Look Beneath the Surface (and Watch the Spirit Arise)

"I am ever present to those who have realized me

in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation,

they are never separated from me. They worship me

in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me.

Wherever they live, they abide in me."

                   The Bhagavad Gita, 6:30-31

With that somewhat invisible foundation in place, let's consider that it's really basing our judgments on the surfaces of what we see that creates a great many of our world's problems. They insist that by being the "visible" parts of life, they are also the most important parts—the parts we're actually interacting with all the time. But that's not really true, is it? Aren't we seeing, and more importantly feeling, the invisible parts of life, perhaps more deeply, all the time?

You can neither tell a book by it's cover, nor the content of a person's heart from the clothes they wear. It's impossible for our limited vision to see into the whirring masses of sub-atomic particles all dancing inside of our supposedly solid world. There is an inwardly exponential relationship of the outsides of everything to their insides, where the real story is told in the many pages beneath the cover.

When we're confronted by surfaces—appearances, behaviors, "final outcomes"—it does us no good to compare our insides to those outward presentations, but to start by considering what we don't know about the insides of each. That's where we can find our real understanding. We've all experienced the illusion of something looking really good on the outside, only to find out that it's actually full of pain. (I've picked a lot of chocolates like that...)

So, it's our ability to witness this occupation by spirit, and the outward expression of it (as mysterious as it is miraculous,) that's the most important, truly interactive, and compellingly honest perception we can have—whether we can actually see past the physical surface of something (or someone) or not. When we don't get too wrapped-up with surface appearances, we can see that remarkable relationship pretty plainly...but we have to relax, stop labeling, and allow ourselves to. So try this sometimes—pay as little attention to the surface of things as possible. Practice looking into it (intuit); and just try to witness the spirit arising from within things and people, as often as you can. Like everything that's worth getting good at, it takes practice.

"To God belongs the East and the West;

and wherever you turn,

there is the face of God."

The Qu'ran, Surah 2

These quotes from ancient wisdom sources really say the same thing, don't they? We display a kind of silly ignorance when we rely on visible affirmations—on outside appearances—when we know that every surface changes, and that it's the mystery within that remains Eternal. Everything we witness with our minds, and our eyes, and our hearts, is actually just more proof of our shared elemental composition—the substance of our Source, and our ineffable connection to each other and every living thing. It's all the real "face of God."

So, it's just a matter of our perception, and allowing ourselves to look beneath the surface of things by looking with a vision that's free of judgment and comparison—that's the only way to be more fully, more realistically, engaged by our compassion, identifying with the insides, instead of the outsides. Heres a quote, from a wonderful egghead, that tells us the same thing:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

And this last natural note – did you know that bald eagles have naturally "polarized" vision? They can see right past the surface reflections, past the glare, into the river, at all the fish swimming by. Life looks like a parade of candy bars to them. They sit, fully and appropriately engaged, and, once they've learned the proper technique, they swoop down and snatch up the bounty of life, whenever they want.

"The disciples asked him:

'When will the Kingdom come?'

Yeshua answered:

It will not come by watching for it...

The Kingdom...is spread out over the whole earth,

and people do not have eyes to see it."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 113

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond, based on lessons (learned the hard way) by a three time near death survivor is now available everywhere – but ask for it it at your local bookstore! How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) is due out early 2018, from Llewellyn Worldwide.

Flocks, Schools, and Spiritual Evolution (It's a Revolution)

Have you ever looked up in the sky and seen a flock of birds in flight, undulating as though they were a single living organism? Separate yet solid. Shifting fluidly, like  living expressions inside of a dynamically divine Lava Lamp.

There's something fascinating going on there that we all recognize from way down in our subliminal cellars clear up to our archetypal attics – a cooperative organization and movement, issuing from an invisible intelligence. Science has its explanations for these orders and arrangements of the natural world, but their explanations are always an effort to frame the miraculous and justify a sense of understanding and control over something that's far more beautiful to witness than it could ever be to explain.

