chasm of division

We are the be all and end all within the tabernacle of spirit, which is the body. Through intention, which the Gospel of John calls the Logos, we manifest our world. Our word and our world are our intention. Collectively, we have brought forward hell. Hell is the fruit of our desires. All is not lost, as we can manifest heaven, if collectively that's what we want. The power is in our hands. Individually, we can bring forth heaven within the hell we find ourselves in. That's the first step, until a tipping point is reached, and we flip the whole of duality around. Hell becomes heaven. The yo-yo of the dualistic universe is laid bare.

I'd bet if we travel the cosmos, we will find utopia; a place where heaven has been manifested. It's probably as dull as all get out, as we are beings of desire. The prisoner count of those who have transgressed the law in heaven probably outstrips our prison population here on earth by a large magnitude. Ah, our nature can't be transcended. The heavenly within duality becomes another hell realm, though quite pleasant for those who can control their desires - you know, lusts, wants, and greed.

So, what's the answer? Do we create heaven while in hell? For some, you can find joy and fulfillment on earth, though of course nothing lasts. The winds of change are always blowing and the darkness within the world will eventually reach your doorstep in some regard, or the spectre of aging and death will break up your happy home. The old adage, "It is better to have lived and loved than not to have lived at all" is good advice.

How about the choice of where you are going post-expiration of the body? Our western religion preaches heaven or hell. Maybe there is some truth to the claim, as what you desire will lead you to your next destination in your spiritual journey of the flesh. A desire to satiate passions will lead you back to earth, the ultimate place to live out your dreams; dreams being a coy word for desires. The stakes are high, and the suffering is great, but the roll of the dice on earth might lead you to a life of fulfilling all those desires. Is it worth the risk? Apparently, judging by the line up to get in, I'd say yes. Alternatively, you do go to heaven as you have exhausted the pull of desire. You haven't given up on the game; instead, you want your reward for transcending the depravity of the earth game. Hey, you've earned it. So, you go to heaven and experience a realm of righteousness where everyone lives in harmony and follows the code of conduct for such a holy person. What do you do when boredom sets in, or you get pangs of desire?

Imagine being a heretic in heaven. That would get you thrown out of paradise just like Lucifer got tossed in the Bible story. You'd automatically gain a bunch of followers who would get tossed with you. Earth would be the penal colony you are sent to.

I'd like to think the rollercoaster of duality eventually will wake you up and lead you to the answer. The answer is finding balance within love. An appreciation for who we are and an acceptance of all. Living within the heart and loving all. Needing just one rule, the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This leads to an interesting thought experiment. Is it easier to find the path of the heart in heaven or while in hell? In heaven, one would abide by a strict code of conduct and an ingrained righteousness which would glorify one's status as a perfected being. One would scoff at those who failed to become holy and righteous. The right-hand path of the holy man is a path of individuality and celebrates the accomplishments of one who can transcend desire. You climb the mountain but maintain the separation between you and the other. Your holiness needs the sinner in order for you to differentiate and know how great you are. The blinding white light of your righteousness will occlude from you the other. Love remains conditional upon transcending your nature. Within hell, you see it all. Those getting their fill, those suffering immensely, and those being of service. You see how all is connected. Though difficult to see through the game, eventually there will be some who do see it. The way out is to embrace all and love unconditionally something you would never find in heaven. Compassion is lost on someone who is enjoying the rewards of their spiritual mastery.

Earth is a unique place on the spiritual journey. It is the hardest of all tests, and the pitfalls are enormous. If I was in the closing stages of such a journey, for sure I would desire to manifest upon earth and try my luck. I'd want to see if I could find my way out, not getting skewered on the petard of my own righteousness.

(The Great Goddess of the epiphany gave me the word "petard." I had no idea what it meant so I looked it up. Petard is almost always encountered in variations of the phrase "hoist with one's own petard," meaning "victimized or hurt by one's own scheme." Ha ha, perfect!)

