Evolutionary Odyssey

Intimations of Super Integral

2007-08-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

Phenomena is Gross, Subtle, Causal, & Nondual. Your deepening awareness of such phenomena moves you through horizontal state-stages. As you dip into such phenomena in peak experiences you become more stabilized in those places. Post-enlightenment state stages may be possible. Personally, I would refer to these as a deepening of non-dual or a further refinement & integration of previous state-stages. For example, a deeper emboidment of non-dual or an utter tantric embrace of all state-stages in a Totality such as the Tibetan Buddhist term Svabhavikakaya or Vedanta's Turiyatita. This is the horizontal axis of enlightenment.

Your intepretation of these realizations depends on your structure-stage of cognitive development. This realization itself requires an ability to take a 6th person or higher perspective & full enlightenment is being one with all phenomena that is arising in this moment AND being able to take as high a developmental perspective as exists at this moment. Being able to see all of the ways of taking perspective possible right now. This is the vertical axis of enlightenment.

May all See.

Love that Burns, Death that Reveals

2007-07-31T07:49:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Andrew Gonzalez

Can’t fight this perpetual perishing any more
Don’t even want things to be like they were before
My face is gathering enough lines to be a roadmap
And my body is clearly more than just a soul-trap
Can’t right this sinking ship
Don’t even want a longer-floating trip
My hands no longer obediently bail
Avoiding death is the surest way to fail
Can’t relight these worn-out candles
Don’t even want to retread my sandals
My heart keeps seeing endless emptiness
And keeps breaking open to hold just this
Can’t ignite what’s gone to ashes
Don’t even want to redo my crashes
My dying flesh brightens as it ages
Freedom keeps on singing in its cages
Can’t fight this endless dying any more
Don’t even want what I wanted before
My hands reach out then return
The circle at last able to freely burn
It was by this that we were haunted
This was what we secretly wanted
And it is to this that we must bow
Deeply fully and exactly now

Poem by Robert Augustus Masters

I wish you could recieve all of the Love that fills my Heart. I wish you could see the Beauty everywhere in everything. Especially in You. Especially in me. This body longs to be held before it perishes. It longs for human touch. This soul wants to be seen. It longs to be witnessed and to shine its light for you.

Gently, Gently I lay my head in the lap of my Mother & melt. My strength is my Heart. My weapon is Love. My stead is the Earth. My soul the Kosmos.

I am here.

A Confluence of Levels & Lines, Switch-Points & Fulcrums

2007-07-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Wilber/Colmes Lattice

Development is a tricky business & maps can take us only so far. Integral Theory is a bracelet I wear & not a collar around my neck. As I lead ILP workshops & help people with practice & get down & dirty with relationships & karma, the more I can see my own Shadow & lack of development in certain areas. High development along the horzontal state-stage axis is one thing, perspective taking & cognitive development another; but I am arrested in my emotional/affective line. My emotions flare up & I revert to child like reactions & overwhelming pain, fear of abandonment, loneliness & alienation. The Waking Down in Mutuality work helps, & therapy helps. It's a slow process as awakened Consciousness clammers it's way down into the depths, turning over every rock & spreading light into each & every dark corner. & the Great Relief comes in being with the Totality of existance; Relative, Absolute, Paradox, & Trinity. Trust in Being..... Trust in Being.....Trust in Being.
Amen

The Soul of New York

2007-07-24T16:22:00.001-07:00

I have been struck recently by the magnitude of possibility that is New York. It is somewhat of a mystery why I ended up here & am excited to work with this magnificent locale that is New York. I have made a 3 year commitment to work & play - building a Integral Community Center with the Heart of America. More to come.......

God Bless America

In the Trenches

2007-06-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

Nice G.I.'s

Imagine being in World War 1. Maybe you were there? Cold, hungary, dead Friends, absent loved ones, & scarry as fuck others with automatic weapons & bullets are flying past your face.

Read The Development of a Jihadist's Mind

This is life. But not all of it. There is also stark naked anadorned Love holding all of us in this & every moment no matter how far away She feels. & that Love is a Secret.

But right now, I'm in the fucking, goddamn trenches & bullets are flying. Feels that way anyhow. I'm not going to sugar-coat it with plattitudes of positive thinking & idealism. Die in every moment. Die to ideas. Die to hope. What's left? That my friend is the Great Cosmic Joke. But, it is also paradoxically tantrically integrated to the Real Everyday Human Hero. That my friend, is none other than You.

Now,
who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

2007-06-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Scott Snibbe

Heaven is a body,
Energy unfurling.
I am a circle.
I can't stop breathing.
Mysterious other I can never know,
Dark & separate,
She beacons.
Illusions all about me,
Filling the circuits.
Only.
Only.

A Call Out to the Integral Evolutionary Siddhas

2007-05-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Alex Grey

"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you."

Neo

Hey Joe Perez :)! What do you mean by Involution? Can you define the term?
Hey Ken, buddy:) ! Has Involution been thrown out as "The Myth of the Given"? Does it still fit into your map? ?What? are the Metaphysical assumptions that are still left? Eros?

I seem to be crossing a threshold. It seems high time that we start these dialogues. Come on now, Andrew, let's get into some serious cr8ive friction. 51% :)! Heh. Heh.

I seriously love you guys. So fucking inspiring!

So let's push that edge! Let's dive deep into the Heart of that Amrita Nadi & the AQAL matrix.

Andrew, Why are you not a part of Integral Spiritual Center?
Ken, What is this study about the relation between stages of development ( structuralism) & meditation & how it moves you two stages you keep refering to?

I saw this show yesterday about how the center of our galaxy is a super massive black hole & that it was responsible for the stars being formed. What does that mean?

Stayed tuned for Integral Evolution in real-time @ vjohnbaker.com & biospiritech.com. Coming soon to a Kosmic Address near U!

I'm coming to interview you awesome teachers for the sake of us all :). For the NEXT generation of teachers & seekers. FOR US!

My Heart shoots out rays to the Bodisattvas & Absolute Bodhichitta prevails.

My Praxis will be recorded.

Sorry if this post is hard to understand....... I'm just in a playful mood of spontenaiety of sorts & well..... It could be that glass of Wine. :).

My Being rests in the Secret Intention.

May beings rest in the Secret Intention.

All is offered.

Thank God for my girlfriend. MWahhhhh!

Facing the Darkness

2007-05-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

Here She breathes,
Caught about in tight griped fear.
Nothing smiles.
Eternity kisses the ground.
Lightning strikes our ideas.
All is what it is.
Hope is beheaded.
Blood spills from the Heart.
Rapture.
Death.
Love.

The Limits of Meaning-Making, The Perfection of Imperfection, A Love Beyond Boundaries, & Ordered Chaos

2007-05-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

Manjuvajra

I can't help but try to make meaning out of all that arises moment to moment. That is what we do. We tell stories. Just know that everything you percieve is colored, flavored, & nuanced by your cognitive framework. There is immense freedom here. But, even that freedom is a conception. That is Freedom. It is self-offered & self-released. We are Evolution. We are limited & divinely human imperfect perfection. All is well. All is well. Even unwellness is well. You are Home. I am a servant of evolution, cr8ion, transformation, & possibility. You are my Love. I am human. I will die. I-I always am. & so what? :). I offer it all & give it all away. May all Beings know this. May all be free. May all have their deepest Secret Truth realized. So be it.

Dear Andrew Cohen; Spiritual Inquiry and the Evolution of Consciousness

2007-05-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

"The Truth cannot be formulated, it cannot be defined - it is to be lived."

- The Mother

In the spirit of spiritual inquiry;

Please read Andrew Cohen's post Spiritual Inquiry and the Evolution of Consciousness

In holding to that call I offer;

From Andrew Cohen's A Declaration of Integrity

“Ego is the deeply ingrained, compulsive need to remain separate and superior at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. In contrast to the inherent freedom of the Self Absolute and the fearless passion of the Authentic Self, ego is experienced as an emotional quagmire of fear and attachment. It is the part of you that has no interest whatsoever in freedom, feels victimized by life, avoids anything that contradicts its self-image, is thoroughly invested in its personal fears and desires, and lives only for itself. Ego is an anti-evolutionary force of powerful inertia in human nature—attached to the past, terrified of change, and seeking only to preserve the status quo.
Ego is the one and only one obstacle to enlightenment. If we want to be free, if we want to be enlightened, we have to pay the price. The great wisdom traditions have always told us that the price is ego death, and in evolutionary enlightenment it is no different: if the Authentic Self is going to act through us as the uninhibited expression of evolution in action, then our attachment to ego must be transcended.”

Dear Andrew,
I have to engage this position because the stakes are so high. What part of me engages this position? Could I possibly be wrong? Could you possibly be wrong? Could it be that the deeper Truth can only be known dialogically though enlightened debate & in Mutuality with other realizers. Could it be that this ego itself is necessary for evolution to occur? Could it be that these incessant internal wars are a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic external wars? Maybe that is not necessarily a problem & perhaps this tension itself is in a way exactly what needs to be. The evolutionary tension seems to be created by the very sense that “something is wrong”. It is at the core of our very existence. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that sense that “something is wrong”. Maybe that Core Crux is the hallmark of evolutionary development.

“It may sound good in theory, but the ability to recognize ego for what it is, in all its gross and often very subtle manifestations, to “accept” it and simultaneously not act out of it, requires a level of self-mastery that, to be brutally honest, is attained by very few.”
Andrew

What if this level of self-mastery were possible in the context of Mutuality? What if the overcoming of the “ego” you speak of is a level of self-mastery that maybe none have ever achieved? What if it isn't possible?

If fear, attachment, & inertia are entered into with full consciousness & not denied, suppressed, or “transcended”, perhaps they have lessons to teach & will self-dissolve as opposed to becoming split off as shadow that comes to bite you when you are not looking. Isn’t fear of fear, fear? Isn’t attachment to an idea of acting authentically or ridding ourselves of attachment, attachment? Might there not be a time when the feeling of inertia is a prompt from Being that a deeper truth is at the core and our own incessant need to get away from this “inertia” is what keeps us in the quagmire? Could it be that you are really on to something so profound & beautiful, but the communication & skillful means being used are preventing some from really getting this? Personally, I have gained so much from your teaching & I carry your transmission with me. I find myself constantly defending what you are doing & I think it is a crucially important piece of the unfolding of Mystery. I am sincerely engaged with the realization of the Secret Intention. I ask that you consider these statements. I am drawn to your passionate & relentless inquiry. Perhaps you could devote a future issue of WIE to the subject of Upaya & Skillful Means.

For ALL OF US,
John

Refuge

2007-04-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, Is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. When not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, And the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

Padmasambhava

Until impossible perfect complete White Out Enlightenment of All in Everything, Onlyness, & Unimaginable Realization beyond time & space through time & space,
I take refuge in Supreme Total Ultimate Reality beyond conception, The Amrita Nadi.
I take refuge in the Secret Intention of the Kosmos, Herself.
I take refuge in the Absolute I, Tat Tvam Asi, I Am, YHVH, Buddha, Allah, Absolute Subjectivity without Object, the One without a Second.
I take refuge in the Suchness of Reality, the Absolute Object without a Subject, Matter, the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Beloved Thou, the We, The Mystery, the Relationship, the Sangha, the Other.

As I rest in the This Ultimate Nature of Mind, I relax & release all, without concept.

To be continued....

Serving Possibility, Creation, & Evolution

2007-04-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare

Now, Now, & Now I create possibility to serve Her.

Where Awareness meets Trust

2007-04-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Corey Wolfe

"Faith makes us feel good even about not feeling good."
Robert Augustus Masters

The Kosmos arises in your awareness moment to moment, speaking to you; carressing you. She tells you everything you need to know even when you imagine that you know not. This tension or that fear is a message, nothing more & wu-wei is the answer & then not the answer at all & no answer is not the answer required. How does one descibe this inexplicable knowing in a method seemingly unequiped to contain Her Mystery? But, She shines forth, nonetheless. Yes! You see Her! It matters not the messiness of my grammer & sloppy writing style. Nothing can keep Her from you. I am petting this dog.

Miraculous Natural Surrender

2007-04-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

“There is a Power, a Power that controls the moon, the stars and the sun. It is a Power that can burn all other powers. It is the Power that pervades each atom, all that is finite, all that is infinite, a Power that no one can see...It has no assistance. It is completely alone. Original."

"Each of us who came here with wisdom must learn from this school. Heaven does not come from building beautiful churches, mosques, and temples. Man must build his church, mosque, and temple within himself. The house of God must be built within. The place of worship must be seen within. The completeness of God must be built within the self. If man can understand his story and the story of God and then build a church within himself, that is victory."

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Bismilah ir-Rachman ir-Rahim
The Beauty of the Eternal Moment exists when we Surrender to what is. This Surrender is as natural as a flower turning towards the sunlight. May all of our actions be This.
Amin

A Deep Embrace

2007-03-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

Whole Being Yin-Yang by Ted Strauss

"...there is a rude awakening. Suddenly, the singularity is shattered. What was One is now Many. What was singular and blissful is now infinitely multiple and blazingly uncomfortable on a cosmic scale."
Ted Strauss

I hold You in your Everything & Onlyness. What a shock! What Pain! What Joy!

Magic of the Ordinary

2007-03-25T18:07:00.000-07:00

Artwork by A. Andrew Gonzalez

"What a Paradox: In a thousand ways our hearts are forever longing to merge with the Source of all pleasure and satisfaction and we are always already that Source. We can neither stop our longing nor stop being the Source. You are the Unity of duality and non-duality. You belong here and all of you is yearning to find its full expression." - Krishna

So much a Mystery She is.
I cannot contain Her.
A Transformation in all events.
I Breathe & Die in Her.
Forget this shocked idea.
I am struck Open.

Alone in Love

2007-03-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Linda Bergkvist

"At the core of every human heart there is the paradox of the need and longing for connection and the reality of loneliness inter-mixed with the desire for the joy and peace of the solitude of aloneness."
A.J. Mahari

Sometimes sadness rushes through me like an uncontrolable wave and washes my being in deep sorrow. My Heart is an open Wound. Post-awakening, the sadness, becomes Sadness, untempered & fully entered into with Love-Being. Before I let myself run into dead alley ways, trying to escape its constricting clutches. Tonight I am brought to my knees yet again and She transforms me. I am Crucified in the name of Love.

Love is the Wine

2007-03-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Shakkal Designs

"To really get into this, we have to get naked, showing up in (and as) undressed Being, allowing ourselves a second innocence, an awakened innocence that strips us of our knowledge and automated certainties and deposits us in the Open Secret of the hyperbole-transcending Mystery of our existence. If our mouth drops open, so be it; if our buttoned-up case of mistaken identity starts to give up the ghost, so be it; if we’re brought to our knees, and prayer becomes not something we do but are, so be it."
Robert Augustus Masters

A white-blazed gazelle
Is an amazing sight,
Red-dye signaling,
Eyelids hinting,
Pasture between breastbones
And innards.
Marvel,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on
Any form:
Gazelles in a meadow,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Kaaba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Qur'an
I profess the religion of love;
Wherever its caravan turns
Along the way, that is the belief,
The faith I keep.
Like Bishr,
Hind and her sister,
Love-mad Qays and the lost Layla,
Mayya and her lover Ghaylan.

Poem by Ibn 'Arabi

I'm speechless.

Divine Grace

2007-03-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

"We must learn to rely only on the Divine Grace and to call for its help in all circumstnaces; then it will work out constant miracles."
The Mother

This breathing is miraculous. This existance is beyond all conception. That the limited be limitless is beyond all beyondness. May all realize. May all be free. May all Evolve.

Depth Beyond Depth

2007-03-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Luke Brown

When cracks appear in reality
Admitting slivers of another locality
Injecting you with dark unfamiliarity
And reaching for another drink
Or changing how you think
Doesn’t help to get you back
You’ve a chance to ride a truer track
If you don’t get so zealous
Behind the wheel of ambition’s megabus
That you run over what’s always already here
Already more electrifying than fear
So let the cracks widen, let them spread
Let curiosity get the better of dread
Let the unknown dissolve in a deeper unknown
Let yourself see more than what is shown
The undoing that you fear is already here
The mystery of mysteries closer than near
Beyond all familiarity we eventually must go
This we fight, and this we know
When cracks appear in reality
Admitting slices of another locality
You may seem to be near insanity
But the light that streams through
The light that holds every view
Is none other than you

Poem by Robert Augustus Masters

I am sitting here at the edge of the fractal unfolding. It is so simple and so calm. I've spent hours planning & visualizing the future. And now there is just the sweet relaxation of releasing everything, like a Kosmic Orgasm. No-thing-ness. I bow at the feet of my dearest Sarasvati.

