Reinterpreting Original Sin

Up until a few years ago I did not really understand the story of Adam and Eve and "The Fall." I just assumed that it was supposed to be taken literally since it seemed that most people did. Such a literal interpretation was always a major stumbling block for me, however, especially when I was growing up. I kept wondering how on earth anyone could take Christianity seriously with such a story. I mean, really, our world of suffering was caused when the first humans disobeyed God and ate an fruit? And this transgression deserved the severe punishment of experiencing suffering, pain, loss, loneliness, and death? How much more ridiculous could the story be? I was amazed that Christianity had lasted at all, let alone for 2000 years.

It wasn't until I read books like The New Man, by Maurice Nicoll, and A Course in Miracles, that my eyes were opened to the deeper, esoteric meaning of the Bible. It was another one of those "Ah ha!" moments when something that had been formerly hidden from me was now revealed. The Bible (and no doubt virtually all sacred texts, as well as some literature and poetry) offers multiple layers of meaning, with the literal meaning being only the most basic level.

Here is a significant quote from Search for the Meaning of Life by Willigis Jager, revealing a deeper understanding of "original sin":

All religions know about the imperfect condition of humanity. Many speak of a "fall," of "original sin." But original sin is not a fall from a higher state of consciousness into a more imperfect state. Rather, it is the emergence from a "prepersonal heaven," an awakening from the dullness of the preconscious into an ego-experience, a shift out of the state of instinct into the knowledge of good and evil, as the Scripture says. This was a great step forward in evolution, but it also brought with it the whole burden that is bound up with this ego-experience, namely, the experience of sickness, suffering, guilt, loneliness, and death.

Thus the so-called "fall" did not bring mortality, but the knowledge of mortality and the mutability of all things. Previously, humans had been living the life of flowers and animals. Hence the real sin is not eating from the tree of knowledge - that is only an image - but that in the process of becoming an ego the person gets separated from God. "They were naked," Scripture tells us. That has nothing to do with clothes; it implies that they were thrown out into the loneliness of the ego. The expulsion from paradise is stepping out into the personal condition without this experience of oneness with God. Original sin is not guilt in the real sense of the word, as we have long realized. It is a fact resulting from the development of consciousness.

I think this starts to put "The Fall" story in a whole new light. Instead of seeing ourselves as "guilty sinners" being punished by an angry father-figure type God, we can come to realize that we (humanity and ultimately every living on non-living thing in the universe - since all is ultimately one with God) have chosen to be in this world, on purpose, in order to experience "the knowledge of good and evil." We have chosen to experience duality and all of the good and bad that goes with it. We are here to find and experience wisdom and knowledge. We didn't want to stay stuck in the stasis of the Garden of Eden, where time did not exist and where we 'lived' in oneness with God. So we are here in the world to experience a journey and learn something from it. Like the Prodigal Son or the son of the king in the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, we have left the comfort and safety of our home (i.e. our oneness with God) in order to go on a journey of growth and evolution. We are divine beings clothed in bodies in a world buffeted by time and the processes that spring from duality: birth/death, male/female, good/evil, etc. Thus there is nothing to feel guilty for. We are here for a purpose, which, I believe, must ultimately return us to our source, God; yet we will have learned something along our journey (hopefully) that will make the return to God, as in the story of the Prodigal Son, all the more sweeter and beautiful.

Perhaps the notion of guilt and sin came about, as A Course in Miracles suggests, because a part of us feels guilty for being separated from God. Like the Prodigal Son we have left home and have become scared to face the Father. We're not sure how He's going to react. We imagine the worst, which translates into feelings of guilt, loneliness and separation. If we could only realize that these feelings are really a product of our ego, our attachment to the world and to our individual separate identities. As Jager writes, "One day we shall realize that God always was 'walking in the garden' with us, that we never were separated from him. Even if we don't know it now, we will experience it. Paradise lies before us. Hence we Christians call it the 'New Jerusalem.' It is the experience of oneness with God."

