Theosophy & Morse Code

The past few weeks have been so hectic! Yet also so rich with possibilities and glimmers of joy and a vision for greater potential and endeavors in the next few months. May 9th will be my last day at "the day job," with six glorious months of freedom to pursue some old and new dreams.

This Saturday, May 3rd, I will take the exam to get my first Ham radio license. This has been a dream of mine since probably the age of 9 or so, when my Grandpa Martin gave me his old Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave radio and a clunky old crystal-powered police scanner. Ever since then I have been hooked to shortwave radio, scanner radio, CB radio, and amateur ("Ham") radio (with offshoots into astronomy and playing with electronic kits). For years and years I was either too desperately shy to pursue the Ham license or too busy wandering off into other hobbies (Taoism & Chinese, anyone?). One of my goals this summer is to master Morse Code thanks to a really nice guy's excellent resource, so I can chat with people around the world and exchange QSL cards. Sure, people are chatting 24 hours a day on the Internet, but there is still just something magical about stringing up some flimsy little piece of wire and tapping out an esoteric language through the atmosphere on a few watts of power. It is miraculous!

Speaking of esoteric, I have also joined the Theosophical Society and look forward to attending my first local meeting in a few weeks. I feel a greater urgency to expand my search after the deeper truths in life, something that can't simply be found from sitting around at home reading books all day. You can have lots of nice thoughts and philosophical musings, but a genuine, deeply lived experience of the Divine is the ultimate goal in life. I sense an inner expansion of awareness, a desire to get out and find fellow-seekers on the path to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Life is so much more than what we perceive so superficially with our physical senses. I'm not talking about psychic powers or auras or flying through the air or things of that nature (not that I'm against such beliefs; but such things really don't resonate with me). I'm referring instead to an inner knowing, a divine spark in which you just know, deep down in an intuitive-heart way, that there is so much more to life beneath the surface. As William Blake famously said,

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

In a way there is an overlap between the mystical vision, of seeing the world, everyone and everything, with a new perception, and using Morse Code to communicate through our globe's invisible atmosphere, zipping at the speed of light across continents. Both require a new awareness, a mental clarity or vision. Both are like a newfound world, a new language, a new sense of self and other. Damn, isn't life so kickass fantastic and exciting?! Let's live every moment!

What makes you excited about life? Do you ever wonder that if you should die tomorrow whether you had truly lived? Life is always here, right now, in this present moment. The question is whether we can wake up to it in the now-moment or whether time will run out before we can fully realize it. I believe that is why we exist - to seek and find that answer.

Time & Interiority

Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

- John O'Donohue, from his book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

I am starving for free time; for simple, basic, unstructured and open-ended free time that allows the mind to wander into secret uncharted territories. Our society is too obsessed with keeping busy and doing rather than being. Every minute has to be somehow "productive," as if we are our own mini factories of industriousness. Even after all these years without a television to devour my few free hours, I'm still catching myself being a slave to the clock and judging my use of time. There should be a law against the 40-hour work week. Supposedly the people of the Medieval ages could get by just fine working for 20 hours a week to sustain life. How is it we have become so much more uncivilized today than those people back in the "Dark Ages"?

Silence, daydreaming, and stillness. These things are as vital to me as air and water. If I go along for too many days, whisked away into busyness and socializing and chores, without a chance for my spirit to catch its breath and my mind to find stillness, my inner sense of sanity starts to crumble. I get anxious and frantic, like a trapped animal. It is hard for me to imagine how others can constantly be on the move, or socialize for hours day after day, or find quiet alone-time to be lonely and scary. If I could get away with living as a hermit in some far remote place I think I could do just fine.

Here is a tip from Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

The essence of mindfulness in daily life is to make every moment you have your own. Even if you are hurrying, which is sometimes necessary, then at least hurry mindfully. Be aware of your breathing, of the need to move fast, and do it with awareness until you don't have to hurry anymore and then let go and relax intentionally. If you find your mind making lists and compelling you to get every last thing on them done, then bring awareness to your body and the mental and physical tension that may be mounting and remind yourself that some of it can probably wait. If you get really close to the edge, stop completely and ask yourself, "Is it worth dying for?" or "Who is running where?"

View of Catholicism

I submitted a response to a survey from the NPR program, Speaking of Faith, on a potential future radio program on "The Humanness of Catholic Identity." Here were the questions they asked:

If you are or were Catholic, we'd like to hear your perspectives on what anchors and unsettles you in this vast tradition. We're also interested in the hopes and concerns you have for the church, now and into the future. What do you take solace in and find beautiful about this faith of nearly two millennia and more than 1.3 billion members spanning all the cultures of the globe? What hopes, questions, and concerns are on your mind as you ponder the state of the Catholic Church and its future?

