Logic and Spirituality

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

In the middle of The Garden of Eden stood two trees: The Tree of Life and The Tree of The Knowledge of Right and Wrong. Mystics use these as symbols of the two fundamental aspects of humans: the logical and the spiritual. Each has great value and we are seriously limited when we lose one or the other of them. There are also important differences between the two, each does some things the other dos not. It’s like the differences in people between males and females. In many ways they are similar, but there are also some fundamental and very significant differences.

Logic and spirituality are both important and necessary, but each has limitations. Mystical teachers for eons have shared that one important difference is that logic, for all its many other gifts, does not, cannot, connect to the divine. Spirituality won’t balance your checkbook or shop for groceries, and logic won’t solve your problems with your sister or heal your emotional wounds. Nor can logic connect you to God. You need your spiritual side for that.

Philosophers and intellectuals have tried unsuccessfully for many years to explain the spiritual realm through logic, but this simply cannot be done. It has caused many of them to question the existence of the spiritual because it will not fit into their way of understanding the world. As a result, their responses have sometimes been dismissive.

Last month I wrote about the remarkable mystical text written in the 14th century, The Cloud of Unknowing. In that work, the author reiterated the ancient mystical theme that humans can only reach God from their spiritual side. On a more contemporary note, this theme is echoed in Richard Rohr’s marvelous book of mysticism, The Naked Now, published in 2009. What follows is from Chapter 8 of Rohr’s book:

YES, BUT

“Yes, the mind is necessary, but it can’t do everything.

Yes, the mind is receptive, but reason is not our only antenna. We also need our bodies, our emotions, our hearts, our nose, our ears, our eyes, our taste, and our souls.

Yes, the mind can achieve great things, but through overcontrol, it can also limit what we can know.

Yes, the mind can think great thoughts, but also bad and limiting ones. The mind can be a gift and a curse.

Yes, the mind can tell left from right, but it cannot perceive invisible things such as love, eternity, fear, wholeness, mystery, or the Divine.

Yes, the mind can discern consistency, logic, and fairness, but it seldom puts these into practice.

Yes, the mind and reason are necessary, but they must learn to distinguish between what lies beyond its reach: the prerational and the transrational.

Yes, the mind is brilliant, but the more we observe it, the more we see it is also obsessive and repetitive.

Yes, the mind seeks the truth, but it can also create lies.

Yes, the mind can connect us with others, but it can also keep us apart.

Yes, the mind is very useful, but when it does not recognize its own finite viewpoint it is useless.

Yes, the mind can serve the world, but in fact it largely serves itself.

Yes, the mind can make necessary distinctions, but it also divides in thought what is undivided in nature and in the concrete.

Yes, the mind is needed, but we also need other ways of knowing or we will not know well, fully, or freely.

Yes, the mind is good at thinking. But so much so that most humans, like Descartes, think they are their thinking.

Yes, the mind likes to think, but until it learns to listen to others, to the body, the heart, and all the senses, it also uses itself to block everything it does not like to do or to acknowledge.

Yes, the mind is our friend, but when we are obsessive or compulsive, it can also be our most dangerous foe.

Yes, the mind welcomes education, but it also needs to be uneducated, to learn how much of what it “knows” is actually mere conditioning and prejudice.

As a result, the great religions of the world found methods to compartmentalize, but not eliminate, the over-control of the thinking, rational mind through practices such as prayer, meditation, or contemplation. This was the “new mind” which allowed:

1. other parts of us to see
2. other things to be seen
3. the rational mind to be reintegrated, but now as a servant instead of the master.

The Western world is so tightly wrapped up in rational thought that many people, accustomed to living only from their rational minds, will be troubled by the above. But if you look around at the failures of a logic driven society that turns away from the poor and the infirm, warehouses criminals without trying to help them, relegates the mentally troubled to freeway underpasses, does everything in its power to enhance the rich while discarding the elderly and generally rules by force and intimidation, you begin to see the serious limitations of a society that refuses to honor its spiritual strengths or its own spiritual heritage.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

The year is 1370. English mysticism is in full flower. At the same time the populous is being ravaged by the bubonic plague and Europe is suffering through The Hundred Years War. Social unrest is everywhere as modern nations are being painfully birthed. The Papacy is about to split, Medieval Christendom is finally at its ebb and if you stand on your tiptoes, you can see the Renaissance on the horizon.

In the midst of all this comes a deeply spiritual man, a priest or monk of the Anglican Church, probably from the Midlands of England who produces a profound work of spiritual insight called The Cloud Of Unknowing. The Cloud is without equal in all of Christian literature for its deep spiritual insight and profound understanding, and it came in the midst the greatest period of spiritual, political and religious upheaval that Western civilization has ever seen.

The author had an excellent mind and a flair for explaining complicated matters simply. And, like most mystics, he was convinced of the need for God to be at the center of our lives. It is also obvious from his writing that he deeply knew and appreciated the incredible joy of God’s love.

There is much that I could say about this work, but I will leave that to those of you who feel drawn to it. In the prologue the author actually admonishes people to not speak or write of the work, rather to allow others to be drawn to it. How’s that for social marketing, Facebook!

I would recommend that you not try and wrestle with the original text. Although there are dozens of web sites with free literal translations of the Old English, the task of reading Medieval text is daunting. Instead, purchase a modern translation. My favorite is by Clifton Wolters, (1962, published as a Penguin Classic). Unfortunately, this version is getting a little hard to find. There are a couple of other modern translations, (Johnston’s is OK, I dislike Butcher’s. They both edit out material from the original text so as not to put off contemporary readers, but I find that this greatly diminishes the work).

The Cloud is not a book to be read. It is a work of contemplation. It is to be meditated on. Read a paragraph or two and then take a walk or meditate on what you have read. The insights you will gain are incredible!

The Church of the 14th century was not kind to the “wretches and sinners” who came to it for salvation, and then of course, there were its issues about women and its attribution to God as a male. I know these can be irritants, but if you can put them in their historical context and look beyond them, there is great wisdom to be found in these writings. Today, almost 700 years later, the spiritual truth’s of this work still ring with impeccable clarity. Here are a couple of brief selections to give you a flavor of The Cloud:

So go on, I beg you, with all speed. Look forward, not backward. See what you still lack, not what you have already; for that is the quickest way of getting and keeping humility.

And,

Lift up your heart to God with humble love; and mean God himself, and not what you get out of him. Indeed, hate to think of anything but God himself, so that nothing occupies your mind or will but only God. Try to forget all created things that he ever made, and the purpose behind them, so that your thought and longing do not turn or reach out to them . . .

Some years after writing The Cloud, this same author produced The Epistle Of Privy Counsel, which is usually included in most translations. The Privy Counsel is ostensibly a direct communication between the author and God, that he shares with us.

By this time he has spent years in deep spiritual reflection and meditation, and this work reflects an even more profound spiritual understanding than is found in The Cloud. The author is struggling with issues surrounding the complete surrender of his soul to God, and we see reflected through him, the universal human dilemma. It is an incredibly powerful work of spiritual insight.

