietness and silence have been on my mind for several months. From September 2015 to September/October 2016 I was meditating and experimenting with meditation. At first it was wonderful to be reminded of (I’ve been a meditator with widely varying levels of commitment since 1987) and discover new ways of meditating and its fruits. But then my interest waned. (Directly in line with aforementioned varying levels of commitment.) But this time my restlessness didn’t lead to the predictable meditation drop off. No, this time I felt compelled to weed out all extraneous ritual and purpose, to strip away all pretense, and deal with meditation at its most essential level. This led me directly to silence; silence itself being the destination. And so silence has been occupying a place in my mind like a rotating gemstone on display in a cat burglar thriller. I consider the varying planes and refractions, the prisms of light, with an inner hush.
After all, what can you truly say, talk, write about silence?
In 1966, Shusaku Endo wrote an entire novel about it.
An entire novel! I read it in the last week of 2016 and it really is … page after page, paragraph after paragraph, all about silence. Martin Scorsese has now directed a movie based on said novel—which I haven’t seen because it’s not showing in my city yet—and film critics have been reviewing it.
Huh.
My local library had a copy of the novel. So I requested it, number one on the waiting list. I didn’t have to wait long.
“Silence is the story of a man who learns—so painfully—that God’s love is more mysterious than he knows, that he leaves much more to the ways of men than we realize, and that he is always present … even in His silence.” — Martin Scorsese, Forward to Silence
It’s not a long book; I read it in less than two days. It’s a completely depressing story which I couldn’t stop reading. My heart physically ached by the time I was finished. Not sure I’ll be able to watch the movie which looks to be arriving in a local cinema in about a week.
Shusaku Endo lived on borders. Raised in a bilingual and bicultural home, I’m often drawn to border dwellers, their efforts to pull apart and put together more than one way of perceiving the world. Endo is a Japanese who was baptized into the Christian faith at eleven years of age; he also spent a significant amount of time in France. Nice. (Not the noun, the adjective.) His writing mines the intersection of these diverse experiences. (Note: After finishing Silence, I read The Samurai and am in the middle of reading A Life of Jesus—both of which I’m likely to blog about in the future.)
But I was blown away by Silence. And I want to thank Scorsese for bringing the book through the film into the public consciousness.
It’s best to read it without filters, i.e. read it without anyone telling you what you should think about it.
It’s a story about Catholic missionaries and their political expulsion from Japan; and if the reader is meant to identify with the letter writer and primary narrator, Sebastian Rodrigues, then it was an epic fail for this reader.
But I doubt that’s the case. That would be too simplistic for a border dweller.
So what was Endo’s purpose in writing the novel?
Who knows?
But it provokes questions; and it confronts and invokes silence. On just about every level. Halfway through the book, I was like: This should be required reading for every professed Christian/devout believer of anything on the planet. The dark side, the underbelly, of those who wish to “convert/save” is exposed, and it’s hard to look it. You really want to turn away.
“News reached the Church in Rome. Christavao Ferriera, sent to Japan by the Society of Jesus in Portugal, after undergoing the torture of ‘the pit’ at Nagasaki had apostatized.”—Silence by Shusaku Endo
I’m an apostate—without the threat of death and/or torture. If you can be an apostate without ever having been baptized. If you were just raised in the culture but reject it, does that make you an apostate? I don’t know. But organized religion doesn’t work for me.
And yet, Endo’s novel worked really well for me …
So well, in fact, that this will probably be the first post on the quantum enlightenment of what else?
What is globalism? I came up with this definition: Corporate and political advocacy for bodies of global governance whose functional purpose is to secure the concentration of global capital in the hands of less than 1% of the world population, i.e …
Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what is perhaps the biggest reason for the recent "anti-establishment" revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in its infamous global wealth pyramid …
As Credit Suisse tantalizingly shows year after year, the number of people who control just shy of a majority of global net worth, or 45.6% of the roughly $255 trillion in household wealth, is declining progressively relative to the total population of the world, and in 2016 the number of people who are worth more than $1 million was just 33 million, roughly 0.7% of the world's population of adults. On the other end of the pyramid, some 3.5 billion adults had a net worth of less than $10,000, accounting for just about $6 trillion in household wealth.—Zerohedge.com
Okay, let’s move on to populism. If you do an internet search you quickly find many definitions of populism clearly colored by the person doing the defining.
For purpose of the coloring I’m doing, I’m going to pull the two most interesting definitions to me from the definitive Wikipedia. (That was a joke.) (Sort of.)
Classical Populism:espouses government by the people as a whole (that is to say, the masses). This is in contrast to aristocracy, synarchy or plutocracy, each of which is an ideology that espouse government by a small, privileged group above the masses.—Populism, Wikipedia
I chose this particular definition because it is in diametric opposition to my definition of globalism above, thus furthers my point.
In France, the populist and nationalist picture was more mystical, metaphysical and literarian in nature. Historian Jules Michelet (sometimes called a populist) fused nationalism and populism by positing the people as a mystical unity who are the driving force of history in which the divinity finds its purpose. Michelet viewed history as a representation of the struggle between spirit and matter; he claims France has a special place because the French became a people through equality, liberty, and fraternity. Because of this, he believed, the French people can never be wrong. Michelet's ideas are not socialism or rational politics, and his populism always minimizes, or even masks, social class differences.—Populism, Wikipedia
Ahem. The bolded segments segue nicely into my own ruminations upon globalism vs. populism. Because, ultimately, there is a “presence” in the Universe. Whether or not you choose to call it god or not, whether or not you choose to practice an established religion or not, you cannot deny in LIFE, there is an animating force which is not you and it is not me. Yet it is within us in some way as long as we are alive. To me this is a fundamental reality which supersedes any government, nation, state, geopolitical reality, etc.
Do we serve our governments our nations our states … or do our governments our nations our states serve us, furthering the evolution of this animating LIFE force within us?
The reasons I love the French and Michelet’s conception of populism are:
The French Revolution (1789-1799) was birthed by the Age of Enlightenment (1715 to 1789) which was birthed by (among other things) the publication of Issac Newton’s Principia of Mathematica in 1687 (which I intend to further explore in another blog post), i.e. the advancement of knowledge (TRUTH’S MOVING POINT) itself destroyed the globalization efforts of the Catholic Church and the European Aristocracy. As long as they were in charge, your individual sacred LIFE, i.e. that LIFE animated by some mystical force over which the Pope and all the ecumenical hierarchy and monarchs had no control over—other than to arbitrarily quench it—was at stake. Literally, i.e. you could end up burning at the stake if you DISAGREED with their very self-serving ideologies regarding LIFE.
