Acceptance

I tried to edit this so that it would be short(er) and it seems it needs to be about 2k words.  It was 3.5k.  I hope that you can get through this and that it can offer you some food for thought….I was talking last night about the concept of ego death with a friend and how misleading the term is….but what lies at the core of that term is itself something that can help people a great deal, which has to do with HOW the ego is used or resides within the self. Unfortunately the term ego death also does not help anyone who has not yet gone through this to understand what on earth it could be.  What I feel is important is learning how to let ego sit at the back of the bus.  Ego is still there, though, because ego death is itself a misnomer.

I also want to make it clear that acceptance is something that you use for entirely productive pursuits, right?  What is the line between simply accepting someone’s bad behavior and not?  Obviously, you do not let someone roll right over you.  That would not be healthy.  However, you also don’t put yourself in harms way by getting involved in a situation where its pretty clear that the person or event that is problematic for you is going to cause you problems or hurt or injury. In both cases, you have to exercise discernment.

Acceptance.  It seems so simple, so straightforward, right?  You are right, it is.  Things that are this simple and uncomplicated are most often won through a very simple and straightforward process.  It is so simple, in fact, that it eludes people.  It eludes us when we are upset because we are stuck in an emotion that wont allow us to feel what we need to feel in order to accept.  That and being upset is the antithesis of acceptance. The advantages that acceptance offers are huge and are like a bank that offers ever-increasing interest over time simply because you grow better and better at it as you go along if you remain focused on acceptance.  Acceptance is something that is learned and that you respond to in an ever-increasing way in your life as you pay  it heed.  What things do you need to aid in acceptance?

The first thing I am going to tell you is that acceptance is a choice.  If you understand anything, understand this. Your seeking to change how you feel about a given situation that has had you tied up in knots is going to be a choice that you will make.

I am going to offer some suggestions that are all part of my own practice that have led me to success in the past.  Some of it is even rooted in older traditions (whether I knew it at the time or not).  So consider acceptance a practice that you grow into incrementally.  It might not be reasonable to expect perfect results within a given period of time. Be patient with yourself and grow into it at your own pace.

Let The Ego Go

Acceptance requires that you allow ego to drift into the background.  To do this, identifying too much with a position or feeling that you feel you are entitled to that serves to keep you upset is obviously doing you no good. Ego does this!  One very good way to let your grip on ego (or its grip on you) go is to simply become an observer in the moment.  Step back for a second and forget what you were so upset over and just WATCH.  Don’t judge.  Just watch and observe.  As you do this, you will probably find that you are already becoming more relaxed and calm.  It isn’t that what you thought or felt isn’t important, you just aren’t worrying about it as you begin to become an Observer.  There is a very good background in meditation practice  for observation of ones thoughts and feelings and surroundings for the simple reason that it works. Being the Observer allows you to drop your investment in a harsh feeling and shift from emotional investment to something more neutral. It is also a capacity that we all as humans have because of our primate brain.  Using it can be very positive and could be key in unlocking how you respond to things that keep you upset.

Its All About You

The really great thing about acceptance is that you don’t have to get into a heated exchange with someone in order to learn acceptance. In fact, you can start small and build your way up.  Buddha spoke about suffering and he was clear that the suffering he was talking about was small suffering that found its way into our daily lives.  Of course there is larger scale suffering, such as the loss of a loved one, but what happens when the store is all out of the sour cream you need in order to make the dish tonight for company?  I know it may sound a trifle, but these are the very things that create within us a low level form of suffering….

Observe and Shift through Breath

The next time you are in a situation where you wind up not getting what you want, say, not getting the sour cream or bread at the market that you need, step back for a moment as you feel yourself feeling upset and pause for a moment. Not getting the sour cream is perfect because its less likely to overwhelm you and you can use your training wheels more and observe without knocking over the apple cart as might be the case with harder issues.   If you don’t know how to observe yourself, do what my third grade teacher told us to do when we were upset; hold our breath to the count of ten.  What this does and other things like it is it breaks the chain of obsessive thought or recursive thinking so you have a better chance of returning to stasis or greater normality in your thoughts and feelings. Until you can master observing your feelings maybe holding your breath or having a time out will work for now.