Any my response:

I find solace and beauty in the esoteric dimension of Catholicism. The focus by the media, and the overall public perception, seems almost exclusively centered on the external, dogmatic aspects of the Church (i.e. prescriptions on behavior, morality, arguing over "right" versus "wrong", etc.). There is a place for dogma and rules, but, to me, the heart of Catholicism is experienced in its inner truth, its mysticism, esotericism, and contemplative practices; it is about coming to the realization of a genuine, lived experience, within one's own being, of God or Christ-consciousness, an experience far beyond following rules or commandments on pieces of paper. I find solace and beauty in the Liturgy, contemplative prayer, Gregorian Chant, the rosary, architecture, and art. I find solace and beauty in the saints and writers like St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Teilhard de Chardin, Meister Eckhart, the Desert Fathers, as well as contemporary theologians like Thomas Keating and Willgis Jager. Through centuries of tradition I find a deeply profound connection to my European cultural background and ancestors; I can participate in the Mass and experience a realization that I am part of something larger than myself; a connection to Spirit that binds me to God and to my human family in the past, present, and future.

Yes, there are both good and bad aspects to the Church. Yes, there has been much evil done in its name, all of which should be recognized and atoned for and learned from by the Church’s members and leadership. Like a family, there have been and always will be segments of the Church that don’t get along, with skeletons hiding in closets, and areas begging for reform or healing. Yet somehow the Church keeps going strong, accepting and integrating diversity, differing cultures, and differences of opinion. I find beauty and solace in the miracle that such an institution has lasted for two millennia. My hope is that the Church, in moving forward into the future, will be able to look at itself honestly and address any neglected issues it needs to face.

We live in an age that is terribly polarized, and that polarization has infected the Church as well. My hope for the Church is that we will find the patience and wisdom to step back and examine ourselves deeply; to look at where we have come from and where we are going. In the words of the American philosopher, Ken Wilber, the Church might find a way to move forward by "transcending and including" those aspects of itself that have become polarized or marginalized. We can include and integrate the liberal and conservative expressions of Catholicism while still recognizing and validating those differences. We can include and integrate the rational and mystical minds, finding value and meaning in both, moving forward holding both. My hope is to one day see a healthy, holistic, "integral" Catholic Church, comfortable in both its dogmatic and mystical aspects. A Church that is proud of its traditions, practices, and cultural expressions, yet mature and honest enough to learn from its mistakes, take what is good, true, and beautiful, and throw out what does not serve Christ’s ultimate message of "love one another as I have loved you."

Looking Ahead

Time is flying by so fast but I'm looking forward to a carefree 6 month period to do anything I want, hopefully starting in a month or so. Creativity requires complete and total uninterrupted time; complete and total time for contemplation and spiritual exploration. My two main goals are to (1) write a non-fiction book in the overall area of spirituality/philosophy/self-help, and (2) compose enough music to fill an entire audio CD of around 60 to 70 minutes (yes, of course quality should be more important than quantity, but I feel I am really lacking in the quantity area for the past decade).

Sorry for this short post! I leave you with a quote from one of my all-time favorite books, The Outsider, by Colin Wilson:

We can summarize [William] Blake's argument briefly: All men should possess a 'visionary faculty'. Men do not, because they live wrongly. They live tensely, under too much strain, 'getting and spending'. But this loss of the visionary faculty is not entirely man's fault, it is partly the fault of the world he lives in, that demands that men should spend a certain amount of their time 'getting and spending' to stay alive.

The visionary faculty comes naturally to all men. When they are relaxed enough, every leaf of every tree in the world, every speck of dust, is a separate world capable of producing infinite pleasure. If these fail to do so, it is man's own fault for wasting his time and energy on trivialities. The ideal is the contemplative poet, the 'sage', who cares about having only enough money and food to keep him alive, and never 'takes thought for the morrow'. This is a way of thought that comes more easily to the Eastern than to the Western mind.

Restless

The past month or so has been very inwardly tumultuous for me. I am restless and anxious. I feel like I'm on the edge of some important and necessary changes in my life; a period of chaos before I can evolve to a higher stage of development. Sometimes I catch myself feeling so joyous and excited about life! There is so much I want to do with my life! And then there are always a million things to worry about, the chores to maintain one's life, the day job, etc. the basic stuff of life that can be rather boring. There is always the constant struggle between one's mundane life and the desire for an extraordinary life. I feel I am getting closer and closer to "following my bliss" or even that I might have found it already and have been living in it for a while and wasn't consciously aware of it. I am so grateful and amazed about life!