It acknowledges the “animating force” we actually depend on for LIFE and locates it within the individual citizens of the state (and globe). Pesky, that reality.
It’s an interesting parallel: the aristocratic/ecumenical stranglehold upon global capital back then … and the corporate/technocratic stranglehold upon global capital today.
The problem seems to be: Bossy/greedy folks will invariably rise up using whatever platform/rhetoric will work to convince you, the individual, that they know what is best for you, even though they don’t know you at all.
Hmmm…
In God’s Ecstasy, mathematician and philosopher Beatrice Bruteau, traces the evolution of Earth from “mostly minerals” through “chemistry turning into biology” and the biochemistry of bacteria who “are still the ones who run and regulate the planet” to the development of gametes (sex cells) …
Very fascinating stuff, evolution.
And it seems that LIFE favors:
Replication.The world of self-organizing beings evolves. They experiment with ways of interacting with their environments (both living and nonliving aspects) and the better ways are able to make more copies of themselves and become more prominent in the their populations.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Novelty.Even better ways to find better ways are developed, better ways to evolve are evolved. It one long fascinating story of the creation of novelty.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Responsiveness. … Be-ing is essentially dynamic. To-exist is dynamic, not static.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Viability. The new things build on the old things. And as the better working ones crowd out the poorer ones, the population as a whole comes to be characterized by the innovations. Those innovations then become part of the foundation on which the next round of innovations is built.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Variety.We must not attempt to reduce everyone to one single kind, nor should any of us undertake to bring all of us to be like ourselves. Diversity and variation must be preserved, nurtured.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Bodies of global governance which have a propensity to manifest as inert and sprawling bureaucracies/hierarchies can hardly be accused of promoting novelty, are largely unresponsive enforcers of static and meaningless regulations, tend to crush innovation in favor of old things, and are incapable of adapting to anything. They do seem capable of replicating … rules … and programs that require funding.
Globalism almost by definition has a gnarly undercurrent of cleansing meaningful complexity at any and every level—including nation, state, and culture—in favor of instituting meaningless and obstructive detail in its place.
Hmmm …
It’s not surprising that the efforts of a few to inflict globalism/world domination upon a massive majority continues to fail. LIFE—the animating force—which—even with all the years we’ve spent on the planet—we’ve been unable to replicate—seems to say: THERE IS ANOTHER FORCE AT WORK HERE.
Spiritual.
Mystical.
Inspirational … as to inspire is to breathe …
Whatever you want to call it … its very essence, which is oddly unpredictable and uncontrollable, thwarts the efforts of globalists again and again in organic and mysterious ways that are simply breathtaking to behold.
I wrote Sunburned: A Blog Series About Spiritualitywhile doing research for War & Grace, the final installment in my epic fantasy trilogy Daughter of Light. Since the foundation of the story is the evolution of consciousness, I've been posting weekly links to meditation (& ecletic) spirituality things around the web ... because I really do believe it is all about evolving our consciousness—and meditation is one of the best ways to do that!
This week's links all have a "when the rubber hits the road" quality, i.e. this stuff really works in real life ... and you don't need to subscribe to any particular religion to reap the benefits!
I wrote Sunburned: A Blog Series About Spiritualitywhile doing research for War & Grace, the final installment in my epic fantasy trilogy Daughter of Light. Since the foundation of the story is the evolution of consciousness, I've been posting weekly links to meditation (& ecletic) spirituality things around the web ... because I really do believe it is all about evolving our consciousness—and meditation is one of the best ways to do that!
Enjoy!
DC's Catholic Archbishop: People ask me why religion matters today. I tell them we'd be a mess without it. Hmm. Not so fast. Religion has been both a positive and negative force in the evolution of humanity. Religious wars anyone?!? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. As much as I see myself as a "spiritual" person (and, yes, I do hate all the "baggage" people load that term up with, ahem) mathematics in the service of science has been the chief propellant of the largest leaps in human thought. Galileo was persecuted by the Church in the 1600s and Voltaire in the 1700s. Galileo was a mathematician, among other things. Remember he was the guy who said the world was round. Voltaire was a writer, who he had a love affair with Emile du Chatelet, who was, you guessed it, a mathematician, obsessed with Newton's Laws of Gravity, their mathematical underpinnings, and the truths those understandings expressed about the universe we live in. Their partnership resulted in Voltaire's scathing critiques of the French Monarchy and religion which ushered in the Age of Enlightenment and had him imprisoned or living as a fugitive for much of his life. Now, we're faced with the mathematics of quantum physics. I have no doubt that the future of human spirituality (for lack of a better term) is to expand beyond the limitations imposed by religion. Nones, SBNRs, etc. are the fragile buds breaking through to a new age of enlightenment.
KidSpirit Online Magazine: KidSpirit Online is a free teen magazine and website for kids that empowers 11-to-17-year olds everywhere to tackle life’s big questions.
As a follow-up to Sunburned: A Blog Series About Spirituality that I wrote while doing some research for War & Grace, the final installment in my epic fantasy trilogy Daughter of Light, I'll be posting links to articles about meditation (and spirituality) from around the web every Friday.
Enjoy!
Political Staffers Find Their Zen The "Quiet Time Caucus" is a great "real-life" example of how meditation can be effective in active/hectic/real lives. It also touches upon the "they'll think I'm weird" factor, and provides a vision for the broader application of meditation and its benefits.
If Mindfulness Makes you Uncomfortable, It's Working I consider mindfulness, meditation's sister, as a secondary practice, i.e. I make my meditation my priority and tap into mindfulness as needed, remembered, etc. The beginning of this article brings forward an excellent point that applies to meditation as much as mindfulness: Sometime's it's just going to feel uncomfortable. When I'm meditating and I would prefer to jump up and run from the room screaming to remaining still, if I can just stay there in that desire to "run", something particularly juicy invariably surfaces, some deep treasure rises from the depths. So, yes, meditation/mindfulness practices are as much about expanding the parameters of our ability to experience all spectrums of emotion, thought, etc. as they are about experiencing bliss, joy, peace, zen.
7 Ways to Meditate While You Move Sometimes we just can't sit still and movement can calm our minds. If you already participate in any of these activities, they're also just a great way to enter/integrate a meditative quality, state into your life.
If you'd like to submit a link for a Friday post, please email me at Heidi _ g @ comcast . net, thanks!