Into the Heart of Fear

2007-03-16T22:29:00.001-07:00

“It is our mission . . . to walk out on the stage of this world and reveal to all earth and heaven that the music is not in conditions, not in things, not in externals; that the music of life is in our own soul, our spirit.”
Anonymous

"When we are in doubt and difficulty, when many voices urge this course or the other, when prudence utters one advice and faith another, then let us be still, hushing each intruder, calming ourselves in the sacred hush of the Divine's Presence; in an attitude of devout attention, let us be eager only to know what God shall determine. If we will only get alone, where the lights and shadows of earth cannot interfere and if we can dare to wait there silent and expectant, ere long a very distinct impression will be made and the Will of the Divine made clear"
Quoted from The Practice of Integral Yoga

It is very interesting how much we fear fear. Lean in a little closer and we might discover our own prejudice against the negative. If we are ever to avert real war in the world, we may need to dig deep into our own hearts & see clearly the internal war against all of our dark & shadowy aspects.

Some words from one of my teachers Robert Augustus Masters

I invite you to read Into the Heart of Fear

Paradox

2007-03-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Robert Pepperell

Every loss must be felt right to the core
Or else there’s a greater loss
Sadness must leave its mind to become grief
Or else it’ll just settle for repressive relief
So let the pain sweep through
And the even truer ache
And especially the bare need
The love beyond love
The pure heartbreak
Robert Augustus Masters

Not Knowing.
Oh how sweet the inhale.

Pleasure Coexists with Pain

2007-03-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

The Choice to be here is a heroic one. I cannot help but appreciate those who have embodied. Just being here is an act of love.

I'm Here!

Some choice & timely words from my dear teacher Saniel

Great Relief, Secret #2, "It's Really Hard to Be Here, Isn't It?":

In the mass media's fascination with super-successful, powerful, beautiful, wealthy, talented people, and in so much of the conditioning we receive from parents, religious teachings, spiritual guides, and philosophies, there's a potent, if often only implicit, but practically universal suggestion that contradicts this secret:

It goes like this: "If you're really doing life right, why, hey, it should be easy to be here! And if you're not cool, if you don't have your act together, if being here is not a piece of cake for you ... well, you must not have much of a clue what it's all about!"

That propagandistic suggestion hangs on our chests and our shoulders like an invisible vat of concrete. This book offers a small and perhaps aggravating proposition to the contrary. ... Scratch their surface a tiny bit, and you see that even those "really-together" people either already know or sooner or later discover a secret that's so obvious and so painful it escapes our view for most of a lifetime:

It's really hard to be here.

For every body.

Period.

If any body hasn't already been numbed and stung by setbacks, still, every single human body knows or fears they're coming.

And sooner or later, to date, every single body loses the fight and is no longer here.

Why?

Not because it, that bodily person, wanted to die. Not really.

No, just simply because it finally got too hard to be here.

Take a deep breath, let that recognition loosen up the cramps in your body, mind, and heart, and a curious release takes place. It can stick with you if you let it. And that's, among other things, a different kind of "Secret" than the one currently getting lots of press...definitely no less true. Maybe a whole lot more so.

Passionate Enlightenment

2007-03-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

"Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?"
Leonardo da Vinci

I met Miranda Shaw today as she gave a presentation of Buddhist Goddesses, & some of the deeper meanings of Tantra.

It was a beautiful transmission. Her book Passionate Enlightenment has always been an inspiration for me.

May She come forth to be worshiped & adored. May we see Her in all of Her radiant glory. This Earth, This Body. Her Bliss fills my being and I release it and offer it for the sake of all beings. Such utter Light, empty and clear. I relax into the Womb of Being. May our body, speech, mind, qualities, & activities be Hers.

The Gift that You Are & The Story We Are Writing Together

2007-03-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

"I’m basically a practitioner, and I’m recording my practice so that others can learn from my mistakes. I’m recording what works, what doesn’t work, doing my best for the sake of others to share what I’ve learned, to share the fruits of my practice as well as my mistakes. I would say a lot of what I have learned has been through mistakes, failing and then going “oops” and realizing how to correct. I’ve found that this is one of the best ways to learn. Looking back it can look like one’s life is an ongoing mistake, when you look backwards. But that’s no reason not to continue living life. It means you’re growing and you see that everything you’ve done has been a mistake once you’ve grown beyond it. "
David Deida

I Love You. You are my inspiration. You are the reason I am here. You have a Story to Write. We are that Story. Your choices in every moment become ink in the Kosmic Pen & flow through your actions. This is the Kosmic Quaran. Now! Pick up that Pen & Write!

Your Endless Awakenings

2007-03-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

That title reflects the name of a book by Ted Strauss, a senior teacher in the Waking Down in Mutuality work. It mirrors a level of understanding I am living here at the moment. I am lucky, in that the Universe always puts me up against IT in every moment.

I can no longer stand by in the shadows, and am compelled by Love to act & work in the world with a sense of deepening Integrity. As one falls into the Heart of the Secret Intention, life and the proper course of action become clear & the Universe opens up Her Heart & Her Mysteries, providing everything necessary for Her unfoldment in space & time.

I can no longer deny Her call, even though as shattered as John may have been, it is not only his life to be lived, but a life directed and moved by the force of the Kosmos itself. This is in truth the very Islam, the prophet Muhammad, salialahu walehe wasalim, speaks to.

The form is an unfolding fractal pattern, at once fashioned by a myriad of karmic imprints, moving into the unknown with the pure creative potentiality of God, Herself.

On that note;
Stay tuned for the anouncement of a real-time web portal/blog for my Integral Life Practice. This is what she compels me to do for the sake of us all.

Blessings.

The Mystic Swims in the Same Water the Madman Drowns in ; The Emotional Seasons of State Always Change

2006-09-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you Vidyuddeva for your timely lesson.

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

When we can make room for all of those crazy emotional ups and downs that we all experience without identifing with them & even at appropriate times fully identifing with them we become a Container. When we make room in our own consciousness for all of what we fear may sweep us away or destroy our precious fantasy world we begin to intimate the Real. It is the Real that is unstained; the purest Joy. All that we know will someday pass away but the Real never will. Live Real.

The Empty Blissful River Flows Freely Through Me

2006-09-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

Oh, happy are the myriad manifestations!
The more ups-and-downs, the more joy I feel.
Happy is the body with no sinful Karma.
Happy indeed are the countless confusions!
The greater the fear, the greater the happiness I feel.

Oh happy is the death of sensations and passions!

The greater the distress and passions,
The more can one be blithe and gay!
What happiness to feel no ailment or illness;
What happiness to feel that joy and suffering are one;
What happiness to play in bodily movement
With the power aroused by Yoga.
To jump and run, to dance and leap, is more joyful still.

Milarepa

There comes a time when all of it moves though you so blissfully it is beyond description. At the point of deepest orgasm there is no grasping onto anything. It is Bliss beyond bliss. You see everything and everything can be as it is. There is no hope for a better moment, a better tomarrow. It comes crashing, cascading down......Now, Now, Now. Ah such unutterable Peace. I hate to even use that word because that peace is so violently beautifully ecstatic that the word peace can't ever do it justice.

Two nights ago I had full consciousness from dream to deep dreamless sleep to awakening. And all of that was just as amazing as watching the skyline or petting my cat or writing these words.

Just this.

Kisses to all.

The Fearless Bliss of Humility

2006-09-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

Mohandas K. Gandhi

"I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."

Helen Keller

Thank God for falling flat on my face. Many a time. Thank God for losing every bit of property and material good, I ever owned. Several times. Thank God for sleeping in graveyards. Thank God for breaking bones & being helpless. Thank God for being rejected by my parents. Thank God for Death.

I wouldn't be who I am without these. And I am the Light of the World.

What is Transformation?

2006-09-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

What is Transformation?

Before you answer that question, take a moment to.........

Go beyond knowing the answer.

In the space beyond conceptual Stillness.....

Something emerges.

Who are you??

To not know is Pure Knowledge.

Wu-wei is concept free sponteniety;

Acting, Cognizing, Diving deep into multi-layered enacted Injunctions......

Releasing Knowledge in ecstatic Union,

Blessing Universes & touching Hearts.

Eros reaches up into Unknowable heights,

Agape merges into all known Phenomena.

And their Love-Child is none other then....

This glorious Kosmos,

exploding in Being within the Heart of Hearts,

In this & every moment.

These Writings are Psychoactive Injunctions

2006-09-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

"In the metaphysical traditions, an object (or that which is known) existed in or on a plane of reality, so that the referent of a spiritual statement was a reality existing in one of those planes or realms. The subject or knower existed on a corresponding level of selfhood and then simply perceived the pre-existing object. But in post-metaphyics, objects exist in worldspaces that are enacted in part by the knowing subject, and both subject and object of any variety are defined by evolutionary or developmental altitude (not levels of pre-existing ontology) and the perspective doing the enacting (not a perception of epistemology).

Nor are these structures merely subjective, because once evolved, they are trans-individual or collective Kosmic habits, which push against any human psychology and guide its growth. Both "up there" and "in here" disappear into tetra-enacted structures of the Kosmos."

Ken Wilber, Integral Spirituality

In order to know the full Truth of Reality one must Look. To look is to act or take up a methodology. A methodology is given to by a perspective & injunctions. These lead to apprehensions (datum) which can then be compared with others who perform the same methodologies. Anything short of taking up all known methodologies of enacting and understanding reality, will give you only partial perspectives. Claiming a partial perspective to be "absolute truth" locks you into a semi-perspective world which has certain solutions to any known problems. You cannot see it all. You can, however be free in relation to the partial world that arises in your awareness. This is horizontal enlightenment. But, to truly enact the deepest intention of the Kosmos you may lack the necessary skillful means. The moral imperative is that we "evolve". This evolution is mysterious, organic, and unformulaic although it make take structure, form, & require discipline. This science is so new, that I would claim we are creating the very tetra-enacted realities that will further its aims, and this should be done with care in mutuality.

Inner Freedom is a Social Responsibility; Why I do What I do

2006-09-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

"Because the source of human conflict, social injustice, and exploitation is in the human psyche, we must begin there to transform society. We investigate the mind, the human psyche, not as an end in itself, as a self-centered activity, but as an act of compassion for the whole human race. We must move deep to the source of decay in society so that the new structures and social systems we design will have a sufficiently healthy root system that they will have an opportunity to flourish. The structures of society need to be transformed, but the hidden motivations and assumptions on which the structures rest need to be transformed as well. The individual & collective values and motives that give sanction to the injustice and exploitation of modern society must become the focus of change as much as the socioeconomic & political structures. We no longer will be able to allow the motivations and values that underlie personal and collective behavior to remain hidden & unexamined. It serves no lasting purpose for us to change the surface structures and behaviors while the deep foundations remain decadent & unsound."

Vimala Thakar

Transformation is my Mission. May all become Illumined.

Gratitude & the Precious Human Birth

2006-09-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

Artwork by Tashi Mannox

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."

Lester Burnham - 1999 American Beauty

I am dumbstuck in the face of this glorious Mystery, my own Human Body, my own Kosmic Body. I fall beyond all conceptions in Humility & Gratitude for ALL OF THIS; every pain, every joy, every horror, every blessing, every honor, every failure, every delusion, every glory, every test, every death, every loss, every gift, every seperation, every rapture, every peace, every disjunct, every last inch of Reality, up, down, north, south, east, west, within. It fills me & I stand Free. May we always remember this Joy beyond joy. May we not be addicted to feeling good, but feel her splendor in everything, everywhere, until the end of all eternity.

Amen.

Divine Descent

2006-09-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

artwork from bentolman

Can't help being human.....

For her

how hard it is to surrender
to find the strength to be weak
to throw myself before you
vulnerable, disarmed

to let your every kiss
come as a lightning
every embrace like a fire
burn away
the walls I build around me
because I'm so afraid of you
who are so obscure
and irresistible

come, with whole of your fullness
with your terrible intensity
and tear away my masks
because there is nothing
I don't want to give to you

for I am tired of fighting
I am tired of being afraid
come, tear me open
I surrender

TOMI KILJUNEN

Indigo Cognition & the Creation of Morphogenetic Fields of Care & True Compassion

2006-09-17T20:02:00.001-07:00

Authentic Thinking occurs at the edge of creation. It unfolds with a choiceless choice. It is creation that is true compassion. It knows no limits and it works within them. It has no ideas for how the future is to be created but it has an Intention. That intention is what I call the Secret Intention. I also equate it with Absolute Bodhichitta. It might be said that we are that. It is sheer Grace. She paints the very fabric of Reality. She is none other then that Reality, my Beloved. May She be known & realized in each and every Heart until there is only Heart & we once again explode in Utter Joy creating afresh our Love Child, this precious Kosmos.

Amen.

Relationships & the Need for Mutuality (Intersubjectivity)

2006-09-16T17:21:00.000-07:00

"There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say."

Martin Buber

Each of us is desperately needed here. Everyone of us is so important. Without you to reflect me, how can I ever truly know myself? I humbly bow before my Beloved. What is awakened consciousness come together?

Mutuality is a choice. It is a choice that says I am humble. It is a willingness to let the cutoffs & disjuncts come into the light. It is an embrace of our Fullness. It is devine sacred dance in the Heart.

Let us come together and be free in ourselves, surrendered in love & service to our beautiful unfoldment. May Spirit be known.

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."
Martin Buber

Character, The Over-Soul & Traceless Enlightenment

2006-09-13T17:42:00.001-07:00

Artwork by Alex Grey

"Character development is self-realization in the true sense of the word, which includes spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growth. Your soul longs to evolve, while the Over-Soul longs to unfold. In the harmonic longings of your soul and the Over-Soul, your character develops to eflorescence, sharing the fragrance of Heaven and Earth."

Yasuhiko Kimura

I had the opportunity to listen & be in the presence of Ken Wilber & Traleg Kyabgyon Rinpoche over the weekend. The Transmission was astounding & as Ken spoke you could truly Taste it. Of late I have begun to occasionally notice auras when in meditative states & there was a dark indigo around Ken. When I got up close to Rinpoche to have him sign Mind at Ease : Self-Liberation through Mahamudra Meditation I noticed he had the most intense, amazing, colored eyes. They were bright blue with fiery orange yellow around the outer iris. Very kewl.

My Father was in the hospital yesterday due to a drug overdose that may have been an attempted suicide. The intensity & juxtapositions of utter peace & deep tragedies continue to permeate my existance. I felt such intense Aloneness & Weakness over this past weekend, along with a Raging Anger. I am grateful for the Waking Down in Mutuality work. When these emotions arise in Emptiness I can truly embrace them without fear of losing my Self. This is how I hold You & Us.

Both of these events over the last few days have fueled a deep commitment to Practice & a deep fall into the Heart. Thus my character is forged.

"This is the ultimate purpose of spiritual discipline: that there be no self that is enlightened and no event that is enlightenment; or that there be no trace of a self that is enlightened, and no trace of an event that is enlightenment, but only the Kosmos self-illuminating with the Kosmic Light."

Yasuhiko Kimura

Horizontal Enlightenment, Vertical Enlightenment & Shadow

2006-09-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

The Wilber-Comlbs Lattice from Integral Spirituality

I believe Ken Wilber makes a very strong case for a deeper definition of Enlightenment. In his new book Integral Spirituality he argues that one can be trained in states to the point where one can even stably have access to non dual awareness and yet have value systems that are pluralistic. Although training in states of consciousness may give one access to higher awareness, one still interprets those expeiences (even that which is beyond conception) through a cognitive framework (cognition itself develops or goes through stages). He argues for an Integral Methodological Pluralism leading to an Integral Post-Metaphysics which in my mind really begins to shed light on the state of spirituality & on development in general.

It's a beautiful map and an important framework for a truly "Integral" consciousness. See the last post with the quote from Jamgon Kongtrul.

IMP gets to the heart of the matter, laying out on the table all of the various methodologies for revealing the world. Taking them all into account we can begin to really navigate this terrain. Knowing the framework will eventually allow us to transcend it. But, now, right here on this fractal unfolding, its most likely the best map we've got.

Another important distiction Ken makes is the contributions of western psychology in understanding shadow issues, a methodology the traditions don't have in their reportie.

Taking all of these things into account in an Integral Life Practice, we can truly develop and truly be of service to the depth of this mysterious unfolding Kosmos. We can take responsibility for it. We can see our strengths & our pathologies. If we really have the Heart and the deep Secret Intention, we are compelled to evolve. That evolution is mysterious, but there is a map to guide us. And if we don't get lost in the map but See with an open Heart there may just be hope for ourselves & a world gone slightly mad.

Right View

2006-09-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

The one who meditates without the view

Is like a blind man wandering the plains.