A recap of what I've been doing and thinking lately. It has been a whirlwind period:

• I've been working on some music I'm really excited about. As soon as I have it completed (hopefully in a month or two) I will post a link here.

• Books I've been reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, The Life We are Given by Leonard & Murphy, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and The Spiritual Guide by Michael Molinos. Soon I will read A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber, and A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher.
  

• Saw the film, Into Great Silence. Amazing, real, beautiful, and deeply lived lives. The guys in this monastery probably have a deeper experience of life in one year than most of us do in a lifetime! This reminds me I need to get back and pay a visit down south to this place. Stunning! If only we could all live our lives with such focus and intensity.
  

• Visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and focused intensely on three rooms full of Medieval and early Renaissance art. I've been spending some time learning about the Middle Ages, its art and history. I didn't really know much at all about these subjects. I hope to make future trips to the museum, ideally once every couple of months. It is so worthwhile and meaningful to learn new subjects and really spend a lot of time learning and thinking. It is so easy to get stuck with a few interests or hobbies. I need to break out into new territories of learning.

• I experienced a terrible phone call at my day job a month ago. It really disturbed me and shook my foundation. I need to do some shadow work on it. I will share my writings on that in the future. It is still percolating and reverberating in my psyche.

• I've decided I want to write a book! I am currently brainstorming topics I'd like to write about before narrowing it down into something specific, with chapter contents and a main title. I've wanted to write a book for years and years. Life is short and isn't going to stop for me to get my act together! Now is the time.
  
  
• Continuing to make progress with my ILP Kit. Almost daily exercise and meditation are now part of my routine, even after a week with a nasty flu. If I go a day or two without exercise I really start to miss it, a feeling I never had before. And I can tell how much of an impact exercise has had in rehabilitating my back from the herniated disc. I have had absolutely no lower back or leg pain since early February! It is miraculous!
  
  
• I'm really excited about the whole idea of an integral life! There is something great about pursuing and applying an integral approach to life and living. One of my biggest goals in life has always been to live life to the fullest and cultivate myself to my highest potential. Why else are we here on this Earth? Is life not a fantastic opportunity?
  

Gratitude & Surrender

I am again amazed at life. A month ago was another trial of pain, infirmity, and uncertainty. Even after the facet block procedure, I was not sure I would ever feel normal again or stand up straight. Things like going bowling or learning how to dance seemed like pretty unrealistic activities for the foreseeable future. But now, after ten consecutive days of consistent, intensive exercise, I almost feel as good as new, maybe even stronger than before. It is miraculous that one day you can wake up and barely move or walk without pain, and on another day feel like nothing happened, as if the past few months were just a bad dream or a little annoyance. The pain is almost 100% gone, and the stiff muscles have almost entirely disappeared as well. I have gone from feeling bent and broken, to feeling fluid motion and strength and vibrancy. So strange! And I'm not complaining, of course! Just very amazed at how quickly things can change! I am very grateful!

What am I to make of this overall experience? Certainly I do not want to take good health for granted. There is no guarantee that I shall not have relapses in the future. And on the other hand, I don't want to forget what I went through either. I believe there was real value in the entire experience. It was a doorway to different states of being and perceiving. It has forced me to take better care of my physical health (not that I really neglected it; I just hadn't paid much attention to my body or made consistent effort to exercise regularly), and even to realize there is a spiritual dimension to one's body. There are the so-called divisions of body, mind, and spirit, but I am starting to realize more and more that these three realities co-exist integrally, in an inter-dependent way. The body is not just an organism or collection of biological systems, separate from mind and spirit; it is, instead, the intersection or crossroads of the mind and spirit united together. The body is the material, visible manifestation of mind and spirit. Outward and inner work together.

The mind is really the most powerful tool we have in this life. I truly believe that if I had had a very different attitude about my experiences with back pain (such as anger, or a sense of powerless victimhood), I would still be struggling to walk to work every morning, or jumping out of my skin every time I coughed. I think we, as a society, really underestimate the power of our minds to create (or destroy) our health. The power of our minds must also extend into everything else, our perceptions of reality, our perceptions of each other, other cultures, other nations, other religions, and globally, towards the environment and the planet.