Hermeticism – The Road Not Taken

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

Hermeticism, one of humankind’s oldest mystical traditions, has demonstrated a remarkable resiliency over thousands of years of continuous practice. Sometimes relegated to but a few monks in the desert, Hermeticism has also occasionally been swept into broader social acceptance. Residents in Harran, Turkey, the oldest known human city (13,500 B.C.), practiced Hermeticism and honored Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary founder of Hermeticism. The Bible tells us that Abraham had contact with Harran and in Genesis, he alludes to several Hermetic precepts.

Hermeticism has survived religious belligerence that saw the libraries of its manuscripts burned, wiping out thousands of years of mystical writing and thinking. Hermeticism has survived the rejection of rational thinkers like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and numerous Catholic theologians. And yet, it has remained sufficiently vital to have been the essential driving force behind both the Renaissance and the Reformation. I have prepared a brief history of Hermeticism (http://rossbishop.com/blog/2013/03/14/hermeticism-a-short-history/). It is an interesting story particularly because it so closely parallels our own spiritual development.

Hermeticism claims its descent from a “prisca theologica,” an original untainted, pure set of secretive doctrines that reach back to the mystical traditions of ancient Egypt. Legend holds that the undiluted purity of these doctrines guaranteed their veracity and efficacy.

The rejection of both Hermeticism and Gnosticism by the early Church and its ultimate embrace of rational, Aristotlean logic, as expressed through the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, set the ultimate direction of Western culture, leading to the industrial revolution and the domination of the culture by both science and capitalism. Our world would be very different today had the early Church taken the other road and accepted Hermeticism as its founding philosophy.However there is hope! Hermeticism is making a resurgence. Spiritual seekers, as they search for answers, inevitably turn to Hermeticism’s universal concepts, whether they are aware of it or not. Contemporary science, through theories like quantum mechanics and string theory, are turning back to long abandoned mystical concepts. As much as they hate to admit it, their theories today read more like treatises of Hermetic thought than expositions of classical physics.Adding impetus to the resurgence of Hermeticism is the abject failure of intellectualism, capitalism and science to resolve our myriad social and environmental difficulties. It is possible that Hermetic teachings may finally come to occupy a central place in the Western Pantheon. But, in order for that to happen, we will all need to accept a different world view from the one we have been taught.THE TEACHINGS OF HERMETICISM

Hermeticism holds that all things possess spirit. Its foundation is based in the concept of creating union with the Divine. Hermeticism’s principles express the unity of the cosmos and the “sympathy” or interconnection, of all things. There are incredible parallels between the teachings of Hermeticism and one of humankind’s other great mystical works, the Tao Te Ching, authored by the great Chinese sage, Lao Tsu. Either these gentlemen studied together or each tapped deeply into the same mystical wellspring. It is also believed that the mystical Jewish Kabala owes its existence to Hermeticism.Sir Isaac Newton, the father of classical physics, was an ardent student of Hermeticism. As many of the 16th through 18th century scientists did, Newton spent much of his life exploring the principles of Hermeticism contained in the Corpus Hermeticism, a text produced in the 2nd century with a claim to being the original work of Hermes Trismegistus. As you read the Principles of Hermeticism outlined below, you will find a strong correlation between Newton’s earthshaking laws of physics published in 1687.

Thousands of years ago, a compilation of basic Hermetic teachings knowns as The Kybalion was codified. These teachings have been passed from teacher to student for centuries. The Kybalion sets out the Seven Prime Principles of Hermeticism:I. THE PRINCIPLE OF MENTALISM
“THE ALL IS MIND. The Universe is mental.”

This Principle holds that “All is Mind.” It explains that THE ALL, the substantial reality underlying all outward manifestations and appearances, which we know as the material universe; is spirit, which in itself, is unknowable and undefinable. Hermeticism maintains that the universe exists in the Mind of THE ALL, a universal, infinite, living mind, in which we “live and move and have our being,” subject to the Laws of Created Things.

II. THE PRINCIPLE OF CORRESPONDENCE
“As above, so below; as below, so above.”

This Principle holds that there is always a correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of being and life. Grasping this Principle gives one the means of solving many paradoxes and secrets of nature. There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand things that otherwise remain unknowable.

III. THE PRINCIPLE OF VIBRATION
“Nothing rests, everything moves, everything vibrates.”

This Principle maintains that “everything is in motion,” that “nothing is at rest,” concepts which science agrees with. This Principle explains that the differences between the manifestations of matter, energy, mind and spirit, result largely from varying rates of Vibration. From THE ALL, which is Pure Spirit, down to the grossest form of matter, all is in vibration.

The vibration of spirit is at such a high rate that it seems to be at rest, as a rapidly spinning wheel appears motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to also seem at rest. From electrons, to people, to mountains and galaxies, everything is in vibratory motion. This is also true on the planes of energy and force (which are but varying degrees of vibration) and also on the mental planes (whose states depend upon vibration) even onto the spiritual planes.

IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY
“Everything is dual, everything has poles, everything has opposites. Like and unlike are the same, opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree. Extremes meet, all truths are but half-truths, all paradoxes can be reconciled.”

This Principle embodies the doctrine that “everything is dual.” It explains that everything has opposite aspects, and that “opposites” are really only extremes of the same thing. More than this, and considered of more importance by Hermetics is to find that which transcends opposites. In doing this, it is then possible to transform the vibration of hate into the vibration of love.

V. THE PRINCIPLE OF RHYTHM
“Everything flows, out and in, everything has its tides. All things rise and fall. The pendulum-swing manifests in everything. The measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left, rhythm compensates.”

In all things there is a manifested, measured motion, a flow and inflow, a swing backward and forward, a pendulum-like movement. There is always action and reaction, advance and a retreat, a rising and a sinking. This is in the affairs of the universe, people, animals, mind, energy and matter. This law is manifest in the creation and destruction of worlds, in the rise and fall of nations, in the life of all things, and finally in the mental states of people. It is with the latter that the Hermetic finds the understanding of the Principle most important.

VI. THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
“Every cause has its Law. Chance and randomness are but names for Law not recognized. There are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.”

There is a cause for every effect and an effect from every cause. Nothing ever “merely happens,” and there is no such thing as chance. While there are various planes of Cause and Effect, the higher dominating the lower, nothing escapes the Law.

VII. THE PRINCIPLE OF GENDER
“Gender is in everything. Everything has its masculine and feminine aspects. Gender manifests on all planes.”

The Masculine and Feminine Principles are ever at work. This is true not only of the physical plane, but on the mental and spiritual planes as well. On the physical plane, the Principle manifests as sexuality, on the higher planes it takes other forms, but the Principle remains the same. No creation, physical, mental or spiritual is possible without this Principle. Every male thing has a female element, every female thing contains the male principle.

If as you read these words you find yourself connected to a deeper understanding, you are connecting with mysticism’s eternal roots. There is a great deal of material about mysticism and particularly Hermeticism available on the web. Some is very good, some verges on the really weird. I had read a few mystical texts years ago, but today I realize that I was not prepared to digest the greater truths they offered. Understanding mysticism, I have come to realize, really does require a prepared mind.