In my next post I will go into detail regarding the symbolism of "The Fall" story. I think you will be amazed at the deeper levels of meaning represented by the serpent, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as well as the nature of time and the five senses.

Music in Progress

Well, I said I would come up with at least 25 measures of music by the evening of November 25th. Technically I succeeded and wrote my music on time; but after several hours of computer problems and struggling to integrate three different music software programs, it is now a couple of hours after midnight!

Here is what I have so far. It's just a simple theme on solo violin. The file is in MP3 format.

I don't have a title yet. The piece will be for violin, viola, oboe, and glockenspiel.

Stay tuned for further developments. Now that I've got my music software sorted out and optimized, it shouldn't take me so many hours just to record 29 measures!

Tavener Quote # 2

Another great quote from The Music of Silence - A Composer's Testament:

I regard metaphysics as a fountainhead through which all music must flow, and I think the key word is 'flow.' As St Irenaeus of Lyons said, 'God will always have something more to teach man, and man will always have something more to learn from God.' I return to the key word, flow. It's not a cerebral process - it's a question of having the humility to leave oneself vulnerable and allow the Spirit to flow through one. If you go back to the great masters, the saints and certain poets like St Simeon the New Theologian, he always received his poetry as pure vision.

I am struggling to figure out how to do this in practice. Maybe "struggling" is my problem. Inspiration must come from God, from opening one's intuition and turning off the internal censor that keeps nagging "It's not good enough!" in the background.

I vow to write at least 25 measures of music between now and the end of the day on Sunday, November 25. Perhaps through a public commitment to my music I can force myself to look in the mirror and overcome my writer's block! Look for a sound clip when I have my 25 measures.

My Autobiography of Self-Transformation

In the past year or so, I have heard of something called "The Law of Attraction." I believe it is from a movie called The Secret. I haven't seen the movie or read the book, so I can't really comment in detail on the law, but from what I have heard it basically means that if you focus on the things you want in your life, you will start to attract those things towards you.

The basic concept behind the law sounds too simple on the face of it. Yet, in general, the law sounds like the tiny seed that sprouted into the blossoming lifestyle I have found myself in today. I would call it basically a type of "getting your sh-t together" mentality. Of course it all starts with knowing what you want and focusing your attention; but there is a heck of a lot of work involved first and all along the way, both inside one's heart/mind/spirit, and outside in the world where one lives, one's lifestyle. It is too easy to say you can just focus on something and everything you want will magically appear out of thin air. Work! Work! There must be several ongoing layers of action before manifestation.

Here is a simple outline of my own path towards inner and outer transformation.

When I think back on who I was in the year 2000, the year I got married, I can almost not recognize myself at all. I carried so much baggage with me: years of depression, low self-esteem, dysfunctional ways of thinking and behaving, etc. I saw the world not as my oyster but as a torture chamber, set up on purpose to make me miserable. My very outlook on life itself was the biggest obstacle keeping me from living my life.

The first step that helped me move forward was to keep a journal. Since the late 1990s I started writing almost every day to record my thoughts and experiences. Through this process of inner examination, slowly learning about myself, how I was thinking, analyzing how I was interacting with others, watching myself make the same mistakes over and over until I could finally stop and catch myself, it ultimately dawned on me that through this process of writing and self-analysis I had an enormous power. Almost by accident I must have learned to harness the journal as a mighty rope to drag myself out of myself, into a new world.

In the second step, going to therapy (with an awesome middle-aged Buddhist woman), I acquired an outside objective opinion to reveal to me the deeper functioning of my thoughts and behaviors. This worked very well in conjunction with the journal writing. I was able to examine past traumas in my life, see how they were still influencing my thoughts and behaviors, and then take conscious charge to change those thoughts and behaviors to create new outcomes. By this point, late 2002(?), I had really succeeded in pulling myself out of the decades of depression and negativity that had almost swallowed me up. I was still not perfect, but I was well on the way to becoming a well-adjusted, functioning adult (around age 27!).