I don’t know, but it seems that there is a natural progression in the journey of a human life. We're conceived when a sperm meets an egg. That's two separate entities. Then we grow inside a womb. That's two separate entities, fetus and womb inside Mom (for now, some day it may be womb inside machine). At this point in our journey, we receive all nourishment and sustenance with no effort on our part (as far as we can tell). Then biological birth occurs, and we spring into the world, finally, biologically and physically separate.
In broad strokes, the childhood progression is one of separation with return for nourishment and sustenance. Now, we scoot away from our mothers, then we crawl, then we totter, then we walk … finally, we run (hopefully). It seems that “good-enough” child-rearing is a kind that allows us to feel secure enough to set off and explore the world on our own. Developing this inner sense of security seems to involve a freedom to return to Mom/safety when things get too scary and overwhelming, perhaps too dangerous.
What a perfect segue to my most favorite mystical poem ever by Kahlil Gibran!
On Children
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Sigh.
As the dwarves tended Una, three events unfolded in the Whole. Somewhere between Azyllai and the borders of Una’s dark and light, a new world dawned. Born of pure energy and imagination, the Realm of Faerie came into being. Faeries, elves, pixies and brownies drew their first breaths. The bounty of Isolt’s waters overflowed from her mother’s world into the Realm of Faerie, binding the worlds in symbiotic union.
This was the first thing that happened. As Isolt’s waters spread, the love of all creation grew for her. Resentment eructed within her mother’s depths. Una could never know the flowing grace that was Isolt’s essence. It is said she wished her daughter limited and contained, as she was. Envy’s long shadow darkened Una’s heart. One day Una asked this question of the god Vulcan: “My daughter, Isolt, do you find her attractive?” “She’s a great beauty,” he acknowledged. “I would offer you her hand in marriage as repayment of my debt.She would be honored to be your queen.” “I shall be honored then, to take her as my bride,” Vulcan answered Una. An obedient daughter, Isolt stood with the crippled god at the grand wedding ceremony. However, their sterile union, born from a mother’s envy, was the second thing that happened in the Whole. It is said it marked the end of Una’s glory. For our children are not our possessions, and Isolt was never hers to give away...—Isolt's Enchantment, Daughter of Light
Okay, back to: There is nothing in the natural progression of our early years that seems to set us up for a biological re-union with another human being … Oh, except for sex. That’s as close as we’re going to get post-birth.
I want to share an interesting quote from the book Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel:
"The self-absorption inherent in sexual excitement obliterates the other in a way that collides with the ideal of intimacy. Such people find they can be safely lustful and intemperate only with people they don’t know well, or care about as much. Recreational sex, pornography, and cybersex all share an element of distance, even anonymity, that avoids the burden of intimacy and makes sexual excitement possible ... Being with an unavailable partner provides a protective limit—if you can’t get too close to a person, you need not fear entrapment or loss of self."
Hmmm … kind of interesting. To experience sexual orgasm we need to “be” separate—inside our own bodies—while we merge with the other.
What in the heck does that have to do with spirituality? Mysticism?
Oh, I think a lot.
On the material level—body existing in externality—the Self merges with the Other to achieve sexual orgasm (among other things.) (BTW could the drive toward pornography, bondage and submission, etc. simply be an expression of the unindividuated Self? Like there is not enough YOU to really enter the SEX ACT so you need an artificial stage, so to speak, in which to play-act at being someone else? Someone else being: A Separate Self? An Other Self?)
And on the inward (mystical) level—psyche, spirit, essence, what have you—the Self reveals itself in some kind of union with the Divine—God, Source, Tao, Unified Field, whatever you want to call it.
There does seem to be this theme going on. Separateness and union ... separateness and union ... separateness and union ...
Separateness and union seems to be THE Cosmic Dance.
So does that mean a fully realized adult human being needs boundaries, separateness, after all? The ability to say “no” and the ability to say “yes” to the many many many things that we must say “no” and “yes” to to create, fulfill, navigate a meaningful life? With no core Self to radiate outward into our beliefs, our commitments, our passions, our values—what do we really have to offer the world? I mean if you’re basically a pastiche of your church’s your parents’ your friends’ your partner’s beliefs, if they’re defining your commitments, and presenting obstacles to your passions, and putting the kibosh on your values, things are going to feel pretty out-of-sync.
They should.
I'm not sure that means we should try HARDER at fitting in, following the myriad rules humans have created over the centuries (and there are so many external human authorities to choose from!), pretend we are all ONE (and the world would be an oh-so-much better place if we would just get that through our thick [separate] skulls!) (Oh, and one of my favorites: If we don't realize we're all ONE THE WORLD IS GOING TO END ... Sorry, but every spiritual guru uses this as the final fulcrum to push you into their worldview. If you don't see things my way ... OH, THE WORLD IS GOING TO END! The good news is: There's been so many documented false alarms it is safe to say there is a higher broader intelligence that mysteriously keeps the world from: ENDING. Oh, so you think you're God and the only outcome you can see is The Apocalypse? Hmmm ... I think the Creative is just so much savvier and smarter than that ... at least, so far, history backs me up on this one!)
See, the paradox is we're here to be our brilliant Selves among the billions of other brilliant Selves on the planet. (I'll refer you back to one of my first Sunburned posts: Is Being Spiritual Being Weird?) We’re not here to merge, we’re here to emerge. But to really allow each other the freedom to do that, well, it seems to be quite a challenge for all of us! I mean what is war but trying to force everyone to be on the same page?
So if our family our clique our politics our religion is all about convincing the other girl/guy to be like us, believe like us, it’s quite retrogressive. It’s like we can’t stand someone else being fully who they are, because we haven’t quite mastered, solidified, been given permission to be who we truly are. We spend so much time corralling THE GROUP, when we could just be blissfully exploring our own selves and realities ... which THE COSMOS seems so elegantly equipped to handle ... maybe even designed to handle ...
So, in the end, for me, it’s all about surfing, riding that inner wave and experiencing, feeling how that aligns with the world around me, all the while appreciating the marvel of everything that is out there that is not me.
OMG! Meditation is a wild and wooly terrain all its own. There is so much information out there, so much INSTRUCTION—what when why where how. And so many people have such strong opinions about it.
It doesn’t have to be that complicated.
In the 1970s Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came West and the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement was born. TM is all about chanting a (secret) mantra. Very esoteric, enlightened, and special, yah?
Maybe not so much.
