How Media and Science Sell Us a Dangerous Delusion

I wanted to re-post this (slightly updated) article, because I think it speaks well, and with some immediacy, about what we see going on more and more these days. I hope you enjoy it. It starts with this:  

"Yeshua said: If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Logion 70, The Gospel of Thomas

Denial is ignorance, accepted as truth through the force of will. Our personal will, and our collective will.

Popular Media and Science justify and enforce this will, misdirecting us from the self examination that makes us face our collective truths realistically, and psychically cornering us in the "The Way Things Are." They preoccupy us with good enough reasons for why things are like they are – and why they have to be like they are. Much of Media and Science is created and used to obscure the truth and replace it with a designed objective, to sell an idea or product – turning the truth into an obstacle that needs to be suppressed, where it becomes, as stated in our Gospel of Thomas quote again: "That which will destroy you." We end up confused, walking through a false world trying to find what's real. This is the Maya (or illusion) of Media and Science.

It may sound funny to call this Occultism, and to suggest that media operatives and scientists are occultists, but unfortunately it does work for a couple definitions of the word, in 1. The sense of using supernatural or paranormal means and methods: Media people know they are manipulating dark fears; and 2. In the sense of it being only for the initiated: Scientists and media people consort amongst one another to keep their stories straight. They both harbor scary secrets about what motivates them, shared only by a select few.

Popular Culture often harnesses the psychic energy of cruel self-judgement, "that which would destroy you," as it's chief attraction. The Collective Ego is always on the lookout for something to prove that humans are not particularly Divine and that we don't measure up, and so there must be something that can fix it – something that can calm or repair our shortcomings. So Media constantly stimulates those hot buttons of judgement and comparison – Fear, and the pathology of self-enhancement, to trick you to quite literally buy into it:

My clothes must be right. My lifestyle must be right. I must have the "right" friends, and the proper idols. My country must be right. My religion must be right. If you don't keep in line with these artificial demands, you won't measure up, or deserve material reward and the acknowledgment of others – which in reality can do nothing to assure happiness or fulfillment. You're made to fear that you might not even deserve Love unless you've achieved some cultural standard – and we all know the truth – that Love is the only thing that really assures happiness and fulfillment, and it's available to everyone for free.

These common fears are manipulated, heightened and kept activated by an intentional ever-increasing exposure to explicit violence, explicit selfishness, and explicit narcissism, without which there would be practically nothing on television, or increasingly at the movies, or on the radio either. And lately these fears are increasingly exploited to define our political choices too. In mainstream media's earlier years, human foibles were often pointed out as a lesson, or morality play. News programming reported events fairly objectively. But nowadays a corporate business model prevails that requires media to ruthlessly divide the audience by exploiting human faults and fears, in every format where selling products, ideas, or candidates is possible.

Television and film must be be watched very selectively to avoid these base, destructive urgencies; and while the internet also allows for content choice, you musn't forget the greatest selectivity of all: You have the choice not to take part in it at all, if you don't feel it's serving your best interests. And if you must take part, don't invest yourself in it spiritually. You simply will never find happiness with an unhealthy spirit; TV programmers and political strategists know that.

Remember what Marshall McLuhan said: "The medium is the message." If you are constantly carrying, sitting in front of and looking at a device that keeps you constantly attached to a false world, it will be impossible to live the easy, authentic, love-filled life that everyone deserves. If the forms of input you receive are superficial and fragmented and designed by people who don't have your best interests at heart, your life will always feel the same. Attachment to current media results in the collapse of your consciousness into a dark and selfish place.

In a generally (though not always) less intentional way, Science does the same thing by manipulating the agnosticism of the seeker. It's kind of like a religion whose dogma is always changing – a religion of logic, of data, of "empirical" observation, based solely on what our current senses and devices permit us to perceive and calculate. In the past, these means were limited, but even in those 'dark ages' Science was still very sure of itself and its authoritative description of the world. As means of observation improve, the world and being itself changes –according to Science – but still needs to be subjected to a healthier, more spiritual interpretation.

Now, as evolving Consciousness allows perception beyond our five senses (and is verified scientifically), and technology enables us to observe more and more of our (formerly invisible) nature of being, Science begins to resemble a dogma chasing a tale that Mysticism has been telling for a long, long time. And here's how that tale ends, and what it tells us about the real nature of our reality:

 Everything is connected and interdependent; and, if we aren't willing to investigate the truth behind our being, and the motivations that suppress that truth, then "That will destroy us."

But there is a form of Maya that can free us from the delusional limitations of the other (scary) three: We can switch to a Maya of inner experience and collective ecological sanity...The Maya of Nature. Turn off your mind, open your heart and your senses to the beauty and balance alive in the natural world, and the truth will rise up out of the ruins of our false structures of ego—media and science.