I can't stay on the holy mountain I climbed or be given access to the holy of holies. I see the trap. The chasm of division is ahead of me. I'll build a bridge and traverse the divide with whoever wants to come along. The choice remains for all.

why not be here now

Ram Dass taught me this mantra Be Here Now. He learned it from a guru brother on his first trip to India where he would be complaining about the physical journey they were on in addition to talking about the past. Finally, his friend told him to let all that go and just "Be Here Now." It's something I've been aware of while meditating. I have a busy mind and thoughts are always running through me. It's the product of being my own best friend throughout my life. I like being alone and it is my comfort zone. I'm never bored or in need to do anything because my mind keeps me company. I've never suffered from depression or anxiety even though because of my predilection for being in my head I am predisposed to those conditions. I am grateful for this part of me as it has allowed me to surf the wave of life with relative ease in that I don't get too low or too high.

I had been going through some personal turmoil and of course this put my mind into overdrive because I was searching for answers and anything which would allow me to understand the experience. When communing with tobacco snuff, I was having trouble quieting my mind. It wanted to chatter, and it wasn't until finally I remembered Ram Dass' teachings about Be Here Now that I was able to centre and just let everything go. Just be in the moment. Of course, when out of the medicine I had to examine the profundity of the teaching. Like a lot of things I come across on the spiritual path, I get an understanding of the concept, but it always seems to go deeper and when you are ready the teaching flowers. Just Be with yourself Here where you are Now at this very moment. I realized the journey to get here to now is unique in that it's the sum of all my choices and actions. Being at this place at this time is the true result. It must be. It reminds me of a saying about the Stock Market in that it is never wrong. You may disagree with it and complain that the company you have invested in is undervalued but the market has set the price, and it is what it is. This is my life. Where I am now is what I have sown. My suffering is a direct result of the path I have taken.

A good friend of mine who passed away a year ago often comes to me when I enter this state of just being in the moment. I asked about my suffering and in his glib way he said it's in the cards. It sure is! It's what I wanted and why I made the choices I made. They had good odds of causing this outcome. Maybe this is what you want. Have you ever thought of that?

I had thought of it and realized there was a good chance it is what I desired. It's good to have confirmation of what you intuit.

I also know suffering is the catalyst for transformation. I got to re-examine my overarching mission statement and it's to walk the path of the heart fully to the end in honour of the Great Goddess. I'm a perfectionist and with a lot of things if I can't excel at them, I just won't do it. Walking this path has brought failure into my life. It's harder than I thought because my ego wants me to be perfect, especially at this stage of the journey. I should be someone people look up to and a holder of wisdom, not a fallible human being. Imagine being my age and still being a screw up?

It put into perspective something Alan Watts taught me early on in this ridiculous spiritual journey. He said when you embark on some ideal to better yourself and embrace what we call the higher self, the ego just moves up a level. It's so true. There's always this dynamic with appearances in relation to others who you must put on a show for. Oh, you are going to be enlightened now, are you? I guess you will become perfected and infallible. I will have to double down on my efforts to conceal what isn't perfect. Ha ha. There's always going to be the interplay between the superego as the judge, which is reflected in your peers or culture, and the ego - no matter how you define yourself in this human body. There's no escape. The best thing to do is just recognize it and have a laugh. We all know the ultra-spiritual are hiding something or if not, they are miserable.

What I get out of the whole dynamic between the ego and the superego is that they are the ones which keep this drama going. Your base desires as defined by the id, animate your existence and is the reason you incarnated into a body. The whole game to conceal what you want then creates the cast of characters which makes earth a good show. As I write the chapters of my life while living in the now I see everything unfold as a result of my choices.

This is my story.

fingerprints and snowflakes

We are all unique and as part of this understanding I have come to realize we have all incarnated for as many different reasons as there are varied fingerprints and fallen snowflakes in the world. To be sure, there is definitely a lot of overlap and therefore our journeys do share much in common and we can find others who are walking a similar path. The spiritual path I am walking is unique. I definitely recognized that as I usually do not find commonality with others and their experiences. The cast of spiritual characters I have met are typically the same or of a similar cultural motif, but I find it's my interpretation of the journey differs remarkably. That's a tough one for a human as we wish to find connection with others so we can walk hand in hand. My adventure has largely focused on authenticity and being true to what it is I have experienced.