The Rise of Rational Thought

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

Begun by men of compassion and gentility like Erasmus, Manetti and Mirandola, Humanism was to suffer the fate of all movements as its initial inroads were corrupted and perverted by more radical elements. The intellectual discourse of the Humanists was replaced by empirical science. Men like Descartes, Malebranche, Bacon and Newton carried the flag of emerging scientific rationality and planted it firmly on intellectual high ground for all to see. Descartes (“I think, therefore I am.”) split the world into phenomena that could be measured and could be formulated with clear and distinct ideas; and those that could not. The former were important, the latter were to be summarily ignored. He once wrote, “We hold that all philosophy is not worth an hour’s troubles.” He held that Truth could be found only at the end of scientific inquiry, which by definition excluded anything spiritual.

Descartes simply defined spirituality as outside truth. He placed man alone at the center of the universe with only his mind to grasp its incredible breadth and complexity. Descartes methods became the foundation for Western science and civilization has yet to recover from the schism. Cast aside by the “scientific method,” spirituality along with the soul, mythology, ethics, natural healing and religion dwells in the basement of society’s values, banished to oblivion. The existence of God was a question to be resolved by rational discourse. Descartes also led the charge to subjugate nature and conquer her. As he wrote in his Discourse on Method, one of the most widely read books of its time, “We might thus render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature.” As an old Persian saying goes, “What goes out of the eyes gradually leaves the heart also.”

Later, radicals like Charles Darwin, David Hume and John Locke would exalt rationality as the supreme achievement of man. They would remove the spirit from man’s heart and replace it with a pocket watch. Man had become a machine, as had the universe. God was reduced to being a clock maker, if he existed at all. Man, the observer, became completely separated from himself as a being. Heady with the wine of new-found power, these men drank heavily at the bar of Francis Bacon who had taught that, “Rational knowledge is power.” Never has there been an age so skeptical of tradition, so confident in the power of human reason and science and so committed to progress. Theirs was an extremely powerful non-religious faith. Through the centuries the language of life had been poetry, song, myth and ritual, but by the end of the 18th century these had been banished as mere sentiment. Society moved to the cold and desiccated formulas of mathematics, chemistry and physics. There is no room in postulates or formulas for spirituality. David Hume, the skeptical Scotsman, once asked of knowledge:

If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics let us ask: Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity and number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it contains nothing but sophistry and illusion.

This was the voice of the age. Rationality had been raised to the status previously reserved for God. Unfortunately, where the real is not present, the unreal intrudes as a substitute, and the results are inevitably disastrous. With the ascendancy of reason over personal experience, man took the path of fear and separation and the way for rationalism, materialism and ultimately atheism had been broached, leading ultimately to colonial hegemony and industrialization. Thus, says Carl Jung, and agrees Tillich, the West was lost.

Completing the destruction of the spirit was the explosive energy of The Industrial Revolution. There has never been room for spirituality in the industrial world, it gets in the way of “progress.” The industrial behemoth had vast new lands to conquer, factories to build, rivers to dam, buffalo and whales to kill, cities to build, ore to mine and forests to cut. It could not be bothered with matters of spirit. Anyway, the accountants could not fit spirituality into the balance sheet. It was not rational and it cut into profit. Looking back on the period, Gnostic author Stephan A. Hoeller comments:

. . . Rationalism becomes the deity of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The cult of reason begun by Voltaire and the encyclopedists makes heads roll under the guillotine in a less than reasonable manner while revolutionary rationalists enthrone a Parisian prostitute on the altar of the republic, proclaiming her the Goddess of Reason. God is dead, long live reason! Reason triumphant thus rides her chariot into the nineteenth century, but her apostles are no longer the genteel, aristocratic philosophies of the eighteenth century. Darwin, Haeckel, and their fellows thrust the sword of reason into the process of life and discover no God and no savior there, only blind force and the survival of the fittest. Rationalism also looks at Jesus and uses its wiles to assert that as a figure of historical fact he can hardly be said to exist . . . “Jesus is a myth,” so cry the positivists, implying thereby that lacking in clearly recognizable historicity he is a mere unreality, an invention without either substance or merit. The chorus of materialists, from science, philosophy, and art to Marxist politics, joins in with fierce glee.

Man was no longer part of nature, he was her master, she was his slave. The real slaves worked on plantations and served tea to their white masters. Although technically free, millions of mindless automatons were virtual slaves in inhumane factories, producing the goods that made their owners wealthy. Conditions were so bad in the factories that writers of the time described them as “veritable abysses of human degradation.” It was only through massive conflict and bloodshed that conditions would eventually change. Centuries before, Sir Francis Bacon had written, “I come . . . leading to you Nature and all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave.” His words had come true in ways even he could not have imagined. The motto of the Century of Progress International Exposition held in Chicago in 1933 was “Science finds — Industry applies — MAN CONFORMS” (emphasis mine).

Ever since Aristotle, scientists and philosophers had extolled logic and deductive thinking as the only path to valid decisions and the Truth. Intuition was acceptable for artists and playwrights perhaps, but they never did anything really important, anyway. When faced with a serious decision, one had better not jump to conclusions or base your thinking on intuition. Consider all the facts, reason it through and work out the implications logically. Use a spread sheet and make a rational decision! Anything intuitive was decidedly suspect.

It was but a small philosophical jump from cold rationalism to the largely heartless and soulless corporation and later to the next, totally heartless, totally uncaring expressions of industrialism: Fascism and Communism. The corporation is the perfect expression of the age: an artificial entity, the most powerful entity in society, created by lawyers and bankers, with no heart, and with no meaningful obligations, other than financial, to the society that fosters and supports it. These owners have even absolved themselves of responsibility for wrongdoing committed by the organizations they control. The function of the corporation is to put as little into its as products as it can, and still sell them, pay as little in wages as possible to keep employees, and return as little as feasible to the community to increase profit for the owners. This is not a prescription that meets society’s interests or needs.

Any semblance of real spirituality has been left for Sunday mornings in churches that have totally sold out to the Calvinist idea that God favors the wealthy and successful. And where in all this is Jesus? He is still present, but he has been dethroned. How very different is the 19th century’s pale, sentimentalized image of Christ from the courageous defender of the outcasts of society that walked the streets of Jerusalem!

It would be unfair not to acknowledge the tremendous accomplishments of the Era of Rationality. Our world has been transformed by its many gains and achievements. Our lives are touched in every moment by its achievements in medicine, electronics and transportation. We live in an emerging global society where traditional insulating boundaries and attitudes between cultures are evaporating. It is however, equally foolish not to acknowledge and accept the inherent limitations of a rational approach to human existence. Industrial rationality was an important step in human evolution, but the driving engine of The Age of Reason has stalled. Our focus on the external has taken about as far as it can. In addition, we are rapidly approaching the point when the negative impacts of unbridled technological development will outweigh its contributions. The age if Industrialism appears close to exhausting its potential. It is time for a shift, time to set a new direction and move to the next level of human evolution. The failures of this society will guide the path of future development as people dig through the foundations of industrialization to find their lost spirituality.