The Universe is an awesome and beautiful mystery, activated by our shared Consciousness. If we bring forth that Universe that is within us—that we all share—then what we bring forth will save us.

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!

"The Play of Life, Through a Glass Darkly" at Soul Life Times

"…There is light within people of light, and they shine it upon the whole world. If they don't shine it, how dark it gets!"   Yeshua, Logion 24, The Gospel of Thomas

 Head over to Soul Life Times Magazine, for my latest article about the nature of "reality," shining a light on being a being of light, the thin veil of nature, and how to look in a different way.

Call it Sanity; Call it Being; Call it Bliss

There's a jackhammer in the distance, outside my window. My darkened smartphone makes watery drip tones each time an e-mail wants me to look at it. I hear big trucks pulling up in front of the corner supermarket to unload shrink-wrapped palettes of canned black beans. There's an ambulance siren on the horizon, wending its way to King's County Hospital. The Q train downstairs is running on time. Something awful is going on out there...

I suppose that pipe in the street needed to be fixed. I was waiting for an e-mail (just not that one). I love those beans. I hope that person on their way to King's County will be alright. Later, I'll just miss the Q train into Manhattan...good things and bad things are always happening, here and now.

Our world is a hugely complex, elaborately interconnected place, driven in a loosely syncopated way by needs and desires, options and inventions. If we allow it, it can feel like it's driven by our fears...but then those are inventions too. Look at it quietly, and what becomes obvious is the profound underlying effectiveness of our cooperative shared Being. The understanding and appreciation of each other's lives, of our interconnectedness; of one another's common Reality.

With this simple, stripped-down worldview, it becomes ap-parent how well everything works when left to the sweat and intention of the great majority of humankind. Do you need any-thing? Is there something that I can help you with? More people all the time resonate with this simple impulse, whether they let it be their main source of motivation or not. Everywhere you go everyone is in some stage of realizing it.

As unique as we all are, we are all the same thing here in this place; and that awareness is steadily, and rather gracefully crystallizing our world now, without any big fuss. And it's only this growing presence of shared Being, the impetus of unifying con-sciousness, that can change so huge and complicated a mecha-nism as our collective life has become – and change it relatively quickly. Ironically, it starts at the very simplest, smallest level; at the level of each of our understandings.

"Without an inner change [humankind] can no longer cope with the gigantic development of the outer life."

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine

Predictably, corporate media will continue to insist that people identify with an obviously unsustainable system, even when people plainly know better. By limiting coverage of expanding global awareness, they suggest that even when we join forces to effect change (Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring) we're ineffective, and that it's more practical to maintain the unworkable status quo. If we each personally buy into those messages, they'll come true (but still won't be real). If we don't, and each personally choose a sane and reasonable path, we naturally return to our increasingly cooperative state of shared Being; and merge into a real entity of immeasurable power and direction. We simply engage lightly and kindly in the chaotic machinery of life.

At that "small" level of personal understanding, we find and empower our true Reality, the authentic world rising up around us. As the delusional world of the conglomerates starts to come apart at the seams, and everything starts going wrong (like now), something very big is going right. The layer of misinformation we've been fed so long is dissolving on the surface of this rising awareness; the conscious, co-creative impulse that instant communication and sixth-sensory awareness has already been nourishing at a much deeper level. We've already crossed that threshold. The singularity is here. 

We know we can't continue in this fossil-fuel based world, wasting half the food we produce, poisoning fresh water, funneling wealth and resources to a few tortured individuals. It simply won't last. It will have to change.

When the systems used to manage the anachronisms (crony capitalism, television, corrupt politics) break down, they only serve to starkly define the true nature of the problem – the destructive backwardness of a selfish minority; and to enhance and solidify the unification of conscious Being arising in the world. 

Could it really be – that rising honesty and ethics will defuse the fearful urgencies of the corporate elite? What would happen if they were all suddenly brought back down to Earth (kicking and screaming)? Not much, really. We'd merge right back into that un-derlying force of cooperative Being that's growing so powerfully through our our selves, our communities, and our world. Nothing would erupt in total chaos. We wouldn't be at all lost without their leadership. The world would simply become a more cooperative place, whether they like it or not (and they won't); where we re-cognize unconscious entitlement as being incompatible with our authentic nature.

Honestly, isn't everything actually being dictated to us all on a much larger scale, by systems that we're only a relatively small part of? Something far greater than any of our changing institutions or desires. It's obviously not this horizontal materialistic delusion (what Hindus call maya), where we feel constantly coerced to reach outward for solutions – it's a multi-dimensional Reality that's available to everyone from the inside out; that each of us can realize by simply living one another's life, humbly and compassionately. That's what being human is so good for.