One very good way to calm yourself emotionally is to use breath.  One very good way to relax is to use single nostril breathing.  It works!  Simply plug up one nostril and breath deeply in and out through each nostril for a count of four to five breaths, alternating between each nostril until you begin to feel yourself relaxing.  Keep doing it if you want, since the benefits will continue.  You can also use deep steady and slow breath as well, but it does not work quite as well as single nostril breathing.  Once you have done this, observe how it has made you feel.  Build into your mind and awareness the shift that has taken place as it will likely be easier next time when you are looking for that elusive state of calm!

Change Your Mind

This is the hard part….which is where your own choice comes into play and is also the part that makes acceptance so hard for some people.  You have to WANT to accept something that just moments ago had you upset.  You literally have to CHANGE YOUR MIND.  To do this means you have to decide to actually change the character of your thoughts and your feelings. You have to be willing to take the yellow brick road and pave it over in, say, purple brick instead. The entire landscape of your feeling self has to change.  This is why I have mentioned observation as a key player in helping you edge closer to acceptance because most often acceptance requires a change in your mind.

To change your mind one very useful means to this end is to reach a state of grace.  Now grace might sound like an almost esoteric thing to you, and I say that it need not be.  I have observed grace quite a bit and I can tell you that there are some very clear alternative routes to grace that do not require you to carry a Rosary or bow down in saffron robes.

Let Grace Flow

Grace is itself the act of opening ones self. Grace flows when you are receptive, not when you are rigid angry and shut down emotionally.  To know grace you need to first be calm and neutral. remember the Observer?  That, or hold your breath tot he count of ten. Once calmer, you REMAIN calm and then allow this receptivity to move through you and change how you feel.  It is this receptivity that is Grace that will lead you to a place of acceptance.  I will tell you that when you are creative, Grace is there.  IN fact, what we call Grace is actually a form of cognitive function that involves a broader brain being put to use.  Creativity is itself connected to Grace.  In order to be creative, you must be willing to PLAY.  You must be willing to set aside whatever you were thinking and feeling in order to throw yourself into the imaginary world of that play, whatever it happens to be.  For children, this might mean being in an imaginary realm.  For adults, it might mean solving a problem using creativity. It also means being open to the possibility that things could change.Ask yourself over and over “whats the greatest and highest good for this?”  By doing this, you train your mind to consider that there are options you may not have considered.  It also keeps you more pliable.  And just so you know, feeling as though you want to “give up” is itself NOT a bad thing!  This is itself most often letting go of an outcome and letting go your attachment to a position your own ego self may have held.  This is part of what I am writing about….which is a form of surrender.  You can still surrender while you are wrestling a 600 pound gorilla.  You just quit.  You give up (ego).

It is also coincidental that when you are receptive in this way creatively, that you are much more likely to have those inspired moments and visions that saints and seers talk so much about having.  I can tell you that a religious experience or spiritual experience only happens when we let go and allow our imaginations to be free enough to bear the information necessary for the experience to unfold. Yes.  You heard it right; you have to imagine.  But what is so different is that once you have met the spiritual half-way, it then takes on a life of its own. It is more than what you alone could have probably come up with.  Einstein did the exact same thing when he discovered Relativity; he let his mind wander and he let his imagination out for a walk and that was when he and the universe smacked into one another in a rather marvelous sort of way and changed our world and the world of physics forever.  This same state of mind or being can help in any number of pursuits or problem solving.  it can also lead you to a solution beyond the problem you are having, which has to do with acceptance.

Some other things to bear in mind that may be helpful to you is to learn to be present in the moment.  When we direct our attention away from the present moment several things happen, but one really big thing can happen, which results in  string of challenges for all of us.  When you leave the present moment you are suddenly dealing with what is not yet known.  That is a very uncertain space.  On the one hand, this type of thinking allows us to do some planning in our lives, but it can also get entirely out of hand.  We can plan so much into the future that we are simply not living in the present anymore. The reason why this is so undersirable is that it is a misuse of your energy.  It also can lead to fear and uncertainty….and while I wont call this sort of thinking a high level form of fear (fear of the car going off the road or the sky falling) but smaller and thus more insidious sorts of worrying and edginess.  Like small particles of sand, they infiltrate into the substrata of our emotional lives and help to create a low level form of dis-ease.  Small things can grow into big things over time and this can all turn into neurosis.  I have observed people first hand in my life and how this can take over your life in ways that can entirely blind you to the fact that it is even happening.  After all, what harm could a small grain of sand do?  So be present! The more you wander, the more what-ifs you will be dealing with and these just can’t be answered properly except in the present. SO do what you can do in the moment and let the future be the future and you will have to deal with it when it becomes the present.  it isn’t even that you don’t care about the future, its just that you cannot change it except by what you do NOW. Don’t get caught up in the what if of the future.  DO what you can do NOW so that as each moment passes, you will live it in as calm and happy way as you can.