Beneath it all though, lies that unifying intuitive understanding of our basic natural relationship to the Earth; an ever-evolving expression, being eternally expressed. We, like those birds, are doing it too. That's the reason why, even in the face of our impending catastrophe, we have so much hope–because we can always have faith in the fact that our forms are constantly rediscovering and rearranging the Self into a timeless, working whole. (Ours is the only design that isn't intelligent). But bringing the promise of that faith into reality, requires that we follow those natural, intuitive impulses of our own group.

Quantum coherence and emergent self-organization aren't confined to particles or waves, or to anthills either. Nor are they unrelated to 'magic,' or the miraculous – they're just more finely drawn evidence of it. We are all psychically connected at a profound level–at least the level of survival. That comes as no shock, does it? We're sharing enough consciousness for to all of us to know that truth. Our being 'entangled' in non-ordinary ways, sharing a 'non-local' source, and joined by an "acausal connecting principle" is obvious in our contracting reality – blossoming into global consciousness through our simultaneous personal realizations. A collective déjà vu of growing intensity. We have had to change this way before.

Those entrancing performances of flocking birds and schooling fish illustrate our own emergent human properties–not just as strategies for survival, but for our physical and spiritual evolution as well. The energy that animates those collective expressions of divine purpose – to move beautifully and harmoniously as one – insists that we now embrace our collective intelligence, and change course.

Occupation movements; the impulse to maintain internet neutrality; personal participation in the power grid; rapidly deepening ecological awareness across the generations are all examples of this movement, which, out of the mainstream, finds its  identity in a kind of modern shamanic mythology that seeks to reconnect us to Mother Earth. In our mainstream culture, it's expressed as the profoundly progressive consciousness that elected the first African-American president, or that embraces the full rights of all sexual orientations. It's a recognition of humanity – grounded in altruism, activism, spiritual evolution, and personal responsibility.

Who leads this flock of birds? Where does the order to form this expression come from? The order to behave sensibly, as birds should; to cohere to the greater energies at play in the Universe, and within each and every individual? Simply put, it's beyond us, and between us. Recognizing it within oneself, and allowing ourselves to belong to the horizontal hierarchy that this undeniable impulse organizes itself within, brings us into balance with our emergent global consciousness, and gives us our true direction. 

"There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of [flying in the noisy flock, and] being the noise...Close both eyes to see with the other eye...Open your hands, if you want to be held...Sit down in this circle."

Rumi

These emergent qualities we share are finding a rising media voice too – from the comforting spirituality of Oprah, the late Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer; to the (more 'serious') science-based ideas of Ray Kurzweil or Bruce Lipton; to the 'in-your-face' progressive moxie of Russell Brand and Daniel Pinchbeck. All of these voices represent our intuitively shifting dynamic, which is totally at odds with the destructive financial elite – stuck in it's cultural amber – that's leading us in a top-down line to global disaster.

What are our means to directly access and join this collective shift? Well, we each carry those means in our willingness to participate with humility and honesty; in the Love alive in our hearts.

Nowhere have I found a guide for following this calling, in a totally practical way, expressed as wonderfully as in the brilliant Ervin Laszlo's "Ten Commandments of a Timely Vision" (from Quantum Shift in the Global Brain, Inner Traditions, 2008). It's a beautifully usable template, which (with apologies to Mr. Laszlo) I'll try to synopsize for the sake of brevity:

1. Live in ways that enable others to live, without detracting from their chances.

2. Live in ways that respect the [absolute] right to life and economic and cultural development of all people.

3. Live in ways that safeguard the intrinsic right to life and a supportive environment.

4. Pursue happiness, freedom, and fulfillment in harmony with nature, and with consideration for others.

5. Require that your government relates to all peoples peacefully, and in a spirit of healthy cooperation.

6. Require your enterprises to accept responsibility for their effect on markets and environments, free from exploitative intentions.

7. Require (or create) the public media to provide reliable information crucial to informed decision-making.

8. Help those less privileged to live a life of dignity.

9. Encourage young and open-minded people to evolve spiritually.

10. Work with like-minded people to to preserve, restore, and maintain the balance of your neighborhood, country, and global biosphere.