Twenty years from now we could just as easily be using liberated Tesla designs, thorium reactors, tidal turbines, and solar energy. We could be conserving irreplaceable resources; eli-minating food waste; stewarding the environment and wildlife; making war obsolete (oops! –it already is...). We're capable of Being all that, and if we can keep our head above water, we probably will be sooner than later.

If you think this is a magical impossibility, may I point out to you (again and always) that we're all floating on a planet in outer space, engaged in a simultaneous realization of the magical nature of our reality.

So call it sanity. Call it unified consciousness. Call it spiritual evolution. Call it Sat (Being), Chit (Awareness), Ananda (Bliss). Call it what you like – it's still just the same impulse that makes a wildflower grow and blossom, right up between the tracks of the Q train.

"Our present world is conditioned by our present mode of consciousness; only when that consciousness passes from its present dualistic mode...will the new creation appear, which is the external reality of which our world is a mirror."

Bede Griffiths

......................................................................read more about maya

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct on this page or online; and 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 them it at your local bookstore!

The Third Power of Maya—Why We Can't See

The earlier posts on the Maya of Individuality, of Religion, and of Science and Media explored two of the main powers of maya, but only touched on the third...

The Maya of Individuality; the belief that we are separate from everyone and everything around us, is an example of the veiling, or concealing power of Maya. This is the power that prevents us from seeing the true nature and character of things—the simple fact that all life and all consciousness in our universe is connected and interdependent. In this sense we are everyone and everything, and everyone is us. It's only our Ego identification with this form—body, name, feelings, and all—that creates a false sense of separateness. These concealing aspects of our selves (like everything else in the world) are always in flux, always changing like moving targets, so they make it difficult for us to connect to one another. 
 Only our core of authentic Being—our Eternal Self—is constant, and constantly connected.

Everything I put out there will impact on me and those around me. Everything manifested in the world affects me and everything around it. I may not live near an environmental disaster, but the trauma of it on Nature affects me directly. I may walk away from treating someone badly, but it reflects in the heart of the world. The false belief that I am separate leads me to behave in ways that further separate me—to misperceive my own true experience of Life and create an imaginary (usually self-defensive or self-enhancing) story, to describe and justify my misperceptions.

Our being is obviously interdependent on many factors, beyond the microcosm of our forms. We are part of everything, something we all know intuitively, but the Veiling Power of Maya prevents us from seeing that.

"...an invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That is Atman. Thou art That."           Chandogya Upanishad , 6.12

The Maya of Religion, and of Science and Media—our self-defining associations with a set of cultural beliefs—are examples of the Projecting Power of Maya. It's the Ego-force that projects our comparisons and judgments, definitions and labels, and assigns us to their associated desires, identifications, and diversions. It hangs a defining filter over the world we perceive.

We identify ourselves as this or that: as Jew or Christian; as Conservative or Liberal; as a product of Intelligent Design or one of sheer random chemistry; when all these definitions are simply shifting projections of the individual and collective Ego. The truth is that we are all pretty much exactly the same thing. Yet we identify ourselves with concepts of "knowledge," of "logic," with dogma, and with cultural imperatives, and by doing so lose sight of the eternal Akashic Field that unifies the greater Consciousness we share with the Earth and all it's naturally balanced life. We can't see the living, breathing forest, for how we choose to name (and use) the trees. This is the Projecting Power of Maya.

"Though it is hidden in all things, the Self shines not forth."

Katha Upanishad, 3.12

But inherent in these realizations is hidden a third, transcendent power — the Revealing Power of Maya.

Through inward, meditative exploration; through Art and through Nature, the true qualities of being beyond the limitations of our form and the concealing projections of personal and collective Ego, become constantly apparent. 

It works like this with humans: When a person or thing is observed on it's surface, it activates the mental processes that begin to label and differentiate the observed as being separate from the observer – that's the concealing power. As those thoughts lead to judgments and opinions, they activate feelings—often fears. That's the projecting power. We unconsciously assign things that aren't true to what we see, and conclude that they are different than us, but the Earth is one small life form, really, so it simply isn't true.

However, if we simply witness people and circumstances to be what they are (without getting our panties in a bunch), we begin to see their inner truth revealed—the confluence of causes and events that form them. We begin to see them as fluid, ever-changing manifestations of Source—just like we are ourselves...just like everything is. We can begin to see a radiance of Being, shining through every person, through every event. This is helped along a great deal by turning our attention inward in meditation. Then, the revelations begin. 