For full disclosure I will say that I have had to deal with some pretty tough forms of acceptance in my life.  I have.  I had to accept the death of a parent and move on.  I had to deal with the loss of a child.  I am still dealing with these things and I have found that all of this work goes in layers. There is a lot that I have let go but there is more I have yet to dig down into and decide its no longer worth holding onto.  I know that the things I have passed on to you do work because they have helped me a great deal in doing the work I have done in my life.  I wish I could just drop things entirely, but it seems that our feelings and souls are built the way we dress, which is in layers.  But layer by layer, these things fall away.  Big things often go first and there is great relief from letting them go, which builds enough momentum for me to be very hungry for the next layer to go, too.  Just don’t get discouraged if you find that there is more material beneath the layers you have shed.  Be easy on yourself and be kind.   The deeper you go in this kind of work, the more interesting it can become, but it can also seem kind of endless.  Well, perhaps it is, but isn’t it worth it?

So be present.  Be grateful.  Check your ego at the door and keep expectations down. This doesn’t mean that you scale back hopes and dreams, you simply do not focus on them at this point in time.  And then have at it. See if this results in your having a bland life or one that is quite unexpectedly exciting and wonderful.  You might be surprised.  Go at life with wonder and let grace filter in as part of the transformative mix that aids you in your work.  Let the glass be half full and it will be. You can do this by simply learning acceptance.  It soften ego, it makes your mind more pliable, and your emotions far more fluid and accommodating. When you do this, you wind up being closer to your authentic self, which is at peace and filled with bliss.  Suddenly all the problems of a moment ago begin to fade and the angst does too.  And you will begin to uncover your native natural self if you are lucky.  You will feel this very delicious feeling….almost like you are falling or floating.  Energetically, this buoyancy points to your being more free.  And that is a very good thing!

~Good luck~

Our Mother

We have a beautiful mother
Her hills are buffaloes
Her buffaloes hills.

We have a beautiful mother
Her oceans are wombs
Her wombs oceans.

We have a beautiful mother
Her teeth the white stones at the edge
of the water
the summer grasses
her plentiful hair.

We have a beautiful mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body everything
we know.

-Alice Walker

Eduard Bezembinder – St. Mary of the woods, collage, papercut, 18x24cm

The Way

Waking up for me at a certain point became like an adventure in revelation.  I realized that I could tease truth from the ether.  I wrote reams and reams of this material that involved my plumbing the depths.  I later read how this was a common facet of awakening kundalini.  In the Hindu texts it is described as being taken down to the atomic level in order to see the universe in a new way.  This was one of my cornerstone experiences where I was shown the relationship between the phenomenon of the very small and how it moved up the chain of scale to reside within our rather large world.  In the Hindu texts this was synonymous with a type of mastery.

It is so easy in spiritual work to fool yourself into thinking you have attained something.  But is the accumulation of abilities attainment?  I have found that no, it is not. It is merely a gateway, a doorway.  It is not the Way.  The Way is within us. Even as we grow from child to adult, the Way remains central for growing and developing properly into kind and compassionate and feeling adults.  We might learn the things that children do and as we grow we might learn different things as adults, but in the end it is how we have anchored the Way within us.  The Way is our compassion, our love, what makes us human.  My being able to tease secrets from the universe is simply an ability but in no way suggests any sort of attainment whatsoever.  It can be used for great good and it can be used for great evil. It is a tool and thus neutral. Our humanity however is not neutral.  Our humanity saves us from being robots, from being coarse callous creatures.  It gives us the means to forgive even as though we forgive would wish us dead.  “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” was the cry of Jesus as great harm was being done to him.