I do like to hear John Hagelin, Ph.D. talk. He has a great interview at Buddha at the Gas Pump and his 16 min ad for TM is pretty compelling, what with all the scientific research “proving” the superiority of TM. But, really, TM is the only group that’s sunk tons of money into the research. Anyone who’s studied statistics knows: You can make the graphs, pie charts, numbers prove whatever you want them to prove! So, if you’re sold go buy it. But, honestly, I’m not into sitting there for 20 minutes or however long and silently, inwardly chanting a mantra. Too much like daily life for my tastes. Meaning: More garbage for the inner sanctum. I know, I have such spiritual speak, hehe.
What is the inner sanctum?
Well, there may be some book or organization or group who has some definition of the inner sanctum, but for me, it’s just that place inside you that exists for two and only two. Those two would be YOU and THE DIVINE (or whatever you like to call it.) That’s it. No one else get’s to enter. Ever. Never. No one. It is not a geographical or biological location, although it might feel like it’s in your chest somewhere. But no one else belongs there. That means: No one else’s mantra or image(s) belong there either.
I mean all day long aren’t we already bombarded by one another? It’s all—okay, it’s not all—well-meaning, but the point is: There is a point where we connect with the sacred and it’s private. Personal. Sans other humans.
So I just don’t like dragging other folks in there, not gurus, yogis, other mystics, meditation teachers, pastors, priests, your mother, your father, your kids, your lover—whoever—they don’t get to go THERE. So ix-nay on their antras-may!
That being said, I’ve been meditating off-and-on now for almost thirty years. Unbelievable, but it’s true.
And really, you start where you start. I’ve experimented with all kinds of meditation, and have just ended up settling with what feels right to me.
There are three basic types of meditation:
1. Focused awareness: Focus on the breath, focus on a mantra, focus on the sensations in your body …
2. Generative: Visualize yourself on a beach, imagine yourself as radiant loving kindness, see yourself as pulsing awareness …
3. Open-Ended … sit or lie quietly, close your eyes, be still, be aware of, engage, notice whatever arises from within you…
The open-ended type gets a lot less press, I think. Not too many high-powered sales folks involved … because, well, what is there to sell? How much would you pay someone to say: Sit or lie quietly, close your eyes, be still, be aware of, engage, notice whatever arises within you.
Can you guess which is my favored type of meditation?
My experience, open-ended meditation is extremely subtle and extremely powerful. The effects are cumulative. No, you don’t have to practice every day. It seems the effects accumulate even when you take time off. Correspondingly, the benefits seem to increase the more consistent you are with the practice.
It also makes for a completely personal inward journey.
Your experience might have similarities with others, but it won’t manifest, reveal, or unwind in exactly the same way. Simply because you’re you. And you’re unique. And you’re connection, experience, relationship with the Divine (or whatever) will be distinct from anyone else’s.
But it can be quite the fun, thrilling ride, the Cosmic Game. It won’t ever be what you think it will be. I can promise you that.
Plus, it’s simple. Free. Available to us all. This door we can choose to open, at almost any time.
For me, my meditation experiences seem to interweave with my daily life and my dream life. When I meditate more regularly, the cohesion seems more direct. The thing I love most about meditation is how it keeps me connected to me. That should be a no-brainer, right? But it seems, without meditation, a centrifugal force exerts itself upon me, one that seems to propel me away from my Self. Meditation has proven to be a reliable counterbalance to the forces that would draw me away from Self.
So I like it.
A lot.
I call the kind of meditation I do: Wabi-Sabi meditation.
Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese term I was exposed to several years ago. And as soon as I gained an understanding of its meaning, I just fell in love. Like Wabi-Sabi might be my favorite term ever. I just hear those two words together and I melt.
From Wikipedia:
Wabi-sabi (侘寂?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".[2] Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.
It just makes me swoon. What in life if not transient and imperfect; impermanent and incomplete?
My meditation, if it is anything, is my best attempt to practice a kind of inner Wabi-Sabi. There are times I sit just to take out the inner garbage. Thoughts bubble up in an endless refrain. I sit with them. Sometimes that can last through days, weeks, months of sittings. Then the inner pool gurgles clear. Not because I'm forcing myself to not think. There just seems to be no more inner garbage at the moment. Sometimes my sittings are so inwardly silent, I feel like I am floating in the Cosmic Void. Other times a creative thought or idea arises. Other times clarity and insight about some ISSUE. And then there are the times when rivers of pure emotion gush through me: could be anger with no identifiable source, or melting love, the same. I never really know what I’m going to get. But that’s the way I like it. And I do my best to stay with whatever arises. And of course, I do that imperfectly. Because it’s all impermanent and incomplete.
And that’s the beauty of it.
“Watch each wave come to you," Tatou said. "Receive the energy it brings. Breathe it in, deep into your belly. Do that for as long as you can.” Melia didn’t believe the Great White Sea could give her energy. Rather than refuse to try, she decided to follow her friend’s instructions precisely and prove nothing would happen. At least sitting on the beach was an improvement over sitting in a Bryndale classroom. The first wave, crested with white foam, rolled toward her. It was a simple thing to synchronize her breathing. Inhale when the tide comes in. Exhale when the tide flows out. Repeat over and over and over until … My belly and the ocean are one. My mind stops spinning. And the fear that ripples through me settles like sand on the ocean floor. The ancient rhythm of the ocean holds the pattern of my breath.
The salty air stings my nose and expands my lungs. Each exhale carries away something I thought was mine but never was.
Memories misshaped by guilt, shame, and regret dissolve.
My heart feels clean, yet nothing has been lost.
I can sit here forever.
Melia turned her head. Tatou sprang into focus. “What happened?” the pixie asked. “I feel like I belong here. Like I’m part of the Whole.”—Half Mortal, Daughter of Light
On Sunday, I’ll have a special and final Sunburned post for you!
What am I referring to as spiritual exhortations? Basically, they’re this: Any statement that says: IF YOU grow spiritually—if you meditate—if you go to church—if you study scripture—you get the idea, THEN THIS: you will become: MORE BETTER.
And what is: MORE BETTER?
Glad you asked.
MORE BETTER is ALWAYS what the person who is making the spiritual exhortation wants you to become. The key words being: “the person” i.e. other human being—believe me, they are as limited as you, no matter how much they want to convince you that they are better equipped to decode your experience of spirituality than—the other key word—“you”—are.
This kind of predictive dogmatism just drives me nuts. Why? Well, the Creative Principle, the Divine, God, whatever you want to call it, is so, well, creative, limitless, and playful … that no one no way no how can know exactly what will happen if/when you connect with Source!
Think about it.
