Until you are firmly one in the Spirit there is a path, a semblance of duality and methodology. Sadhana itself is no more than the "practice" of oneness, of being one with Consciousness. In such sadhana the individual entity, the identification of a separate individual is no more. You are "found",  you are merged with the deity Reality.

This Reality has no form or it has all forms. It is indescribable, just the same way as you cannot speak of yourself without being yourself, cannot observe yourself without being what you are seeing, you cannot arrive at your destination without experiencing and accepting everything you encounter along the way.

From the fact that Reality has no form or all forms it follows that all or any way is appropriate. In a sense all roads really do lead to Rome, just some more directly than others. When you have committed to a road your continuing commitment is all important. Thus you do not deviate any more than you may do anyway.

Along the way you forget yourself and your journey altogether. It is essential. You become immersed in the moment, in the experience. Only through this immerse-ment in the present experience can you be taken out of experience altogether. You must experience fully to go beyond, to transcend experiencing.

Thus there is no "right" way to the spiritual divine domain, to the end of illumination, to the state of enlightenment. One thing is certain:  you will not attain any of these condition-less conditions. You will not be present at your ultimate liberation. You yourself in your temporal state are necessarily sacrificed. Your are the dispensable, the throwaway, the merely temporary arising form. Your way to freedom is blessed and inherent in your humanity, in your temporality. All things find their fulfilment in their demise; all things are tending toward death. You however are not a thing, you are consciousness. You are consciousness and you have forgotten it. This is the spiritual faux pas. Simply the need— the necessity—to remember who you really are.

As Consciousness, everything that arises, arises within you and, rather than be enticed by these many and varied arisings, remember  you are that Consciousness in which the apparent events of the world take place.

BLOG entry #10

How do you get over the end of a relationship?

Don't try to "get over" it, go through it. If you try to get over the breakup of your relationship with another person you will not honor it. The other partner may or may not honor the end of the relationship, but that is not your immediate concern. Your central interest is in learning all you can from the relationship... so you will not have to repeat it again—any of it. So don't try to get over the breakup, try to go through it, and when you are going through it be as thoroughly aware as you possibly can be. Times of transition are rich with possibilities for transforming. Bring your awareness to your experience, your thoughts and feelings,  your emotions and energy, your insights and revelations. The air is thick with insightful breakthroughs and understanding at these times of change in our lives.

When the dust has settled, when you have thoroughly taken it all apart and learned from the full experience of your relationship from beginning to end, when you are enriched with a deeper illumination into yourself, into the other, and into the very nature of relationship itself, you will enter into a period of gratitude. Gratitude for all you shared with the other, gratitude for all that the other and your relationship with them enabled you to learn, gratitude for life and its many multifarious wonders that offer you the opportunity for growth and understanding.

Allow time for a ritual. Burn some essential oil, place a likeness of yourself with your ex-partner on an altar, cook yourself a celebratory meal, or take a long peaceful walk in nature. But whatever you do, however you decide to mark your liberation through insight from the end of your relationship, breathe into your heart and shed the very last tears of attachment and rapture and gentleness, the last shreds of compassion and sadness for the person you were, the person who was in the relationship. Say goodbye to the one who was you, who you were, and walk on into the day anew, refreshed, lighter, wiser, and more mature, more developed, more clear... and more loving.

BLOG entry #9

The great tenderness of life can be expressed in a cat snuggling next to your leg or your dog sighing on the sofa next to you, in your feeling the profound relaxation of sitting after a walk or in the morning tea slipping deliciously down your throat. The wind of tenderness can blow right through you and you may wonder how many times you have missed it, but when you are here, present, in the moment to receive it, it is unmistakable, unrelenting, unbidden, purposeful. You are caught off-guard by its gentleness, by its compassion, by its light touch.

BLOG entry #8

What is Sacred Attention Therapy?

Sacred Attention Therapy is an approach to liberation. First, liberation from the conditioned self. Second, liberation from the fulfillment of our true nature and, third, liberation into the life of spiritual discipline.

This threefold process is known as the Three Stages of Awakening.

The first stage involves discovering the origins of personality and defensive character and revitalizing those parts of our psycho-physical organism which have become frozen, contracted, or deadened by the overwhelming experience of emotion, mental dilemma, or physical threat. Through a gentle, thorough process of healing reflection, sharing, and release, we attain the condition of acceptance of the whole self without reserve and through forgiveness assume the self-responsibility which augurs the rising out of self-consciousness into the realms of heart and authenticity.

The second stage involves the discovery of compassion, the significance of the impersonal nature of love itself, as we modulate through layers of perception to the relative truth that love is, in spite of ourselves and our seeming separation from others and events. We increasingly relinquish our tight hold on identity, separation, and division and deepen in the heart of simplicity, authenticity, and relative enlightenment, as we free ourselves from the bondage of the delusion of ultimate ego-embodied satisfaction.

The third stage is living the life of spiritual truth per se. Through layers of revelation and insight which span the borderline between the second and third stages of awakening, we prepare ourselves for the life beyond searching. Spiritual practice becomes central in our lives and in the purest experience we live in the world in surrender and love, and the transcendent state of unity.

So... Sacred Attention Therapy is the practice of a metapsychology that embraces the psycho-spiritual nature of the human being in its fullness and completeness.

BLOG entry #7

"The less people know the more stubbornly they know it."

"The more I think I know...the less I really know about anything!"

These two statements appeared this week in an exchange over social media. The first statement (by a twentieth-century eastern guru) concerns the fixed contraction of the ego-mind. The second (from an aspiring seeker perhaps, who attempts to identify with the guru’s remark) is about something quite different—the limitations of knowledge.

It is these kinds of exchanges—the ones that simply miss the mark, the ones where no one really seems to be listening to either themselves or others—that make us condemn social media, sometimes the internet, and the kind of superficial, misguided interactions that may take place there. Yet the internet, like casual conversation and social interaction, is no more guilty or prone to misunderstandings, confusion, and lack of attention than any other interactive milieu. Let us respect the internet for the marvelous opportunity it gives us for communication. May we in time learn to honor the sacred opportunity to speak and listen to a global network of souls and seekers that the internet grants us.

And so to this attempt to clarify the confusion in the social media exchange above.

We begin in a state of ignorance. So we learn we look to others. We observe. We take in and we learn in order to increase our knowledge of the world. Being ignorant is unwise and dangerous. We need to find out, to discover. So through healthy curiosity we ask, we act, we learn.

Stage two: we begin to find limitations in knowledge. We begin to ask past the usual acceptable conformist answers. "Yes, but what is a love... a sunset... a leaf?" We want to know something beyond what we have found out. We sense there is a field of wisdom beyond knowledge.

Third stage: we enter the field of wisdom and knowledge begins to fade, until we are willing to accept its fundamental uselessness. We discover a new intention, a fresh impulse, and it is to grow in wisdom.

Fourth stage: we penetrate wisdom—or allow wisdom to penetrate us. There is a seeming inexhaustible supply within. As we tap into it, revelations, insights, and breakthroughs deliver us to the further shore of psycho-spiritual understanding.

So... this is the natural order of human growth and development:

·         pursuing knowledge

·         questioning knowledge

·         discovering wisdom

·         deepening understanding

The process yields one more important experience and result: gratitude. What may overwhelm us on occasion throughout this deepening process of revelation is that we have been given the opportunity—the opportunity and the profound blessing to grow in self-revelation, self-understanding, and ultimate self-realization.

BLOG entry #6