Monday, January 28, 2013

Year of the Snake

This is the year of the Snake. (Comes every 12 years in the Chinese calendar.)
Like a deep river, Snake people are usually placid on the surface, but their thoughts and emotions run very deep.


Sunday, January 27, 2013

A row of piggy banks

[This is a continuation of the Iron Piggy Bank post.]

One can sometimes forget things which are important, just because they are not visible to the eye or to others.
So I think it might help to view one's investments of time an energy as being divided into different piggy banks:

  1. Money
  2. Family
  3. Status
  4. Health
And so on. Make as many as you like, and then later evaluate importance of each, more than once. Importance may shift a lot.
I think a very overlooked piggy bank is the one with the little brass label with says:
Spirit.

One of the problems, apart from invisibility, of this one is that there are no solid instructions on how to deposit into it! Or even what one is depositing.
Everybody has different instructions. Some believe if you go to church regularly, you'll be saved. Some believe that if you meditate regularly, that's it. Some believe that harmony with nature is essential for spirit.

I guess I can't make definite recommendations, I think that what is important will vary, not only from person to person, but from time to time. For example, at some time Art was the most central aspect of my spiritual development, and I do believe it moved me far. Later, a certain religious philosophy was hugely important to me, and though I've now left it, I think that probably it was just what I needed at that point, I think it gave me a lot of strength I needed, strength which I started using later when beginning to venture beyond the needs of Self and humanity.

Probably the important part is to never stop looking. Observe and search. If you are open to your intuition, guidance from above will slip in and you will feel what is important right now for your spiritual path.

This can take a lot of courage. As a prime example of that, it can be very difficult to step beyond one's earlier training, whether religious or otherwise, particularly when that training was gained in a strong group or family setting where one felt much support. It may feel like treason to move on, or one may simply be blind to the mere possibility of it.

But it is essential to keep moving forward, keep being willing to question one's beliefs, even the deepest ones, and to keep investing in the spirit piggy every day, even if it's just a penny sometimes.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Cosmic Consciousness

I recommend the book Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Bucke.
(Public domain versions of the book, files on the left.)

It is over 110 years old, published in 1901! And yet it is clearly talking about awakening/enlightenment.
It is written in pretty academic language, and perhaps not the easiest book in the world to read, but it does have some wonderful insights which I have not come across before. One of them is the delineation of the great stages of the growing consciousness of the Universe, something like:

  1. Pure matter/energy, no consciousness, only existence. 
  2. Organic life at low level. Hardly any consciousness, but living matter. 
  3. Life with consciousness, bigger animals. 
  4. Life with consciousness and intelligence, and self-consciousness. Man. 
  5. Cosmic consciousness. The next step. 
The roots of the tree of life being deep sunk in the organic world, its trunk is made up as follows: Beginning at the earth level we have first of all the lowest forms of life unconscious and insensate. These in their turn give birth to forms endowed with sensation and later to forms endowed with Simple Consciousness. From the last, when the right time comes, springs self consciousness and (as already said) in direct ascent from that Cosmic Consciousness.

I love high perspectives like this. It is so rarely attempted.
Bucke also tells about his own Cosmic Light experience, and goes through an interesting list of famous people who awakened, and gives his best evidence as to what points to them being enlightened.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Stirring up guilt


Why does sexuality everywhere create such extreme, irrational reactions, often hostile?

I think that sexuality is a very powerful act of communication and communion, and that the strongest joinings/communications are also those which most powerfully stirs up the primeval guilt.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Blog as ebook

You can now get a collection of post from this blog as an ebook.
(Choose .mobi for Kindles and ePub for other readers.)
Tell me how you like it. I find the formatting nice and clean. (And the links still work.)

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

End of Sacrifice

If you like A Course In Miracles, go buy Gene Bogart's CD The End of Sacrifice, a pro production of a part of the Text. Gene is perfect for it.