SOURCE CONSCIOUSNESS LIVING

Recently it came to light that the love I felt for my twin boys, Luke and Liam, was not enough for their proper development.  Despite my confidence that my boys would be fine and not suffer the psychological issues I had in my life because of the profound love I felt for them, this love turns out to be only the foundation for the parenting that is necessary for healthy happy children.  My children are healthy and happy but started to exhibit aggressive acting out while playing at school.  Without going into details this simply became a real concern since it was sudden and unforeseen.  

But what I have learned is that without my presence as a strong male figure, the "alpha" side of manhood and fatherhood, the boys could develop the felt need to take over the alpha position since my weak presence was not sufficient to allow them to feel safe, secure and free to come to me when they felt vulnerable or insecure.  They, according to the theory of the "alpha child," instinctually overcompensated for my lack of alpha presence, my lack of being present as the dependable and strong alpha male that could let them feel protected, taken care of and guided.  Their instinctual need to be dependent was hampered.  They were starting to try to become the adult alpha male before that is possible.  The aggressive acting out was the sign of this overcompensation.

I never saw this coming and I never saw this lack of "alpha" presence in myself.  Over the last few days when the insight of who I was being, or failing to be, with my children dawned on me, it was a kind of epiphany.  It gave me insight into a dimension of my being that I simply was blind to and had not realized.  Ironically the boys few episodes of acting out gave me the opportunity to learn about a missing side of myself that will restore a completeness to my life and enable them to continue to be not only happy and healthy but open to the trust and care that nurtures the continuing unfolding of a life of love, autonomy and a sense of responsibility for one's self.  

What became necessary for me was to reestablish the alpha male presence in myself and "massage" them, so to speak, back into the safety and freedom of being able to depend upon me to comfort, lead and care for them.  I had four rough days of transforming the context of our lives from one dominated by my passivity and lack of active alpha male presence.  But then a tangible shift began to take place and the chaotic, sometimes aggressive, acting out began to subside and a peacefulness began to set in. A natural hierarchical order of parent child relationship began to arise.

The epiphany, however, gave a clearer felt vision of the "self" that arises from Source or Source Consciousness.  When that "self" allows the Consciousness of Source (True Self) to continue to flow and manifest as one's Presence in the world, then that "light" that the Buddha said we must be "unto ourselves" becomes a reality.  Then that "physician" that Jesus says must "heal one's self" becomes manifest.  This 'light,' this 'healing' can be given to us by noone, not the greatest of Gurus.  We must own it as our own.   We must give ourselves the gift, become Fathers of ourselves and of our children.  Again as Jesus put it, we become One with the Father, the Source, God.  

To know this is to know that there is only one Self that I am, and 'I am that I am.'  Sound familiar?

For those of you interested, what led to this breakthrough in my life was the work of Gordon Neufeld.  For further reading on the "alpha child" see www.neufeldinstitute.com.  

Possibly we will all be saved by a child.

desiderata

Youth's caricaturization of old age is its fear and denial of aging--unless they are laughing at themselves.

Nothing matters--right now; at least if right now is a special moment, my moment.  What if right now were always my moment, not measured by time, in fact not measured, in fact not belonging to me.  What if right now is a special moment where nothing matters--not my own moment nor another's.  It just is--is it's own, its Self.  How could anything matter right now if it just is, just is itSelf, not to be named, explained or regained?

Then nothing could matter.  Everything would be beautiful.  Everything would be loveable--in its own way.

Love means I just wanna' make you--make you laugh.

Love is walking someone toward death without looking where you're going.

Love is embracing your pain, letting it be part of you and letting it depart on its own, just as it came, on its own.

NOT A MATTER OF ATTAINMENT

If any spiritual attainment in the end still ends in disappointment, in the inevitable emptiness of self-aggrandizement-- or better, ego-aggrandizement-- it's not that which we seek.  Attainment is a matter of securing the ego's place in the world as if it has finally "got it." Attainment amounts to simply seeking an experience of oneself as a better and therefore more acceptable self, i.e., ego.  But it is only a 'place,' only an experience.  It seduces consciousness and traps it in attending to the things, the idols, of the world.  Such attainments give the impression that one is now unaffected by the seductions of the world as if they are now in our control.  Attainments in the world are trophies for the ego.  In fact we are more deeply subjected to the vulnerability of expectation that this 'experience' is now ours.  We are more out of "control."  The world and life become fixed and fastened to the pursuit of holding one's ground, like the alcoholic who's only satisfaction is not feeling bad, not feeling the empty craving for another drink.  The 'high' is gone; now all there is is to avoid the lows.  