Lately I have also grown to appreciate the spiritual notion of surrender. By spiritual, I am referring to the positive sense of the term. I think there is some confusion that leads most people to assume that it ONLY means to give up, or accept things as they are (and usually counter to one's desires), to stop trying to make things different; it usually has a defeatist connotation, which I believe is missing the point of the deeper meaning.

Surrendering can be practiced in different ways, outwardly versus inwardly. To me, "to surrender" can refer to one's mental and spiritual attitude, as an inner state, separate from one's outward behavior or external actions. In the positive sense, I can surrender my attachment to a certain outcome, rather than getting upset that life isn't going the way I want it to. I can surrender my definitions of what is "right" and what is "wrong", and rest in the acceptance of the present moment; I can just allow everything to be as it is, observing it, witnessing it, without needing to attach labels or judgments on experiences, people, or events.

In the case of my back pain, I really tried hard to stop wanting or wishing for any different outcome other than what I was experiencing in the moment. Now, this does NOT mean that I also stopped trying to change the situation outwardly. Outwardly I still went to the doctor, the physical therapist, and added more exercise, healthier foods, and so on. Outwardly, I made every possible effort to remedy the situation. Yet, inwardly, I surrendered my desires and attachments to specific outcomes. I rested my mind and heart and energy. I rested in the mystery of life and God. Since I didn't really know what was going to happen, one way or the other, I found it much easier, inwardly, to rest in a state of not knowing, not attaching and not desiring. It's like the weather - you could be caught out in a sudden torrential rainstorm - does it change anything to curse the rain, or wish for it to stop? The rain just is, it exists, it's happening in this present moment. It is neither good or bad, unless we attach a label to it. Inwardly, to surrender to the rain is to accept the fact that it is raining and just let it be itself; yet outwardly one can calmly and peacefully grab an umbrella or step into a building. We can do what we need to do without the mental agonizing of unfulfilled wishes. A clear, uncluttered mental and spiritual attitude can make it easier for our actions and behaviors to flow naturally and seamlessly. Life is only difficult when we add our mental baggage into the mix.

Hodge Podge of an Update

All sorts of things going on with me lately. Here is a breakdown of various things:

• My back pain has improved considerably. The facet block procedure worked to a large extent, erasing the pain from my lower back. Still some minor aches and constricted muscles, but at least it is manageable to live with. I'm continuing to do exercises recommended by my physical therapist, plus I have added 10 minutes of exercise bike daily.
  
• For the last couple of weeks my husband and I have been steeping ourselves in the Integral Approach of Ken Wilber. I got a bunch of his books, joined Integral Naked and Integral Spiritual Center, plus started listening to 12 hours of an interview with Wilber on audio CDs. We can hardly wait each evening to sit down and listen to the next installment! Integral theory is so fantastic! I really think it is the new frontier for making sense of ourselves and of humanity. It provides a multi-dimensional map for charting growth, development and evolution from an individual, societal, and global perspective. It is really amazing. I will write more on integral in future posts. Check out this Wiki page on Ken Wilber. For beginners, read A Brief History of Everything.
  
• Speaking of integral, we're continuing to use our Integral Life Practice kit, renewing commitments to exercise, meditate, and eat healthier. Despite the day job, I am using Holosync much more consistently. There really is increased mental clarity and focus from regular listening to Holosync.
  
• I've been composing more music lately, as well as cultivating a more intuitive, spiritual approach to composition. More on that later.
  
• Wednesday is already the start of Lent. I'm still trying to figure out what extra spiritual practices I want to add into my life. I'm exciting to participate more fully this year.
  
• Books I've been reading lately:
  - a translation of Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox
  - Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber
  - Swami Nijananda's commentary on Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence

More later on the Integral Approach!

Transcending the self for the Self

The following quotes are so exciting! I came across the technique of "witnessing" many months ago through the work of Bill Harris, of Holosync and Centerpointe. The following exercise and quotes, however, are from Ken Wilber, in his book, No Boundary. Basically, there is the idea that our true "Self" (as opposed to "self" with a small letter 's'), is who we really are, our eternal soul, which ultimately is part of, or one with, God (look up the concept of panentheism, as opposed to pantheism). The small-letter "self" is our ego-identified self, the self we've created and grown attached to. We get attached to that "self" and think that it's the only reality. Our ego-self masks who we really are. If you can get in touch with your authentic, eternal Self, you will ultimately see that there is nothing to fear and that there is no loss, no death, and no separation. Our ego-self is an illusion, masking our oneness with God and with every one and every thing.