No one knows the End Game of your union with the Divine. Maybe not even the Divine. Certainly no other human.
This is also related in a big way to the “we are one” theology. Yes, we are connected; being connected is not the same as being the same. Perhaps it’s just a battle of semantics, but why, why, why, are we always trying to return to the womb? Even if/when it’s a Cosmic One, returning, going back being THE PURPOSE of our existence is non-sensical. If THE PURPOSE is to go back, re-unite, why leave in the first place?
No.
I think the BIG GOAL is to grasp how truly unique we are—accept, appreciate, embrace?, support, tolerate, whatever-level-we-can-muster-of-living-with our own unique-ness and everyone else’s—to move beyond national, racial, tribal, and family values. THE GROUP. See. Evolution is the individual thriving within the group, not just one leader, or the upper echelon, but everyone, thriving in their uniqueness. Until then, it’s just THE GROUP doing everything they can, in every way they can, to eradicate, obliterate, suffocate, our inconceivable uniqueness.
See I think the Cosmos is moving from unity to singularity—not from unity to the illusion of singularity back to unity. But that’s just me.Oh, and maybe Aldous Huxley too ...
Grateful for every bone in my body.
Within this framework, the purpose of mortal life is to bring the soul’s essence to fulfillment. Various qualities inherent to mortal existence challenge this purpose: a certain spiritual density (seemingly unique to mortals), a propensity to relinquish individual thought, a tendency toward mental and/or physical sloth, to name a few. A relatively small number of mortals ever achieve their destiny in a single lifetime; thus, upon death, few are released to the Unknown Beyond. A greater number of mortals die without knowing or experiencing themselves to any significant degree. Their souls (vessels of consciousness) are reabsorbed into the primal essence of the Whole. While lost to the individual, residual consciousness from prior lives is pooled within the primal essence of the Whole for rebirth. It bears emphasis: The Whole conserves all consciousness. Considering the grave obstacles mortals must overcome in its attainment, any gains along these lines is deemed worth preserving.—Half Faerie, Daughter of Light
Today, I’m going to introduce you to Stanislav Grof. Born in Prague in the former Czechoslovakia in 1931, he began his studies in medicine, and obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. Since then, he’s embraced over sixty years of professional training and experience in psychiatry and psychology. In his 80s today, after years of “traditional talking therapy” in his early adulthood, he had a life changing encounter with LSD, and from there went on to become one of the founders of Transpersonal Psychology—integrates the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience with the framework of modern psychology (Wikipedia).
OMG! Squee! Heart bursts! That is how I felt reading the TABLE OF CONTENTS of Stanislav and Christina Grof’s: Holotropic Breathing. (Christina is Grof’s wife and they have worked together to develop their method of achieving non-ordinary states of consciousness through, well, holotropic breathing [accelerated breathing].)
You have to understand, my path, which has been always a bit rebellious, often incoherent, and not rarely meandering, nonsensical, and odd, has always been dancing in some Venn diagram of body/movement, mind/psychology and soul/spirit/spirituality/wholeness. I’m always circling around those issues, sometimes dive-bombing one or the other, but really always and only interested in their points of contact.
Because … well, they really cannot be separated. I mean if you want to talk about ILLUSIONS, one of the greatest ones is that: our bodies, our minds, and our souls are somehow separate. I know. I know. Everyone wants to go on and on about how We. Are. One. Humanity. The species. Doesn’t the thought just make you want to run and scream, hands waving in the air. I am God, you are God, we are all inseparable, after all, skeletons don’t exist, and, well, we’re really all just one ginormous amoebic blob. Hehe. I don’t think so. But that’s fine if you do. You’re probably AWAKENED. But paradox abounds, so as much as the essence (or Whatever) of the Divine is in us, we are ALSO separate, discrete, unique … umm … individuals.
She twirls in the sun.
AND … I am certain that my body, my mind, and my soul/spirit/what have you ARE one. A continuum of me. Just like your body, your mind, and your spirit are a continuum of you. Honestly, this is why I used to just cringe at church potlucks. Have you ever been to one? Seen the crap people bring? The amount of food they shove in their pie holes and then what, pray? Expect to receive some revelation about the scripture when you can barely waddle out of your chair?
Hmm … I don’t think so. And no, I’m not for asceticism. But, come on.
Okay, a personal pet peeve. Yes, I do have a few, and I’ll be discussing another one next Tuesday. THE BIGGIE as far as I’m concerned.
Back to the Grofs—because they are A-Mazing—and that table of contents, for their book, well, here are some of the chapter headings that had me wanting to throw a consciousness, we-might-just-not-destroy-the-world party:
Holotropic states of consciousness: MIND (And what does holotropic mean? “oriented toward wholeness” or “moving toward wholeness”, “it is related to heliotropic—the property of pants to always turn in the direction of the sun [light]”) Dimensions of the human psyche: MIND The role of spirituality in human life: SPIRITUALITY The nature of reality—Psyche, cosmos, and consciousness: MIND & SPIRITUALITY The healing power of breath: BODY Healing of emotions and psychosomatic disorders: BODY & MIND Favorable effect on physical diseases: BODY Effect on personality, worldview, life strategy, and hierarchy of values: BODY, MIND, & SPIRITUALITY Potential for healing of cultural wounds and historical conflict resolution: MIND & SPIRITUALITY
Healing as a movement toward wholeness: MIND, BODY, & SPIRITUALITY
See?!? It’s a single book, one lovely book, about all three of my favorite things!!!
From the Foreword: (ummm … you had me at hello!)
… the Grofs offer a comprehensive vision of mental health and of human growth potential that extends the range of psychology to dimensions of the perinatal, the transpersonal, the transcultural, and the mystical. Their work organically incorporates the indigenous wisdom of shamanism and the natural world, the cultural and historical basis of consciousness, and the far-reaching breadth of modern physics and systems theory. In it the personal and the universal are equally valued, the physical and the biographical, the cultural, evolutionary, and spiritual dimensions of our humanity are included.
Wow. I think it’s all covered!
Here are the five major shifts away from tradition psychological theory/practice that the framework of holographic breathwork makes:
1. Extending the cartography of the “Freudian” psyche from post-natal experiences and the individual unconscious to include peri-natal (memory of biological birth) experiences and transpersonal consciousness.
This is actually a huge leap as transpersonal consciousness would be vast: potentially including the ancestral, archetypal, collective, karmic, imaginal, mythological, Cosmic and more.
The idea that peri-natal experiences contribute significantly to our psychological make-up is intriguing. If you think about it, moving from un-embodied, formless being/consciousness into body/form being/consciousness is probably quite a trip.