Another way to look at the human spiritual journey is as such: When you follow a system, such as Buddhism, you are are walking in the footsteps of the Buddha and those that came after him who interpreted his teachings. The corpus that followed is a way for a practitioner to reach a form of enlightenment in Buddhism. This method is Buddha's. He was uniquely ready to walk his path. It probably isn't yours and will lead towards frustration. The template will help but you must look inward to find what it is you are looking for. Your journey will be different from the Buddha and his experience. In Christianity, if you join the church, you are given a set of beliefs, called dogma, that you must follow. Any spiritual insight you may have had up to that point is then surrendered to the authority of the church and your beliefs become homogenized with many others. Your individual journey comes to an end, and you become part of a group. The cultural institution of the church knows of the peculiar spiritual awakening that occurs within humans and is set up to welcome those in the culture who have these revelations. The cynic in me would say the church takes advantage of this situation and attains much power and profit because of the relationship. The trusting part of me says the church is the shepherd which guides the flock towards God.

I consider myself lucky to have always known this in the back of my mind. Even when I was an atheist, I was aware each and every one of us are unique. We walk the earth journey in our own set of shoes, not someone else's. As I became more open to spirituality, I wanted to forge ahead on my own journey of discovery, regardless of culture or inhibitions. I was searching for the elusive truth. Somewhere along the way I discovered I create my own universe and as a byproduct, I create my own truth. In my 15 years of spiritual mania, I have indeed found the truth I was looking for. I can elucidate my discoveries and the cast of characters involved in the unfolding of divine truths. I could set up a religion that is designed for someone to follow in my footsteps and have revealed all it is I have discovered. You can become just like me with all my spiritual knowledge and rewards. Yeah, I'm not going to do that. However, I will gladly talk about my experiences and share my story.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have received a profound teaching. The course involved the re-emphasizing of something I had already known but had let lapse, so the follow-up exam was very effective. Let me see if I can sum up the teaching:

When I treat the world as external, I get scared. When I realize all is a part of who I am, then I accept the world as is and am not scared.

Upon heading out on the intensive stage of my spiritual journey I encountered the light, the darkness, and love. I externalized my journey and so when I came face to face with the sinister, I frightened the shit out of myself and ran. I continued to externalize my adversary for many years, and it served me immensely. This is because in order to get past the fear, I had to transform into a warrior full of courage. My journey wasn't going to get far if I was a coward. Eventually, I became the king of myself, and I ruled my world. At the same time, I started to discover that all I had externalized was in fact within me. This led to a complete understanding that not only was this occult world within my own universe, but it was all me. I am all.

So, when I faced some uncertainty in life and was feeling physically ill, I let my mind run wild and one night I again externalized the darkness within. The master teacher is so very frightening and when externalized he trips you up. If you meet this guy on the spiritual path, he will fuck you up.

I used to do this on the regular when I was a newbie and then uncertainty would pour into my spiritual path. Revisiting this experience allowed me to see fear is the result of separation and externalizing all you are. When you realize it is all you, then of course you feel safe. The corollary is that you are the evil in the world. You initiate and perpetuate all the suffering. It sucks but if you keep walking the path you will see all suffering is grace and is the master tool for transformation. The transformation is designed to allow you to find the path back home. The path back home is to the garden of the Mother. Home is where the heart is, and the heart is love. This is my spiritual path and I'd like to think it is the ultimate in what we seek. My methods of getting there will definitely be different than yours. The labyrinth leads to many places, some are filled with a radiant and blinding light. I'd like to announce my way through the maze is the truth and the way, but I'm onto the game. Others are at different stages and paths on the journey and what is unfolding for them is what they need. It's not my place to direct them to my path if they haven't done the work which will allow them to be successful.

sleeping beauty

I have seasonal allergies - hay fever, and yesterday it was the worst I could remember since I was a teenager in the Niagara region. By 10pm last night I was hurting. The body aches combined with the exhaustion had left me just pining for a place to just lie down in a ball and let sleep heal me. I woke up this morning feeling much better and I took my dog out for a walk through the woods and started thinking about healing and its association to sleep. From that thought it was a short connective thought to the soul and its incarnation into matter. It is my belief that when the soul is assaulted in our youth, it enters into stasis as a means of self preservation and healing. This sleep heals, sleeping beauty comes to mind, and at some point in our lives it is ready to come forth once again or it can be roused or perturbed into action by an awakening, a trauma, or even the use of psychoactive substances.

"Sleeping Beauty", by Henry Meynell Rheam

Sometimes we rouse the soul before it's ready which leads to confusion and sometimes following paths that lead nowhere except to delusion and self-aggrandizement. However when the time is right and the soul is ready to shine once again, we can make the choice to ignore the beckoning of the soul or we can follow that path and see where it leads.