The sciences are not philosophically based, they are physical explanations that are amoral by design. Scientific explanations exist on the surface of things. The scientific community still recoils from its encounters with the church and politics. It has purposefully divorced itself from questions of morality. As Will Durant has pointed out, science will kill as readily as it will heal. In the 16th century cannons could be made because man had learned to cast bronze church bells. Historians are fond of pointing out that the Chinese invented gunpowder, but only used it for fireworks. That it took a Western mind (a Franciscan monk) to apply gunpowder to the task of killing is viewed by historians as a failure by the Chinese. This may be true, but it also makes one wonder about the difference in cultural values. Having used guns successfully in war for a century, the Samurai of Japan effectively banned them for almost 200 years (1630 – 1800) because they viewed the gun as killing with dishonor, a Western way. Unfortunately, “progress” eventually won out as the Samurai class became obsolete.

Although there are scientific activists today, the scientific community has created the edifice of their institution divorced from questions of morality. Granting science its desired neutrality, in this age of biological weapons, food additives, terrorist bombings, genetic cloning, nuclear waste, electronic invasion of privacy, and toxic chemicals; technology and science are as likely to reduce the quality of life as to enhance it. We must find a personally based social morality, a larger knowingness, that says, “Yes, you can do these things, but you may not.” No such voice exists today.

Are You Happy?

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

How happy are you? It’s a question that is difficult to answer. Are you really happy, or have you settled for something less? Perhaps a lot less and rationalized your dissatisfaction? Are your personal passions stifled? Are you frustrated with your work or your relationships?

Look at the people around you. How many of your friends are truly happy? How many of them have compromised their inner peace and are basically getting by? I would wager that surprisingly few of them are happy.

Thoreau wrote that, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Certainly we have more distractions than in Thoreau’s time, but I don’t think that things have changed a great deal since his time.

Certainly, life can be difficult and the path has many potholes. But if you consider the monumental expenditure of effort that we make toward healing, both individually and as a society, one would think that a great many people would be dancing on the hilltops like the Von Trapp family instead of suffering in pain and despair. This becomes especially confusing when you take into consideration all the affirmations that God loves us and cares about us. It would seem that life on earth would be a lot easier and more joyful than it is, unless of course, you are an atheist.

The answer, of course, is that it is your fault. You are inadequate and unworthy and if only you were a better person, or more developed or something, your life would be easier. Fundamentalist Christian sects have pushed that dogma for centuries. Unfortunately most people stop there. They assume that they are unworthy and simply never question the assumption. They allow themselves to become wrappedin mediocrity because they are reluctant to address the feeling that something is wrong with them.

It’s an interesting point if you consider it – we desire peace and bliss in our lives, and yet when it comes to something of such importance, we are willing to settle for so much less. Otherwise, why would we waste what little precious time and energy we have being held captive by anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, guilt, unhappiness and a thousand other emotions? Why would we choose to be in relationships where we feel frustrated and unsatisfied? Why would we remain in jobs where they are treated like robots, generally disregarded and dumped by the side of the road when the company downsizes?

I will submit that there is a larger, and more meaningful explanation than our individual or collective unworthiness. If the Creator is the omniscient and omnipresent being that we believe He/She/It to be, then everything that happens here on earth, whether you understand or agree with it or not (even the horrible stuff), must serve some larger purpose in the Creator’s plan.

This means that everything you do has an intended purpose. There is no such thing as a foolish or random act. If it happens, it was intended. Stupidity, chance and screwing up are no longer viable explanations. We may not understand what is happening, but that does not invalidate the premise. Certainly difficult situations can be created for our learning and to generate a reaction, but these are still purposeful occurrences.

Accepting that everything is purposeful will require a significant change in many of our beliefs and societal practices. Today we blame ourselves when things “go wrong,” but if everything is intended, nothing can be “wrong.” It is helpful to keep in mind that we are here to learn and that we learn the most when things are challenging. I have learned a great deal more from my failures, as much as I hated them, than I will ever learn from my successes.

Accepting the premise that nothing is wrong removes a great burden of guilt and shame from each of us. We can begin to see the challenges in life not as expressions of our failure or inadequacy but as opportunities for us to learn and grow. This view also encourages us to look more deeply into the things that we do not as yet understand. This is a view I will encourage you to accept not only because it makes life a great deal easier, but also because it is true.

The things most people worry about like careers, paying the mortgage, raising kids, relationship issues, the stock market and soccer practice are all-important, but they can also become distractions from our real purpose in being here. They pale in comparison to being at peace and knowing life’s deeper meaning. Yet, the answers to these fundamental questions elude us.

Well, they don’t really elude us; the truth is we elude them. We allow ourselves to be caught up in the daily concerns of life because the experiences of our past lives and our recent childhood have convinced us that we are unworthy. Thus, we are inclined to leave spiritual considerations to the mystics of India and priests of the Vatican not because these matters are esoteric or unfamiliar, but because we are reluctant to delve into them.

Living this way also allows us to avoid dealing with a God that we are convinced is not happy with us. We intuitively know that going into our feelings and our pain means dealing with the separation we feel from God. We have felt abandoned by Him in the past and we are afraid to let go of the substitute life structures we have created even though they do a poor job of giving us what we really need.

Most people would love to have a different or better life. The problem is in becoming different so that a different life can happen. Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live.” Our attachment to the way we see ourselves and the world can be a significant impediment to moving into a new space. Even though it may not serve us well, the old way is familiar. We know how to work with it.

Our first response is usually to want the world to change so that we don’t have to. One of the biggest obstacles in one-on-one counseling therapy is getting the client to let go of the life structures they have created, no matter how dysfunctional they are, in order to make room for new behaviors and attitudes. In couples counseling one must address the attitude that “It’s his/her fault and if only he/she would change then everything would be fine.” We cling to our fears and egos like rats to a floating log. We resist challenging the beliefs that shape the way we see the world and ourselves.

Besides, we believe that our petition to be loved will be rejected. We fear that if we explore our relationship with the Creator we will be left standing naked in the awful truth that we are lacking. After all, what would you do if the Creator told you that you weren’t worth His time or trouble? But this is an expression of your old way of seeing things. How different life becomes when you accept that everything happens for a reason and that there is something for you to learn in every situation. That makes the Creator a teacher and guide rather than judge and prosecutor. We may not like the lesson, but it takes us out of the realm of being punished because we are unworthy or inadequate.

You see, you are here on earth for one and only one purpose. And it isn’t about amassing a billion dollars, finding peace in the Middle East or even finding a cure for cancer. It’s about what’s in your heart as you go through your day. Life on earth has been created to teach each of us how to live from the place of peace and joy and compassion that is known as The God Space. That is what life on earth is about.