Through the witnessing technique, you take the perspective of your Transcendent "Self", observing your small-letter "self".

The "Witnessing" Technique for Experiencing your Transcendent Self:

I have a body, but I am not my body. I can see and feel my body, and what can be seen and felt is not the true Seer. My body may be tired or excited, sick or healthy, heavy or light, but that has nothing to do with my inward I. I have a body, but I am not my body.

I have desires, but I am not my desires. I can know my desires, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Desires come and go, floating through my awareness, but they do not affect my inward I. I have desires but I am not desires.

I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I can feel and sense my emotions, and what can be felt and sensed is not the true Feeler. Emotions pass through me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have emotions but I am not emotions.

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can know and intuit my thoughts, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come to me and thoughts leave me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have thoughts but I am not my thoughts.

[End of Exercise; additional Wilber quotes follow]

Thus, any emotion, sensation, thought, memory, or experience that disturbs you is simply one with which you have exclusively identified yourself, and the ultimate resolution of the disturbance is simply to disidentify with it. You cleanly let all of them drop away by realizing that they are not you -- since you can see them, they cannot be the true Seer and Subject. Since they are not your real self, there is no reason whatsoever for you to identify with them, hold on to them, or allow your self to be bound by them.

Thus, your personal mind-and-body may be in pain, or humiliation, or fear, but as long as you abide as the witness of these affairs, as if from on high, they no longer threaten you, and thus you are no longer moved to manipulate them, wrestle with them, or subdue them.

To witness these states is to transcend them.

Thus, we can understand why Patanjali, the codifier of yoga in India, said that ignorance is the identification of the Seer with the instruments of seeing.

If you are at all successful in developing this type of detached witnessing (it does take time), you will be able to look upon the events occurring in your mind-and-body with the very same impartiality that you would look upon clouds floating through the sky, water rushing in a stream, rain cascading on a roof, or any other objects in your field of awareness. In other words, your relationship to your mind-and-body becomes the same as your relationship to all other objects.

Transcendence in and through Pain

A couple of weeks ago I had a pain relapse from my herniated disc. It returned to the debilitating state as it was when it all started in October 2007, and for a few days I could barely move or go to work. So on Thursday, January 10th, I had a minor medical procedure called "facet blocks" to cauterize some nerves along five sets of vertebrae that were channeling pain signals to my brain from the "slipped" disc. Mercifully, that procedure was largely successful, as the worst of the sharpest, stabbing pain was greatly reduced or eliminated. I don't feel 100% perfect now, but at least the situation can be endured and I can go to work and do some regular activities.

Not a day has gone by since October when I have not thought about pain, how to respond to it, how to fix it, and how to make sense of it. I have certainly had my days of frustration and anger and sadness. More and more I am getting the impression that Western medicine really doesn't have all the answers, or a quick fix (other than pills), and many of my experiences with doctors have been quite negative. Not only do treatment recommendations differ from one doctor to the next, but most doctors I have met (so far) were complete jerks (to put it mildly!), lacking even an ounce of compassion or humanity. Over and over again, I have also run into people who have dealt with back pain through surgeries, medication, and all the other usual Western methods, and it seems like one horror story after another. Many times the treatment only serves to make the condition and pain worse, or leaving the patient a veritable drug addict. I am currently really at a fork in the road when it comes to knowing where to go from here. My faith in Western medicine has never been lower (not that I'm not thankful for the facet block procedure, which was really minor and the least invasive action I could take, but it seems like my options from now on could lead to a lifelong quagmire of surgeries or experimental guesswork). Ultimately I think it rests on me to keep a positive attitude and cultivate a larger, spiritual meaning to make sense of this experience and to live with it. There must be a way to endure this positively and constructively. I do believe in the power of the mind to heal the body. I do believe things happen for a reason and that there is much for me to learn from this pain.

From a spiritual standpoint, I have found some new and beautiful ways for understanding pain. The following is a quote by Hazrat Inayay Khan, a Sufi mystic and author, from his book The Unity of Religious Ideals:

In reality God is within you, and as He is within you, you are the instrument of God and through you God experiences the external world and you are the best instrument of conveying yourself to God.

I also found a similar perspective from reading Willigis Jager: the idea that not only is God within us, but He is living through us and experiencing our lives in and through us. God is living through this pain with me; I am not alone in enduring it. It is like the idea of Christ's cross: that we each have a cross to bear in this world, but that it is imbued with even more significance if we can see it through Christ's sufferings. The experience of Christ is a mirror image of our own. If we can follow in His footsteps, pain can really become something that helps us evolve to a higher state of being and consciousness.