The desperate ego substitutes spiritual seeking of "true self" in place of the things of the world and succeeds in turning the Self into another thing of the world, deluding itself that the true Self it seeks is attainable as if it were just another object, seeking it just as it seeks other objects as they occur in the world.  But this Self cannot be possessed since it is self-possession itself.  It is the "I AM" that I cannot be outside of nor inside.  It is self-possession that cannot and need not hold on to itself.  It does not take hold nor need to let go since it has never grasped.  Why attain when it itself is the gift which no attainment, achievement or aggrandizement can accomplish?

JESUS' ASCENDENCY AND SELF-ASCENDENCE

No spiritual teacher can take you to where they themselves have not gone.  Jesus could raise the dead to life because He had ascended to life itself, eternal life.  Yet when Jesus brought the dead back to living he did not raise them to eternal life.  He brought them back to the place where in living they could, and only they could, raise themselves to eternal life.  After all only then could their true Self, the true Savior, the true Guru, raise them from the dream to reality, from the story of "I" to the consciousness of true being, from belief to knowledge.

MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES

If it is the case that 'the mystery is not a matter of how the world is, but, that the world is,' then our task is the contemplation of this givenness, this gift that all is, this givenness without a giver.  But more still, the meditation of the givenness of such givenness.  This Giver is Givenness itself, that is, the Receiver.  The Receiver of the given is the true giver, that is, the Creator.  And only the One who lives in the giver's truth is the true giver, the Self-given.  All else can be and is doubted.  

The true Giver's Truth is then not of What the world is, but That the world is.  The problems of our lives disappear when we see them from the standpoint of the mystery That the world is, and again, the mystery behind the mystery, the Receiver that we ourSelf are.  So the Buddha says, "Be a light unto yourself," meaning be the light which your Self always already is.  Then the problems are like play in the fields of the Lord, or like laying down in "green pastures," or like the joy of the "lilies of the fields."

WITHOUT CONCERN

There's no avoiding conflict; but one can avoid being in conflict with one's conflicts.  The same goes for worry and frustration.  One need only be aware of such things.  Then finally in that awareness come to abide in and as awareness alone.  One can savor the joy and pain of life without having to do anything about it, to change it, justify it, avenge it.  Then one can love without concern and share the peace of this blissfulness.

GRATITUDE

Thank God, excitement isn't exciting any more.
Spectacle isn't spectacular anymore.
Lust has lost its luster.
Superlative is at best comparative.
Life is so much better.  Thank God.

WHY NOT PEACE ETERNAL?

It has often been suggested to me, in no uncertain terms that enlightenment is impossible: "How is it possible to be eternally at peace?  It's a great idea but can't be done!"  

So with cynicism, sarcasm and normalized resignation we scoff at the possibility of everlasting peace, whether internal or external, in our hearts or in the world.

But isn't it peculiar that we are perfectly capable at living at war for years.  Isn't it odd that we can persist in internal psychological  tension and conflict for our entire lives.  How is it that we can live in families constantly at odds with one another, "odds" so intense that it all too often leads to murder?  

We can put all this energy, time and worry into stress, struggle, familial violence and war, to name only a few of the ways we find to suffer, but we can't find peace.  Actually we can't even really find relaxation.  And surely joy and love are also far down the agenda of normal possibilities.

The usual excuse as to why suffering is "easy" and normal, if not absolutely unavoidable, is that "that's just the way things are."  That's the nature of things.  As if we have not all to often chosen what brings suffering.  As if we have nothing to do with the lives we live, with how we think and act in our world.  

So we continue to suffer even more by resisting the proposition that it's not what happens to us that brings us fulfillment but how we respond to what happens.  What would it be like to choose peace, joy and love?  To act on peace, joy and love?

What actually might become of our lives and the world if we invested 20 minutes a day in peace?  Peace might actually grow, might spread, might become normal.  It may become the very condition of joy and love.

Afterthoughts

And so, here I am
after all these years-
I think I need to do
some cleaning up-
wouldn't want to leave
a mess-
Have to leave time
and a place
for someone
for anyone
to consider the things I've done,
the things I may have done well
done right
or likely wrong-
possibly just the fact
of being here,
that one
alone,
somewhat unique
that left a place
for tender memories