What does living from the God space mean? The concept is simple. It means opening your heart and loving everything. After all, isn’t that what God does? Read The Ten Commandments: love your neighbor, don’t lie, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet another’s wife, don’t worship false gods, etc., etc. In the Sermon on The Mount, Christ spoke of loving your enemies, forgiving people for their transgressions, not judging, being generous and by the way, not piling up earthly treasures (funny how that point has been glossed over). At the Last Supper He offered a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Before you start throwing up roadblocks to those ideas, consider a coupe of things:

SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS

If you boil all spiritual teachings down to their fundamental concepts, you will find that for thousands of years teachers all over the planet from a myriad of belief systems and many diverse cultures have conveyed one simple and profound truth. Over and over again they have said: “If you want your life to work, open your heart” preferably in every moment. “Opening your heart,” means finding a way to not be afraid and live from a place of compassion. It means feeling safe enough to let go and surrender to something greater than your ego-based view of yourself. Opening your heart is the essence of living from the God space.

So, we have known about the road home for thousands of years. Shamanism is at least 20,000 and probably 30,000 years old. The Buddha became enlightened 2,500 years ago. Lao Tsu wrote the Tao Te Ching about 2,700 years ago. The Bhagavad-Gita is thousands of years old; the 5 books of Moses (called the Torah) have been with us at least 3,000 years. Christ taught 2,000 years ago. Mohammed produced the Koran in 630 A.D., so that even the most recent of man’s major spiritual works has still been with us almost 1,400 years. And in addition, in all those intervening years, millions of preachers, teachers, healers, mothers, fathers, friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles have urged us to live by these principles.

The mystery is that with all that attention by some of the brightest lights in human history, we have not moved as much as one might have thought. But this is not a failure on man’s part. A much larger agenda is at work here.

We have been operating under the rules of The Age of Karma for the last 20,000 years. During that time it has been virtually impossible for us to move as we might have liked, but this also has been part of the Creator’s plan.

The Age of Karma did not support the kind of transformation that is becoming possible today. That age was designed to create ego-based behavior and its inevitable pain and frustration without resolution. The structure of that age was designed to generate feelings of separation from the Creator.

It has succeeded. Over thousands of years of struggle and feelings of failure, mankind has moved very far from the awareness of its God-self. That is why man’s history has been filled with so much conflict, strife and bloodshed.

During The 50 year Age of Awakening, which we have recently entered, we will make the shift from lives dominated by ego and fear to ones lived from soul. We will come home by making the conscious choice to accept our Godhood. Having been so far away from it, we will value and honor that state in a manner not possible in any other way.

So, that brings us to the only rule for life on earth, the Universal Rule, which states:

LOVE EVERYTHING

Like all good spiritual principles it is very simple, and rather difficult to practice. The Universal Rule means keeping your heart open, no matter what is happening. It means that when your partner is being cantankerous or the boss is being a jerk, that you remain in a place of compassion toward them. You may not like what they are doing, and that is perfectly fine, but the admonition is to love them and recognize that they are working through their own learning process.

So, when you are stuck in traffic and late for an appointment, when you are worried about not having enough money, when your kids upset you, or any one of a thousand other “problems,” take a deep breath and recognize that this is occurring not as punishment, or because you are unworthy, but because you need to learn to open your heart in that particular circumstance. This situation has been created specifically for you so that you can learn to do just that. That is how the system works. It is not a problem. It is an opportunity.

As difficult as this may be to accept, your life is exactly as it needs to be in order for you to learn to open your heart. It’s not about fairness or who is a better person. It’s not about having a silver spoon or being born under the right stars. It is simply about whatever you need to eventually bring you to the place that you will love everything.

When you realize that everything that happens is a part of the Creator’s plan for you and for humanity, then it is easier to accept everything (even the “bad” stuff) as purposeful. You do not have to like what other people do, and when you deal with them, even if you feel motivated to oppose them, the admonition is to do it from a place of heartfelt compassion. The point is to love the process. After all, when we read the teachings of the Buddha or Christ, isn’t that what they tried to teach us to do? Remember, “Turn the other cheek,” or, “love thy neighbor”?

Practicing the Universal Rule from the beginning saves a great deal of turmoil and tribulation. I don’t like the difficulties that come into in my life, but I recognize that they come to teach. The more I open my heart to what is offered, the easier and more joyful the process becomes, and that is a secret of life!

The soul’s job to create situations or opportunities (we call them problems) that encourage us to open our hearts. It cannot do otherwise. Take a moment and review some of the things that have confronted you in the past. Move beyond the emotion of the situation and consider how you were being asked to express your compassion in that circumstance?

AIDS is not just a disease; it is also an opportunity for us to learn to love each other. So are racial, sexual and ethnic differences. It is through resolving these “differences” that we learn and grow. Hatred and war are fed by unresolved differences. This brings us to a corollary of the Universal Rule. It is called Walker’s rule. Walker’s Rule states:

ANYTHING YOU DO NOT LOVE MUST BECOME A LESSON.

Every time you are given the opportunity to love and you choose otherwise, the universe must respond by bringing your adverse choices to your attention. It does this by making you uncomfortable. Your soul cannot simply allow you to just go on. You cannot come to the table with dirty hands. Either the situation will escalate, or a similar but more intense situation will be created to give you the opportunity (once again) to open your heart in this sort of circumstance. Depending upon your unwillingness to receive what is being offered, your contractive resistance may lead to the creation of pain.

A closed heart is fairly easy to recognize. Things get murkier when we think we are opening our hearts but are really operating from neediness. We see this a lot in relationship difficulties. People come together with love in their hearts, but also from a need to be loved, and that is a loaded prescription.

Since the connection these people make is not a true heart connection but is clouded by their neediness, the Universe is obliged to make each of them aware of their unhealthy motivations. It does this through the creation of relationship difficulties. As with any problem in life, a difficulty in a relationship is a mirror, encouraging the partners to look at how they are not truly loving each other or themselves.

We also see this phenomenon played out painfully in the helping and healing professions. It is called “burn-out.” People usually enter this kind of work with a sincere desire to help others, but also often because there is a hole in them that needs to be healed. This is something that they are usually reluctant to address openly. They project out their inner wounding onto their patients or clients, and unconsciously seek to help themselves through healing these other people. This allows them to not have to address their inner pain. The Universe cannot accept substitutes, and so it brings these people painfully back to their own original pain when the projection fails to give them peace.

Spiritual seekers often encounter a similar dilemma. They come to God or Buddha with a sincere desire to find the truth, but are also often filled with unacknowledged fear, anger, self-doubt and pain. True spirituality cannot be achieved in that state, and so as they reach for the light, the unresolved parts of themselves must be brought into their awareness so that they will have the opportunity to move toward their God-space.

Seekers often become frustrated because they feel that they have stepped on to the spiritual path and asked for help, and have only received more pain. Their already sensitive feelings of abandonment and unworthiness become even more exacerbated. It is only when they step out of their own skin and see the perfection of the process that they can see that they are being given an opportunity to find exactly what they seek. This is a good illustration of how the system works.

Your Beliefs

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

Lao Tsu wrote that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. If you think about the journey to enlightenment, the first few steps are fairly easy. First you peel away the surface issues that don’t mean that much. After that, you come to the issues that involve ego gratification. These are a bit more complex, but it is difficult to argue with giving up things like greed, jealousy and pride. It doesn’t mean that dealing with these issues is easy, but ego gratification is shallow, the issues are easy to define and dealing with them doesn’t require a great deal of personal sacrifice or soul searching. You just have to be tired of your life not working so that you are willing to consider other ways of living.