The Buddhist concept of karma also adds another dimension of meaning, and I really think it is not much different than the Christian idea of surrendering to divine providence. The following is an amazing quote from Ken Wilber:

I’ve dealt extensively elsewhere with the concept of karma and illness—in Grace and Grit, for example, and more recently in Excerpt A of volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy. But it remains one of the most confused areas of understanding imaginable. I’m not going to get into it at any length here, but just let me make a few very brief points. Many people hear of situations like this, or perhaps suffer similar ones themselves, and imagine it must somehow be retribution for some horrendous crime in one’s past. But keep in mind that karma doesn’t mean that what happened earlier in this life is finally catching up with you; the orthodox doctrine of karma actually means something that happened to you in a previous life. According to the doctrine of karma, in this life you are reading a book that you wrote in a previous life. Many people draw the erroneous conclusion that because, e.g., they used to yell at their spouses, they now have throat cancer—but that’s just not the way it works.

As a matter of fact, from at least one angle, the “bad things” that are happening to you now actually indicate a good fruition—it means your system is finally strong enough to digest the past karmic causes that led to your present rebirth. So if you were reborn—that is, if you are alive in a body right now—then you have already horrifically sinned, and unless you work it off in this lifetime, guess what? You’re coming back. Illness itself does not cause more karma; your attitude towards illness, however, does. Therefore, if you are undergoing some extremely difficult circumstances right now, and you can meet those difficulties with equanimity, wisdom, and virtue, then you are doubly lucky—the causes that led to your being reborn now are starting to surface and burn off, and you’re not generating any new karma while you burn them (as long as you meet them with equanimity and awareness).

I only mention this because all too often, people undergoing difficult circumstances of one variety or another add a type of New Age guilt or blame to an already difficult enough circumstance, and truly, that’s not only inappropriate, it’s inaccurate. If you would like to pursue some of these concepts in this more integral fashion, please check out Excerpt A. In the meantime, if you’re undergoing some sort of truly difficult or even horrific circumstances, please don’t kick yourself when you’re down. That, indeed, would create bad karma. The good news is that you are finally ready and able to burn off the karma that led to this rebirth, and this is good news indeed—if you meet it with love and openness and a smile.

From this perspective, the endurance of pain and suffering, and one's positive response to it, can become a very noble action, setting things right in the world, making corrections for past wrongs, turning a negative into a positive. This also seems to be the same message one gets from reading the lives of saints, Catholic or otherwise. Pain and suffering are facts of life and ultimately unavoidable. It's how we respond to it and make constructive use of it that make all the difference. We could either see ourselves as helpless victims of random chance, bad luck, or fate, or we could see it as a great opportunity given to us by God for a reason.

I will have much more to say on all of this in later posts. I am currently reading an analysis of Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence.

Jager on Religion, Spirituality & Esotericism

The following quotes are from Benedictine monk and Zen master, Willigis Jager, from his book, Search for the Meaning of Life.

On spirituality versus religion:

I make a distinction between spirituality and religion. Spirituality teaches a path into experience and deals with what is experienced. Religion, by contrast, is instruction that has evolved into dogmatic theology. These dogmas do, in fact, derive from experience, but they have been absolutized, and only a few believers understand them in an experiential fashion. In esotericism there is instruction but no dogma. "Dogma" here relates to traveling a path to come to one's own experience.

These thoughts might give rise to the misunderstanding that esotericism could subsist all by itself. Not so. Religion needs the two pillars of esotericism and exotericism, otherwise it can easily fail to reach its goal.

A definition of "esotericism":

Ultimately esotericism is concerned with a new experiencing and grasping of reality. The true esoteric paths don't lead out of this world, but into the heart of the moment, into life. The point is to feel not contempt for the world, but an entirely new form of love for it. And with that we come to the essence of mysticism in both the East and the West: religion is life, and life is religion. When I experience the fact that my rising in the morning and putting on my slippers is a profoundly religious act, then I have recognized what religion is. But this is simply not possible without deep experience. In the Eucharist we solemnly proclaim that this is not just bread (in other words, not just form) but the essence of divinity appearing in this form. In the Eucharist we solemnly proclaim that nothing exists that is not God, which means that we actually ought to experience even our breakfast as one more way the Divine expresses itself. It is a sacred action to live one's life here and now. In the final analysis, the sacrament of the moment is nothing else but "living in the will of God." That is the way to happiness.