LUCID DREAMING...LUCID LIVING

Some claim that if you can stay awake while dreaming, the problems that present themselves in dreams can be solved, or better, dis-solved.   Certainly if you are not "awake" in the dream you are subject to the unconscious dictates of the dream.  If one is in wakeful consciousness, presumably living,  you still may well not be "lucid" or conscious of being conscious of what you are conscious of.  That is, you may well be sleepwalking through wakefulness.  So just as one can awaken in the dream and at least consider whether there really is a problem in what appears to be fearful or painful, so also one can awaken to a consciousness of one's wakefulness and thereby overcome the fear and pain of not being awake and in charge while we are awake.  But possibly it is enough to be fully awake whether dreaming or living and thereby not suffering the colorings of a mind that commandeers our conscious control and locks us in the repetitive story of fear, pain, worry, or otherwise, suffering and frustration.  When one remembers the past, do we really remember the past or the 'story' of the past in which suffering had already become a part.  When we think of the future do we propose and plan to act or do we import the story of the past and project it onto a thereby past-determined future?  So if it is possible to lucidly dream, it is possible to lucidly live.

THE CHOICE AND TIME

To be born again, born anew.... or, to be reincarnated.  That is the choice.  If you know that you have the choice to be here now, present to the presence of being itself, then you have the choice.  Not to the things of being but to Being itself, the Self itSelf.  If you do not know you have the choice, you are being reincarnated.  You are becoming old.  Moreso, you are dead, at least dead to the moment and whatever may occur in it.  To choose wisely, consciously, to experience the moment is to be surprised by the things of the moment, all born again.  The end of time is when there is no 'again.'

Points of Gratitude

Every problem, only an opportunity. 

Every actuality also a possibility. 

Every part a key to the harmony of the whole.

Meditation is utter simplicity with a passion.

The Truth About Reincarnation

It's not that we have lived before in "past lives."  Past lives as such are not interesting even if we could  prove them to have occurred.  What reincarnation is about is the power to live enlightened, joyfully and freely, as soon as you get the truth of reincarnation.  What is the truth?  The truth is that one must imagine what life would be like having been born again but this time remembering all the mistakes you've made just in this life.  All the regrets and missed moments of love, truth and inspiration.  To just be young again, in your prime and having the chance to do it all again, but differently given you've got all that knowledge of the mistakes, the lost time and the pitiful pretensions.  A kind of Nietzschean insight.  And start doing it, not the actions but the being and the feeling of the love, joy and freedom.  The actions will come as they will but will not really matter.

ORIGINS OF LOVE

Does love have an origin?  Is it the origin, the source, possibly even the source of consciousness itself, awakened consciousness?  Does love arise from self-love as it was thought at the origins of psychoanalysis?  If one's self-love is the reflection of the love of another, who is that Other originally?  Who could first love without being loved by another?  It seems that this question at least locates that love must either exist in itself as the whole or the absolute origin;  or that the dynamics of some dialectic in the genesis of consciousness originates love as an interdependency or mutuality. 

In Christian thought, Jesus is necessary as the one who loves unconditionally without necessarily having been loved, except of course, by God or by Mary, but not by another human being, given God and Mary are not human or ordinarily "human."  Both God and Mary transcend the human insofar as they transcend sexuality. But Jesus, as the one who forsakes the needs of the world as primary, still loves unconditionally without desire or expectation.  Jesus loves the world as the child loves the world, as a joy indistinguishable from self.  Thus his invocation to love thy neighbor as thyself where self is the Oneness of the world, the Real.  The One so loved is beautiful, endlessly joyous and free.  Love is the "revelation of the freedom of the Other."

Spiritual Connections

Prayer is the practice of humility.

Acceptance is the act of forgiveness.

Grace is the goodness we share.

FROM KNOWLEDGE TOWARD LOVE (Part II)

My first Satsang had provided me with the conditions for a shift of consciousness away from the world as I had lived it, in discontent and dissatisfaction, and toward what I now believe is the Real:  the Self seemingly within my self which is a Love that knows itself as such, unconditionally, absolutely, without words, thoughts or images.  Now however this Self-Love was not in me but I in it.  The river had run to the sea.

In that first Satsang, the first 10 minutes of that Satsang, in an awakened moment of Love, I felt myself experience a forgiveness for having failed, for not having gotten it, whatever it was in life that I felt I should have gotten.  I was 52 years old.  I experienced the force of forgiveness of myself for not knowing there was nothing to get that would ultimately matter.  I felt a compassion for myself.  I liked myself.  Everything was ok.  I was happy.  I saw that I was worth loving. The world was loveable just as it was.  I no longer needed to achieve to be free of striving and desiring or the illusion that desire was satisfiable.  I no longer desired more or better of what already had been experienced in my life.  Everything was clear, bright, light and essentially re-newed, re-born.  The Larry Project was dead. The illusion that I could do or find something in the world that could make me whole and complete was seen through.  I understood then that the world could no longer give me a better deal.  I saw no reason to hold out for an offering of something better from the world than what I had experienced in Satsang.  The "time" of my life had essentially ended, even though I was yet to fully understand this.