As you progress further toward the core, things become more difficult. At these levels, you find issues such as self-worth, lovability and unworthiness. These comprise important, albeit negative, ways that you see yourself, and that makes dealing with them more complicated. Where the ego-based issues like greed, jealousy and pride are protective, the self-worth issues define who we think we are (or are not).

Moving beyond your ego issues requires a willingness to be more vulnerable, but giving up pride or jealousy isn’t a loss, per se. However, by contrast, giving up unworthiness or shame feels like losing pieces of who you are. Your beliefs are of course real, but they are also profoundly untrue. But because of that, they can be difficult to change.

Confronting your self-worth issues requires a significant revaluation of not only what you believe, but interestingly too, what a part of you needs to believe. As much as you complain about being insecure or not feeling worthwhile, the overarching fear is that if you let these beliefs go, you will be left with a void of nothingness, a cold, meaningless, hell from which there is no escape. That, incidentally, is why you took these beliefs on in the first place (more about that later).

As an added bonus, if you feel unworthy, you then have permission to hide in the shadows and not expose yourself to life. You do not have to risk failure, abandonment and rejection. You just get to feel alone, which is a dreadful trade, but one many people make.

We start out feeling as though we have little – we feel unloved, we do not feel successful, we are alone, we feel abandoned. Then the spiritual quest asks us to give up the only blanket we have ever had – our difficult, but familiar, source of comfort. It feels as though we are being asked to endure the cold of the winter night, naked and alone. The poet T.S. Eliot captured it powerfully when he wrote:

What you do not know is the only thing you know,
And what you own is what you do not own,
And where you are is where you are not,
Leading to a condition of complete simplicity
Costing not less than everything.

Most people resist “letting go of what they have” with considerable tenacity. The plateau they end up on is littered with the carcasses of millions of other seekers who, faced with this challenge, have been unable to proceed further. In their spiritual meanderings they have found some answers – that is how they got to the plateau, but inwardly, they still hold considerable doubt. They have put things on hold out of frustration and pain, with serious doubts that God will be there if they surrender “everything.”

If you are able to look back to your past lives, you will find that you have reached this plateau a number of times, and have been unable to progress beyond it. You have been stopped, usually while also suffering considerable pain. So today, in addition to dealing with your core issues, you must also confront the accumulated experiences of 27 lifetimes where the lesson has been, “If you go there, you will be abandoned and hurt.”

I wrote earlier about the part of you that needed limiting beliefs. Being stuck on the plateau is an expression of the belief that the void is real and in addition, that it is what you deserve. Beliefs are like blinders that keep us from seeing the larger picture. They also do not allow us to see ourselves clearly. And without a good perspective, it is difficult to make changes.

The issues that keep us stuck on the plateau are the crux of why we came to earth. You are not here to make millions of dollars or to save the world from cancer. Those are corollary matters. Life plays out in earthly terms what you need to do in your spiritual development. Go back to the “beginning.” Go back to the time when you separated from the Creator and took physical form. You did that for a reason. The reason was that you were, and still are, unaware of the essential nature of your beingness.

In your present state, you are uncertain of your spiritual nature. You experience fear, feel abandoned and unworthy. You feel vulnerable. You can be hurt. You can be shamed. The act of what felt like separation from The Creator brought all these subterranean fears to the surface. But when you do not have the refuge of the God Space to sustain yourself, you must turn to the world for validation. And that is a precarious exercise, at best. Notice that all of your anxieties are dependent upon your relationship with other people. Wounding cannot happen in the “God Space.” The purpose of your time here on earth is to help you see through the fallacious structure of ego, beliefs, vulnerability and woundedness that keep you from experiencing the wonders of the “God Space.”

The reason you can be buffeted today by the tumult of life is that your connection to the Creator and to your essential self is not complete. This is something you cannot be given, because as a human, you have free will. You must learn it, and you must learn it for yourself. It must be experienced. It cannot really even be taught, although wise elders and teachers can serve as valuable guides. Your earnestness in addressing these issues determines the nature of your earthly existence. The more you resist, the more pain there will be.

Accepting your true spirituality, as with all spiritual things, is easy in concept, and difficult to do. It means abandoning whatever psychic sustenance the world gives you in order to take the risk that something more substantial will appear in its place. “Risk” is the important word here. As Eliot said, “costing not less than everything.” But this is misleading because you cannot lose anything real, anything eternal. If your love is real, no one can take that away. But, you are being asked to let go of the ego “stuff” life gives you. The challenge would be easy if you knew for certain that what was to come would be wonderful. You wouldn’t have to “know” anything about it; you would just cheerfully abandon your old ways and surrender.

The ironic thing is that “it” is there and that “it” is magnificent, but two things get in your way. First, you do not “know” it is there, and no one can convince you by telling you. That is largely because of the second reason. The second reason is that your “life experiences” run totally contrary to the truth. This is not accidental, and it is where your past life experiences come into play. In those lives, just as earlier in your present life, you looked to God for love, compassion and support to help you through difficult times. Instead you were met with pain, felt abandoned and left to die. Where was God when you needed Him? This helps us understand the Great Conundrum that keeps us pinned to the plateau.

As the Buddha taught, the ego is the source of all of our pain. The ego pushes you to attach to things and ideas, and that attachment inevitably leads to pain. This is the way of things. It is your ego that stands in the way of your enlightenment. It is like a great weight that inhibits your spiritual (and emotional) development. It anchors you to the world and keeps you from being free. It is, in The Old Testament use of the word, “a satan.”

And yet, the perception is that if you let the ego go, you will lose “you.” And that is The Great Conundrum. But, and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, the “you” that you would lose isn’t who you really are! The “you” that you know is an illusion built from what has been reflected to you from other people, filtered through their own issues. That is why T.S. Eliot said, “What you do not know is the only thing you know.” You do not know who you really are. You probably have only a passing acquaintance with your true self.

A story: One day two men were fishing from a boat and noticed a man nearby thrashing in the water, desperately struggling to stay afloat. They rowed over to help the poor fellow, and as they approached they found that he was trying to hold himself above the water while carrying a large rock! The rock was pulling the man under.

“Drop the rock!” they cried.
“I can’t,” he yelled back, coughing up water, “it’s the only rock I’ve got!”

This is the Great Conundrum. The Universe is constantly urging you to let go of your “rock” – your ego and all that you get from it. But you resist because you fear the void that might be left if you let it go.

Although your belief is that The Creator has not been there for you in the past, that is not the case. Actually, it’s the other way around. Because you have free will, you get to choose who and what will run your life, and most of the time, because you feel insecure, you choose your ego. The thing is, the ego and The Creator cannot coexist. God is love, the ego is built on fear. God urges compassion, the ego is focused on the self. God says, “Turn the other cheek.” The ego says, “Don’t make yourself vulnerable, you might get hurt.” God tells you that you are safe in His love, the ego says, “Nowhere is safe. We have to protect ourselves!” And so it goes.