2. Relying upon the direction/guidance provided by the individual’s “inner healing intelligence” as opposed to the external analysis/interpretation of a degreed/trained doctor, professional.
Everything always comes back to the unlimited creativity of the Cosmos. We are, after all, snowflakes. Therefore, theories, models, generalizations simply fall apart the closer and closer you get to truth.
3. Recognizing the limitations of exclusively verbal strategies in therapy.
If the body does indeed hold trauma, just talking about it is not going to be adequate to relieve those blockages.
4. Valuing non-ordinary states of consciousness that are commonly perceived as pathological.
“From a psychiatric perspective to take [spiritual] things seriously, means to be ignorant, unfamiliar with the discoveries of science, superstitious, and subject to primitive magical thinking. If the belief in the God or Goddess occurs in intelligent persons, it is seen as an indication that they have not come to terms with infantile images of their parents as omnipotent beings they had created in their infancy and childhood. And direct experiences of spiritual realizes are considered manifestations of serious mental diseases—psychoses."—Grof.
5. Considering states of consciousness as a fundamental aspect of the universe and that the brain mediates or moderates consciousness rather than “produces” consciousness from matter.
I love this. Let it sink in. We're swimming in a vast reservoir of consciousness that our individual brains mediate or moderate with unfathomable uniqueness.
The book Holotropic Breathwork provides a pretty thorough coverage of the kind of therapy that has evolved from the Grofs' lifework, although it won't teach you how to do it, as it's recommended to be experienced with a trained facilitator.
“Holtropic Breathwork is a powerful self-exploration and therapy that uses the combination of seemingly simple means—accelerated breathing, evocative music, and a type of bodywork that helps the residual bioenergetic and emotional blocks.”
Now, I’m not a shill for the Grofs, nor have I experienced their brand of breathwork, but my curiosity is piqued and if I ever have a chance to attend one of their workshops, I likely will.
However, whether or not one participates in the breathwork, the advances the Grofs have made in understanding the inner life of the individual in relation to the cosmos is a Door-Opener. There IS much more to us, around us, and beyond us than most of us perceive.
If you put together things like: the unified field, a loving Source, form and formlessness, psychological life and biological life, and an individual spiritual drive that seems inherent in all of us (expressed in radically different ways of course!), the Grofs’ work makes a lot of sense, and certainly seems to orient our concept of ourselves and the world we live in in a constructive direction.
How does this relate to mysticism?
Well, number 1 and number 4. That extended cartography of consciousness accessible through the non-ordinary states of consciousness, have been “described by mystics of all ages …” and “Procedures inducing these states were also developed and used in the context of the great religions of the world—Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.”—Grow
Then, there’s number 2. Mysticism is always about plugging into a broader intelligence, a larger Self, of which, self-healing is an attribute.
And, number 3. Mystical experiences are simply beyond the verbal.
Finally, number 5. Us as mediators of Cosmic Consciousness. The more quantum theory reveals, the more the experiences and revelations received by mystics throughout time are validated, and the bridge between science and spirituality is strengthened.
Want more Grof? I thought so. Here’s a great video from youtube:
Next Tuesday, I’ll be sharing my personal BIGGIE as far as spiritual pet peeves go!
Asra Nomani, a Muslim, born in India, and raised in West Virginia, USA is a contemporary mystic. I won’t say she’s inspiring, it’s become such an insipid word, as it’s so overused these days. I’d say Nomani is illuminating, showing us the way to travel where there is no road, revealing how to travel to places where no one has ever traveled before.
She wrote an amazing book, Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love, that is a much better read than Theresa of Avila’s over quoted Interior Castle—I know, I know, I read that tiresome piece of work in my twenties. Okay, sorry to dis a saint, but come on! We really are alive and living in 2016; today’s world is the one in which we must cultivate and explore and test our spirituality. So maybe, Tantrika is just more relevant to the modern mystic.
At one point in her book, Asra Nomani sees herself as a bridge, one of the rope ones; I’d add … one of those rope ones over a high gorge with treacherous body-smashing rocks below.
Her ancestry and life experience is so foreign to me, despite my also being raised in the United States—honestly, before I read her book, I didn’t realize Pakistan had been carved out of India, for Muslims, and the Hindus left—I know, ignorant American—and yet Nomani's story, her search for Self and authentic identity, her returning to her ancestral home and roots, the spiraling of her path, the stop-start-backward-forward, her grappling with the questions, reality, station of gender, resonated deeply with my heart.
One of the gifts of Nomani’s journey is her clarity and her ability to articulate that. She’s not dogmatic—as someone who wore a head covering in solidarity with her Muslim sisters after 9/11, her co-written article As Muslim women, we actually ask you not to wear a hijab in the name of interfaith solidarity rings with greater awareness than if it had been written by someone who has never worn a head covering, has always refused to.
And the Divine is not dogmatic, in fact, the Divine is so fluid, humans seem incapable of comprehending—or accessing the power of that fluidity—perhaps our fascination with magic, a blink of the eye, snap of the finger, wave of the wand, transformation. Intuitively, we grasp that being responsive to the moment, being open in the now, is a key. But we’re so often stuck. Stuck by our ideas of how others perceive us, stuck in the actualities of how other’s perceive us—you know those people, the ones who feel so free in sharing their oh-so-limited opinions of us—and stuck in how we perceive ourselves.
The final chapter in Tantrika is: Child of Truth. Right behind Love is the Divine as bringer of Truth. Nomani’s evolution through personal truth to Divine Truth is one which can give us courage to ride our own tiger through streets crowded with illusions that are meant to define us as something other than who we really are.
Sometimes I think—know—only the power of the Divine breathing our hearts is the way out of the cage. Nomani reminds us that the journey is not only a worthy one, but a necessary one. I thank her.
Curious yet? Enjoy this recent interview of Nomani on THE SAAD TRUTH.
On Friday, I’ll be sharing another contemporary mystic with you!
Back to 2016! Is anyone still doing this contemplation, meditation, sitting still stuff? I mean with all the spinning and whirring of AI and the cascading technological advances occurring daily, why even bother?
The interesting thing is this: As our understanding of the science of the cosmos advances, the reality of a creating, nourishing, and sustaining cosmic force is becoming more and more evident as well. In fact, as we’re advancing, we’re not moving away from the reality of a driving energy or intelligence ordering our world and the universe, we’re sailing directly toward it. Soon, the distinctness between science and spirituality will disappear in a vanishing point. They will become the study of the same thing. Quantum wave theory, the unified field, the vibrational quality of positive and negative emotions, all these things have already been proven to exist.