Here then is the path–drawn-out–towards the great shift we all know we must take; the practically involuntary course we are already taking towards our survival and spiritual evolution. It's nothing short of the conscious suppression of the destructive values of materialism, and the recognition of all life of the planet as sacred. It isn't just an evolution I'm talking about, but will have to be a revolution of humanity, from the unnecessary waste and despair we experience now, towards its highest order. 

So, for what it's worth (humbly and honestly), I too am following the indescribable urge that's calling for revolution–a recognition of our spiritual nature; and the requirement that a just and humane respect be shown to the Earth and all it's occupants, enforced by whatever means our Intelligent Design determines us to follow...and it's not even my idea at all.

"To the knowing, all of life is a movement towards perfection; so what need have they for the excessive, the extravagant, or the extreme?"

Tao te Ching, 29

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore! 

Look Beneath the Surface (and Watch the Spirit Arise)

"I am ever present to those who have realized me

in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation,

they are never separated from me. They worship me

in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me.

Wherever they live, they abide in me."

                   The Bhagavad Gita, 6:30-31

With that somewhat invisible foundation in place, let's consider that it's really basing our judgements on the surfaces of what we see that creates a great many of our world's problems. They insist that by being the "visible" parts of life, they are also the most important parts—the parts we're actually interacting with all the time. But that's not really true, is it? Aren't we seeing, and more importantly feeling, the invisible parts of life, perhaps more deeply, all the time?

You can neither tell a book by it's cover, nor the content of a person's heart from the clothes they wear. It's impossible for our limited vision to see into the whirring masses of sub-atomic particles all dancing inside of our supposedly solid world. There is an inwardly exponential relationship of the outsides of everything to their insides, where the real story is told in the many pages beneath the cover.

When we're confronted by surfaces—appearances, behaviors, "final outcomes"—it does us no good to compare our insides to those outward presentations, but to start by considering what we don't know about the insides of each. That's where we can find our real understanding. We've all experienced the illusion of something looking really good on the outside, only to find out that it's actually full of pain. (I've picked a lot of chocolates like that...)
So, it's our ability to witness this occupation by spirit, and the outward expression of it (as mysterious as it is miraculous,) that's the most important, truly interactive, and compellingly honest perception we can have—whether we can actually see past the physical surface of something (or someone) or not. When we don't get too wrapped-up with surface appearances, we can see that remarkable relationship pretty plainly...but we have to relax, stop labeling, and allow ourselves to. So try this sometimes—pay as little attention to the surface of things as possible. Practice looking into it (intuit); and just try to witness the spirit arising from within things and people, as often as you can. Like everything that's worth getting good at, it takes practice.

"To God belongs the East and the West;

and wherever you turn,

there is the face of God."

The Qu'ran, Surah 2

These quotes from ancient wisdom sources really say the same thing, don't they? We display a kind of silly ignorance when we rely on visible affirmations—on outside appearances—when we know that every surface changes, and that it's the mystery within that remains Eternal. Everything we witness with our minds, and our eyes, and our hearts, is actually just more proof of our shared elemental compo-sition—the substance of our Source, and our ineffable connec-tion to each other and every living thing. It's all the real "face of God."

 

So, it's just a matter of our perception, and allowing ourselves to look beneath the surface of things by looking with a vision that's free of judgment and comparison—that's the only way to be more fully, more realistically, engaged by our compassion, identifying with the insides, instead of the outsides. Heres a quote, from a wonderful egghead, that tells us the same thing:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

And this last natural note – did you know that bald eagles have naturally "polarized" vision? They can see right past the surface reflections, past the glare, into the river, at all the fish swimming by. Life looks like a parade of candy bars to them. They sit, fully and appropriately engaged, and, once they've learned the proper technique, they swoop down and snatch up the bounty of life, whenever they want.

                 "The disciples asked him:

'When will the Kingdom come?'

Yeshua answered:

It will not come by watching for it...

The Kingdom...is spread out over the whole earth,

and people do not have eyes to see it."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 113

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond, based on lessons (learned the hard way) by a three time near death survivor is now available everywhere – but ask for it it at your local bookstore! How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) is due out early 2018, from Llewellyn Worldwide.