The third step was finding A Course in Miracles around the middle of 2003. Coming from a cynical-atheist/scientific-materialism background as a child, I still constantly hungered for spirituality and for some path that would give me deeper answers or a meaning to my life and existence. From 2000 onwards I was already slowly opening myself to the spiritual realm. I was realizing that the cynical-atheist attitude of the past 25 years was really not getting me anywhere fun in life, so I threw a question out to the universe: "What else? Show me some alternative ways of seeing!" The Course finally unlocked a door for me that my previous forays into Taoism, Buddhism, and other philosophies/spiritualities just hadn't quite achieved up to that point. I still dearly love Eastern philosophy and religion, but it was the Course that gave me that cosmic "Ah ha!" moment. It finally gave me an explanation for the world, an explanation for the existence of evil, and a great overall comprehensive picture of my own place within everything; A Course in Miracles really truly "clicked" (and does so to this day).

Meanwhile, my husband and I gradually found ourselves gravitating towards a simpler outward lifestyle. We realized we didn't really need a lot of material things to keep us happy. We were content to have a smallish (700 to 800 square foot) place to live in, one car, a bunch of books, the Internet, our friends, and our little hobbies. And then somehow, one by one, certain once formerly-critical things fell out of our life: the television broke and we decided not to replace it (what did we need that distraction and noise for?). The car got totaled when we hit a deer (we live in a city with great public transit and we were already in a position to walk a few blocks to work, school, the grocery, etc.). One by one, the TV and the car disappeared, and were exchanged by realizing, even more profoundly than before, the value of time and silence, which in turn led to further self-examination and self-improvement. (And we still get by just great today without the TV or the car!)

The fourth concrete step, again with all these things rather falling together simultaneously over a course of years, was the discovery of the book Your Money or Your Life, written by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (thanks to our friend, Dave, for giving us that book!). In the middle of our gradual lifestyle simplification we discovered that we had the capability to save up our resources and eventually quit our "day jobs" if we wanted to. And not just quit our day jobs early, as in, say, by the time we got to age 50, but rather (for me) age 37! The key principle rested in realizing that money represented our "life energy." We worked 40 hours a week to trade our life energy (time) to make a resource (money). This is not just realizing the importance of money; this is not just some get-rich-quick-scheme or "save $10 a week for x number of years and you'll be fine." It is a fundamental realization of how everything is interconnected in one's life and bringing it all together in alignment; of realizing when you have reached a stabilized definition of "enough" based on your criteria for happiness. Suddenly our lifestyle was coming into alignment with our values. The inner self-transformation led to an outer simplification and focusing on what truly mattered to us most (time). We didn't need a car, lots of things, or a big house, which also meant we didn't need a million dollars to be able to reach an early retirement. By the year 2012, if all goes according to plan, we won't need to worry about the day-to-day necessity of having a day job to pay the bills. This amazing coming together of our inner and outer development, of valuing the interconnection and wise usage of time, money, and life energy, would also allow us to bring all of our other goals to fruition.

The fifth step on my self-transformation road, around May 2006, was the purchase and daily practice of Holosync in building my own meditation and spiritual practice. This has really cleared up some more mental cobwebs and given me real inner energy to accelerate the pursuit of my goals (plus it also helped give me a new inner strength to deal with the various health problems I encountered in 2007). I must really also credit Holosync with opening my spirit to God. To showing me, within myself, that there are new worlds to explore and that God is shining in there somewhere and has been all the time. It is still yet only a glimmer but I see the crack widening each day. With the step into Catholicism I am looking forward to deepening my spiritual path further. I can hardly imagine where I might be ten years from now, as at the moment I am still in my spiritual infancy.