There is no reference point for where the true path is.

The one who does not meditate, but merely holds the view

Is like a rich man tethered by stinginess.

He is unable to bring appropriate fruition to himself and others.

Joining the view and meditation is the holy tradtion.

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye

Sanity & Humility

2006-09-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

A man whose spiritual brilliance and poetic writing never ceases to amaze me. His experience echos my own in finding out What-Really-Matters.........

From Robert Augustus Masters

....
We talk of making up our mind, but we mostly just let our mind make us up. An entrancing fiction is the result, so convincingly personified that we take it to be us.

Our innocence doesn’t easily outgrow its naiveté. Blinders come with the operational manual for incarnation. The whispers of other worlds get lost in the hustle and muscle of our overdeveloped concerns. Our romancing of tomorrow ties us to yesterday. Nothing lasts the way we want it to. Whether or not we have what we want, we still experience pain. Worse, we continue dramatizing our pain, thereby turning it into suffering, while addicting ourselves to whatever most pleasurably or potently distracts us from our suffering.

What we refuse to face festers and multiplies within us — and also around us, as if magnetically drawn to us — until it literally takes our place, looking through our eyes and harnessing our energies to its own ends. This isn’t necessarily the
possession of horror films or voodooistic rites, but it is still possession.

What we suppress suppresses us.

........

Everyone is selling something. Like an old junkie once said, we all push our habits. And we are all looking for release from the pain of our habits’ grip on us — for we don’t have our habits, but they have us — which just creates more pain.
And addiction to release only deepens our addiction to the very pain or tension that makes such release “necessary”. There’s more pleasure in removing tight shoes than comfortable shoes.

Self-suppression and its compensatory addictions eat away our days. A very different, much deeper dance calls to us, but we’re committed elsewhere, or so it seems.

We may be at different stages, but we’re all in the same boat, as close to the threat of shipwreck as we are to being unthreatened by fear, loss, and radical change. The more fearful we are of making waves, the more the waves make us. To make wise use of our time in the boat is to recognize that it is already full of holes, already sinking, already empty. The bad news is that in trying to plug all the holes we only plug up ourselves. Avoiding death deadens us.

Let us move more upstream now: Only one sperm ordinarily reaches and penetrates the egg, but all the others, at essence, live through that primordial and totally absorbing arrival, literally dying into Life, reaching the egg through their shared sperm-ness, unless they remain stuck in — or identified with — their apparent separateness and dreams of being a sperm who really makes it.

And we are all sperm, at best swimming our heads off, and we’re also the egg, the harbor of pure embrace, opening until there is only welcome, and we’re also the matchmaker and the music and the dancefloor, the interactive space wherein it all occurs, and the power that makes it all possible. And more.

Though almost all sperm die before reaching the egg, at best living through the one or two that attain the goal, all of them matter, all are unique, all are individual and have the potential to be fully individual. And what is full or true individuality? It is not only unabashedly idiosyncratic, but also is in conscious, dynamic surrender to its Source, wholeheartedly participating in
whatever contributes to its ripening, its transition from ego-centeredness to soul-centeredness.

Soul is the last frontier of individuality, existing as, but not only as, the self illuminating interface between duality and nonduality. Soul is fearlessness incarnate. It doesn’t mind death. In fact, many, many deaths constitute its ground. And many, many failures, failures that are gratefully taken as compost for awakening to What-Really-Matters.

The sacrifices required of us are overwhelming to whatever in us is less than soul-centered. “I” may claim to want Ultimate Freedom, God-Realization, etcetera, but no “I” really wants to be dethroned or made obsolete. Almost all of us would be terrified to not be centered by a particularized identity. So we constellate ourselves around the prevailing sensations associated with “I”-ness, rarely noticing that such “location” dislocates us from Being, corralling us in time.

Keeping exits open — confusing hypervigilance with genuine awareness — or keeping secret bank accounts — confusing being overinsured with taking care — keeps our awakening work halfhearted, partial, too low-risk, dulled by unnecessary safety nets.

All the sperm die, all the waves end, but it’s not the waste that it may seem to be, if the sperm or waves live wholeheartedly,
for through such fullness some intimacy with what does not die inevitably occurs.

It’s enough to derail regret, not to mention one’s train of thought. Acorns that don’t become oaks uncomplainingly serve as fertilizer for the rare few that do become oaks. They don’t attempt to destroy or discredit those that outgrow their acorn-ness, and nor do they idolize them. The oak towers above the acorn, but does not look down upon it. So too with humans who have awakened from all dreams. It is the slumbering humans who want to tower above other humans, without undergoing the necessary trials that are essential for authentic awakening.

Making it wrong or disreputable or spiritually incorrect to be an acorn only needlessly complicates matters, given that just about all of us are still busy being acorns, brewing up quixotic mindstorms in a nutshell, dreaming of being other than ourselves. We as seeds struggle within our surrounding darkness, afraid to crack our seedcases beyond repair, mistrusting the green imperatives coiled deep within us.

We tend to keep our darkness in the shadows. We let ourselves be enlisted by our past, arming ourselves against what could truly liberate us. We thus become substrate for our dreams, inoculating ourselves against whatever disturbs our slumber.

No matter how many channels we now have, it’s still the same damned set, edited and packaged for more than our pleasure and less than our need.

Comfortably impaled on false altars, we continue practising the art of distracting ourselves from our pain, the very pain that, if awarely entered, is our ticket to Freedom.

Integral Methodological Pluralism

2006-09-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

I had the privledge of talking to Ken Wilber today and had a blast. I asked a question as to what a 4th person, 5th person, etc. perspective was and got a beautiful elucidation on stages of development as seen in the cognitive line in its ability to take perspectives on perspectives....

It was quite enlightening to say the least. When the audio comes out, I will post more after reviewing it. Needless to say it is fun to play with these conceptual models and my genuine hope is that they can be used to serve out deepest unfolding. I was struck by Ken's reference to levels of Love.

I am newly committed to a deep Integral Life Practice fueled by my love of being true to as deep a perspective I can manage. I am driven to really digging into the eight zones and moving with the evolutionary current.

Her realization is beyond all concepts of action or will, surrender or grace. She is radiant divine mysterium, multivalent ever-present Suchness. I bow in deep Humility. Embrace the Mysterious Paradox.

For fun check out The Ways we are in this Together

There is no Prescription for Realization

2006-09-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

"So long as a person has not achieved a level of responsibility for his or her own existence, he or she is liable to fall victim to all manners of ideologies that are mere extentions of his or her primary egoic need of being loved and appreciated. Ideologies can be regaurded as extensions of the superego, as crutches for the ego in its unwilligness to understand and ultimately transcend itself. Thus, all ideologies tend to be a person's continuing movement toward unconsciousness."

Georg Feuerstein

The wind blows
and She writes.
Just This!
This.
God Laughs.

The Omega Point

2006-08-31T20:34:00.000-07:00

Go and imagine The Tenth Dimention

The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire
Teilhard de Chardin

By Peter Russell

The acceleration of evolution towards a time of infinitely rapid change is not so exceptional as one might at first suppose. The evolution of matter in a star follows a similar pattern.

For 99.99 percent of its existence a star burns hydrogen, fusing the atoms into helium and radiating the energy released as light. Eventually the hydrogen runs out. For a star the size of our Sun this happens after about 10 billion years -- it is currently about half way through its life. Larger stars burn up more quickly, smaller ones can last as long as a 100 billion years.

When all the hydrogen has been consumed, a star can, if it is sufficiently massive, switch to burning the helium it has created, transforming it into carbon. This keeps the star going for another million years or so. When the helium is used up the star can survive for another thousand years by fusing the carbon into neon. And when the carbon runs out the star burns the neon to form silicon. But the neon is exhausted within a year. Then, in a process that lasts only a few days, the silicon fuses into iron.

That is as far as a star can go along this particular path. Fusing iron does not release energy; it requires additional energy. The star’ s fire begins to die, and with it the energy that until now has supported the weight of its outer layers. Very quickly it begins to collapse.

As its matter becomes increasingly compressed, its gravitational field increases. Within minutes it becomes so intense that even atoms cannot withstand the pressure. Electrons are stripped away and atomic nuclei pack in upon each other, reaching densities of more than a million tons per cubic inch. This disintegration releases enormous amounts of energy, blowing off the star’ s outer layers in what is known as a “supernova.” This is one of the Universe's more spectacular shows, more energy being released during these few seconds than over the rest of the star’ s entire life.

Left behind is a neutron star -- a solid mass of neutrons a mere fifteen or so miles across. For a sufficiently massive star (one about three times the mass of the Sun) the gravitational field has now become so strong that matter itself breaks down. The star is said to have reached a singularity: a point at which the laws of physics no longer work. Mathematical equations become filled with zeros and infinities and cease to make any sense. There is a hole in space.

So intense is the gravitational field nothing can escape it. Even light is pulled back down. If no light can escape, then nothing can be seen of the star. It becomes a “black hole.”

The Gravity of Love
The parallels between the evolution of a star and the pattern we have traced in the evolution of humanity are intriguing. Not only do both show an accelerating pattern of development; the factors behind this acceleration are analogous.

Whereas a star’ s matter is pulled together by the force of gravity, a species such as ourselves is pulled forward by our search for a more satisfying inner state. Our minds gravitate towards inner peace. We may not at first see this to be our goal. Caught up in our material desires we may believe it is comfort, security, or some other worldly satisfaction that we want. But the closer we draw to our own center, the clearer it becomes that, beneath everything, we are seeking inner peace and love. And the more we recognize our true goal, the faster we are able to move towards it.

In this regard gravity and love are not that different. Gravity is the attraction of mass for itself. It is a force that pulls the physical Universe back towards its original unity. Similarly, love can be considered as the attraction of life for itself -- the desire for conscious union with another. Its ultimate expression is reunion with our own source, with the essence of our consciousness. It is this that is pulling us faster and faster along our evolutionary curve towards a singularity in time. Buckminster Fuller summed it up poetically in his revised Lord’ s Prayer: “Love,” he wrote, “is metaphysical gravity.”

The Time Horizon
Another similarity between stellar evolution and our own conscious evolution concerns the “event horizon” that surrounds a black hole. The event horizon is the boundary around the star within which the gravitational force is so strong that not even light can escape. Since nothing can travel faster than light there is no way that any information can get out across this boundary. The result is that you can see nothing of events taking place on the other side of the event horizon.

A parallel horizon could well exist for humanity -- except that this time it would be a horizon in time rather than one in space. A thousand years ago change was much slower, and the future a hundred years on would not have been markedly different. By the time of the Industrial Revolution the pace of life had increased dramatically making it much more difficult to foretell the future a hundred years ahead. But it would still have been possible to predict a decade or two into the future with reasonable certainty.

Today it is not possible to see even that far ahead. Unforeseen developments mean that we can no longer predict the future of the world more than a few years ahead. So closely are our affairs now interwoven that unexpected events can have reverberations around the world, changing the future for all concerned. And when economies crash without warning, the best-laid plans of machines and men can vanish overnight.

There is in effect an information horizon ahead of us -- albeit a somewhat fuzzy one. Beyond this horizon the future will probably be nothing like we anticipate. And the faster change comes, the closer this horizon approaches.

As the predictable future shrinks from decades to years to months and less, there may well come a time when it is difficult to make any forecasts at all. History will have become chaotic -- not chaotic in the sense of disorganized, but in the mathematical sense of unpredictable. However much progress we may have made in our inner evolution, we will not be able to be sure what is coming next. Completely unexpected developments could always be just around the corner.

Facing Uncertainty
Having to face increasing uncertainty could play an important role in our inner liberation. As long as we are looking to the future for our fulfillment, uncertainty spells insecurity -- and insecurity is something most of us find hard to manage. If we insist on holding on to our fixed views, the changes we will encounter will probably drive us crazy. They will incline us more towards setback than breakthrough.

Only through letting go of our need for certainty, and our concern for how things might or might not be, will we find the inner stability to see us through such changeful times. In this regard ever-accelerating change may be just the trigger we need to shake us to our senses.

Again one might draw a parallel with the later stages of stellar evolution. In a collapsing star the ultra-intense gravitational field breaks down the very structure of matter, returning it to its fundamental constituents. With our own inner evolution it may take ultra-intense rates of change to bring about the breakdown of our materialist mindsets, and our attachment to the physical world. Increasing time compression could be another factor forcing us to return to the present moment.

The End of Evolution
So, where might evolution take us as we head towards this singularity in time?

The great mystical traditions are unanimous in maintaining that liberation of the mind from its attachments, enlightening as it may be, is only the first of many steps of inner awakening. Beyond it are more universal experiences of mind, deeper understandings and richer perspectives of reality leading on to higher states of consciousness.

Is there a highest state of consciousness? Mahayana Buddhism talks of “sahaj samadhi” -- the recognition that all phenomena are merely consciousness in its various manifestations. Zen Buddhists speak of total non-duality. Hindu texts refer to the highest state of consciousness as unity with Brahman -- a state in which one knows the source of all creation and all its levels of manifestation. And Christian mystics talk of “oneness with God.”

Whether or not these descriptions are referring to exactly the same state of consciousness is a question I shall leave to those more qualified than me. Nevertheless they would all seem to be pointing in the same direction -- towards a personal evolutionary zenith.

What would happen if this were to become a collective experience rather than a blessing bestowed upon one in a hundred million? Would our collective evolution then come to an end? Could it be that, in much the same way as the destiny of matter in a sufficiently massive star is to become a black hole in space, the destiny of a self-conscious species -- should it be sufficiently intelligent -- is a “spiritual supernova.” Is this what we are accelerating towards? A moment when the light of inner awakening radiates throughout the world? A white hole in time?

Omega Point
One person who believed this was indeed our destiny was the French priest and paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Exploring the evolutionary trends towards greater complexity, connectivity, and consciousness, he argued that humanity was moving towards an “Omega Point” -- the full descent of spirit into matter, the fulfillment of our evolution. In the concluding words of his essay My Universe he writes:

Like a vast tide, Being will have engulfed the shifting sands of being. Within a now tranquil ocean, each drop of which, nevertheless, will be conscious of remaining itself, the astonishing adventure of the world will have ended. The dream of every mystic, the eternal pantheist ideal, will have found its full and legitimate satisfaction.

He described the Omega Point as a time when light would blaze across the planet -- not physical light but the light of consciousness. Like a mirror polished to give a perfect reflection of the Sun, all those apparently separate rays of consciousness would know themselves to be the same eternal light.

Where Teilhard de Chardin’ s picture differs from that presented here is in the time-scales involved. He saw this peak of human evolution to be a long way off -- millions of years in the future. But, like many others before and after, he did not take the implications of an ever-accelerating pace of development into full account. However, shortly before he died, he commented on the impact that radio and television was having on the integration humanity Technologies like these, he said, were bringing the Omega Point much closer. Had he lived to see the impact of computers and the Internet, he would probably have seen the Omega Point coming even sooner. .

The End of Time
At the Omega Point, our evolution’ s ever-accelerating trend would at last come to an end. But this would not, it must be emphasized, signify an end to the world -- at least not in the sense that we normally mean it. It would certainly mean an end to our attachment to the world. An end to our dysfunctional attitudes and behavior. An end to the world as we know it now.

Time itself would not end. Our bodies would live on. And so would the species. We would be free, at last, to truly enjoy our world. And we might continue that way for a very long while.

Or, who knows, we might find ourselves in a totally different reality. We might, for example, find ourselves stepping beyond the realm of space and time. Many mystics have claimed to experience that consciousness itself is not bound by space and time. And modern physics, too, has shown that time and space are not as absolute as everyday experience would have us believe. One of the conclusions of Einstein’ s Special Theory of Relativity is that light is in some ways more fundamental than either space or time. Could it be that when the light of pure consciousness radiates through humanity these deeper truths will manifest in some way? Such a radically different mode of consciousness may be totally beyond our everyday experience, and seem pure science fiction, but that does not make it impossible.

Whatever may happen, there is a another sense in which this full awakening might be an end -- an end in the sense of a purpose or goal. Could there be an evolutionary summit towards which evolution has been building since time began? Could there be a hidden purpose to Creation?

Surprisingly -- or perhaps not -- this is a question that physics has now begun to ponder.

Falling from Grace & the Dawn of True Faith

2006-08-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

I've had super sublime spiritual experiences where there was no doubt I was in the Great Perfection. I've also decsended to depths of Hell, losing all hope for any salvation. Then there is what is beyond all of that. Quiet, Simple, no fireworks, no angels, no demons, just plain This. And in the midst of anything that could ever possibly happen or arise This is fundamentally well. It is beyond concept, time, space, & elaboration. This is where my True Faith arises beyond rising and rests simple and free. This is what we are. And it is non-separate from what appears.