FROM KNOWLEDGE TOWARD LOVE (Part I)

"Awakening is not the end of things.  Awakening is only the beginning.  When we awaken, the real affair of love begins.  It goes on forever.  It is as if one has been finally qualified for the depths of Love."

These words written by Ramana helped me realize what the path has always been and now consciously is for me.  I have awakened to the meaning and purpose of the awakening.  I believe I have awakened to and known Divine Love itself.

My awakening occurred in May of 1999.  A student of mine invited me to a private home in Youngstown, N.Y. where a spiritual teacher by the name of Ramana (Yukio Hasagawa) was giving Satsang.  It was the end of the semester of teaching at college.  My summer was open.  I had no plans.  There was nothing I really wanted to do.  I was feeling relaxed and ready to enjoy whatever came along that summer.  What did come along was radically transformative-- an awakening to Self-Awareness and Love -- the very thing I believe the incomparable Plato spoke of in his dialogue, The Symposium, the Beautiful One beyond knowledge and reality.

Ramana conducted a brief workshop exercise at the beginning of the Satang session.  We gazed at a pencil we held in our hands.  In short, he asked us to finally become aware of the awareness that gave us the perception of the pencil.  Suddenly, something burst through.  I lost awareness of the pencil and became aware of a universal consciousness.  I felt an absolute love for myself and realized that my life, a failure, had been an attempt to achieve this love through success and the approval of others.  It was a vicarious love that I sought.  But here in this moment of bliss I experienced a love for myself that I had never before experienced in my life.  I was free of my life.  I was the Love which was my Self.

Becoming Like the Little Children

In my last post I suggested it was obvious why Jesus would say 'become like the little children.'  Well, maybe it isn't obvious.  Ramana Maharshi is of considerable help here.  In his large collection of Satsang, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, p. 3, he says in response to being asked why a Sage is like a little child:  "A child and a Sage (jnani, or, yogi of knowledge) are similar in a way.  Incidents interest a child only so long as they last.  It ceases to think of them after they have passed away.  So then, it is apparent that they do not leave any impression on the child and the child is not affected by them mentally.  So it is with the Sage."  

THE TRUTH OF LOVE

A well-known Satsang teacher by the name of Jesus once said that "You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free."  What is that Truth?  It is that you are Love.  Not the being of Love.  But the very Source of being called Love.  When One has fallen into Love, One does not need to "do" or "experience" in order to be 're-born,' to live form the Oneness of the Eternality of Life.  All is always new, re-newed, re-newing--All is always already being born again.  This is presence in which the Self is at one with the One. 

Love gives birth in feeling.  Love feels.  Getting emotional is the sign that one has moved away from Love and become merely One's 'self.'  That is, One stops feeling.  When I get emotional, upset or annoyed with my boys --those two little Lovers at the top of the page-- I not only become less than I Am and what life can be but I fail to understand them in their truth.  They need someone to feel their love with them; they need someone to bring them back to Love, not to be reprimanded or disapproved of, once the connection to the Source has been broken by my or your emotionality.  I am fortunate, blessed by the grace of my little boys as my guides, my signs of where the "I AM" is and when the emotional self takes over.  That same Satsang teacher mentioned above reminded us to 'become like the little children.'  One need not wonder why.

KNOWING THE TRUTH

Once one has known the Truth, feelings as emotions are irrelevant.  Feelings as feelings are not irrelevant.  The emotional life is interwoven with beliefs that keep our world fixed, lived from and by the past.  Feeling is lived from beyond time and belief and is constituted by and as love.  Such love is a compassion and care that is not concerned for it knows that all is well, one need not worry and all pain is always already surpassed by the Truth.  This Truth is a transcendence of the need to be loved for it knows that it is Love.  It knows that such loving is the greatest good whose joy cannot be improved upon by being loved.  It is the joy of not needing anything, being able to enjoy everything but not really wanting to do anything.  All has already been experienced, all has already been loved.

Immanent Awareness Meditation

The acronym of this Post Title points to the existential yet spiritual fact that "I  A M."  That is, it points to what I am(and you are): "the" I AM.  This I AM is an utter, irreducible simplicity, not synthesized into nor determinable by any prior presence or experience.  It is One, the One whole, the Real.  It has the "last word."  It is moreover the first "word," as inscribed in the Gospel of John which says, "in the beginning was the word."  I would say, "in the beginning is the Word."  Christianity means to say the same thing.  That is, the IAM is neither past nor future; neither before nor after.  It is always 'alongside' as the One Real I AM without which nothing would be.  It is This that meditation, authentic meditation, locates and "realizes" even though it is what does the "realizing."  It is the Truth that turns life into a Communion, a non-idolatrous discourse(satsang) and meditation. 

