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

The new year

As the year winds down, I want to talk about the flow of life. It is almost a cliche to talk about looking back and looking forwards as the year ends, yet, almost everyone does.

My point here, is not to do that, but to recognize something even more basic that we sometimes forget-the idea of cycles.

Our lives operate in cycles, like everything in the universe. Lao Tzu observed that:

Reversion is the action of Tao.
Gentleness is the function of Tao.
The things of this world come from Being,
And Being (comes) from Non-being.

In other words, everything that exists declines and reverts back to where it. At the same time, new things constantly appear from the same one source.

Everything we have is created, it declines, and is discarded. It is then reborn in another form at some other time in some other place.

We are now at the "bottom" of the renewal cycle of earthly nature. (of course this applies to those in the Northern Hemisphere). Soon, spring will come and with it comes renewal.

It is the same with out lives. Sometimes we are down. This is not a bad thing (although it may seem to be at the time) because we know that when we are at the lowest, things will turn and we will rise again.

It is also important to remember that when we are at the top-watch out! because the decline will start soon.

If we revel in the satisfaction of being on top, we will suffer greatly when the inevitable downturn arrives.

On the other hand, being stricken with sadness and melancholy at the bottom is equally wrong. For we know that things will turn around soon. They have to, it is part of nature.

Peace and Love

MrT

Interesting sign

I was driving along today and I passed a Christian Church. this church usually has clever signs about their ideas of salvation. Today, the sign read" Repent Now!. Stop Drop and Roll doesn't work in Hell!"

Think about that. It is purely an advertising scheme to get people on board. Have you ever been to hell? DO you know anyone who has been there? Of course not. The only way to be sure is to die.

As Shakespeare said:

"To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; "

It is fear of that undiscovered country that keeps us alive. For if we knew a wonderful heaven awaited us, we would happily die immediately.

Thus, many cling to religion as a way of protection against that unknown. It has been that way snce the first humans recognized that something happens to us after death and we don't know what that is.

So, for tens of thousands of years, we, as a people, have spent time creating ways to distract us from that unknown.

Some learned a long time ago that it was good business to sell the idea of just what the afterlife holds-and how to get the best of it. That church was following a long, long tradition of salesmanship.

Note that the new age movement is not at all immune to this. They just have a different pitch. But it is basically the same idea. "Go with us and you will be happy forever".

But as enlightened beings, we have to ask "is it true"? Do we know? If not, what do we do about it?

The answer will be in my next post

How to handle what comes your way

As I said in my last post, we are responsible for how we handle what comes to us in life.

All too often, when something bad happens to us, we brush off our response because we rationalize that it was not our fault, or that it was all preordained, or that there is nothing we can do about it, or it is a lesson sent of us to learn or it is the "will of god".

There is even a prayer to help us deal with life: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strength to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference".

On one level, that is very good advice. The most important part of that prayer, however, is the part about the wisdom to know the difference.

Such actions and crutches are fine or people who are not on a path. They live from event to event, sometimes happy, sometimes sad but never feeling like they have any command over their lives.

People on a path, however, understand that they are in control. Although sometimes, they don't always believe it. For some of them, there is quiet acceptance of whatever happens to them. For others there is a sense of adventure. What happens next, what new thing can experience.

Enlightened people, though do none of that. They understand that life moves and that they move through life. It does not matter to them what happens, although, they are prepared to act in accord with any situation. They spend their time mostly in peace. Living in the moment.

Now, this does not mean that enlightened people don't have emotions. They do. And they use them. The difference is that the enlightened know that they are not their emotions. Emotions arise, they experience them and then move on. They can also daydream. Enjoying a day dream at some time is part of the here and now.

That is the key. Experience everything; but don't cling. don;t shy away from emotions because you are supposed to be at "peace with everything". Stifling an emotion is worse than experiencing it. you are supposed to experience your emotions.

As you move through your day, focus on what you are doing. Feel it, experience it in its entirety and then move on. ENjoy life whenever you can. Take time to feel life. When you eat, eat. When you sleep, sleep and when you work, work.

Only then will you find true serenity.

MrT

Responsibility part II

At the end of my last post, I wrote about the idea that some new agers sometimes speak about-that our lives are selected by us before we come to the earth. Thus, whatever happens to us is entirely our own doing. This is often combined with the idea that we came here with a specific purpose in mind. Often, that purpose is to learn so lesson about the universe.

To follow this idea, we have to step back. This concept requires us to accept that we, as consciousnesses, exist outside of our bodies. THen, at the right time, we occupy a body and are born into the world. One of the problems we encounter is that when we take on a body, we "forget" who we really are. So, we spend a lot of time trying to remember our true nature. Once we recognize who we are, we can then use the physical nature of the world to continue on our paths of knowledge, or, to just have fun.

For some, then, what we experience here has been selected beforehand for our benefit. So, when you are complaining about being miserable, we should remember, we brought this on ourselves for a lesson.

While I do believe that we reincarnate, and that we can incarnate into a particular place, it is simplistic to accept that we entirely create our own circumstances.

You see, the only way that could be true is if we are the only ones on the planet. Obviously, we are not. Each of us has our own life, but we constantly interact with others. The idea that we are all working together is not realistic. Thus, many of the things we experience come out of the blue and are completely unexpected.

Therefore, we are not responsible, nor do we cause everything that happens to us.

That said, as I pointed out in my last post, we are responsible for how we deal with these situations.

More on that in my next post.

MrT