There is talk about “Ascension” in awakening and its laughable to me….not in a derisive sort of way but in a sad sort of way.  No one really knows what this ascension is.  Ask anyone and they will provide you most likely with very forward-looking comments (which is very much what you read in an investment brochure!).  That is, to say, they really don’t know what this ascension will look like.  They look outwardly at ascension without really embodying it as a vital and living mystery within.  It is not like a skill to attain.  It is not like something that you will be someday, it is what we are.  Ascension is the Way.  It is so simple it isn’t about anything other than itself, preformed, preexistent, and thus free in a sense from the world of manifestation and phenomenon. To get what I am saying here means feeling it inside your own bones, in your blood, in your heart.  It is less an attainment as like your eyes focusing into what is already in front of you, what you are……deep down inside of you. This is not something that can be taught.  It defies all efforts at trying to pigeon-hole it.  It transcends all religion and all faith and belief and method and technique.  But it does so because I sense, its presence in our lives is so basic, so necessary, that making it complicated to get to wouldn’t make any sense.  And yet, it is so simple, people make it complex, even esoteric.

It is perhaps what prompted one reader to ask what this ascension business was all about when people did not seem to anchor a fundamental humanness.  It is great to feel the bliss of awakening, but it is in the trenches doing the work that is the meat of becoming more whole and becoming better.  We can talk lots, but it is just talk.  That is why what I am writing is itself just writing.  The work exists elsewhere and when I am away from this machine….in the moment….in all of my moments when I can make the right choices, ACT compassionately, and be loving.

Techniques are themselves helpful for doing some things, but at the end of the day a breathing exercise will not get you in touch with your humanness.  Your humanness is what does.  We can have mountains of methods and techniques, but it all comes down to love, to compassion, to our humanity.  No amount of attainment will get you there. No amount of  initiation or tests.  It is perhaps more about realizing what you are….because so much of the climbing of this spiritual ladder if you want to see it as that is not about work but about realization.  The work is the realization.  We are in truth going through all kinds of crazy contortions just to get ourselves to a place where we are ready to realize who and what we are.  That is why when realization comes (and I note it comes in dimension or degree) it does so like the dawning of something quiet and simple.  There is nothing to say, nothing to do.  It just is.  In fact, it seems utterly silly to go on about it (yet many do as a way to point to what they think is the Way for others….which is kind of beside the point).  It is also why it makes all of this so hard to convey because there isn’t anything TO convey.  Once you are there you tend to lose the desire to even talk about it…..its like you are on your way to the gold mines and you run like crazy to get there, following every lead and every clue as to where they are so you can get this wonderful wealth buried underground.  And yet, upon reaching the mines, you realize you really have lost all desire to climb back down the mountain in order to show others how to get there. It is simply so sublime to BE there that any thought to going back escapes you.  It is perhaps a bit like how people who have experienced Near Death Experiences recall how they were filled with such incredible peace that they did not even think about going back into the physical.  They were happy and entirely content to rest in this place of peace and joy and love.  It almost seemed beside the point to try and go back.

Some of us do return and I suppose they wind up being called bodhisattva.

False self, ego self, higher self, pranayam, kundalini, chakras. It is all stuff.  Let the Way live in you.  It does not matter if you have some facility for knowing or seeing.  The Way resides within everything and when you realize it is there it has the power to be your teacher, to show you without anyone’s help.  You do know the right and wrong, and you do make your choices as a being gifted with free will. How you are is what you attract.  I crave simple now…the complicated seems like so many grains of sand….and the grains themselves work themselves out quite nicely when I know how to be.  What seems to be the most wonderful thing is this pulse of awareness and life and love that is my core.  Getting to that core feels like salvation.  Redemption. The Way.

A Modest Approach To Transcendent Spiritual Work

We are taught in school and in our world culture that the mind is the way through solving all our problems.  We have done this because of a left-brained tendency for ages that has followed the march of linear rational thought and also an over-dependence upon masculine awareness, energy, and consciousness. Now come the cooler more fluid irrational, right brained things….the feminine, the counterpart to linear rational thought.  This is part of the balancing act that is taking place right now and right here on the planet.  The coming of the feminine.

The one thing that you can do in your own inner work to help to anchor some of these aspects that we associate with the feminine side of consciousness is to allow things be a mystery.  Stop trying to SOLVE every problem.  It is a curious reality that when you, little you, earthbound self-you stops trying to solve a problem, it actually is offered up to your higher self and the higher self works on it.  If you do as some Christians have done, which is “give it up to God” you will actually find the same thing I am writing about. Being able to do this also does something profound to you; it allows you to relax.  It seems counterintuitive that by stopping all thought and worry about something that is nagging us that we are able to resolve it so much easier, but it is true.