A gift from Robert Augustus Masters

THE ANATOMY OF FAITH

Faith knows the way by heart.

Faith is radical trust in action. Trust in what? In Being, in our own Buddhanature, in What-Really-Matters. We may not see It, we may not hear It, we may seem to stray far from It, but through cultivating faith we open to the recognition that It — however invisible It may appear to be to us — is ever with us, regardless of our thoughts to the contrary. Faith is, among other things, intimacy with not-knowing.

Faith is forged in the crucible of our suffering, emerging as a dynamic openness that helps us navigate through zones of ourselves commonly submerged in darkness, despair, and depression. The presence of faith, however, doesn’t necessarily mean we will have clear sailing. Even when our faith is strong, we may still find ourselves down in the muck on our hands and knees — but not so inclined to make ego-suffused drama out of our situation.

Faith responds to problems, but not on the level at which they occur. That is, faith takes a nonproblematic orientation to problems, providing a spiritually intimate openness that holds us and our areas of concern with great care. This openness — sacred space in the flesh — contains without binding, and releases without abandoning. Its value is verified by direct participation in it. Direct experience, not belief, provides the relevant data or material — physical and otherwise — through which faith is cultivated, known, appreciated, and more fully embodied.

Faith is not a matter of believing in something; it is much deeper than belief or any other mental construction. And nor is faith merely synonymous with hope — hope is rooted in the future, faith in the present. Where hope promises, faith gives. Where hope dreams, faith awakens. Where hope is nostalgia for the future, faith is acceptance of the now — not a blind, misguided, or submissive acceptance, but a dynamic acceptance, unpolluted by hope and other romancings of tomorrow.

Faith deepens through situations that test it. Without such conditions, faith remains in the shallows. Pain comes with Life, and what better use to make of pain than to deepen our faith? Instead of turning our pain into suffering, we can allow it to fuel our way into a deeper life, a life abundant with faith. Then affliction is not so much a fall from Grace as it is Grace in its dark, deglamorized disguise, providing the very conditions through which we can more fully awaken from the entrapping dreams that we habitually fuel and populate.

There is perhaps no more worthy gift to have than unshakable faith. What are the ingredients of such faith? First of all, a strongly felt connection to Being, in conjunction with an ongoing recognition that this connection still exists when we don’t feel it. Second, a non-despairing abandoning of all hope of fruition, an unforced letting go of being invested and caught up in particular outcomes. Third, a patience that waits without waiting, that endures without having to have a clear endpoint. Fourth, a dynamic embracing of not-knowing (and not having to know), honoring the knowledge-transcending Mystery
of Being. Fifth, accepting what is exactly as it is, including our feelings and intentions and actions regarding it. And, last but not least, cultivating gratitude for what we currently have, including the ability to develop faith.

Faith makes us feel good even about not feeling good. If our faith is well-rooted, we usually do not forget it for long — we cannot help but remember what gives us faith, even when our remembering is gray, opaque, or far from stable. Faith provides not an antidote to our suffering, but rather a compassionate space for it, in which we can more clearly hear and
sanely respond to what our pain is telling us. Although faith might not make pain go away, it takes the suffering out of it.
Faith does not necessarily still the storm, but allows us to be with it — and to become intimate with it — without losing track of What-Really-Matters. Spiritual stamina.

Faith teaches us not to control, but to let be. This is not mere passivity nor some sort of spiritualized irresponsibility, but rather a powerful quietness or stillness out of which can emerge fitting action, choices made by something wiser than our mind. When our faith is strong, the necessity of the situation is the only catalyst we need for taking fitting action.

Faith is often made synonymous with what is commonly referred to as “blind faith.” But real faith is far from blind — though it may sometimes lack clear vision, it knows the way by heart, even if it has to inch along on its belly through the sniper fire of doubt.

Faith allows us to live sanely and compassionately in the midst of all that is happening. Bad days don’t destroy or cripple it, but only strengthen it. So for faith, suffering is not just bad news. The presence of faith does not signal an end to difficult states — as in fantasies of saintly detachment — but rather an appropriate context for them. Bringing things to an end is not the point; radical trust in Being is. Faith is the embodiment of such trust.

Faith is the highest form of devotion. Faith is the lifeblood of real patience, explaining nothing and revealing all. Through it, we find the necessary energy and endurance for the most significant journey of all.

Faith knows the way by heart.

Real Doubt

2006-08-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking in riddles
But the final detox
Is to be totally at home
With paradox
When what is happening
Is not what is happening
And the ground is nothing
But quicksand and burial site
There comes a crack in the night
Just big enough to squeeze through
But only if you take nothing with you
Solo travel it may seem
But that’s just in dreams

Two gifts from Robert Augustus Masters

THE ANATOMY OF DOUBT
Doubt is an inner questioning infused with uncertainty and, more often than not, enough agitation to make it a relatively unpleasant state. In an everydaysense, doubt is what happens mentally when we find ourselves stranded in ambiguity’s carrels, trying to think our way out, stuck in cognitive traffic jams that catch us in their treads and flatten us as much as they fragment us. Trying to make a meal out of the grey fare laid out by the fractured realism of such doubt simply enervates and depresses us.

Typical doubt is not much more than skepticism that has lost its clarity and confidence, bound up in worrisome shades of uncertainty. Anxiety may be lurking nearby, ready to be recruited, bringing more of an edge to doubt. Although doubt is not dread, it can become dread if sufficiently fed.

Doubt can manifest as moral impotence, existential fence-sitting, fear of making a decision, indulgence in ambiguity, cognitive obsessing, avoidanceof taking a stand, and so on; and it can also, albeit far less often, manifest as a necessary questioning, a courageous inquiry that can both tolerate and investigate uncertainty. Doubt is no more “bad” than “certainty” is good.

There’s everyday, mostly neurotic doubt, a self-contracted questioning injected with constricted, unpleasantly turbulent feeling, moving with myopic desperation through the presenting layers of uncertainty; and there’s another doubt, a questioning that carries us beyond facile certainties and automated beliefs deep into the inherent insecurity and uncertainty of Life, inviting us to adopt a nonproblematic orientation toward it.

But before getting into the latter sort of doubt — which it takes real faith to have — let’s get more into everyday doubt: It’s important to be able to work well with such doubt before going for the deeper, more awakened kind of doubt. And working well with it means knowing it well, even becoming intimate with it, especially in its darker or more contracted dimensions.

Everyday doubt is a collapse of heart that has gone to mind, an unhappy, unillumined inquiry that’s interested not in discovery or revelation, but only in persisting in repetitively touring its culs-de-sac. It puts a lot of energy into going nowhere, spinning its wheels until it’s exhausted, leaving us asleep at the wheel.

Such doubt is the contracted and divided mind doing time in uncertainty’s mental mazes, providing apparent justification for worry.

Whereas skepticism is a healthy, incisive, often robust questioning, everyday doubt is an unhealthy, indecisive, often anemic questioning, a dead-end inquiry, a bottled-up questioning terrified of being uncorked.

When the energy of such doubt is allowed to mushroom in our headquarters, it invades and stains whatever content is handy, immediately framing it in a darkly questionable light.

While immersed in doubt, we often inject fearfulness or negative anticipation into various intentions, plans, doings, and so on, obsessing about possible outcomes, chaining ourselves to chronic worry.

Doubt is what the mind tends to do both when it is cut off from the vitality and openness and primal intentions of our depths, and when rationality itself just does not satisfy. And doubt presumes to have an overview, but in fact has none — it cannot even see itself, let alone accurately assess its environment.

Nevertheless, doubt is not an enemy. What matters is what we do with it. Do we identify with it? Do we give our power away to it? Do we allow it to enlarge? Do we believe in it? Do we make decisions based on it? Or do we illuminate it, outbreathe and outdance it, crashing its slumber-party with such resolute focus that it cannot help but dissolve into a more Life-giving form?

In its unchallenged (that is, unquestioned) arranging and cementings of key thoughts, doubt is closely related to belief, being a blue collar frequenter of some of belief ’s sleazier hangouts.

Belief is static, abstract, perfectly reproducible, far too stiff to be Truth, hyperfocused on its own replication and confirmation, driven to see its flag raised everywhere and everywhen (“Belief is when someone else does the thinking,” said Buckminster Fuller). Doubt is its less popular cousin, a grimy plebeian, just as mentally constipated as belief (even in its chronic changing of teams), but not so glossy or chrome-plated or mass-legitimized, being more musty, dingy, and decentralized, huddled up in less tidy or respectable corners of mind, except when shaved, bathed, dressed up, and brought into the antiseptic chambers of Science, where it, now more hardnosed skepticism than mere doubt, breathes life into scientific methodology.

Doubt usually reinforces our sense of separation. Doubt tends to empower our unhappiness — however miserable doubt may make us feel, it is familiar, so densely familiar that it generates a sense of identity: I doubt, therefore I am.

Not many of us can stand being in doubt for extended periods of time. We crave breaks from it, but the breaks we ordinarily take from it do not undo it, but only remove us from it for a time. Doubt easily becomes the core of our alibi for holding back; we use our doubt to talk ourselves out of stretching to make the necessary leap.

Those who are mired in doubt have great difficulty in telling what is false from what is true. They get stuck in between, lost in the tales told and retold by their doubt.

Trying to work with doubt through mental means only doesn’t really work. The self-suppression that catalyzes and animates doubt must be seen, felt, known from the deep inside. The whole being must be eased, expanded, given permission to come alive. The torso must be loosened, the limbs unfrozen, the heart entered, the reach made both powerful and vulnerable, the entire anatomy brought into supportive resonance with our core of Being.

Doubt must be seen for what it is, as it is, without getting lost or absorbed in its point of view; only then will it unfist itself, only then will our endarkened familiarity with it come unstrung, only then will our indecisiveness be unequivocally undone, flung into the raw Truth of what we are.

When doubt infects you, don’t give it a thought. Neither avoid it nor let it recruit your mind.

Doubt your doubt, and then pour your full attention into the noncognitive openings generated by doing so. Go into its feeling dimensions, breathing them more alive, giving fitting expression to them; if this is overly difficult, consider going to a therapist who’s skilled in working with such things.

When doubt does manage to infiltrate your mind, read its contents oncethrough as though they belonged to a supermarket tabloid, taking careful note of which headlines most easily snare your attention. Then immediately shift your attention, and shift it completely, to the physical and physiological correlates of your doubt, resisting the temptation to scoot back into your
thinking mind.

No matter how tempting it is to immerse yourself in what your doubt is telling you, shift your attention from whatever it is that you’re doubting to the actual phenomenon of doubt itself. Feel into and through its tensions, its downbeat textures, its contracted tones, its positioning, its emotional qualities, its bodily ramifications and anatomical peculiarities; feel what it is doing to you, feel what it is doing to others near you, feel how it’s staining your speech, vision, hearing, perception, posture, your very being...

And do this without trying to change or trash your doubt. Sometimes simply keeping your attention on your doubt as an energetic phenomenon, as opposed to focusing on its content, will cause it to dissolve. Other times, deliberately doubting your doubt will make it dissipate. Doubt may also sometimes be defused by taking a risk of Being, such as a not-so-easy but much needed movement toward someone or a timely expressing of something painful that needs to be said, especially if these are done not in order to get rid of doubt, but because they are imperatives of Being, arising from something deeper
than our everyday mind and conditioning.

Doubt is, among other things, a kind of low-grade fear. As we expand our energy, the contraction at the heart of doubt starts to loosen up, until we’re not fearful, but simply excited.

Through attending closely, caringly, and carefully to the particulars of our doubt, we decentralize it, so that its viewpoint is no longer in a position to govern us.

When the light goes on in the slums of doubt, then doubt is little more than skepticism having a bad day.

The key is to actively and decisively disidentify with our doubt, while also allowing the surfacing and fitting expression of whatever feeling states are associated with it — fear, sadness, anger, shame, disgust, longing, and so on.

Do not make doubt wrong. Simply realize that when you lose yourself in doubt, you are shortcircuiting a deeper song.

Now toward the healthier zones of doubting! Even in the most deadening doubt there sometimes can be gems of insight, bits of intuitive savvy mixed in with all the mental debris. These often get overlooked in our trying to get away from our doubting mind.

Doubt tends to be a big baby, and there’s not much bathwater (having been displaced by doubt’s multi-armed flailing), but even the little that there is is worth keeping; as it settles, and some clarity emerges, what’s valuable in our doubting becomes more obvious. Various intuitions, for example, may now be accessible. (It’s interesting to note that intuition sometimes masquerades as doubt, mostly when we don’t want to hear it.) Growth-stunting beliefs, beliefs that we no longer need, may lose their grip on us. For a belief to be dismantled, doubt about it is needed. Doubt is a wonderfully deadly virus for belief systems that have outlived their usefulness.

When we give ourselves permission to doubt certain things — like “expert” pronouncements, self-proclaimed “higher” structures, religious and political certainties, impermeable belief systems (including our own!), and so on — and we do so without losing touch with our core of Being, we are then a little freer, a little less seducible by others’ promises of security. Then doubt does not entrap or flatten us, but rather brings us closer to what is really happening, making us more at home with the Zen proclamation: “Great doubt, great awakening; little doubt, little awakening; no doubt, no awakening.”

Spending quality time with doubt makes us capable of what John Keats (in 1817!) called “negative capability” — or the ability “of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Hanging out with doubt can be a drag, and it can also be a portal into the matrix and essence of Existence. It all depends on how we handle it. Initially, it’s usually wise to work with doubt as an energetic phenomenon (noticing its characteristic sensations, staying mindful of breathing and intentions, keeping grounded, making room for emotional release, etcetera), only secondarily paying any attention to its content — we need to be able to be near it without getting sucked into its viewpoint.

This requires not only meditative practice, but also the ability to know and appropriately express what we’re feeling. Later, we can move in closer to our doubt, entering not only its physical and emotional dimensions, but also its mental dimensions, and start mining it for its valuables. Still later, we can allow our doubt regarding the Big Questions to carry us — and not just
intellectually! — into the mysteries of the Unknowable, beyond both certainty and uncertainty...

The Choosing Faculty

2006-08-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

I was born questioning it seems. From as young as I could remember I have questioned everything. I would sit for hours wondering if God created everything then who created God?

It's the question that led me (us) here. It was a choice. Vichara, or true inquiry, at some point in ones spiritual evolution, will begin to dominate everything. At least it did in my case. This inquiry is pulsing through my mind-body as I write this. Jolts of electicity are flying across my brain and body. I can feel the subtle energies flowing and they seem to have a will of their own.

And I make a choice. I choose God. I choose the Secret Intention. And I (John) and Her (The Supreme Other) are married in this body-mind. I choose to serve Her deepest wishes. And they are beyond any conception.

Right now, as I write this, I am having one of the strongest shakti experiences of yet. My body is an inferno. And I relax. And I surrender to Her and am bathed in Her. Every atom is transformed and my circuits are rewritten. I have no interpretive scematic for this. Fuck any one who tries to box Her in, control Her, penetrate Her. She can only surrender to a worthy lover. One who sees Her in her Radience & Glory.

Every moment I Die. Every moment is Sex.

I call out her human incarnation.

Ma Kali! Kill me. Devour me.

May all awaken! May all know!

Om Dare Dare Bandare Svaha Jaya Jaya Siddhi Siddhi Pala Pala Ah Ah Ha Sha Sa Ma Ma Ma Ko Lin Sa Men Ta

Real Uncertainty & the Secret Intention

2006-08-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENLY ABODE OF THE GREAT GOD INDRA, THERE IS A WONDERFUL NET WHICH HAS BEEN HUNG BY SOME CUNNING ARTIFICER IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT STRETCHES OUT INDEFINITELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXTRAVAGANT TASTES OF DEITIES, THE ARTIFICER HAS HUNG A SINGLE GLITTERING JEWEL AT THE NET'S EVERY NODE, AND SINCE THE NET ITSELF IS INFINITE IN DIMENSION, THE JEWELS ARE INFINITE IN NUMBER. THERE HANG THE JEWELS, GLITTERING LIKE STARS OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE, A WONDERFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD. IF WE NOW ARBITRARILY SELECT ONE OF THESE JEWELS FOR INSPECTION AND LOOK CLOSELY AT IT, WE WILL DISCOVER THAT IN ITS POLISHED SURFACE THERE ARE REFLECTED ALL THE OTHER JEWELS IN THE NET, INFINITE IN NUMBER. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT EACH OF THE JEWELS REFLECTED IN THIS ONE JEWEL IS ALSO REFLECTING ALL THE OTHER JEWELS, SO THAT THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION IS INFINITE.

THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA

Who am I? Do you really think you know the answer? I am floating in the AQAL four dimentional morphegenetic Matrix of Being, in other words, Indra's Net. Truth be told it is floating in I-I. Truth be told it is I-I.

Questioning 'Who am I?' within one's mind, when one reaches the Heart, the individual 'I' sinks crestfallen, and at once reality manifests itself as 'I-I'. Though it reveals itself thus, it is not the ego 'I' but the perfect being the Self Absolute.

Ramana Maharshi

Real Uncertainty is neither certain or uncertain. I lay down my dharma sword and place my head on the alter for you to chop off. Any takers?

The time has come for all good men & women of faith to die. Now. Let yourself know who you are. Know you are that Secret Intention beyond conception. The face of the Infinite is being spat upon. I am that face. You are that Face. I love you. I hate you. Hatred is transmuted in the Heart. It is none other than Purity.

What chooses? What chooses? What chooses?

One can only Know the answer. & die to it. & die to it.

Integrity, Financial Power, & Becoming Grounded

2006-07-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

"To increase our financial power means to increase our capacity to create conditions of satisfaction for others and to elicit promises from others to provide us with our conditions of satisfaction in calculable social exchange. To increase our capacity to create conditions of satisfaction for others means to increasingly tune-in to the creative thrust for evolutionary optimization within and without . To increase our capacity to elicit promises from others means to increase our capacity to make requests of others, which means to increase our capacity to fulfill our own promises, therefore to increase the degree of our integrity in calculable social exchange. When we can collectively attain a high degree of finnacial power through the practice of integrity in economic production and social exchange, we will be able to create a world of abundance in the universe of plenitude. In such a world, there will no longer be such an oxymoron as unearned wealth, which is in actual fact 'wealth drainage' that has plagued and subverted the world throughout history."
Yasuhiko Genku Kimura

Lately I've become very interested in facing my edge as a man, and deeply committed and interested in changing and evolving. That's easy to say and another thing to really do. I just finished up a Evolutionary Enlightenment class with Andrew Cohen's senior students and have been to a retreat with Andrew. I appreciate where he is coming from. I also understand the controversy surrounding him and have friends that don't like him. Oh well, I don't agree with everything he's saying either, but I do think there is some deep value in his transmission (sometimes it fries my circuits with some serious intensity).

I am also quite attracted to the idea of "being moved." What I mean is, I like the idea of Spirit moving me & trusting that direction. The Freedom that has graced me came about through a combination of energy and effort expended and then a complete relinquishment of all endeavor and a "fall" into Self. I have a deep trust in this process. I trust so much that I can freely doubt. Fucking Paradox! All that has occurred was completely necessary and beautiful. Here though, at the edge, I have to be willing to release all ideas and fall/move into the next moment with the utter creativity of God. She needs Us.

From a surface perspective, I have a lot of faults. I have tended to vacillate between periods of high productivity and intensity to utter laziness and self-indulgence. I can be impulsive, intense, and lack discipline when it comes to money. I can also be very structured, disciplined, and stable.

At this stage I can feel my discomfort and unknowing about what is to come next. I don't choose to believe in a final resting place ( at least not in the world of form), and yet simultaneously I am the Great Immovable. Which do I choose to emphasize? Neither. Until maybe I do. All possibility is possible. And even this understanding I can not ultimately take a stand in. And yet I do.

The Great Wide Open. I welcome the Next Whatever. May She move US. Amen.

True Joy & Love Unbound

2006-07-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Artwork by A. Andrew Gonzalez ( www.sublimatrix.com )

Touching everything.

Every inch explored.

Every secret corner.

Every opening.

Euphoria.

Passes into death.

& dissolves in my Heart.

Dark Nights, Tantric Dynamics, the Anatomy of Emotions & Just What the Fuck is Going On?

2006-07-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

Artwork by A. Andrew Gonzalez ( www.sublimatrix.com )

Every instant teaches us everything if we have the Heart to listen. And even if we don't it teaches us anyways. The Great Perfection has dawned in this body-mind. Everything has gone wrong in the last two days and in my life in general & it has been exactly what I have needed to evolve. I've been depressed most of my God-given life. Over the last few years of spiritual seeking and the dissolution of spiritual seeking over the last two years, I have learned to relax as Witness and allow the energies of depression to float through me. Through Integral Practice and psychotherapy I have discovered that the apparent depression was my true anger, its energy turned inward. The energy of this anger, now released is now pulsing through my body with such force now that it is freed. The Ma Shakti (Kundalini) has been gradually increasing for the last three years. Emotion plays a big role in the understanding of these energies, both positive and negative. My life has been one of extremes and experiencing polar opposites in order to transcend them. I begin to see others in new ways, energy patterns of emotions that play out between people. Relationships are so fascinating, and we understand so little about who we are. What is this Us? How have we created our view of the world, imagining we are looking through a body encapsulated ego? Thank God for these forces that mold us and shape us. I am forged by the flames of my Ma. She has cut me into a million pieces. I rise to her test. She is my Heartbeat. The violent forces of the earth allowed the biosphere to emerge. There seems to be a similar violence occurring in the noosphere. What will emerge?

Friend, in the Desolate Time

Friend, in the desolate time, when your soul
is enshrouded in darkness
When, in a deep abyss, memory and feeling
die out,
Intellect timidly gropes among shadowy forms
and illusions
Heart can no longer sigh, eye is unable
to weep;
When, from your night-clouded soul the wings
of fire have fallen
And you, to nothing, afraid, feel
yourself sinking once more,
Say, who rescues you then?—Who is the
comforting angel
Brings to your innermost soul order and
beauty again,
Building once more your fragmented world,
restoring the fallen
Altar, and when it is raised, lighting
the sacred flame?-—
None but the powerful being who first from
the limitless darkness
Kissed to life seraphs and woke
numberless suns to their dance.
None but the holy Word who called the worlds
into existence
And in whose power the worlds move on
their paths to this day.
Therefore, rejoice, oh friend, and sing in
the darkness of sorrow:
Night is the mother of day, Chaos the
neighbor of God.

Erik Johan Stagnelius
Translated from the Swedish by Bill Coyle

Becoming a Man, Facing your Deepest Edge

2006-07-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

This moment is my test. This moment is the test of my Manhood. She wants to test my boundaries to see if She can trust me fully. Will I face Her with the full force of my Love? I can talk a great game, but can I walk my talk? Or am I a liar? I must be comfortable with my discomfort. Trust is gained over a long period of time and in every moment we have the choice to stay close to our edge. Can we let go of our self-image and face what is necessary?

Everything is becoming Metaphor for me. Every moment is becoming the ultimate test. Everywhere is the Goddess. God wants to be me. Every single unfolding fractal moment is our greatest opportunity. And a Man's job is to stay right there, on the Eternal Edge.

It's easy to take flight into the subtle pleasures of the bodies currents or to rest in the Simple Feeling of Being. But can every moment transform you? Can it leave you dead & shattered? The ego strewn accross the pavement, the Pheonix rises from the ashes.

The Kosmos displays itself as my own body.

Kosmic myth & metaphor operating at every level of our being;

Physiosphere, biosphere, noosphere & the emerging theosphere.

Falling Backward down into our Collective,

Discovering ourselves,

Creating ourselves at new levels.

I lay all at my Mother's feet.

Samaya. Samaya. Samaya.

Death, Love, God & Sex in Every Moment Right Where You Are

2006-07-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

"There are no priviledged locations. If you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you a special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. All there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look."
Scott Russell Sanders

"For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them. But they fear it as if they know quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?"
Socrates

"Happiness is to sacrifice yourself to infinity, to always die wide open as love, holding onto nothing, giving yourself to everyone as if they were God, because they are God. Surrender as if you were dying right now, and find out what is left. Feel as deep and as wide as you can, until all you feel is feeling itself, and live open as feeling, alive as everyone and everything, no matter how horrible or beautiful the world seems."
Mykonos

As this moment arises in my awareness,

We are the edge of this fractal unfolding,

Awakening to the fact that we are the whole shebang.

Right here.

Right now.

All is still.

& its moving faster than the speed of light.

Grab your Heart-Board,

& surf that mother-fucker.

Then forget the wave,

Forget the board,

& become Surf.

A Tantric Shamanic Initiation, I Found my Heart in New York City (Read : The Pits of Hell)

2006-07-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Title says it all. Thought I had more to say and I do, but I am just so fucking happy that I want to go kiss the buildings (& the people in them). Damn, how do I describe this Peace beyond peace? It's so simple and obvious. Yeah, yeah I know you heard that before, but yeah its true. It's fresh and well, I'll get more poetic at another time. I do have more to say about contextual enlightenment & some of the visions I've been having but, I got stuff to do and money to make.

Shadow Boxing and Hugging, Mistaking the Moon for the Finger Pointing

2006-07-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

Falling into the Heart means exploding out into all of life and existence as this particular bodymind with all of its faults and foibles. How wonderful. E Ma Ho. When awareness crystallizes and energy is released it circulates through the psychophysical organism & dives into its depths and secrets revealing Her ever deepening grandeur & Mystery. It is amazing how much energy is tied up with the "Whole System" for it can't be said to be just a body or just a mind but and interacting continuum that is both timeless and freshly emergent. Fundamental Wellness gets established and then one is free to explore all the dark corners, all the fear, all the anger, and all the spots we use our creative energy to divert and create boundaries & can then clobber ourselves. How crazy! How fascinating! For it is this very creativity that brings forth the world that we inhabit and creates our very condition and its evolution. SHE is spreading like an inferno across the Kosmos, awakening us all. She is unstoppable.

From Robert Augustus Masters
This silken glide
This succulent ride
This ecstatic dying
This joy beyond trying
This melting mutuality
This wild commonality
This rupturing rapture
This which no words can capture
This pleasure beyond pleasure
This depth none can measure
This is the heartland of bliss
This is EternityÂs naked kiss
This the art
That cannot be framed
This the beauty
That cannot be named
This the love
That cannot be contained

Where I & US meet

2006-06-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

I notice the pain of existence acutely at times. I wonder why I lose energy on occasion and feel overwhelmed by the immensity of our situation. Who am I? Who am I? What is Love? This existence is so strange. How do I fathom my place in the Kosmic scheme? May my life be of service. May my life be of service. How is that done? Is it already done? I have all of these ideas and dreams and pictures of how things should be or could be. How can I let that go in order to be of real service to what is? I can only have Faith, Faith as an active principal without conception. Trust in Being fully awakens.

Divine Marriage

2006-06-19T01:55:00.000-07:00

She can't be tainted.

She can not be harmed.

She is the Womb of our Being.

She is what makes my Heart beat.

She is my Heart.

I lay all at Her feet.

I worship Her.

I adore Her.

May Her wishes come to deepest fulfillment.

May Her Love touch US all.

Amen.

A Declaration

2006-06-12T03:46:00.000-07:00

I take a big risk by writing these words. But it is a risk I have to take. I am Awake. I am Free. This does not mean I have perfected my body-mind or am in anyway a perfected being. I have relaxed into my Self, the Ground of all Being, from which I can never leave or in fact I have never left. All the sadhana is not required for this type of liberation, but may be required for our collective evolution. You are necessary. Your Awakened Genius is needed. We would be wise not to misinterpret this freedom. We would be wise to understand the evolving context through which this Freedom expresses itself. As far as John Baker is concerned, he will stay commited to the Evolutionary Process & embrace Mutuality as ornaments to his Liberation. Such is my soul calling. May all be liberated into the Next Whatever.
Blessings,
Tat Tvam Asi

Sofia

2006-05-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one
and the scorned one.
I am the whore, and the
holy one. I am the wife
and the virgin.
I am the mother and the
daughter....I am she
whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a
husband....I am
knowledge, and ignorance.

THUNDER, PERFECT MIND, Gnostic poem, 100 A.D.

Death is Rebirth

2006-05-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

From Robert Augustus Masters

When your honeymoon with spirituality ends — and it will end, marked by the arrival of STDs (spiritually-transmitted disappointments) — and when your affair with being spiritually correct and spiritually in-style runs dry, you may say so long to spirituality, but it is a premature goodbye. Disillusionment with spirituality is inevitable and necessary, so that spirituality might be thoroughly deglamorized. When that disillusionment has had its say — cynicism’s couch now being no more than a pain in the ass — and when your fear of reentering the spiritual no longer frightens or disturbs you, your spiritual life really begins.

Most of the books will be gone; the ones that remain will feel like old friends you don’t tire of revisiting, even if only for a page or two every couple of months. Most of the practices will also be gone; the ones that remain will feel as natural to slip into as your favorite jeans or T-shirt, at ease with both being worn and being worn out. Then, instead of being at war with our weaknesses, we bring them into our heart. Instead of trying to eliminate what we don’t like about ourselves, we develop a better relationship to it. Intimacy becomes more our path than transcendence. And so emerging from our own ashes becomes no big deal, but just the way things are. We get up, brush ourselves off, and bite into what is next, bibless and happily anonymous, even if we are famous. Here the ten thousand sorrows and the ten thousand joys intermingle in unparalleled song, we their infinite notes, and we also the music that goes on, in the one moment that is all moments.

Withdrawal

2006-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

Fear.

Losing People.

I found out today that one of my best friends growing up committed suicide two years ago. I had lost touch. I'm not sure how hard its hitting me yet. I sobbed earlier.

Why did I lose touch?

How many have I lost touch with?

How many are there to touch?

Do we dare touch the untouchables?

Who do we choose to touch?

Who do we choose not to touch?

I found out from the director of the high school I attended who turns out to have been a Tibetan Buddhist practicioner for 30 years. It turns out the school was designed & built by students of lamas & a lot of the principals it was based on are Buddhist.

Fear.

Demons.

Hell.

Who am I?

How much do you really want to Embrace?

2006-03-21T19:53:00.000-08:00

I am called to speak with some force and anguish today. And I love it. It is so hard to explain this place of utter paradox. Most people just don't seem to really get it! The moment I begin to speak & express this tantric admixture, some (with the very best of intentions) assume I need some fixing. That somehow, I am suffering oh so dearly & just need to get in touch with the cosmic Unity principle (witness, timelessness, etc.) & then I won't suffer.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH SUFFERING? Lean into it a little more & you find that the sufferer vanishes. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PAIN? I am reminded of these colossal tectonic plates moving beneath the earth, crashing violently, tranforming & molding our planet. Is this not Love, as well? It is these tensions, if we can allow ourselves the freedom TO REALLY become them, that truly transform us. & I can have compassion for the fact that most just need to turn away. To fight to reach the upper plateaus of peace & light. Awesome! Kewl! Enjoy! But stop fucking trying to make everyone else do the same! Sometimes all that is needed is your simple presence of holding space for that pain that transforms it. The energy can run its course & bless & serve us. It's like eating a triple chocolate & caramel brownie.

Life as Mirror

2006-03-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

Energy.

Attraction.

Death.

Recoil.

Gliding into the recoil.

Oh these tantric dynamics.

My Heart is beating.

The Universe is dying.

I am.

We are.

Such is This.

Alone

2006-03-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

I wish I had something profound to say.

Sometimes this whole thing can be very confusing.

Every thing is a symbol.

& I am human.

Am I dead yet?

All of this will pass away.

I am so Alone.

Let me be Alone.

Don't move away from Her.

Embrace this Aloneness.

It is who you are.

Descent of the Supermind

2006-03-16T23:07:00.000-08:00

I wasn't until I just sat down now to write this that the experiences of today led me to look up Supermind. I have been having pretty intense pressure in my head since early this morning. It has been steady all throughout today. I have read a few things of Sri Aurobindo over the last few years & know that Ken Wilber, Mike Murphy, & Andrew Cohen were all heavily influenced by his philosophy.

I'll let you all in on some of my deepest secret wishes & prayers. I've been talking to God for, well, as long as I can remember. I mean there's been very few periods in my life where I didn't speak to Him/Her/It in various ways & forms. I've had this deep desire to turn everything over, my body, my speech, my mind, my activities, & my qualities. I grew up so alone that this was my only solace. When I say turn everything over, I don't mean to some specific concept of God per say (although it has taken on many of these outward forms over the years), but now that wish is to Merge with that Mysterious Unknowable, in the truest possible essence. My prayers are something like, "May I deeply do thy divine will without falling prey to False Idols (my own limited conceptions of what that would mean), but your deepest, truest will, for the sake of us all." I think I am in some ways moving closer to that wish, or rather it is moving me.

Even in the darkest of my life experience in the midst of when I felt I was totally abandoning God & completely in my Ego, there was the wish may this somehow be of service. I felt I could die, or I would do anything for the real True God. For US.