The question is becoming: How do we let these new understandings impact and transform our lifestyle choices and world views?
Father Thomas Keating considers these kinds of questions in a fascinating Buddha at the Gas Pump interview, and his insights are very refreshing. Once the abbot of a Trappist monastery, Keating is an active participant in the Interspiritual movement and an advocate of Centering/contemplative prayer.
When asked to define God:
There are as many ideas of God as there are people; the word is a label and it would would be nicer if we had another word for God; is-ness without any limits; I am-ness without any other pronouns; God has aspects beyond reason; how do you comprehend infinite justice and infinite mercy, you must open your consciousness to a synthesis of the two and transcend a rational concept of god; God is in everything without being limited to anything; dynamic and expanding; God is change itself which is what’s changeless about God.
On an evolving cosmology:
Christian cosmology is patriarchal and limited by the culture it was formed in; it just doesn’t work anymore; theology needs a new cosmology; the dynamic idea of god which evolutionary cosmology has provided in the past 50 years is a revelation of a higher power, one in which we’re immersed and engulfed in, so we don’t have any identity outside of the evolutionary process; creation is not a one-time event; religion has to listen to science because science is giving us up-to-date revelations about who God really is and developing a cosmology that can support union and unity with God.
On consciousness and globalization:
Perhaps we’re at a critical evolutionary level in our time, in which a new general level of consciousness beyond rational is emerging; the capacity to understand reality intuitively may be beginning to happen around the world; the globalization of the world could be an opportunity to allow these insights into reality to be revealed at one time to large numbers of people; insights that can’t be reached on the rational level because the ration level of consciousness is limited.
On Centering Prayer and Contemplation:
Meditation is so important because it’s probably the most direct access to our deeper levels of consciousness; beyond the ego-ic self is a Self that we don’t usually access without something like meditation; by sitting long enough the dust begins to settle, and you begin to see more clearly; the deepest level of consciousness is God consciousness manifested in our uniqueness as a human-being. Centering prayer can be adapted to any tradition and to someone without a religion; it has been taught in prisons, when other men saw their friends being more calm and peaceful, they ask to attend the classes, then those men begin experiencing more peace and calm, however, you can’t persuade people to do this.
If you’d like to learn more about the specifics of practicing centering prayer/contemplation, listen to the interview (recommended if you’re not Christian) (specific instructions are towards the end of the video), visit Contemplative Outreach, or read Keating’s book, Open Mind Open Heart.
I've embedded the video here for those who would enjoy watching it!
On Tuesday, I’ll be introducing you to a contemporary Muslim mystic.
As I've traveled through the woods of mystics and mysticism, I've discovered that the mystics I relate to the most are those who have experienced intense ambivalence about religion and God at some point in their lives. I suppose it's not surprising that I would feel the most in-sync with those who have pushed back on whatever religious beliefs they were raised with, and/or have been culturally and socially immersed in, to come to their own understanding of the Divine. For one thing,they speak more plainly, thus to me authentically, on the subject.
Enter Aldous Huxley who in his novels and essays of the 1920s "was scathingly skeptical of religion and its 'life-retreating' pious aspirants." At that time, Huxley would have been in his first decade of adulthood. I can totally relate. But somewhere along the way Huxley became associated with the Vedanta Center of Southern, CA and a devotee of Swami Prabhavananda, a monk of the Ramakrishna Order of India, who was head of it. The path from West to East is a common one for western mystics. Eventually, there was a rift between Prabhavananda and Huxley over the use of mescaline and LSD on the path to enlightenment. In the end, Huxley was drawn to Krishnamurti who espoused freedom from any prophet or path. Often it takes us awhile to get there.
Anyway, I'm a big fan of Huxley's Brave New World as I read it in the 80s, right around the time pharmaceuticals really began pushing anti-depressants on the population. How could I not think of Soma and applaud Huxley's prescience?
In 1944, Huxley published The Perennial Philosophy. "A documentation of the common doctrine in all major religions: that the truth is universal, that God is One." It's a book I haven't read and probably won't.
However ... I was drawn to Huxley's: The Divine Within, a selection of the over forty articles he wrote between 1941-1960 for the bi-monthly magazine Vedanta and the West published by the Vedanta Center mentioned above.
One of the overall qualities I enjoyed about the essays was the sparing use of any secondary religious language as Huxley analyses, confronts, and deconstructs common beliefs and perceptions about the human race's collective wisdom of the Divine. He covers a lot of ground.
He writes on Being:
[The Divine] is. That is the primordial fact. It is in order that we may discover this fact for ourselves, by direct experience, that we exist. The final end and purpose of every human being is the unitive knowledge of [The Divine's] being.
And on Beauty: The first principle of order is [the Divine], and [the Divine] is the final, deepest meaning in all that exists. [The Divine], then, is manifest in the relationship which makes things beautiful. [It] resides in that lovely interval which harmonizes events on all the planes, where we discover beauty. We apprehend [It] in the alternate void and fullness of the cathedral; in the spaces that separate the salient features of a picture; in the living geometry of the a flower, a sea shell, an animal; in the pauses and intervals between the notes of music, in their differences of tone and sonority; and finally, on the plane of conduct, in the love and gentleness, the confidence and humility, which give beauty to the relationships between human beings.
And on Love: [The Divine] is love, and there are blessed moments when even to the unregenerate [someone who refuses to believe in the existence of the Divine] human beings it is granted to know [It] as love.
Thus, Huxley professes three basic comprehensions common to the mystic: the seeking of a unitive relation with the Divine, beauty in all its manifestations as evidence of the Divine presence, and the direct experience of the Divine presence as Love. Again and again, mystics speak of these three elements.
At times, Huxley assumes a tone that is harsh, rigid, and unyielding. His hot-button issues are idolatry, mortifications, unregenerates, and time itself; pounding on these points he sometimes evokes an atmosphere as stultifying and repugnant as that of any religious fundamentalist. However, when he uses this critical voice to skewer both denominational and secular religions, Huxley is at his most incisive.
There are the nominal religions—Christianity, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on; but if you inquire what the actions of the people mean, it is perfectly clear that the real religion is nationalism; that we worship the national state; and that the new religions like Communism are also used in the service of great national idolatry.
And ...