The last step, which my husband and I are still in the process of perfecting and refining together, is the cultivation of true discipline. We're well on our way there in certain segments of our life. We've had our goals for a long time, kept them in the forefront, set a concrete time frame for early retirement, etc. but it's not yet 100% in motion. Not all wheels are spinning together yet. There are still aspects of ourselves that fall through the cracks and get neglected (especially, as of late, my own health). I am now working towards a more holistic, integrated vision of a lifestyle of discipline, that includes making the most of each and every day on multiple levels (spirit, mind, body, life's work). Ultimately we hope to enter retirement in the year 2012 (and I mean retirement from the "day job," not retirement from Life) ready to open another new chapter in our lives, living each moment to the fullest, not squandering a second, and awakening to our numinous joy.

Wrapping my brain around "Religion"

Some more nice quotes from Willigis Jäger from Search for the Meaning of Life:

Barriers and limitations are created solely by the fact that humans want to pin down the ineffable with concepts. Such religious modes of expression are conditioned by time and hence transitory. But experience is timeless and transcends all differences in dogma. It is the common ground on which the individual religions build.

All religions agree that Ultimate Reality is ineffable, that it can only be experienced. Everything that humans say about it is already a distortion.

On the level of experience, all religions are one. But individual persons who want to speak about their experience have to be content with the forms of expression available to them from their cultural background. And thus the variety of the esoteric paths reflects the variety of cultures, but in their essence they are all one.

Lately I have come across various sources trying to peg down what humanity means by "Religion." It is such a huge concept. A giant overwrought package of baggage. And there are way too many voices arguing over what is "right" and "wrong." I have been trying to wrap my brain around it as well, and reconcile how I found myself on this road to Catholicism.

First I should clarify that by the word "Religion" I am referring to that large descriptive box attached to one of the mainline religions, whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.

I have come to view religion more and more as something that must be viewed from multiple dimensions. It is too simplistic to describe Christianity as merely a literal interpretation of the Bible, or that scientific materialism pulls the covers off all religions and reveals them all to be warm, fuzzy fairytale hoaxes to help us sleep at night. There is more to religion than showing up at church every Sunday or telling other people what not to do in their bedroom.

I am seeing religion now as something that encompasses many layers, or boundaries. And as one progresses further along on their spiritual path, the layers keep expanding further and further outward. You could start at the most basic level of religion, of primitive understanding about life; identifying your bedrock place in the world and its meaning. For me, the basic level would be someone solely wrapped up in the external layer (exoteric), with concern about morality and society; of following the "dogmas" of one's faith, the external rituals that bind community. Exoteric is where everyone loves to argue about "the rules" and who is or is not following them. Then the next step would be internal (esoteric), exploring one's inner world through contemplation; observing the actions of one's mind in operation; trying to dissolve that barrier between the ego-self that says "I am" and the inner conflicting God-nature that also wants to say "I AM." Then as you keep stepping beyond, one must realize there are still more horizontal and vertical dimensions, stretching to that ineffable Ultimate Reality.

It is as I have heard or read elsewhere: religion is like a vehicle. You need both the cart and the horse to be able to get somewhere. The cart contains the dogmas of external religion, the centuries of collected knowledge, wisdom, and rules; but we also need the horse, the engine, the fuel that springs from the inner work of contemplation based on the deep spring of esoteric wisdom underlying all faiths, to propel the cart forward. You must have both knowledge/rules and practice/action. They cannot go anywhere without the other. And then ultimately what you end up with is the final, genuine lived experience; that living, breathing awareness of God-reality, the "Gnosis" of self-realization, must be the end result.

Other random thoughts:

• there is the path of the intellect, the rational mind, Zen, or contemplation
• there is the path of the heart, of devotion, of a blissful union with the divine; of seeing God as a nurturing Mother-figure or lover

Plus we can't leave out the cultural layer as well. Depending on one's culture or how one was raised, can have an enormous impact on how one views or experiences religion. But to a certain extent, even the cultural layer is part of the exoteric shell that encompasses "Religion." Culture, like language, has many flavors and colors. The cultural layer can give us many different words to describe God's face, yet the underlying esoteric truth is still the All-One, Ineffable.