To do this you must make sure that you do not have any competing beliefs that will get in the way of this working.  If you find yourself interested in the idea of letting go of something and letting the higher self work on it but find that there is something in doing that that worries you , concerns you, or that you find yourself saying “yeah, but…” then its likely you have a competing belief that will get in your way.  If you do not believe you can, then you wont. Clear the path and your purpose will be clear and powerful.  This is part of your work. You are clearing a path for a giant to enter your life and do work for you.  And it can.  If you just allow it.  This is the giant that has stepped into the room with me when I awoke.  It is the vastness that came in when Buddha awakened.  It is the part of him that “awoke with him.”  You are the universe.  You are yourself, yes, but tied and woven into its very matrix.  You have some pretty powerful stuff on your side.

Somethings just aren’t always something you can make sense of or solve.  How you feel, how you respond, or how other people have responded.  You may not always know the reason in a clear way.  But there is a part of you that can help to resolve it.  The answer may not always be the one you THINK you should get, but its the best one for you NOW.  Otherwise, its just as strange as our giraffe showing up in the photo above…

Another problem is that if you feel like you are supposed to solve the problem and that by letting go you are somehow engaging in an act of heresy or irresponsible behavior, well then, you have some inner issues to work on. Some of these can be niggling small.  Slivers, really.  If the power of the sliver is stronger than the power of your own intention, it is enough to counter anything you seek to manifest.

So let go.  Be vulnerable.  When you do this, you tell the universe that you are ready for it.  You are signalling a great deal of receptivity to it.  By doing this, things have a way of coming to you.  Be ready for miracles to happen. Don’t be surprised when you hear the footfalls of giants in your life.

It really is hard I think for many people to realize just how incredibly limitless they are, that the resources that they have are so significant as to render any problem or issue impotent and healed if only we could stop sticking  our fingers in the dyke and trying to hold back the vast rush of the universal energetic that is our souls. You wake up one day with the realization that all you are is a particle of water,  drop, really, but that there is this curious capacity you now have for merging your awareness into the drops of all other drops until you no longer see drops but feel vast seas and oceans surging and moving and flowing and this is all within you.  This is cosmic consciousness.  And I am sure someone like Buddha or someone similar had something to say about drops of water and oceans.

Once you feel this it is so authentic, you don’t need a teacher.  You simply need to remind and encourage yourself to keep pressing forward into that place where you can let go and surrender.  When you do, you signal you are ready for more.  “More” has a curious way of coming. The trick in all of this is not to worry over HOW the answer will come. Don’t worry about that.  I mean, if you do you might be entirely overwhelmed by the big footed movements of the giant as it comes crashing and moves all the furniture in your life….Your job is to remain simple and in the moment.  When you do this, you make youself available, ready, and receptive. Instead of being some kind of adversary, you will find that the universe has fallen in love with you and all the problems you have had or think you have aren’t the result of the world beating you up, but something inside of you that was off kilter. This type of awareness, this feeling of the universe falling in love with yourself is just the place where things can be seen in an entirely different way.  It is a radical shift in awareness and seeing/being. If you just let it.  Let yourself be seduced by it.  Go ahead.  Try. But in reaching that place, don’t seek to put controls on it.  Be like a child who has no expectation of what is going to happen.  When you do, you can better be led by this powerful force.  When you can’t do this, your awareness quickly shifts and drops right out of the sheath of awareness that is this state of higher vibrational being. Knowing when to activate the more receptive parts of your being with the more action oriented parts of yourself is a delicate balance, but when it comes to larger things, receptivity is a powerful approach that can lead you to unexpected places.  There is great power in this silence, this receptivity.  And in the end, you may not HAVE an answer to your problems because, well, those problems were just so gnarly, who would have been able to understand them once the transcendent comes knocking on your door?  It becomes like some distant foggy dream.  Sometimes things just need to be kept that way.

In this case, an empty mind is a very good thing.