For the revolutionary, whether of the right or the left, the supremely important fact is the golden age of peace, prosperity, and brotherly love which, his faith assures him, is bound to dawn as soon as his particular brand of revolution has been carried through. Nothing stands between the people's miserable present and its glorious future, except a minority, perhaps a majority, of perverse or merely ignorant individuals. All that is necessary is to liquidate a few thousands, or it may be a few millions, of these living obstacles to progress, and then to coerce and propagandize the rest into acquiescence.
Because ... Dogma turns a man into an intellectual Procrustes [a robber who stretched or amputated the limbs of travelers to make them conform to the length of his bed]. He goes about forcing things to become the signs of his word-patterns, when he ought to be adapting his word-patterns to become the sign of things."
Huxley was not a humanist ...
The higher idolatry may be defined as the belief in, and worship of, human creation as though it were [the Divine].
Thus we are lead to the conundrum between the collective and the individual ...
... all evidence points to the fact that it is the individual soul, incarnated at a particular moment in time, which alone can establish contact with Divine ...
And the basic failure of our human efforts to figure it all out ...
In all actual human situations more variables are involved than the human mind can take account of; and with the passage of time the variables tend to increase in number and change their character.
And then there's our endless fascination/obsession with the apocalyptic ... Another form frequently taken by temporal religious is apocalypticism—belief in an extraordinary cosmic event to take place in the not-to-distant future ... [this] preoccupation with hypothetical events in future time takes the place of ... the eternal present.
Although not a light read, I recommend Huxley's The Divine Within if you're so inclined, and have the patience and the time.
Tuesday, I’ll be circling back to my third discovery in my research of Christian mysticism, a discovery that will bring us back into the 21st century.
Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness was published in 1911 and is considered a classic. The book is divided into two parts: 1) a general introduction to mysticism and 2) the necessary stages of organic growth through which the typical mystic passes”.
I tackled it. At 500+ pages, it’s dense, and while her writing is not as difficult to read as the mystics of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, her way of expressing herself is dated. Underhill is not a spare writer. I didn’t read every word. I couldn’t. In places, quotes of recognized mystics are 75% of the text. I skimmed over those.
The book is largely a defense of/argument for mysticism. Where it excels in it’s clear statement of the purpose/or result of mysticism:
“Modern psychology, in it’s doctrine of the unconscious or subliminal personality, has acknowledged this fact of a range of psychic life lying below and beyond the conscious field.”
“Certain processes, of which contemplation has been taken as a type, can so alter the state of consciousness as to permit the emergence of this deeper self; which according as it enters more or less into the conscious life, makes man more or less a mystic.”
“The mystic life, therefore, involves the emergence from deep levels of man’s transcendental self; its capture of the field of consciousness; and the ‘conversion’ or rearrangement of his feeling, thought, and will—his character—about this new centre of life.”
I agree with that. In fact, reading it gave me a lot of clarity about my own drive for practicing meditation: accessing my subconscious/unconscious to expand my ability to experience and respond to the world. I’d never really zeroed in on it quite like that before.
Initially agnostic, Underhill was an intellectual, and a prolific writer of novels and poetry. She takes a decidedly psychological approach to her analysis of mysticism. Because of the period in which the book was written, her analysis, though welcomely simplistic, is effective. She stresses that love, passion, “conation”—will stimulated by emotion—drives the mystic, “for passion rouses to activity not merely the mind, but the whole vitality of [the person].”
This is important point because mysticism is an adventure of direct experience, not an intellectual undertaking.
One of Underhills most forceful arguments is that the mystic is mistakenly perceived as passive.
“The ‘passivity’ of contemplation … is a necessary preliminary of spiritual energy: an essential clearing of the ground.”
“… the act of contemplation is for the mystic a psychic gateway; a method of going from one level of consciousness to another. In technical language it is the condition under which he shifts his ‘field of perception’ and obtains his characteristic outlook on the universe.”
“It remains a paradox of the mystics that the passivity at which they appear to aim is really a state of the most intense activity: more, that where it is wholly absent no great creative action can take place. In it, the superficial self compels itself to be still, in order that it may liberate another more deep-seated power which is, in the ecstasy of the contemplative genius, raised to the highest pitch of efficiency.”
From everything I’ve seen and studied in regard to the lives of mystics, contemplation infuses dynamic life.
At times, the piousness of Underhill’s writing is not appealing. The line she draws between magic and mysticism is amusing. Magic is the application of the occult for purposes of personal gain, while mysticism is wholly selfless. I can’t follow her down that road, because everyone is pursuing whatever path they are pursuing with some hope of something. While a mystic might appear, or claim, to pursue a path of selflessness, deeper analysis would reveal the fruits accruing to the mystic as a result of their devotion or practice. After all, altruism is highly admired and can be the source of endless accolades and praise, and "helping" others can make you feel good.
Underhill also makes a distinction between the artist and the mystic, which I think stems from her insistent divide between the spiritual and the material. A divide which I don’t see.
She disagrees with William James “four marks” of mysticism, for which I applaud her, and presents her own four qualities of mysticism:
1. True mysticism is active and practical, not passive and theoretical. It is an organic, life process, a something which the whole self does; not something as to which its intellect holds an opinion.
I agree.
2. Its aims are wholly transcendental and spiritual. It is in no way concerned with adding to, exploring, re-arranging, or improving anything in the the visible universe.
I disagree. For me, if you’re mysticism is not somehow manifesting on this plane of existence, it’s somewhat worthless.
3. This One [the Transcendental Reality, or the Divine, as I like to call it] is for the mystic, not merely the Reality of all that is, but also a living and personal Object of Love.
I disagree. I think it can be and/or.
4. Living union with this One—which is the term of [the mystic’s] adventure—is a definite state or form of enhanced life … It is arrived at by an arduous psychological and spiritual process—the so-called Mystic Way—entailing the complete remaking of character and the liberation of a new, or rather latent, from of consciousness; which imposes on the self the condition which is sometimes called ‘ecstasy,’ but is better named the Unitive State.
I agree that some form of ultimate union is the state of equilibrium that the mystic seeks.
Underhill acknowledges that the nature of mysticism, as an individual endeavor, precludes a repeatable path. I agree. We all meander in our own way toward the Divine.
“The creative impulse in the world, so far as we are aware of it, appears upon ultimate analysis to be free and original not bound by the mechanical: to express itself, in the defiance of the determinists, with a certain artistic spontaneity.”
As I said, I didn’t read the whole book. But what I did read of Underhill’s work helped me clarify my own understandings of mysticism and validated my own path, despite some of my disagreements with her conclusions.
Tuesday, I’ll be sharing on the subject of an unlikely mystic.