Some other influences on my thoughts this weekend:

Father Keating on Ken Wilber's Holons site:
http://www.holons-news.com/node/71

Bill Harris' Blog from Centerpointe/Holosync:
https://www.centerpointe.com/blog/

Brainwave Technology

When I was a teenager my mom had some New Age magazines lying around ("Uh oh!"). Reading them I became tantalized by advertisements for some far-out technologies that could help "Turn you into Zen monk in 30 minutes or less," and other things of that sort. Ever since, I have been fascinated with technologies that offer the potential to elevate one's consciousness to higher levels of awareness, whether the goal was to find God-consciousness or just to feel something like a cool "head trip." Certainly, there is some flaky stuff out there, but I have been willing to try new things and not been too disappointed. The technology, which has been around for decades now, is largely safe for most people (except for those with seizure disorders, pacemakers, or epilepsy; such persons might have problems and should be very careful) and it's certainly safer than ingesting chemicals into the body, like LSD, heroin, pot, alcohol, etc.

The technology I would like to focus on in particular is called "brainwave entrainment." First a brief primer on brainwaves and why you would want to "entrain" them:

Centuries ago, humans discovered that certain conditions could induce hallucinatory states or changes of consciousness in the brain. From shamans "tripping out" in front of the flickering lights of a roaring fire, or winter travelers crossing an all-white field of snow experiencing a mental "blank out," some people have just known or discovered by accident that they could change their conscious awareness. Plus there are also the assortment of herbs, drugs, gases, liquids, natural and man-made, and so on, that can be consumed for similar results.

In our present era, science has studied the human brain and come up with some explanations for why and how such changes of consciousness take place. The brain is composed of a left and right hemisphere, both sides of which include some small, natural amounts of electricity coursing through the entire structure pretty much all the time. When you hear about people who are "brain dead" it usually means that the electrical energy in their brains has ceased to move. Thus, this electricity is very important to our existence and consciousness as fully aware beings. You have electricity moving in your brain right now as you're reading this (I hope).

Depending on what state of consciousness you are in, whether sleeping, dreaming, talking, studying for a test, solving puzzles, etc. your brain is constantly moving back and forth between very calm states of awareness (deep sleep) up to very high levels of functioning (intense mental focus or concentration or highly alert awareness). This is just part of the natural ebb and flow of the brain, day in and day out. Science has been able to measure this brain activity, our naturally-occurring electricity, through high-tech imaging instruments and sensors, measuring brainwaves from the lowest to the highest ranges (i.e. frequency) and come up with the following chart:

http://www.transparentcorp.com/products/np/brainwaves.php

Once you realize the importance of what all this means, the next step is to identify optimal brainwave frequencies that you can pursue depending on the goals that you set for yourself. There is clear scientific evidence (if that's important for you) showing how certain brainwave frequency ranges are better suited for improving one's learning ability. Other brainwave frequencies can help reduce one's feelings of stress or even help calm the symptoms of addictions. Still other brainwave patterns can tap into one's deepest levels of consciousness, the subconscious mind, and dream-like states. There is a wide range of possible uses for the technology. As a therapeutic or self-development tool, it could really revolutionize humanity and treat a huge variety of problems, whether mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual. But most interesting to me is the use of such tools for the pursuit of God-consciousness, or the unitive experience of the mystic!

