Insights part 3

In an unusual morning, my mind came up with many interesting tidbits.

Almost 40 years ago I began to read Carlos Castaneda. He was an anthropologist who studied shamans in Mexico. According to the books, he was actually brought in as an apprentice who unwittingly learned the ways of his master. NOw, the first three books cover his time with his teacher Don Juan as a basic narrative. that's because Castaneda really didn't understand all that was going on. The remaining books were his attempts to break down, understand, remember, and reconstruct the teachings of his master, many of which were learned in altered states of Consciousness.

The main idea of all of this was explained in a book called "The Eagle's Gift". In it, he explains that the purpose of his practice was to "trick" the eagle. DOn Juan explained that when we die, A great Eagle eats our consciousnesses. His teachers, however, had discovered a way to, as Don Juan put it, sneak past the eagle so that we wold not lose our consciousness at death.

Don Juan's practices are very difficult and were never fully described in his books. Since Carlos was the last teacher, there is a real possibility that the knowledge has been lost forever.

That said, I suddenly realized something. In a book called "Awakening the Buddha within", by Lama Surya Das (see link), The lama explains that the real purpose that Buddhists struggle to remain awake in the moment is so that at the moment of death, they understand they are dying. At that point, they can use their wills to project their consciousness into the next dimension of space and break the reincarnation cycle.

If we don't do this, we remain trapped in a neither world for a while and then reincarnate-we retain some of our old consciousness, but obviously, we do not retain all of it.

What I realized was that Don Juan and Lama Surya Das were describing the same thing! In different ways people from totally different cultures had discovered a way to move on while retaining who we are and what we know.!

Carlos suggested that they had learned how to move bodies into the next realm, but I am no longer sure that that is completely true. Nevertheless, the important thing is that in both cases the consciousness was transferred intact. And that is the goal.

Insights part 2

In my last post I spoke of using the universe as a power that has no mind. Like electricity, for example. It can be tapped for use, but it itself has no consciousness of its own. It cannot tell us what to do. Like electrify, it too has rules that must be obeyed, however, if we want to gain access to that power. In electricity, the wires must be insulated. You must use the right equipment for the available voltage. Plugging a 12 v DC item into a 120 volt outlet leads to problems.

Thus, it is true for the Tao (universe). When you say to the universe "what are you telling me to do", it will not answer (it cannot answer). You, on the other hand, might perceive and answer. That answer always comes from us-from within. You see, when you are struggling, it is because you are not going with the flow of life. You are trying to force something to happen when the circumstances are not there for it to happen. So, if the crops won't grow, we call it "the will of god" instead of realizing that some other cause might be involved. Or if things are just unsettled, we also tend to think the universe is unsettled, rather than thinking the time is not right or we are too distracted mentally to focus on the immediate task on hand.

When things like that happen, it is important to step back and slow down. Take a deep breath and move on. Know that life is unbalanced because you are unbalanced. The answer is always simply to bring your self back into balance.

Just how you do that depends on the circumstances. Sometimes it's as simple as taking a break. Other times, it may be a lot more complicated possibly involving a major life change. But in all cases, it involves you taking action-not waiting for some god to help you out of whatever situation you find yourself in.

More insights later today!

Some Insights part 1

Today is Easter Sunday. I was in bed this morning thinking back to an Easter almost 40 years ago. I was in Ohio. I got up early and the day was warm and sunny. I thought it was a mystical day-obviously because it was Easter. Today, I know better-there are no special mystical days. All days are mystical. It goes back the the wonder of God. Yesterday I was driving past a church. The sign out front invited us to worship over breakfast. I though it was odd that people worshiped a God that was no more than an idea. God only exists in our minds. But then I though people have been worshiping gods for thousands of years and it has only been the last three hundred or so in which some people-at least in the west-have decided there really is no God. In the East, the idea of God was never developed in the same way. It i sonly in the Jewish Christian traditions that God exists.

That said, people still believe in a god-be it the old guy in the white robe or some White brotherhood somewhere off in the universe or something called the Tao (also somewhere in the universe). THe idea has always been that we are apart form this "being" and that through different techniques, it may be possible to make contact with it. The problem is that it is all nonsense. WE are part of this being. WE are the being, along with everything else. We are not apart from anything. THere is no need to make some kind of connection. All you have to do is realize that the connection is already there.

Now, even after a connection is made, we also have to realize that in reality the power of the universe is not a separate consciousness that can give us direction. Lao Tzu never said the Tao told us what to do. Rather he said it was a power that we could tap into. Think of it as electricity (a very limited example). We can plug in a lamp, for example, but the electricity has no mind to light it up. It is simply there for us to use. That is what the universe or the Tao is like. It is simply a power that we can access

More in part 2