Immanent Awareness lets the real be Real without trying to eliminate the intrusions of the real or making the Real more than it is, namely, the One and only One.  That is, IAM reveals the obsessive illusion of seeking after "bliss" or "peace" or "happiness."  At best such obsessive journeys end in being 'blissed out about,' 'blandly indifferent to,' or 'giddily grinning in regard to' the whole of life.  This latter is the loss of self and soul.

Locating the IAM allows the "real" to be "Real."  That is, It allows it to be without judgement of, believing in, trying to explain away or deny that which happens in One's world.  It suffers the world of the real without suffering it and turning it into a 'desert of the real.' 

The I Am is I myself, alive, present, aware and simply silently still.  Without regret, reaction, resistance, agenda, wishing or willing, yet just loving.

MEDITATION, THE WAY OF FREEDOM

Meditation is a way of life that heals, calms and strengthens body, mind and spirit.  It is a rooting in the Self that abides resolutely in the world yet always as one’s Self.  While it is a way that does not fight or deny its being in the world, it is not of the world.  It is a return to one’s Self as OneSelf, in the world but not of the world.  It enables the presence of OneSelf first and foremost as one is present in and to the world.  It is ‘spiritual’ but not spiritualist, merely mystical or quietist in nature.  As a holistic discipline it utilizes the way of mantra or focused, contemplative meditation.  Secondly, it incorporates the capacity of mindfulness.  Moreover, thirdly, it resides in the immanent self-awareness of self as in the vichara teachings of Ramana Maharshi.  Such meditation is of the nature of “Satsang,” meaning a communion with truth, while abiding in the experience, understanding and activities of the world.  It is the Truth that sets One on the path of freedom.

SOCIAL JUSTICE and POVERTY

We have a new Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina.  He stands first and foremost for social justice, especially in his concern for the poor.  Poverty will be his focus.  Hopefully, the notion of  'poverty' will be expanded beyond the economistic reduction which the media has already begun to accentuate.  Poverty is not only about material impoverishment but, in the extreme, also spiritual impoverishment.  More specifically and to the point one could be no more impoverished than when one has been sexually abused as a child by a priest of the Catholic Church.

If this Pope does not take seriously child abuse, this spiritual scourge that eats at the foundations of Catholicism and the heart of Christianity, then he will rank no more highly than any within the lineage of Popes thus far.  Until now no Pope has taken the corruption of abuse seriously.  Why?  It continues.  Cover-ups continue.  Lack of compassion continues.  Systematic deferral of the problem continues.  Paying the problem to go away continues.  Dealing with this paramount issue has not even begun.

Facing and dealing with the issue of child abuse will shake the foundations of this church.  They know this.  If they confront the infinite depth of this sin, the structure will shift beyond imagination.

Interestingly Bergoglio takes the name of Francis. Francis was never ordained, preached poverty and repentance.  The patron saint of nature.  Will Bergoglio vow poverty?  Repent?  Respect the Environment?

Will Bergoglio impoverish "poverty?"  Or will he deal with the absolute curse of "poverty" as a whole? When 'poverty' is understood in its robust and deeply rooted sense it will enable dealing with the desecration of innumerable children by sexual abuse, the denigration of the environment by materialism run amok and the decay of the very essence of the spirituality of the religious life itself.

Jesus said that what we do to the least of them, we do unto him.  Who could be lesser than the child?  Who more innocently vulnerable?  Bergoglio could make himself "naked" like Francis.  He could make the Chruch "naked" to its loss of its own soul.

Like the proverbial 'Emperor,' the Church has no clothes.  And as the fable goes, it took a child to speak the truth, possibly an abused and forgotten child.

MASS MEDIA WHORES

Regarding the darkness of being:  It just dawned on me a proper name for certain media figures such as Kim Kardashian.  She's a MASS MEDIA WHORE.  She sells her image, vacuous and meaningless as it is, for money.  She should be thankful that so many of us thrive and survive psychologically on images.

Loving involvement from without

Jesus maintained that we must be in the world but not of the world.  Yet, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son."  Is it not the case that to truly love the world one must be in it but not of it?  When I am "of it" I expect it to 'love' me.  When I am in it but not of it, it's not that I don't appreciate love but I don't expect it to make me love, feel or be in or of the nature of love.

INVOKING TIME

Dreaming is the mind outside of time; wakefulness is the mind inside time.