We live in exciting times! The technology I'm referring to is now fairly cheap and easy to get your hands on. Some types of it can even be downloaded for free from the Internet. The technology, generally called "brainwave entrainment" (or look up "binaural-beats" or "mind machines"), basically consists of a method whereby the brain is stimulated to mimic the frequency that you want to move it to. Say, for example, you're wide awake right now but you want to experience deep meditation instead. You need to slow down your brainwaves from your current waking consciousness to a slower meditative state. In order to "talk" to the brain and change the frequency, we need to stimulate it in some way, usually through the senses of hearing and/or eyesight. Thus there are devices called "light and sound machines" which use goggles delivering blinking lights to your closed eyelids and headphones creating beeping sounds in your ears. The frequency of the flashing light and beeping sound, pulsing continuously in a rhythm, actually causes your brain to mimic the frequency you are feeding it. By looking/listening into such devices from about 15 minutes to an hour, you can gradually move your brainwaves in any direction you want to go. You could speed it up or slow it down or keep it on a steady level. This mimicking effect of the brain is called the "frequency-following response." Don't worry: it is safe, trust me. Even when you're listening to your favorite music, for example, your brain is being effected by the speed of the music's rhythmic pulse, whether you were consciously aware of it or not. Your brain is constantly receiving stimulation from outside, thus explaining why some environments make you anxious or others make you feel peaceful. Just think of how much your brain experiences when watching a movie! But through the use of brainwave technology we can actively participate in directing our consciousness in any direction we want to go. We can explore our inner worlds!

Here are a few examples of the technology you can explore, from cheapest to most expensive (in US dollars). Your basic choice is between whether you want a simple, ready-made audio CD to just jump into instant meditation and brainwave exploration; or whether you want to experiment, learn how to make your own entrainment program using computer software, extra devices, teaching yourself over time, and figuring things out on your own.

BrainWave Generator (FREE)
Free download of software for building your own brainwave-entraining audio files. Probably the simplest way to get started. Few "bells and whistles," as the other following pre-packaged CDs might offer.
http://www.bwgen.com/

Center for Neuroacoustic Research ($16 and up)
A more serious, less commercial, avenue for purchasing brainwave entrainment audio CDs. I even found a box set of their CDs at a Half-Price Bookstore once for $5.00! Shop around!
http://neuroacoustic.com/

Immrama Institute ($35 and up)
I've heard good things about their Insight and Focus audio CDs. Just buy a CD and listen. The brainwave entrainment technology is embedded underneath soothing music or sounds.
http://www.immrama.org/

Transparent Corporation ($45 and up)
More advanced type of software that lets you build your own audio and/or visual entrainment experience, just using your computer. Create raw, simple binaural-beat sounds, or combine with background music or other sound effects. Integrate with light and sound machines. Teach yourself the software and the sky is the limit. It can also instantly generate entrainment programs for you, based on criteria you've given the software. I have Neuro-Programmer 2 and highly recommend it. Easy to use. Excellent help info and instructions included. Unlimited potential. Download their demo and try it. Their web site is also very informative!
http://www.transparentcorp.com/

Mind Machines ($90 and up)
Devices that provide both light and sound stimulation, or more. Some can be used in conjunction with the audio CDs and computer software listed above, to create your own sessions.
http://www.mindmachines.com/
http://www.mindmachine.com/

Holosync by Centerpointe (about $190 for first level (4-6 months); many more levels beyond)
I've had the most profound, illuminating experiences and growth with their CDs. At least order the free demo and try it out. They have a lot of slick advertising, which can be off-putting for some, but I know from experience that their technology really works. The brainwave entrainment technology is hidden behind "nature" sounds like rain, birds, and bells. Their system also provides clear guidance, support, and a path to follow. I am looking forward to about 20 years with their program and I know I will savor every second.
http://www.centerpointe.com/

Explore. Stay tuned. I will tell you about my experiences in future installments.

Unmasking the Self

This is probably going to sound a little arrogant to say on my part, but I am coming to feel that this blog is helping me to unpeel the layers of my many "masks" hiding my true Self.