This pressure almost feels as if its changing the structure of my mind itself. It's as if I have finally stopped running away from God & now It is descending with such intensity my body-mind is having to slowly allow this force to fully inhabit me.

I am afraid of saying these things but at the same time I feel I must say them. I am so human. I am limited, fragile, broken, have made millions of mistakes & have a pile of karma & yet at the same time I am surrendered to my Creator, & I am the instrument of my Mother & my Lover.

This pressure is moving me, cooking my brain, & boiling my blood. I have no idea what will become of John. I have also come to love him dearly. This is all so beyond me & yet it is me. I can only fall flat on my face.

In Jan of 2004, I met Mike Murphy & he talked about Sri Aurobindo's personal Autobiography. Sri Aurobindo kept a personal journal of his yoga. It only got published in 2001. I bought it & tried to read it in 2004. It's so amazing & an incredibly challenging read. The guy spoke 14 languages! When I started reading it, I had the thought, this is me! I felt so drawn to this personal autobio. It's 2 volumes of 1000 pages each written for himself personally. You need a Sanskrit dictionary just to get through the first 4 pages! I left the book when I went back to Hawaii & found it just recently in my California car. For some reason I put Aurobindo's picture on my alter & started to read from it after meditation.

This will be a long & amazing journey to read it. I'll keep you posted.

Tonight I felt the first inklings of what I think is that Supermind & its COLLECTIVE! It's US. It requires all of us.

I also have to pay deep homage to Ken Wilber. The context & map he is bringing in allows for a fuller embrace of this Kosmos. It allows these spiritual discoveries to not get misinterpreted. It allows for these perspectives to find there place in this collective unfolding without marginalizing other perspectives.

"......where it merely asserts identity of abstract (third-person) markers. Those markers are real enough, but they only represent a narrow slice of the Kosmos, a slice generated from real-world sentient beings through a series of abstractions, collapses, and reductions, so that only a few of the dimensions of being-in-the-world are represented, and are represented in a way that deceptively appears that they are not perspectives of sentient beings but simply a view of "the way things are," or what Nagel so aptly called "the view from nowhere." This allows such collapsed cognitions to imagine a Kosmos built of abstract relations and insentient beings (which is itself a perspective of their sentience).
...........
In other words, all of them are pre-quadratic attempts to derive the essentials of the Kosmos from a starting point that prejudicially has already collapsed the essentials out of existence and thus must attempt to recover those essentials with epicycles of further abstractions. Again, I am not saying that aspects of their work are not true; I am saying that they have abstracted their conclusions out of the matrix of indigenous perspectives and then presented them as "the way things are," oblivious to the perspectives in which their "views from nowhere" actually arrive.

This is certainly the case with "metaphysics" in general, whether we find it in Plotinus, Shankara, Asanga, Padmasambhava, Gurdjieff, Hegel, Rudolph Steiner, Carl Jung, William James, or the greatest of recent metaphysicians, Aurobindo. To the modernist and postmodernist critiques of metaphysics, we add the integral critique: their metaphysical systems are interpretations of their own spiritual experiences; the authenticity of the spiritual experiences is not in any way questioned, but the adequacy of their interpretations is: they have unconsciously abstracted, from the matrix of indigenous perspectives, a third-person overview that arrives on the scene secretly privileging the view from nowhere, even (or especially) when it emphasizes the importance of experience, spiritual awareness, feelings, or consciousness: all of those are, in fact, hidden low-order abstractions, and, as such, are the very heart of the metaphysical approach that all post-metaphysical integralism must struggle beyond. If "direct experience" and "consciousness" are already low-order abstractions mistaken for realities (and hence are metaphysical ghosts), the notions of "levels of being," "levels of knowing," "ontological planes," and so on are even worse: they are abstractions of abstractions of abstractions, even though the experiences that those interpretative frameworks are trying to represent are authentic enough. (In this regard, Aurobindo is the most offensive metaphysician in that he is the most accomplished; one can only stand in awe of his metaphysical system.)

Again, I am not questioning their realization or enlightenment or spiritual experiences; I am questioning the framework that they used to interpret and conceptualize their experiences. Those metaphysical interpretive frameworks are simply not adequate to a postmodern integralism that has grown out of metaphysics but can no longer be contained by it (i.e., integralism transcends-and-includes metaphysics)."

The Penultimate Perspective

2006-03-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

I had lots of strange dreams last night. I was constantly shifting perspectives. I was watching myself in the 3rd-person, then I was the person then I was a 2nd-person talking to my 1st-person while watching it all simultaneously. I laid awake recalling my dreams for about half an hour. Then suddenly I jumped to the computer to look at some of Ken Wilber's new writings. I had read this article in 2002. This was prior to my first Zen seshin & my whole dive into Integral Practice. I was stunned, shocked & engrosed. I never understood this stuff before but it suddenly became luminous in my awareness & I began to see things in a way I never have before. Here is that article.
Thoughout today I suddenly began to feel into the interiors of beings (at least that's how it felt from my 1st person perspective). I, We, & Its were colliding & cascading throughout the day.

I've been listening to Namkai Norbu's Dzogchen teachings live on webcast for two hours a day for the last 6 days. I've had many Dzogchen teachings, empowerment's, & read countless books on the subject. I had this revelation today that the Waking Down work is like a super secret Dzogchen teaching. Pure Presence came alive & I intuited Indra's Net, this sparkling jewel of perspectives of perspectives of perspectives & then STOP!!!!!!!!!!!! The World comes alive!

FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENLY ABODE OF THE GREAT GOD INDRA, THERE IS A WONDERFUL NET WHICH HAS BEEN HUNG BY SOME CUNNING ARTIFICER IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT STRETCHES OUT INDEFINITELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXTRAVAGANT TASTES OF DEITIES, THE ARTIFICER HAS HUNG A SINGLE GLITTERING JEWEL AT THE NET'S EVERY NODE, AND SINCE THE NET ITSELF IS INFINITE IN DIMENSION, THE JEWELS ARE INFINITE IN NUMBER. THERE HANG THE JEWELS, GLITTERING LIKE STARS OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE, A WONDERFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD. IF WE NOW ARBITRARILY SELECT ONE OF THESE JEWELS FOR INSPECTION AND LOOK CLOSELY AT IT, WE WILL DISCOVER THAT IN ITS POLISHED SURFACE THERE ARE REFLECTED ALL THE OTHER JEWELS IN THE NET, INFINITE IN NUMBER. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT EACH OF THE JEWELS REFLECTED IN THIS ONE JEWEL IS ALSO REFLECTING ALL THE OTHER JEWELS, SO THAT THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION IS INFINITE

THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA
FRANCIS H. COOK: HUA-YEN BUDDHISM : THE JEWEL NET OF INDRA 1977

Our Condition

2006-03-14T22:44:00.000-08:00

Most of my posts come out very spontaneous. I have all of these ideas & understandings that occur throughout everyday. I have amazing epiphanies (at least they seem so to me) several times a day. When I come to sit down & communicate them it can be very challenging to write & convey the depth of these experiences & understandings. I had a small audio recorder I used to use when having these Ah ha moments. I lost it & I should probably get another.

In the last few days I have been through the depths of deep Anger & Sorrow to sublime states of Deep Joy & Subtle Bliss. Such is this Condition. I am beginning to feel into how I am changing, how my mind disidentifies with its current understanding & shifts into a deeper multidimensional perspective. How curious that this Mind-Body is able to hold such mind numbing Paradox, but it is actually quite simple..... And not. LOL.

It must seem from my posts that I sit in contemplation all day, but it's more like I shift into hundreds of states & roles throughout the day. These posts are for me & they are for you. It helps me to clarify & see what I could not otherwise. We are in many ways blind to who we are. We can represent ourselves to ourselves in ways that others don't see. And others can see & reflect us in ways that we can't alone. Such is this Web of Indra.

A Blast from the Heart of Dzogpa Chenpo

2006-03-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

There is a deep secret.

It is here in the Heart of Matter.

It is so close you can't possibly deviate from it.

It is the entire potentiallity of all of existance.

It is none other then true Humanity.

It is none other than You.

And beyond You.

It is Us.

And Beyond Us.

It laughs.

It cries.

It screams at the violence we do to ourselves.

It is the source of that very violence.

Flash Forward.

Join the Party.

You are desperately needed.

What is Change?

2006-03-12T01:13:00.000-08:00

What is it that really changes us? What is it that really makes the difference in our development to higher, deeper, & more inclusive stages of consciousness?

In my own experience, I feel as if I am really starting to taste the fruit of the middle way.

If we think that effort, energy, & discipline are the way then that could become the barrier of the true way.

If we imagine that self-indulgence, relaxation, & grace are the way this could bar the way.

I've said similar words many times before & felt that I "had it."

I was millions of miles away.

Perhaps I still am.

I can never claim Enlightenment until all is aware of This.

The beginnings of a stage comparable to an equalization of pressures, perhaps.

She is so DEEP!

Bottomless. Endless. Dimensionless.

I must say that for some reason, at some point something tugged at my Heart. And it ripped it wide open.

I can feel the self-contraction of the mind. I can feel the energy beginning to loosen. She opens me like a rose.

I love you.

The Union of Bliss & Emptiness

2006-03-10T23:06:00.000-08:00

Life is deep & multidimensional. She runs away playfully taunting when we attempt to grasp Her & penetrate Her Mysteries. And yet, what can I do? I am so in love with Her. There is so much. So much.

Today I was given an empowerment in the Tibetan tradition by the head of the Kathok Nyingma lineage.

I am feeling the pit bull of inquiry right at my throat.

How do I explain in words what it is like to face the Self? There is no hiding & yet I want to hide so bad. I don't feel like writing & I just want to crawl away. But there is too much here that has to be said.

I take refuge in the supreme Union of Spirit & Matter.

May all Beings come to know the Divine Mystery.

I am so humbled. Can this human form hold such Beyondness & Luminosity?

I am seeing clearly & yet I am totally baffled.

When one enters into the Great Perfection, if such a thing can be entered into, the experience is so shattering one can never be the same.

I feel as if I have died & must face every inch of my karma right now.

Every action now is magnified. I cannot hide from this blinding intensity.

It calls & I must respond. I have no choice.

Can Ego really stop this? Is Ego really an obstacle? Might is not be the very thing This needs to realize This?

This glorious tension.

I am blended.

And offered.

Relationship? & Inquiry

2006-03-08T20:12:00.000-08:00

Avoiding?

Contracting?

Relationship?

Shadow. Dream.
Who am I?

What guides?

Zen Productivity

2006-03-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

I love knowledge work especially when it flows & I love being organized & on top of business. If one spends energy & attention on the front end with proper scheduling & has a system to capture data, commitments, etc., it can really allow you to take it easy on the back end, moving forward with stress free productivity. Managing emotional states are not always easy for me, & so having a system in place that can get you to do things that can match low & restricted energies is truly liberating. We are truly blessed to live in America.

Conflict & Chaos

2006-03-05T19:56:00.000-08:00

Human life is very demanding. At least for one that deeply cares how this all works out. It's easy to just get by & go through the motions asleep especially in this culture. But, if one really deeply cares, really wants to make a difference it can be seriously gut-wrenching. I feel this deep call to evolve. I don't care if its easy or not I must do what is required. It's not a question any more but obligation. And in this process I can also rest in the loving arms of my Mother, the ground of Being. Oh how I love it. LOL.

Inertia & the Evolutionary Impulse

2006-03-04T22:04:00.000-08:00

It's strange that only moments before I felt such intense passion & urgency. I might label that as positive. I am suddenly overcome by a sinking feeling in my gut & a sense of inertia. I might label that as negative. What happened in the shift? Do I have a preference for one or the other? I notice as I allow space & room for that sense of inertia & gave it voice it's tension relieved in some basic sense. I do feel better. But is it to feel better that I am here? Sometimes things seem so clear & bright and it seems so easy and natural to move forward & I care deeply about life & the future. At other times I feel burdened & stagnant & I can barely seem to move. Consciousness is now fully intact & self-aware in all of these myriad states. Something else is being born. A fusion of will & grace, of deep aceptance & forward drive. Is such an existance possible? What does that mean? I can only speak this strange Paradox.

The Moral Compulsion

2006-03-03T20:46:00.000-08:00

Today has been rather challenging. This morning Crow, Heron, & Turkey(4) all appeared on my way to the Evolutionary Enlightenment Intensive. Andrew's transmission is intense & demanding. I do feel deeply called to evolve, especially in an ethical context. There is within me this drive to reach for higher & more inclusive development, across all lines of development. At the same time there is a deep love & appreciation for the cut offs & disjuncts, something perhaps missing in the way Andrew's message reaches me. I worry about the way his students pick up & transmit his message, but do find deep value there. I am reminded of the hard & challenging work required to face the Fullness of Who We Are. An awakened life is not easy but I couldn't trade it for anything.

Last night I dreamt that Saniel invited Adi Da to his house and was entertaining him. He was very corgial to me and talked fondly of Saniel.

Lots of pressure in my head..... time for bed.

Reaching out to touch Her

2006-03-02T22:33:00.000-08:00

What an amazing day. The last two days I have noticed so many animals..... Possum(1), Horse(too many to count),Humming Bird(4), Vulture(to many to count), Hawk(3),Spider(1), Deer(4), Cow(too many), Goat & Sheep(too many & little babies), Cats,Dogs, and Frogs. I am so in love with our wonderful friends that we share our planet with & each brings us lessons & gifts if we pay attention.

My brain is buzzing........ I have a strong desire to get a degree in Cognitive Science & then pursue grad work in Bioenergetics. Perhaps my AS in Physics can finally be applied. I know there are interesting biomagnetic fields that are created by the ways we use our body-mind and I am fascinated. It seems that animals may be in touch with these fields as well. I notice birds flying over my head all the time. I like to think I attract them. Perhaps I do, I certainly love them. I had begun training with a Taoist master in Hawaii who I learned a little about magnetic polarity and the secret practice of Kunlun. I hope to learn some more from him one day.

Tomorrow I am on retreat with Andrew Cohen for 3 days. I've appreciated What is Enlightenment? magazine and a good friend of mine is on Andrew's marketing team. I also know that Saniel & Linda will be meeting Andrew for the first time. I also know there are philosophical & practical differences in their respective approaches. What lovely tension! I have no idea what will come of it or what to expect, so we will see. I do know we are all needed. Adi Da is back giving Darshan to non-followers. How very interesting. I have to meet all these people and see what happens.

Jamgon Kongtrul was a famous Tibetan Buddhist that refused to swear allegiance to any particular school. He studied and had teachings with hundreds of teachers within the various sects and formed the Rime (non-sectarian) branch of Tibetan Buddhism. I feel drawn to his Archetype.

May all Beings have Deep Happiness beyond conception
May they transmute Suffering into its essence
May they not be cut off or separate from all their Parts
May they know the Secret Transfigured Integration of Spirit & Matter

Om Dare Dare Bandare Svaha Jaya Jaya Siddhi Siddhi Pala Pala Ah Ah Ha Sha Sa Ma Ma Ma Kolin Sa Men Ta

Response(ability)

2006-03-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

I feel burdened heavily by practical concerns and the commitments I have made both to myself and others. Thank god for David Allen. If it wern't for incorporating his productivity principles......... actually thank God for being Awake! If it wasn't for the fact of being in touch with the Eternal, Unchangeable, I don't think I could even be alive with such pressure. And it seems like it will only get worse for us as the world becomes more complex and challenged by the unfolding of events. As Saniel mentions, "It takes embodied consciouness just to make it through a typical 21st century day." I really feel the Waking Down work to be of great importance to our collective future and as yet has gone largely unnoticed, at least compared to some of the other hypermasculine dharmas that are out there. Not that they don't have valuable insights, practices, & methodologies we can utilize to advance the various lines of development. It just seems that getting the conscious principle alive and embodied quickly is a grave necessity if our humanity, the Earth, & her inhabitants are to survive.

I wish I could just work on these writings all day. I feel as if I have so much to say. But alas, I must pay my rent and do what I can in this fragile, limited, beautiful, divinely human body.

Which came first, Spirit or Matter?