The Emergent Divine Feminine

Lets get honest.  Even in the most illuminated and seemingly spiritually advanced traditions, there is still a great deal of male chauvinism.  I hear people say how lovely it is that Shakti is conceived as the force of kundalini itself and must slowly rise up the body, refining herself as she goes in order to ready herself for her union with her consort, Shiva, resting in resplendent perfection in the crown chakra.  Or how, in images of Yab-Yum the male figure is the deity and the feminine aspect is his consort.  If you go to Wikipedia you will see this expressed.  In one fail swoop, the cosmos is rendered an all-male deity club where women must refine themselves to be worthy and where the women are merely consorts.  It is a fact that both forces of masculine and feminine rose within me AS THE FORCE that IS kundalini when awakening took place beginning in 2006.  The intense energy living in me was the locus of the union of these two forces now vibrantly alive in my body.  I was one with the father and mother.  They were one within me. It was I who had to refine myself, to catch up.  Both sides of the energy cycle had much to teach me, both the north and south poles of the vibrant nimbus of energy now licking like sensual flames all over me.  But we speak of the feminine having to refine herself and no one so much as bats an eyelash.  Does anyone bother to stop and look at these stories and realize that all the god stories and goddess stories are merely stories about us written large against the spiritual skies of our inner world?  Who realizes that when we began looking to see a deity in the clouds or sky that we had defacto set that deity apart from ourselves, placing a VERY frustrated and angry and probably sexually frustrated bearded male god in a untennable situation. Well of course he would smite and destroy.  Who wouldn’t? And where on earth is the softening aspects of the feminine in all of this?  Without her we have had ten thousand years of stiffened hardened madness.  And look at how this has played out in humanity. So the feminine inside each of us, EACH of us, is vital but so is our awareness of them…..

As long as we continue to do this, we continue to turn a blind eye to our own divinity because what works here on the small level also works on the larger spiritual levels as well. The curious thing about belief (and its brother named bias) is that you wont experience a thing that you have barriers erected for. This is how for centuries people have seen women as lesser to men, essentially like cattle to be traded and sold in marriage.  Little more than slaves.

This is changing in a big way.  While change has been gradual and perhaps too slow for some, it has nonetheless created a change that does not show signs of changing back or reverting anytime soon.  Yes, we  still have the throwbacks, but on balance, things are better than they have ever been. And they can continue to keep getting better.

Here is my contribution….

Below is an image from the Hindu tradition of Shiva playing his flute to his consort, Parvati, a manifestation of Shakti.  Shiva has the nimbus around his head in green, but Shakti does not. Perhaps she is having to refine herself, her energy, before she has the same radiance as her consort Shiva.  As someone who reads auras, I can tell you that the energy surrounding women is every bit as brilliant as that around men. In some cases, it is stronger in women than in men. This makes sense since women will bear life and will have to carry this new life with its own energy sheath in a protective manner.  Having a strong bio-energetic field could have its benefits.  I show you the image just as I came across it and then the image that I changed to include a nimbus for Shakti. Hers is violet, which suggest intuition.  It is a nice warm color yet very spiritual, a nice counterpoint to Shiva’s halo.  I hope that you use this image to help raise awareness in a simple way that BOTH of the sexes are equivalent.  Please feel free to do so with attribution.  A nice remix of sorts.  It is a small thing, but is another drop of change that we all need if you ask me.

The Temple

As Kundalini began to move in me, before I knew that it was headed down the tracks straight at me, I visited in a dream, a place,which was itself a shortcut through town….a town where I did not live, but would live a few years later through an interesting twist of events.  This was what kundalini would do to me, for me….effectively take me through places I had not been in an accelerated way, a short-cut if you will. My dreams became much more literal under the influence of kundalini.  And brilliant.  I didn’t know it then, but this would be the first of a string of incredibly vivid and powerful dreams that would become part of my new inner landscape.  Now, you should know that I have kept dream journals for years.  Decades.  I have considered dreaming as important as waking even if people seem to feel its something we do in our off-time.  For me, dream was itself the flip side of waking and an opportunity to see and do such amazing things within.  My dreaming was already changing as the force of kundalini slowly trickled into my life beginning in late August of 2006.  I took notice.  My awakening experience was different from most as my awakening came in small bits and pieces….it was likened to a renovation crew coming onto the scene, MY scene, and beginning a whole series of odd jobs that did not seem at first to be connected one to the other.  With time, though, I realized that all of these unusual experiences were building into something.  Something was about to happen….

There was a trickle of a creek running down the side of the hill as I drove through this shortcut that took me from one end of town to another. I didn’t know it then, but Kundalini would come and provide me the shortcut, the speed-boat version of cutting through the morass of junk that had unwittingly been cluttered in my way psychically for years.