I have found throughout my life that I wear many "masks." You probably know what I mean (and I'm not talking about literal masks here). Depending on who I interact with, the "mask" I present to others is perceived in certain ways; the "mask" is viewed from different angles. Thus my closest family members know me in certain ways that, in contrast to my-coworkers or neighbors, outsiders could never possibly know. Likewise my husband, of course, knows me in ways that no one else on Earth will probably ever know. The "mask" for my family members comes colored with much personal history, the decades of my development from baby to child to adult. The "mask" that my co-workers see is relatively "newly formed," representing the person I've evolved into and become in the past year or so, yet based on accumulations and refinements of many previous "masks." It is the "mask" for society, the world, for fitting in with the crowd and getting along. And it could go both ways; maybe the "mask" viewed by my closest family members is not as luminous as the "mask" I'm wearing for my co-workers because my family members may have developed prejudices about me over time (not necessarily good or bad prejudices, just "stuck" opinions), based on their decades of "knowing" me. So in a way, the people who think they know me the best, may in fact be clouded by their own perceptions of what they think they know about me. I can have many "masks" but I have little control over how others are viewing or perceiving my "masks." And even within myself, my own perception of my "masks" could be totally different from how I'm imagining that others are perceiving me! "Perception creates reality" as A Course in Miracles says. So each and every one of us is living in our own unique reality, never really knowing, authentically, the experience of another's reality (perception).

So what to do with all these "masks," I wonder? Lately (well, maybe for the last five years or so), I have been trying to take them off, one by one, and examine them to see which ones are worth keeping and which ones are not. To figure out which ones are a more accurate reflection of the real me hiding on the inside. Have you ever examined your "masks" or thought about them? The funny thing about the "masks" is that they can really create false barriers when interacting with others. It's like putting up a wall of fear which can be very hard to break through. It takes courage to cut off the toughest "masks" and expose one's authentic hidden self (and ultimately, that Self-with-a-capital "S"). Courage that many people don't find until they're on their death bed and faced with the end of their existence and everything they've ever known. And I find it ironic that it is the oldest "masks" I wear, the ones clouded by my personal history, that are the hardest ones to remove; and this in turn means that sometimes the people who ought to know me the best, may actually know me the least. And the ones who "know" me within the past few years may actually "know" me in a more genuine, authentic way merely because I believe I am now showing my best, most evolved self!

I am not passing any judgment here on anyone, or saying that certain types of my "masks" are "right" or "wrong" (black-and-white thinking is such a shame); I'm merely observing something about myself, what I am, what I think I am, or what I'm becoming. It is interesting to contemplate! I have no answers. Just observations.

Have you taken a peek under your "masks" lately? Do you know who you are?

Enormous Gratitude

I have so many things to be thankful for these days. My life is so full of blessings. What could have been my darkest hour has become one of my best. I am thankful for my life and for everything that has ever happened to me.

On Monday, November 5th, I finally got some pain relief for the herniated disc in my lower back. I had not had a single waking hour of pain relief (except the times I could lie motionless and flat on my back) since the pain started suddenly on October 13. After starting the new medicine on Monday, I woke up at 3 AM the next morning feeling that something big had changed in my back. Incredibly the pain was significantly reduced, almost like someone had released a giant vice that had been crushing my spine. It was truly like a literal weight had been lifted. I never had such a feeling of relief in my life. When I look back at the kidney surgery of April, that seems now like a pin prick in comparison to the back pain. I never realized how much I could tolerate until now. This sort of event can really increase your tolerance for hardship.

The past month has been such an eye-opener for me, mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I am not angry or sad about my herniated disc. I think it is a real blessing in disguise and has made me a better person in terms of feeling more compassion for the suffering of others, discovering I had some serious health issues that were hidden and needed to be addressed, and most of all realizing how many good people I have the honor to know in my life. I am surrounded by the best family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors I could ever have imagined. I have an amazing husband who has shown he will do anything for me "in sickness and in health."

I don't want to forget this moment in my life. I don't want to go back to taking anyone for granted, or taking any moment, good or bad, for granted. I don't want this feeling of gratitude to diminish or disappear. Everything that happens in life can be a lesson for learning and improving one's self. Everything must happen for a reason, but we need to be open to seeing the meaning everywhere, even in the tiniest detail. If we could only see the good in every event, rather than jumping to conclusions of victimhood, hopelessness, despair, or bad luck. I wish the whole world could find this realization, this doorway to joy.