To observe this at work, let’s revisit one of your previous lives. Because ego dominated your life in those days just as it does today, you were bound to end up in a “situation.” That is what always happens with ego-driven behavior. Most people haven’t realized it yet, but living in the God Space doesn’t create problems, only living in the ego does. Anyway, as things went downhill, you retreated further into your ego for protection. That meant even greater separation from The Creator’s wisdom and love. Because of that, things were going to get even worse. Then when it all went to hell, you got desperate. You got down on your knees and prayed to God for help. The unfortunate thing is that you were so tightly wound up in your ego that nothing was going to get through. Think about someone who is closed-minded or filled with panic. Almost nothing anyone else says is going to get in.

Besides, if God were to intercede, it would convey the wrong message. Your task on earth is to learn to not mess things up by living from your ego. If God were to bail you out every time you got yourself into trouble, you wouldn’t change anything. Besides, what you are asking of God is unreasonable. It goes something like this: “God, get me off the hook and I’ll never sin again.” Who is kidding whom? Your sudden “conversion” is not sincere, nor is it real. You probably don’t even have the faintest idea, and even less interest, in really looking at your role in the creation of this mess.

Yes, you did the best you could. But “your best” today requires that God accept your ego, which cannot be done. The truth is, you want it both ways. You want the protection of your ego defenses and then, when your ego-driven behavior digs you into a hole, you want God to bail you out. So, tell me, where’s the sincere commitment that says, “I’ll change my beliefs?” Or, “I’ll really look at what I have been doing.”

In time you are going to give up your ego. Either you will see the light and do it as a matter of choice or you will create so much pain for yourself that the crisis will force you to look at what you have been doing and the beliefs that drive your behavior. The difference is that the latter is a great deal more painful than the former. Is this regrettable? Sure. But it is your choice. A note: there are times when an innocent suffers for the collective learning of the others involved, but these situations are quite rare.

If you are going to change, it must be through conscious choice. God is obliged to let you suffer the consequences of your actions. The grant of free will is a most sacred bond, quite possibly the most sacred in the entire universe. To violate it would be to deprive you of the opportunity to change, which, as I said, is the whole reason you are here.

In closing, I would ask you to consider the words of some of our great masters who have addressed this issue far more eloquently. No one understood these issues better than the great Chinese Sage Lao Tsu. He wrote the Tao Te Ching around 670 B.C.

NUMBER SIX

He who acts defeats his own purpose;
He who grasps loses.
The sage does not act, and so is not defeated.
He does not grasp and therefore does not lose
People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
So give as much care to the end as to the beginning;
Then there will be no failure.

Therefore the sage seeks freedom from desire
He does not collect precious things.
He learns not to hold on to ideas
He brings men back to what they have lost
He helps the ten thousand things find their own nature,
But refrains from action.

FORTY FOUR

Fame or self: Which matters more?
Self or wealth: Which is more precious?
Gain or loss: Which is more painful?

He who is attached to things will suffer much.
He who saves will suffer heavy loss.
A contented man is never disappointed
He who knows when to stop,
does not find himself in trouble.
He will stay forever safe.

Andre Gide wrote: “One does not discover new lands without losing sight of the shore for a very long time.”

The great Hindu sage Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live.”

DOWNLOAD PDF

Two Choices

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

Pretend that you are looking into two large rooms. The rooms appear identical – the same people, the same relationships, etc. But appearances can be deceiving. If you look carefully, there are important differences.

In Room One, everyone operates from ego, much as in our world today. Every relationship in this room is based upon uncertainty and anxiety: “Will they like me?” “Will they reject me?” “Am I good enough?” “If I take a risk will I be rejected?” People operate from ego in this room because it is not safe to risk being vulnerable. In other words, everything in Room One is based in some kind of fear.

As a result, power and manipulation are the dominant qualities found in this room. People judge and criticize to gain leverage in an unstable and inherently unfriendly environment. They create artificial hierarchies based upon wealth, power and position. They compete, not for accomplishment but to establish dominance. Money and position are important in Room One because they convey the imprimatur of “success.” In Room One, truth is consistently corrupted to serve the needs of power. If you extend these qualities out, you end up with the social dynamics one finds in a penitentiary.

The people in Room Two operate from the God Space. Relationships in Room Two are built upon compassion, respect, love for each other and acceptance. These qualities bring people together instead of driving wedges between them. In Room Two, people feel accepted and valuable, and that makes them want to contribute, simply because it makes life more enjoyable.

In Room One, family relationships are based in insecurity and fear. Because of their fears of being wounded, parents are not able to love their children freely and without reservation. Children cannot be granted the freedom to be who they really are because it threatens the parent’s already shaky sense of security. Therefore children are made to conform to their parent’s fears.

In relationships in Room One, partners are reluctant to truly commit. Instead they spar defensively from the fear of being hurt, rejected or perhaps even abandoned. As a result, relationships in Room One are shallow, pockmarked with problems and easily broken. People depend upon outside acceptance to determine whether or not they are acceptable or lovable. It isn’t that they do not care, they are afraid to allow their caring to be exposed because it makes them too vulnerable.

In Room Two, people know they are loved, and that frees them to be open and give love and compassion freely to each other. They can be in relationship without the fear and anxiety driven by the “holdbacks” that dominate relationships Room One.

People in Room Two live in the “now,” in the moment. They respond to what is really going on, whereas the people in Room One have been hurt and they fear a repetition of their past. Therefore they live in a past which is projected into the future. And since everyone in Room One operates from fear, the likelihood of their being hurt again is real.

I remember reading about a Honda assembly worker who would drive to work looking for Hondas with windshield wipers out of adjustment. He would stop to fix the maladjusted wipers. This man loved his work and he believed in his company! How rare that is on our world today! This is the spirit that Room Two generates.

In truth, it isn’t long before the two rooms take on dramatically different appearances. Where the people in Room Two are peaceful and content, people in Room One will be anxious and nervous. Fights and arguments constantly break out all over Room One. People lie, cheat and steal to get ahead and to “look better” than their competitors. Because there are conflicts in Room One, there will be a need for laws, law enforcement and a military. There is bruising competition and conflict in Room One that drives stress levels off the charts, therefore there is disease. In Room Two people work together and help each other. Work is done joyously and people are fulfilled.

The secret to being in Room One vs. Room Two is that the rooms are not places, they are states of mind. And, the wonderful thing about your state of mind is that you determine what it will be. Your state of mind is yours and yours alone to determine. In each moment you get to decide how you are going to relate to your life. You decide in which room you will reside for that moment.

Life often doesn’t feel that way. it pushes on us, bumps us, it sometimes even threatens us. It is difficult to hold center in the midst of all the commotion. But that is the challenge. It is what you came here to learn.

External events are real, but you decide how you will respond to them, and knowing that you have that power is a very important step toward enlightenment. You will always have feelings, but those are still your feelings. What you do with them is your choice. If you move beyond your feelings into the ego state and create emotion, then you have given control of your life over to your ego and chosen to live in Room One.