The stream that ran alongside the road was most unusual.  Instead of growing bigger as it meandered along its way, this one did exactly the opposite.  This one seemed to trickle out but got stronger the closer I drove to its Source. The water was itself brilliant. It was like lightning and starfire. Forms moved within its light matrix.  I saw symbols that were unlike anything I had ever seen here on earth….perhaps an ancient language, or a codex from some lost land or planet or system far from this place…whose memory was emerging again through the portal of this creek. This slip of spirit.

As I drove up the hill, the creek grew in strength.  It was so compelling that I stopped the car and got out; I waded out into the water.  I felt like I had somehow come home.  The water was alive!  It moved up my legs and I saw blue and green and red streaks of things, barely noticed, but entire concepts and presences within this water.  Was this like a current of information?  Was this the water of life?

I got back into the car and drove up the hill and there I saw what I can only describe as a temple.  It was made of wood and stone.  It wasn’t one thing or another.  It was its own form and style.  Perhaps Wright meets Zen.  Walking inside it was entirely empty.  Bare.  A central channel, a short open area almost like a hallway graced the center room.  To one side was a shower, to the other was a shower.  Three women got into these showers.  Two got into the right side showers and one got into the left side shower.  I didn’t know it then, but these would be the three women who I would know during my journey through kundalini the most. Two would align more to a more masculine right-sided current while one would align with a more feminine left-sided current.  Some would want to call them soulmates, some Twin Souls, some soul connections.  I rather think that it is an inevitability of having stepped into the realm of awakening.  Here, we are both locally and non-locally focused.  Here, in this new place, the temple within is the temple without.  Suddenly, in finding its source point you realize the source point is in everything.  Through this All one flows.  We each can touch one another through the aether as the persistent reality or origin is with this aether.  The infinite within.

No more temples, no more alters, no more gurus or shamans.  The answer I seek is within….and any problem or hitch or difficulty I experience in the world is in truth my own. By being gracious and grateful again for my life and experience, I can enter again into the temple of my soul….for grace is the medium by which we know the All in its fullest.  Perhaps it is easier for me because of the bliss I feel which comes about from the core of my being.  Perhaps if I weren’t so full of bliss on a moment by moment basis, I might be seeking outwardly, too.  But the bliss you seek outwardly is only short-lived.  There is a river in you of energy which will flow constantly, without purpose beyond its own bliss and which can elevate you regardless of where you are or who you are.  It is bestowed simply because you ARE. Not because you are good, or righteous, or even a believer.  This will certainly take you beyond all religion, all belief, all dogma, and place you back in the primordial place.

It is beautiful. Pristine.  Untouched.  We long for those places in nature because we long for that place within ourselves.  And it is there.  Once you find it and realize just how incredibly sacred and important it is to who and what you are, you will strive to keep your own outer world pristine as well.  You will esteem in your physical life what it is that is so lush and alive within you for you wake up one day to realize all of this….all of this…is itself a carrier, a vessel for spirit….ALL spirit….ALL of it.  Every drop is invested with awareness….and this awareness is love. When you touch this or are touched by it you are not the same every again.  Oh, maybe you struggle against its truth in you and even seek to make it a devil for a time, but the temple of me is the most remarkable place.  It is set atop boulders on a hill where the headwaters of this creek or river rush like a mighty force.  My temple is a temple of water and air, dedicated to the indwelling spirit.

Bit by bit being here changes me.  I am a stubborn sort, so sometimes I struggle….and yet, the bonds continue to break and fray and fall away.  For as hard as it sometimes seems, a remarkable amount of work has been done…..and there is more to do.  I cannot tell you how I reach the next step….for the indwelling spirit is my guide and it curves and turns the same as a river turns and bends.  One day I will breathe and that will do it.  On another day I will focus on the bliss flowing upwards in a stream like fire and ice inside of me.  On another day I will be led to a silent and still lake of my soul where I will see something that I could not see in the rushing waters nearest the temple of my soul.  Some bonds are broken by tears, some by smiles, some by memory, and some in forgetfulness.  It seems my experience has been one of a rainbow of things, perhaps to know the full range of possibility for us here, or maybe because that is just how it must be for me and there is no grand design in it save for how I am saved.  Redeemed.