Thank you, God, for everyone in my life. Thank you for every moment fully lived and breathed, and for opening so many new doors recently. I hope I can keep learning and growing. I hope I do not squander this opportunity. I am awash in gratitude and love. Bless the world. Realize deep inside yourself that you exist, that you live. Feel it as if you only just discovered this truth for yourself for the first time. Become numinous!

"God is the Seeker"

Two of the books I got at Loome's the other day are fantastic. I'm working on The Inner Eye of Love by William Johnston, and Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and Reflections on the Mystical Experience by Willigis Jager. Both books are written by Catholics (monks and/or priests) and delve into mysticism and esotericism; but there is also a great openness to the wisdom from the Eastern spiritual traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Jager's book even appears to mix in ideas I've seen from the works of Fritjof Capra - the intersection of quantum physics with mysticism, or the idea that science doesn't have to be anathema to spirituality. I highly recommend these books, and I've only read the first chapter of each!

Here's some food for thought from Jager's book:

The quest for the meaning of life, the search for our true essence, or - as we Christians usually say - for God, is part of the basic principle of evolution. Actually it isn't a search at all. Rather the Divine is unfolding in us and through us. The Divine comes to consciousness in us. We think that as human beings we are on a quest for God. But we're not the ones searching for the Ultimate Reality. Rather it is the Ultimate Reality that causes the dissatisfied yearning and the search in us. God is the seeker. God awakens in us. We ourselves can't do anything; we can only let go so the Divine can unfold itself. We can only "get out of God's way," as Eckhart says. The essential nature reveals itself if only we don't prevent it. And if there is a redemption, then we are redeemed from being possessed by our ego so that our real selves can spread their wings.

Wow. "God is the seeker" and redemption from our own ego (rather than from our sins/mistakes) - these are really new ideas to me! That blew me away! I will keep reading and let you know what I'm thinking about. This is cool.

Bookstore Paradise

(Click on pictures for larger views)

We rented a car for the weekend (we haven't owned a car for a few years; Twin Cities has great public transit, and until recently I could walk everywhere) since I'm pretty much crippled up and was tired of being stuck at home for days and days. So we went to Stillwater, Minnesota, for some enriching, wholesome, book therapy! Here are a few shots of Loome Theological Bookstore, an awesome spectacle and quirky place. It was formerly an old Swedish church, and still retains the stained glass windows and rickety hardwood floors. To save money (I presume) they don't heat or cool the large main part of the building, so in the winter you can see your breath while browsing! There are plenty of nooks and crannies, balconies, and narrow wooden staircases. It is a real treasure trove! You could easily spend a whole day (or two) in here. It is the largest second-hand theological bookstore in the world. Loome's also has a second store in town with a more diverse selection (which contains virtually everything else outside of Christian theological subjects).

I got some books on my usual interests: mysticism, esoteric Christianity, meditation, prayer, sacred arts, psychology, and saints. George got some real nice books on one of his favorite people: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I hadn't realized they had almost an entire bookcase on Teilhard, with many books in French or German. It was upstairs in a secluded balcony, which also included an expansive collection of the works of Evelyn Underhill, Karl Rahner, and Saints Thérèse of Lisieux and Teresa of Avila, and Thomas Merton. (Oooh, yes! All the cool people together in one area!). One reason I considered becoming Catholic had to do with Thomas Merton and Teilhard de Chardin. If these two geniuses and modern-day mystics could become Catholic, then there must be something valid to Catholicism! In my book these guys are already saints, if not Doctors of the Church. If you want to consider the idea of me - a former hard-core cynical atheist for 20+ years - becoming a Catholic, then you are welcome to use my change of heart to promote the cause for Merton and Teilhard's canonizations!