“Aren’t feelings natural?” people ask. Of course they are. But this is not true about emotion. Notice that feelings are contained within the self. You do something and I will have a feeling about it. I may chose to act on my feelings, but the point is, the act is still a choice – my choice.

If however when you act, I move into emotion, it is a different situation entirely. Emotions are based upon the fear involved in our connection and they exist to manipulate that connection.

What we call anger (which is really rage) exists to create distance between us. This thing we call love (which is really attachment) is created so that I will not feel alone. Emotions have an agenda, feelings just are.

If I truly love, what you do will not affect my love – even though I may not like what you are doing. If however, we are attached co-dependently, everything you do could threaten my security. Emotions are the way we lean on each other. Feelings are how we support one another.

Your state of mind is not determined by outside circumstances. Affected by them, of course, but linked to them, no. You can hold the God Space under even the most trying of circumstances. When they are lowering you into the pot of boiling oil, you can still hold the God Space. And, whether or not you are going to hold the God Space is completely your choice. It is the one thing in the universe that is yours alone to determine.

Other, people do not have to accept your love, but that is their choice (and their loss). The important thing is that you’ll feel better for doing it. If they choose to join you, that’s wonderful! It makes life that much better, but it doesn’t make life good. Only you do that. And, that is what determines the quality of your life experience. What happens doesn’t matter. How you react to what happens, matters a great deal.

I think that one of the most important books written in the 20th century is Viktor Frankl’s, Man’s Search For Meaning, in which he relates his WWII experiences living in Nazi concentration camps. I think this book should be required reading for everyone. I have reproduced a selection from Frankl’s book in the section following this article.

So, if the choice is always available, the question is what are you going to do with this moment? Life isn’t going to change much in the short term, so you can’t depend on life to determine your state of mind. The question always will be, how are you going to respond to life?

So why don’t we do it? Why do we continue to live in Room One, when the benefits of living in Room Two are so obvious? The answer is because, if you open up, you might get hurt, you might be rejected. And that fear simply destroys us. Some part of you believes that if you open up and make yourself vulnerable, you will be cast into the psychic abyss. Underneath all the words, the ideas and the concepts, is a little kid who believes that if she takes that risk, God is going to reject her (again).

There is so much more to say about this part, but there isn’t space here. I have addressed the subject and what to do about it at length in my books Healing The Shadow, Truth and Journey to Enlightenment. At the core is a large Misunderstanding that profoundly affects everything you do. We have found that the most effective way to address the Misunderstanding and its surrounding issues is the shamanic journey process.

Consider just this much – Are you really gaining anything by keeping yourself locked up in Room One? You’re still in pain and miserable much of the time. How much worse could it get? The fourteenth century Persian spiritual master, Abu Said ibn Abi Al Khair, defined the Islamic devotional practice known as Sufism by teaching:

What’s in your head – throw it away!
What’s in your hand – give it up!
Whatever happens – don’t turn away from it.

I am certain that there is something in your life at this moment that is begging for love and compassion. Perhaps it is a friend, a colleague, a partner or one of your children. And, I can also guarantee that some part of you could use love too! Take a moment, stop reading, go inside and give love to yourself. Then give it to the other people. Go ahead, close your eyes and do it right now. . .

Feels better doesn’t it? Whether or not you have changed the world, it makes you feel better, it makes your life better. And that is vitally important! The heck with the rest of the world! If it makes you feel better, do it! If they cannot go there with you, that’ s unfortunate, but don’t let that pull down your life!

After you have done that, then send love to the person you are angry with that you have been withholding your love from. . .

Practicing Gratitude

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Ross Bishop

by Ross Bishop

If you are looking for a powerful spiritual practice, you might consider gratitude. Practicing gratitude will make you feel better, be happier, more connected to others, improve your relationships, be less depressed and believe it or not, actually lengthen your life!

Want to be more compassionate? Work on gratitude. Want more inner peace? Practice gratitude. Want more patience? Get into gratitude. Want to reduce your stress? Want to heal more quickly? You get the point.

Gratitude changes the lens through which you view life. It pulls you out of the morass of your struggles and reminds you that you are not alone. It also protects you from the destructive influences of envy, resentment, greed and bitterness.

The best way to experience the power of gratitude is to keep a daily “Gratitude Journal.” Every morning, log at least five blessings and why you are grateful for them. Doing this daily is important, and it is best if you write it out longhand.

As you Journal, pay attention to every thought that comes to you. Don’t edit anything out, because a very interesting thing will happen when you Journal about your gratitude. The process gently, but powerfully, also raises an awareness of your wounds. It surfaces your frustrations along with the gratitude. Your frustrations will likely surface rather starkly, so be prepared. Even the purest of hearts it seems, are not above “cusswords” when it comes to the Gratitude Journal.

For example, you’ll be writing about your gratitude for your partner and suddenly your resentments toward him will surface. In one class, a woman was writing about her sincere gratitude for her children, and immediately the thought came, “The noisy little bastards!” Underneath her reaction was her own hurt inner child who became insecure and threatened every time her real children acted out. Although disconcerting, this awareness provided an opportunity for this woman to do some very important healing work. It gave her the opportunity to resolve the fears that had limited her happiness up to that time.

If you have trouble with the Journal or if you start one and quit, look into your resistance. Your unresolved inner issues are interfering and winning! This “failure” is a warning that something inside needs attention. In Journey to Enlightenment I show how to use the shamanic journey process to work with and resolve the issues that the Gratitude Journal process surfaces. Although the process can be bumpy, one thing I can tell you is that it has been deeply enriching for those who have stayed with it.

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant,
to enact gratitude is generous and noble,
but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.

Johannes A. Gaertner

The Heart Sutra

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Ross Bishop

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom, saw clearly that the five aspects of human existence are empty*, and so released himself from suffering. Answering the monk Sariputra, he said this:

Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.

The other four aspects of human existence –
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness –
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.

There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and so with no delusions,
they feel no fear,
and have Nirvana here and now.

All the Buddhas,
past, present, and future,
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and live in full enlightenment.

The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra.
It is the clearest mantra,
the highest mantra,
the mantra that removes all suffering.

This is truth that cannot be doubted.

Say it so:
Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!

Which means…
Gone,
gone,
gone over,
gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it!

* Emptiness is the usual translation for the Buddhist term Sunyata (or Shunyata). It refers to the fact that no thing — including human existence — has ultimate substantiality, which in turn means that no thing is permanent and no thing is totally independent of everything else. In other words, everything in this world is interconnected and in constant flux. A deep appreciation of this idea of emptiness thus saves us from the suffering caused by our egos, our attachments, and our resistance to change and loss.

Ross Bishop

"Wisdom is not gained by knowing the answer; it is gained through the experience of the journey."

Tag Archives: Spirituality

Logic and Spirituality

The Cloud of Unknowing

Hermeticism – The Road Not Taken

The Rise of Rational Thought

Are You Happy?

Your Beliefs

DOWNLOAD PDF

Two Choices

Practicing Gratitude

The Heart Sutra