2006-02-27T21:29:00.000-08:00

I am in awe of how precious each of us are and the unique contributions each of us brings to the banquet table. How delicious. My cousin Mark, so full of integrity and responsibility as he struggles to make his business thrive in the midst of many a shark who would eat him alive. Kelly, an old lover, in spite of the fact I withdrew six years ago like a typical male offers to clean my teeth for free. In some ways I feel so unworthy of these miraculous blessings and people. We all carry such amazing grace and such stark disjunctions. I am very curious about these We spaces, the places where we touch and exchange energies. Sex and Space. Sex with a capital S. Union, touch, exchange, penetrating, receiving............ at every level of our beings.......Genital sex being only a metaphor for deeper levels of interaction at every chakra . Saniel calls this "Whole-Being Currency Exchange". It's interesting that today I've been receiving pulses of energy right at my root chakra up my spine. I have been out of balance here for nearly my whole life and I finally feel as if there is a deep healing occurring. The kundalini opened at the heart and crown for me before it moved down. As I write these words there are study waves of energy pulsing at the base and my soles and palms are very hot. Saniel spoke about how each chakra or plexus in the body has a domain or field of exchange and each can also have both a positive and negative expression. Wow, I suddenly became aware of my physical heart beating. I've never felt it quite like that before on the left of my chest. I've experienced the infinitesimal point on the right which is the seat of consciousness but never the actual physical heart as the seat of matter. I am humbled.

I dreamt last night of traveling in underground caverns of running water and the also of Ken Wilber, where we were good friends and drove around in a volkswagon beetle and were up to some sort of mischief.

I listened to the new Integral Naked talk between Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber on Immortality and found it very interesting. What's interesting is how my crown just became more intensified as I wrote that....... Andrew spoke of the God-Impulse and its ceaseless drive to move forward and how he would get people in his seminars to get how God feels. I wondered, how does Matter feel???? 3000 or more years of dissociation and attempt to get away from Her or penetrate Her. Which came first Saniel asked "Spirit or Matter?" Check your gut response. Explore the perennial philosophy and you get a certain story. I am more in line with the theory that matter is not the lowest rung in the spectrum of consciousness but the outward manifestation of spirit at every level. See A Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energies by Ken Wilber. I loved how Ken talked about Christ as deep Tantric Archetype ( Is it any wonder there is so much emerging about Mary Magdalene in the world collective consciousness today?) as a symbol for the suffering, awakened one. Oh how I love Jesus. I weep.

It's time for us to become embodied Bodhisattvas. To take the vow to be BOTH nirvana and samsara, to not withdraw from either of those. What is the real Non-Dual? Fucking disaccociated pricks, Wake Down! Love Her. Our beautiful Lilith of the Zohar.

Here's a plug for Healing the Spirit/Matter Split

G'Night......mmmmmmwwwwwahhhhhhhh

The Force of Destiny part. 2

2006-02-26T21:21:00.000-08:00

I am dumbstruck by the shear immensity of what it means to be a divinely human being living in the 21st Century. I am humbled by what I see and aspire to live up to these deep intimations. I feel as if I carry within me the entire history of human kind and I marvel at the complexity and immensity of what that means. It's really time to show up. We are not here to get out of here. We are here to fully be here. As Carl Jung states in An Answer to Job, "It is not us who are seeking to become God, but it is God who is seeking to become Us." As Uncle Ben said to Peter, "With great power comes great responsibility." We must claim our birthright and then act in accordance with what that means. From Cosmos and Psyche "These ongoing archetypal developments affect all of us....some obviously more dramatic than others, but everyone is in some way carrying the whole within them."

In Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism it is often talked about that the five emotional poisons of anger, pride, jealousy, ignorance, & lust when transmuted by conscious awareness at their deepest essence are the five wisdoms of clarity, equanimity, unobstructed action, non-conceptual mind, and discernment. Read Kuntungzango's Prayer for an empowerment of this realization.

Saniel talked today about smokescreens and how our deepest wounds and disaccociated patterns when we awaken and they are brought into conscious awareness are transformed and become the very key to our greatest gifts. Self-Sabotage is transmuted into Other-Empowerment. This I see as my gift to humanity. May we become truly Selfish as we deeply understand what really is the Self.

The Force of Destiny

2006-02-25T22:58:00.000-08:00

I just returned from the first day of the Force of Destiny Retreat with Saniel and Linda. It was quite a large group, about 25 I think. I definetly feel "activated", perhaps in ways that I wouldn't have predicted. There is a deeper sinking into my body, especially the Hara . There is so much I want to convey and yet my energy is a little low and I want to curl up and sleep. My entire Brain is buzzing although buzzing may not be the proper word for it. I can actually feel waves of energy and pressure moving about inside of the Brain as I relax and let the Shakti move about of its own accord. This is nothing new to me as these experiences have been occuring for about two and a half years now. I am thinking of Sri Aurobindo's autobiography and the things he went through. It makes me want to revist cognitive science especially brain anatomy and look at all the scientific data and external mapping we have and compare that to my own subjective experiences of the energies that move around in my brain. If you read my short autbio ( by the way I apologise for not making it clearer with links and such, I will go back and work on that at some point), you would know I spent a few years deeply studying accelerated learning technologies and in particular cognitive science. I want to look into it again and compare that to these kundalini experiences. As I write this I'm having these intimations of artificial intelligences combing the collective data of the web, learning, and so as much as this may bore a lot of you somehow I hope it can serve our unfolding (It's Unfolding). See The Age of Spiritual Machines. Check out and explore The Secret Life of the Brain
Enough for tonight...

Upcoming Astrology Transits

2006-02-24T20:40:00.000-08:00

Last summer I read a book called The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas which I really loved and had been anxiously awaiting the release of Cosmos and Psyche : Intimations of a New World View . I picked up the book a couple of weeks ago. I thought the book would pick up where the Passion left off. I expected him to continue and give us his insight into emerging worldviews. This is one of my deep interests from studying the work of Ken Wilber and also Spiral Dynamics. I had no idea it would be about astrology! I am about halfway though and find the book absolutely fascinating. I wonder why he never mentions Wilber in any of his writings? I think it has something to do with the ongoing tension between CIIS/Spiral Dynamics with Chris Cowen and Ken and I-I. This is the very juxtaposition I speak of in relation to Saniel and Andrew, seemingly at odds. I know Ken and Andrew have their differences ( I should hope so!) and it all seems to me good and healthy but I do know there are those on both sides of the issue that have philosophical differences and approaches. I am fascinated by these dynamics and am excited to explore the deeper dimensions of our collective emerging consciousness. Anyhow, I've taken up a study of Astrology ( I know Ken feels there doesn't seem to be any evidence supporting a predictive astrological theory) and have found it to be deeply mind opening. Being involved intensely with Vajrayana, I feel particularly interested in Archtypal energies and such. I work shamanicly with animal and land energies and can only imagine that the stars and planets are related energetically as well. I mean, I can feel it in my body(Body). I am a scientist and a skeptic as well and as yet can't explain these phenomena from a rational perspective but I intuit the deepness and richness of the Kosmos. "There are more things on Heaven and Earth then dreamt in your philosophy, Horatio." I believe we are beginning to re-integrate the Deep Feminine and coming into an understanding of patterns, cycles, and our embededness. At the same time we are also that divine Impersonal Witness who Andrew Cohen seems to be a human incarnate of. Integration! How Blessed! I've just given voice to these Kosmic polarities, Masculine and Feminine. From my studies of Wilber, Gebser, Aurobindo & the like and my immersion in the practices of the traditions and the Waking Down in Mutuality Work I feel something is emerging in my consciousness attempting the bring a full Tantric embrace of the seeming contradicting streams.

So....I'm going to write some of my personal astrology explorations here. I am examining transits in particular which are where the various planets are in relation to my personal birth chart. What I find fascinating is how we relate to our external world. Let me explain what Gebser would call

The Magic structure of consciousness (taken from An Overview of the Work of Jean Gebser )

Around some unspecified time far back in our past, a change took place. Man entered into a second phase of development and gained a new structure of consciousness, the Magical structure. This structure is characterized by five primary characteristics: (1) its egolessness, (2) its spacelessness and timelessness, (3) its pointlike-unitary world, (4) its interweaving with nature, and (5) its magical reaction to the world.[9] A rudimentary self- sense was emerging and language is the real product of this change. Words as vehicles of power are typical of this time and structure; incantations as precursors to prayer emerged. Consciousness, in this phase, is characterized by man's intimate association with nature.

This is perhaps the most notable characteristic regarding this structure. Man, at this time, does not really distinguish himself apart from nature. He is a part of all that surrounds him; in the earliest stages it is hard to conceive that he views himself apart from his environment. The plants, animals and other elements of his surroundings share the same fate as he does; they experience in a similar manner. Latency is still dominant; little is transparent. Magic we can define in agreement with Gustav Meyrink as doing without knowing,[10] and it is magic man who is engaged in this activity in all aspects of his existence. The hunting and gathering, the quest for survival are all activities that consume most of his waking hours. But in the quiet of the evening around the fire; there is time for reflection of sorts. The activities of the day were codified (in speech) and recounted. Memory was collective, tribal, and all things were shared and experienced by all. The "I" is not a factor; the "we" is dominant.

This is a one-dimensional, pre-perspectival, point-like existence that occurs in a dream- like state. Unlike the dreamlessness of the previous structure, a recognition is developing in man that he is something different from that around him. Not fully awake to who he is or what his role in the world is, man is recognizing his self as an entity. The forms of expression for this structure can be found in the art and other artifacts that have been recovered from this time. Graven images and idols are what first come to mind. However, ritual should also be considered here, for it is in the specific and directed execution of certain actions and gestures that conveys much about this consciousness structure. Feuerstein feels that this structure persisted till around 40,000 BC and the advent of the Cro-Magnons.

Tarnas talks about transits ( Taken from URL An Introduction to Astrological Analysis )

The study of transits is especially valuable because it allows us to get a sense for the timing of the planetary archetypes in our lives. Perhaps of all areas of astrology, it is the study of transits that produces the most compelling evidence for the power of the astrological perspective, and its immense pragmatic value. The principle of transits rests on the fact that as the planets continue moving after a person’s birth, they move into and out of aspect in relation to the natal planetary positions. Thus when any planet's present position in the sky forms an aspect to a point that was occupied by any planet at the time of one’s birth (for example Uranus now in the sky forming a conjunction to Venus in the natal chart), then during the period in which that particular aspect is in range one would tend to have experiences that correlate with the planets and aspect involved (in this example, a two-or-three year period in which one would tend to experience the awakening of new love, the stimulation of one's artistic creativity or aesthetic responsiveness to life, a certain restlessness and unpredictability in one's relationships, and so forth).

While the birth chart in itself is a portrait of one’s life and character as a whole, transits to the birth chart reflect the dynamic unfolding of one’s life and character in terms of specific events and experiences. Transits activate the potential that is inherent in the birth chart.

So anyway I'm reading that Mercury is beginning to be in a square relationship to my Moon. Again from Tarnas.....

Mercury represents the principle of mind, thinking, and the movement or exchange of ideas through speaking, writing, and other forms of communication. It governs the capacity to conceptualize and communicate, to articulate, to use words and language, to analyze and comprehend, to learn, to perceive, to mediate, transport, and connect. The Mercury archetype is associated with the Greek mythic figure of Hermes, the Roman Mercury, the messenger of the gods. A major aspect between Mercury and another planet tends to correlate with how one’s mental and neural processes tend to work, how one gives and receives information, and the nature of one’s education and intellectual vision.

The Moon corresponds to how one feels about oneself even before one thinks about oneself--as well as how one tends to relate spontaneously to others and to life's various situations. Like the ever-shifting cycles and phases of the Moon, the lunar part of the psyche, associated with one's moods and feelings, tends to be changeable and fluctuating in character, though on another level its deeply imprinted patterns are very enduring. The Moon concerns one’s immediate psychosomatic mode of response to life that begins in one's earliest years, that is partly a matter of inheritance, and partly forged in one’s early interactions with the world--especially with one’s mother and other mother-figures, one’s family (siblings, father) and one’s early home environment in general. It governs one's sense of belonging (or not), how one tends to nurture and be nurtured, and is associated with both the maternal instinct and the needs and instincts of infancy and childhood. In later life, the Moon reflects the nature of all one's intimate relationships, familial and otherwise, as well as one's home life. In mythic terms, the Moon is associated with certain aspects of the Great Mother goddess, and is yin in nature.

Again, as with the Sun, if any major aspect is formed between the Moon and another planet in one’s birth chart, this second planetary archetype will tend to be especially significant in one’s life. But in this case that second archetype will tend to channel itself through those parts of one’s life governed by the Moon: one’s emotions and moods, one’s infancy and childhood, one’s mother and early familial environment, one’s intimate relationships and domestic life, and so forth. Also, in both women's and men's charts, the Moon tends to reflect significant female figures in a person’s life.

So I can interpret this to mean that the archetypal energy of Mercury is influencing in the part of me associated to the Moon, i.e. the feminine, emotional, psychosomatic aspects of my persona. Perhaps this will indicate an interface between mind and emotions and an deeper ability to understand and communicate my emotions. It's to last through the middle of April. I'll have to let you know.

Personal History

2006-02-24T19:47:00.000-08:00

I've decided to post my very rough autobio.... It's very honest and a little scarry to put it out there like this but somehow I feel it is part of why I am here to let myself be known. Tomarrow I am attending an event with Saniel Bonder and Linda Groves-Bonder called the Force of Destiny.
I am currently working on their marketing team. The following weekend I hope to attend the retreat with Andrew Cohen at Ions.

What's interesting is their respective juxtopositions within me. As I write this I am having extremly intense energies running throughout my brain, maybe haveing to do with the fact I just got off a conference call with Saniel, Linda and other destiny attenders of tomarrow. See Andrew's recent blog More on this later......