The temple is within and when it honeyed river flows inside of you gone will be any mention of temples elsewhere, for the light and water full of sweet fire shall have taken up residence within and nothing else will suffice.

The Great Beyond Is Within!

Hampi Pano in India. Used with permission.

We travel for adventure, seeking far flung locals in search of the exotic.  The teacher, the guru, the mystic, the seer, the shaman, the saint.  We seek miracles.  We seek wonder,  And awe. We look for something outside of ourselves that is in truth within.  We can spend years in such a pursuit, and even when we know the truth, the impulse for trying to “find it” can come on strong.  At its best, we search outwardly to find what we know is inside.  At its worst, we don’t know it is within and move from teacher to teacher, from holy land to holy land, from technique to technique, or guru and teacher to another….

Udaipur, India

We can seek for years.  Lifetimes.  Each new discovery, each new exotic location offering up a short but intense burst of discovery…..but each time each location pales  as the truth shines like a diamond in the rough.  Nothing else can quite touch or match it.  Looking outward is all we have known, but this diamond, so exquisite, so forgotten, so missed, is within you.  And it is beautiful.  Beyond all measure.  Beyond all accounting. Without knowing this, you will go from place to place, experience to experience until you grasp the key that unlocks you, that opens you to the grasp of the universe, the embrace of the divine within you.  In being touched by that you can now be touched by everything, for the thing that is in you that makes it possible to touch the All is now alive and active in you.  the diamond now shines and projects the lives of everything else into you in brilliant fashion.  You do not go outside yourself to find it.  It has always been within you.  With you.  A channel.  A yoni.  A place where the universe reaches you, touches you, nourishes and enlivens you.  And because you are a child of this universe, its very dna and life moves all through you.  You are at once the child and the parent, the planet and the galaxy.  You are the ancestor and the inheritor to the ancestor.  You are the lock and you are the key.  Looking outside yourself for the lock and key merely hides the pathway for a while.

No matter where you go, remember that the wonder that you seek, the excitement and knowing has been and shall always reside within you…..for all that is touches you, presses its eager lips upon your soul and breathes its passionate knowing into you if you will but silence the rabble and noise within you.  It will take you and in taking you show you the way that you are, that each being is beneath all the things that matter so little.  Like anger and hurt and pain and jealousy and greed and all the rest.  When the light of this diamond strikes your eye you will never be the same.  When we look outside ourselves, it is so often because we are somehow bored or uninterested in the truth of what it is we are.  In some cases, it is to set aside the necessary work within to make it a more enjoyable temple of joy.  In others, it is to ignore what is most basic and true.  There is no rush, though.  We have infinities of time.  Each life is this way and we have spent thousands of them in just such a way.  Until we grasp the key and fumble for the lock.  Once you have felt what this does to you, to be opened in this way by your divine parents, you can never go back to being any other way.

So seek; for in seeking and traveling you will realize what it is that was in you to know already. Seek teachers if you must, for the good ones will merely remind you of what you needed to remember from a life lost but that is now returning.  Seek exotic things even,  but nothing is more exotic than the very breath that you draw and the current that trails through you as each single particle is nourished and cherished and given the memory of what you are and shall become.  It may be, too, that the thing that you think is exotic is in fact what you are missing that is inside of you.  So maybe a smell on the streets in Delhi, or a wisp of smoke from an incense burner in Nepal, or even the steam rising from red hot stones of an Inipi ceremony out in the sticks of South Dakota….

These are not “flowery” words.  These words are born boldly of flowers in their fullest bloom whose truth lies in blooming and shall ever be about blooming, becoming, opening to the truth as dark is scattered by the eternal urge to forget the past and open.  To transform.  Maybe you thought that coming to the divine was difficult or complicated.  It is as simple a thing as you could imagine….perhaps too simple for most minds.  So we seek outwardly not believing that such simple things could be laid at our feet, that the divine would love us so much to make all the rules so utterly simple. Maybe it does not feel like a true spiritual journey without having to leave ones safe haven to know what is within that can be.  Each bloom upon the planet can surely awaken to the warmth that is just now beaming upon all.  And surely we each will have to struggle with the shock of the New which is in truth Ancient, but any struggle is our own and not because of the light that showers upon us.  It is we who have forgotten in our slumber.  But we are remembering.  As we bloom.  As we open.  You will remember…