A Short History of V. John Baker

I was born on March 21st, 1972 at 7:03am in Redwood City, California during the end of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction. For the astrologically inclined that makes me an Aries with Aries rising. I am born on the cusp, three minutes into the very beginning of the Zodiac. I am also born in the year of the Rat, which is the sign that begins the Chinese Zodiac. I think that’s kind of cool to be born on the very edge of the beginning and end. My mom told me that I was a rambunctious little kid who crawled around in everything. When I was six months old, I crawled out of my crib and fell into my diaper bucket. I nearly suffocated in my own shit.
My parents were both brilliant socialites. According to my half-sister Lisa, ten years my senior, they were the life of every party and consumed copious amounts of substances. My parents were divorced when I was a year old. My sister tells me she took care of me most of the time and I was constantly getting into everything. My mom wanted to give me up for adoption, but my aunt and uncle on my dad’s side took me in and raised me until the age of three. I finally crawled out of my crib at age two.
My aunt and uncle are good people and I am blessed to have had that time with them and have a few memories of happy times. I broke my collar bone at age two & remember splitting my head on the fire place as well. The circular movement from dark to light and back became a major theme for my life. I was told that I was to be adopted by them, but, my dad got married to what would turn out to be the wicked step-mother and he decided to take me away from my Aunt & Uncle.
Kathy, the wicked step-mom, abused me both physically and psychologically while my dad was mostly not around. I remember spending most of my time alone outside with my toys and my beautiful self-created fantasy world.
I loved going to Grandma and Grandpa Baker’s house. My grandmother was a school-teacher from Nebraska who taught grades K-8 in a rural town and played piano in the silent movies. She taught me all kinds of things and I fell in love with learning at an early age. Her first child, a boy, died three days after he was born. I believe this had a profound affect on the way she raised my father. She had three other children, two girls and a boy, my father, the youngest. My Aunt Barbara died the year I was born. My cousin Johnny was her son and four years my senior. He used to teach me to draw and is now an amazing guitarist. My grandfather was a great salesman with a big heart and used to play cars and Star Wars with me all the time. I have fond memories of my grandparents.
Dad, Kathy and I moved to Missouri before my half-brother Jason was born in 1976. I remember a lot of dreams I had from ages four on. They were filled with vampires and ghosts. I remember seeing glowing green skeletons in my closet and had dreams of female vampires that I was afraid of but I also wanted desperately for them to bite me. I would always go explore everywhere on my own and loved to crawl down in sewers, on top of roofs, and out in the wide wilderness. We moved back to California in 1977. I got stuck inside of a chimney I tried to go down at age five. The fire department had to cut a hole in the damper and I made the front page of the Napa Register.
Kathy loved Jason and hated me it seemed. The abuse from Kathy continued and I remember hitting my brother once when I was five and he was one. I felt so horrible when he cried that I never hit him again. I absolutely loved Kindergarten and couldn’t wait to go everyday. We moved a lot and I went to three different Kindergartens and two different first grades. I contemplated suicide and told my Dad I was going to run into the street to get run over. I started going to therapy at age five.
In 1978 Kathy and Dad split up, Kathy taking Jason back to Missouri. I lived with my Dad, but he was mostly not around so I would take care of myself most all the time, going to Catholic School in the first grade.
He got together with another lady, Reba. They had Reba’s daughter who was eleven watch me but she would try to get me in trouble by planting pictures that said “I hate Reba” in my room and then I would get spanked for lying that I didn’t do it. After a number of these incidents I burned her Barbie dolls and started stealing since I was a bad kid anyway.
They split because of me my Dad said and then I moved in with my grandparents while my Dad partied and worked and I saw him at times. My grandparents went to church and so did I. That’s when I fell in love with Jesus. I wanted to be Jesus. I felt so guilty though. I was stealing from stores around that time and getting into mischief. I remember Grandma telling me that Jesus would only forgive me so many times and I tried hard to be good but then I would mess up again. I prayed every night for forgiveness and was afraid I would go to Hell. I remember blessing everybody every night even Kathy who I wanted to love me.
I was given a kitten named Sandy that I loved. One day I swung Sandy around by her tail and beat her on the ground. Nobody ever found out but she was hurt really bad and I cried and cried. Since that day I only hurt one more creature, besides the occasional bug (I shot a bird with a BB gun when I was thirteen and held it in my hands as it died and I cried for hours). Today, I can’t even swat a mosquito.
Around this time I have the first memory of my real mom, Bonnie. I would go to visit her for a few weeks in Santa Rosa throughout the year. She lived on a big ranch and had several houses. I met my half sister Lisa, who was 19, and my cousins Mark and Kim who were my age and I loved to play with them. Mark and I are still close.
In 1980 my Dad bought a house in Napa and I went to live with him. He worked a lot and I was alone most of the time with a key to the house. I had some new friends that would play games and stuff. I had a baby sitter sometimes when my Dad was gone overnight. That same year Kathy and Jason moved back from Missouri and they were remarried.
I did pretty well in school, especially in math, due to my grandmother doing flash cards with me all the time. I fell in love with reading and writing in the 2nd grade. I started reading incessantly around this time. Dracula, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Littles, The Hobbit, Choose your Own Adventure, and then all kinds of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I also started playing Dungeons and Dragons and reading comic books. I would spend all of my free time in the library and book stores. I stole a lot of books and toys at the time as well. I also got an Atari 2600 and played a lot of video games. I especially remember the writings of Roger Zelazny. I also wrote a lot of fantasy stories.
I remember when the library got a computer and my friend had an Apple 2C. I started going to Christian school in the 4th grade and played computer games at the library. Socially I was cool with the boys and was average in sports but, I was really intimidated by the girls. I always had crushes on these girls but I was so shy and really needy when I would be around them.
I did well in school but got into trouble after school. I would steal money from my parents and stole a lot of things from stores. My brother and I got along well and I loved him very much but, I was really jealous of all of the attention Kathy gave him. I would of course receive the occasional beating. After I got my brother in trouble for stealing toys with me, the beatings got a lot worse.
In sixth grade I went to Catholic school since Kathy was Catholic and Jason went there as well. I really loved going to Mass and also the Baptist church with my Grandparents. It was at this time that I asked Jesus into my heart as my personal Savior. I tried really hard to be good and do the right things. I was so incredibly lonely and would pray a lot. It was this year that my Aunt & Uncle got me an IBM PCjr and I started to learn Basic and go onto BBS’s with my 300 baud modem.
One day, after a particularly intense beating I ran away to my mom’s house. It was during this time that my Dad and Kathy finalized a second divorce. While staying with my Mom I was enrolled in another Christian school. My mom was rarely around but when she was she was mean and demanding. She was a heavy drinker and it was during this time that I experimented with alcohol and cigarettes. It wasn’t long, six months, before my Mom said she couldn’t take care of me any more.
I went to live with my grandparents at this time. I switched schools again, but after a few months my Dad took me out of the Christian school when I got in trouble. Amazing enough through all of this I still did well in school and really loved to learn. In public school I did well and spent a lot of time on the computer. I had a few friends who were trouble makers and we used to skate board, steal stuff, and smoke marijuana.
I moved around so much that I never had much chance to get to know girls. It was during this time that my sex drive became very powerful. My dad used to hide magazines under his bed that I would look at and my Mom also had a collection as well. Neither of my parents said anything about sex so I learned from the magazines and in school a little.
My Grandfather died of colon cancer after about 6 months in and out of the hospital. That was 1985 and I moved once again to stay with my Mom when Grandpa fell ill. Again, my Mom was rarely around and when she would come back from her trips she was always upset about something I did or didn’t do. After a few months my Mom had had enough of me and so I went to live with my Dad and Grandma.
This was also my first year in High School. I did pretty well in school and then after school would go play computers, read or steal. That summer I got to go to a Seventh Day Adventist camp with my cousins. After camp I vowed that I would be good and try really hard. I prayed that God would take care of me.
That prayer would be answered in a way that I could not have predicted. My Dad had a party one night and I was really sad and lonely. I snuck into the kitchen and stole some of the pina coladas they were making. Then I went to wander around in the woods behind the house at night. I came to a neighbor’s house and decided it might be exciting to break into their house. I had a flashlight and I tried to open a window. Someone saw me and called the police. As it turned out going to Juvenile Hall was the best thing that could have happened to me.
My Dad came to get me but I refused to go home. They had me take some psychological tests and I made up answers. After 45 days in Juvie, I became a ward of the court and they sent me to a “residential treatment center”. It was 1987 and I was 15. This event would dramatically alter my life.
The place was called Family Life Center and it was in Petaluma, California. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who actually seemed to care for my welfare. There was structure and the rules were very strict. I remember thinking it would be really easy. In some ways it was, but in other ways it was the hardest thing I have ever done.
There were a total of 21 boys there, twelve of which lived on campus and another 9 that lived in satellite homes and came to school from 9-4pm M-F. Everyday we had what they called “circle” where we would all sit together and we would work on issues. Sharing, anger work, confronting underground issues, cradling, & bringing yourself up for a phase change were some of the things we did during circle.
Daily we had our rooms to keep clean and indoor and outdoor cleaning periods. I had to rake the gravel driveway everyday for about 10 months. That’s also how long it took me to go from phase two to three. Each phase carried it’s privileges and it’s responsibilities. We had to do so many guided visualizations and a certain number of additional work hours during your free time in addition to working on your issues and behaving in order to move up phases.
We had no contact with parents except once a month and we got to go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas but we couldn’t stay overnight. We were expected to introspect and examine ourselves. Each phase had three key concepts that we were to meditate upon. Each phase also had certain requirements such as certain numbers of guided meditations, work projects, circular breathings, art therapy, and wilderness trips. We also had regular school each day from 10-3pm.
When you first enter the program we wrap a string around an arrow and we are supposed to meditate upon the words communication, listening, and resolution. We also are to take responsibility for why we are there and make the major commitments of no drugs or alcohol, no sex, no violence, threats of violence, or destruction of property, and no running away.
Phase three was about self-image, personal history, and exploration. It took me ten months to get it and I lost it a few months later for watching a rated R movie, looking at pornography and keeping it secret for a few weeks. I was assigned a lot of work hours and then I ran away for an evening.
When I came back I was in huge trouble and it took four months of disciplined work and effort before becoming phase three again. This is when I got to move off campus into a satellite home with five other boys.
Our parents were really amazing people that to this day I credit for opening both my mind and heart. They were both working on MFCC’s; Scott was 30 and Rachel, 26. They were both vegetarian and followed the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. I read Autobiography of a Yogi, a bunch of Richard Bach, & The Way of the Peaceful Warrior around this time.
One of the other staff members was a Buddhist and I fell in love with Cat Stevens who I found out had converted to Islam. I developed a profound appreciation for the spiritual quest and felt drawn to Scott’s stories of satoris and began to contemplate enlightenment at age sixteen. I took up meditation and subscribed to the Self-Realization lessons while attending events and meditations with Scott and Rachel. I also became a vegetarian.
I still had plenty of issues to work on, and with phase three I began to have monthly therapy with my parents and got to go home for a day per month. As far as school went I got straight A’s and I was proud of the fact I taught myself Algebra 1 and 2 since our teacher didn't know math very well.
Phase Four was about responsibility, integrity, and connectedness. I began to take on a leadership/mentor role for the newer students. Art therapy exploration was amazing, and we got to go on hiking trips off trail with outward-bound staff members.
The program used a lot of Native American symbolism and on our wilderness trips I did a vision quest, and a twenty-four hour solo. Back on campus we had a medicine wheel, got to visit on reservations, and had a shaman come. I was chosen to have him give me a healing. I also explored and discovered my personal totems and made lasting connections with Horse and Tiger.
In Phase Five, we began to transition towards leaving FLC. We went through a work-training program and I got a job a Mervyn’s Department Store. During this time I developed a crush on a girl that I was in work-study with. She was a student at the other coed FLC campus. The key words for Phase Five were Interdependence, Humility, and Appreciation.
I graduated in January 1990 from both the program and high school. I was the twenty-first person to ever graduate the program since 1977. Many years later, I found out that the school was developed by Tibetan Buddhist students. FLC helped me transition into work and attending Santa Rosa Junior College. I was 17 when I started college. I had decided to become a Physics major. I was fascinated by science and wanted to figure out how and why everything was. I figured Physics could answer most anything and I was determined to figure out a Grand Unified Field Theory.
I began Shotokan Karate, took piano, and got straight A’s in college. I was also very lonely at times and would go through periods of intense depression. I had my first sexual experience at age 18. She was a co-worker, had a boyfriend and a child, and generally speaking, was not a good situation. When I told her I was done with the relationship, she informed me she was pregnant. It turned out to be a lie, but that scarred me tremendously.
It was with Kashya that I had my second sexual encounter. She was the one I had a crush on in work-study. We became good friends and she became my roommate, but we were only sexual that one time.
For the next two years I studied and did well in school, but was terrible with my finances, was very impulsive, and racked up quite a lot of credit debt. I bought my first car, a 1965 Volvo 122S for $650, took an auto class at the JC, and taught myself how to drive a stick shift. I went to US Karate Nationals in Miami as a brown belt and maintained a 3.75 GPA. I managed to have quite a few girl “friends”, but I could never seem to get past the friend stage and was pretty shy about making any moves even when the girl was sleeping in my bed!
I had a couple of other jobs, one working with developmentally disabled kids and the other was as a line cook in a vegetarian restaurant. The summer of 1992 began another shift in my life. I was about to teach Karate for the summer, but I tore my ACL.
So, instead I got a sales job. In Junior High I used to buy candy and sell it at school for a profit and whenever there was a sales contest in school or cub scouts I would do very well. I turned out to be very good at selling Cutco knives.
I was number five in the region in personal sales for the summer and number ten for the year. I began to develop social skills and became an assistant manager in the fall of 92. I loved learning about sales and started listening to Anthony Robbins and reading a lot of “success” books. I also had an affair with my manager, Anita and then another girl, Agnes both of which were short.
I began to go through the management-training program and in the summer of ’93 I became a branch manager for Vector Marketing. I had just turned 21 and I moved to San Francisco to open an office in the financial district. That was a challenging summer. It was very lonely and although I was a great recruiter my reps did not do very well. I lost a lot of money and would go out dancing and drinking at night. I found that I was naturally a good dancer. I also had sex with a couple of prostitutes that summer.
After closing my office early I went up to help my friend run his office and I helped him do very well. That fall I put off school after I decided that I really wanted to succeed with management and wanted to train with the best district manager in the company, Brad Britton.
I thrived in Brad’s office and he was promoted in the spring. I became Brad’s sales manager for the next year and we kicked ass. The following year I became a district manager in Fresno where we broke recruiting records and I bought myself a BMW 735i.
I was young and reckless though with my finances. I would go out a lot and developed bad habits of pornography, gambling, and drinking. Periodically, I would go though intense depressions and would stop showing up for work until things would get bad, I would be broke and then I would start to work again. When I worked we did incredible as a team.
For the next six years I would oscillate between periods of intense work and success (3-6 months) and periods of depression and sabotage (3-6 months). I would also avoid relationships and run away or sabotage those, the longest lasting four months. I listened to and read just about every self-help and success book I could find, and went to Life and Wealth Mastery with Tony Robbins. When I was on, I would do everything right, eat well, exercise, and work. Then suddenly I would do a 180. Fortunately we did so much business when I was on that I managed to keep my job, but after six years I hadn’t saved a dime and had the worst credit of all time.
In 2000 I began to re-contemplate the spiritual. During those six years I read a lot of Deepak Chopra, Course in Miracles, and pop spirituality. In 2000 I tried Ecstasy, LSD, and mushrooms for the first time and went to a lot of raves. I read Conversations with God, How to Know God and similar books. During my times of deep depression, what would often bring me out would be a recognition that if others felt anything like the pain I felt then I needed to be here and help in some way.
In April of 2001 after reading the Tao de Ching, Siddhartha, and the Kabbalah, I got in my car, left all of my possessions, left my phone, left no message for anyone and started driving. I was pretty depressed and thought I might drive off a cliff. The other thought I had was driving to Alaska and then catching a boat to Russia and hiking to China to get enlightened. I drove to Alaska.
I traveled all over Alaska for five months. I bought a tent and sleeping bag along the way and camped and hiked everywhere you could drive to. I started to read everything related to the spiritual quest, The History of God, a lot of Alan Watts, and lots more. I began to really want to know everything and began studying philosophy as well and intensely craving a “World Philosophy” that could make sense of all of these seeming contradictions. I haven’t mentioned this before but I have been journaling forever and so this process intensified.
Then I had an epiphany. I thought if I wanted to study and know everything then what better way then to study learning itself. I began to make a systematic study of learning and knowledge acquisition. Then I had another epiphany. What if I created a seminar on learning, that way I would really learn how to learn? I decided to learn and study everything as if someday I would teach and share it. This was my raison d’etre. This was my Daemon.
I moved to Hawaii after it started snowing in Alaska in the fall of 2001. It was in 2002 after breaking up from a very intense short relationship that I discovered Ken Wilber. I stayed in Border’s for months. I read everything he wrote and then just about every book he recommended.
I formalized an integral life practice at this time and began to visit every single spiritual master on the Island I could find from every tradition. I was on fire. I began psychotherapy, did my first 7-day sesshin, and actively sought out every authentic spiritual discipline I could find. I meditated every day, got intensely involved with the Jerrahi Order of Sufi’s and read countless books on everything, falling in love with Lex Hixon's writings.
Then I crashed into Vajrayana. It was rich, beautiful and intricate. And Padmasambahva was just the coolest person i'd ever heard of and I fell in love with the deep Tantric Archetype. I moved over to the Big Island to stay at a Buddhist temple and meet Sakya Trinzen. I went deeper and deeper, meeting and studying with one of Lex’s good friends Babaji Bob Kindler who was an Advaita master and moved close to Robert Aitkin, a Zen master, so I could I have dokusan everyday. In the course of two years I did 4-5 week long Zen sesshins, attended zikr weekly, met and had empowerments, teachings or retreats with 20 or more Vajrayana masters, did a 10 day vipassna retreat, a 5 day Advaita retreat, and 2 week long Dzogchen retreats with Lama Surya Das and Roger Walsh.
In addition, I did yoga, ITP, swimming, Tai Chi and read and listened to every integral thing I could get my hands on finding out that one of my former Vector managers from 1992, Barrett Brown was working with Integral Institute and began to really want to work with I-I. I did some volunteer work with I-I in the business & leadership domain helping Brett Thomas on some brief projects.
I began having kundalini experiences in 2003 that continue to intensify and I began having flashes of kensho culminating at the end of a Dzogchen retreat where during mantra practice, all pressures equalized and my self-sense expanded to fill everything. The experience lasted for a couple weeks where I knew I was in The Great Perfection.
Throughout this time I would occasionally slip into self-sabotage patterns. I feared I would always oscillate. I really wanted to have one spiritual master and friend that I could tell everything to but most of my teachers said I would have to just focus on one path and were at odds with Ken. I did want to follow Lama Surya Das, but he was too far away and never responded to the email I sent him.
It was in the fall of 2004 that I met Saniel Bonder. I saw an ad in What is Enlightenment? magazine and noticed Ken’s quote and ordered the free tape. I called the number and as it happened they were having a sitting the next day so I went. I bought all his books and few months later went to a Tantra of Trust retreat. Something went off. There was something very unique here and amazing.
When I got back to Hawaii, everything began to fall apart and all I can really say is that after and during a tumultuous 2005 I deeply arrived here……..
More to come

Evolutionary Odyssey

2006-02-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

This is the begining of a journey into the Mysterious Unknown. May we relax our need for certainty while certainly moving one foot in front of the other. May we realize we are the Altruistic Intention. May Eros be our driving force toward new and deeper horizons and may Agape reach down to love the landscape and dimensions we have already transversed. May all beings come to know the secret transfigured integration of Spirit & Matter.

This blog is to be an interactive Matrix connecting one to an individual's search for growth, meaning, & deep love. Enjoy the ride.