 A crow caws. A truck rumbles on the Interstate. A man shouts in the distance. A fish jumps with a splash. A girlfriend unceremoniously dumps you. A forgotten relative leaves you a great deal of money. Your candidate loses the election. A cat sits in your lap, purring. All of these things are perfect expressions of our shared Source. 

At all times, everything you witness, you are becoming through your attention. Through your intention. The energy of Being starts shining through and engaging every part of you. So you become—not just as yourself, but as everything you witness—a real contributing part of all Being, a part of it that's fully connected and completely interdependent. Your thoughts, actions, and intentions influence "The All," and all of it is influencing your sense of you. This awareness of the concealing and projecting engages a gracious revelation—The Revealing Power of Maya, as a Hindu may call it.

Real Art as well—not art as ego—also suspends the processes of our intellect, our preconceived labels and judgments, and forces us to experience this pure Being. It breaks through our unconscious concept of "reality," and forces us into a moment of graceful suspension. Into the moment where we instantly perceive our connection to something greater than ourselves—this is the revelation that tied Art to ritual at it's earliest inception, and may have been the beginning of true intelligence and spirituality in the human form. The Revealing Power of Maya.

And in Nature... well, in Nature there's nothing but the Revealing Power of Maya. The membrane between our form and The Divine (our form as Nature) is just too thin not to experience the awesome connection of it all. Just look at a duck—I dare you. Or a tree, or a stream, or a wildflower, growing through the crack in the parking lot asphalt…

"The All came forth from me, and the All came into me. Split a piece of wood, and I Am there. turn over a stone, and you will find me."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 77

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.

Tales: (3) The Maya of Media and Science

Here's the last of these three explorations of "Maya," inspired by this beautiful Logion:

"Yeshua said: If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Logion 70, The Gospel of Thomas

Denial is ignorance, accepted as truth through the force of will. Our personal will, and our collective will.

Popular Media and Science justify and enforce this will, directing us away from the self examination that makes us face our collective truths, and psychically cornering us in the "The Way Things Are." They preoccupy us with good enough reasons for why things are like they are, why they have to be like they are. Much of Media and Science is created to diffuse truth and replace it with a designed objective, to sell an idea or product—turning the truth into an obstacle that needs to be suppressed, where it becomes, as stated in our Logion again: "That which will destroy you." We end up walking through a false world, looking for what's real. This is the Maya of Media and Science.

It may sound funny to call this Occultism, and to suggest that Media Operatives and Scientists are Occultists, but unfortunately, it works for a couple definitions of the word—in the sense of using supernatural or paranormal means- Media people know they are manipulating dark fears; and in the sense of it being only for the initiated—scientists and media people consort amongst one another to keep their stories straight. Scary secrets shared by a select few.

Popular Culture often harnesses the psychic energy of "that which would destroy you" as it's chief attraction. The Collective Ego is always on the lookout for something to prove that humans are not particularly Divine, that we don't measure up, and so there must be something that can fix it, something that can ameliorate our shortcomings. So Media constantly stimulates those hot buttons of judgement and comparison; Fear, and the pathology of self-enhancement, to get you to buy it:

My clothes are right. My Lifestyle is right. I have the right friends, the proper idols. My country is right. My religion is right. If you don't keep in line with these artificial demands, you won't measure up, or deserve material reward and the acknowledgment of others, which in reality can do nothing to assure happiness or fulfillment. You're made to fear that you might not even deserve Love unless you've achieved some standard—and we all know the truth—that Love is the only thing that really assures happiness and fulfillment.

These fears are heightened and kept malleable by the ever-increasing exposure to explicit violence, explicit selfishness, and explicit narcissism, without which, there would be practically nothing on television; or increasingly, at the movies, or on the radio either. In television's earlier years, human foibles were pointed out—often as a lesson. News programming reported events fairly objectively, but now media ruthlessly exploits human faults and fears, in all formats.

Television and film must be be watched very selectively to avoid these base, destructive energies; and the internet allows for content choice—but don't forget the greatest selectivity of all: Don't take part in it. And if you must, don't invest yourself in it spiritually.

Remember what Marshall McLuhan said: "The medium is the message." If you are constantly carrying, sitting in front of, looking at, a device that keeps you constantly attached to a false world, it will be impossible to live an authentic life. If the forms of input you receive are superficial and fragmented and designed by people who don't have your best interests at heart, your life will be the same. Attachment to current media results in the collapse of your consciousness into a dark, selfish place.

In a generally (though not always) less intentional way, Science does the same thing by manipulating the agnosticism of the seeker. It's kind of like a religion whose dogma is always changing. It's a religion of logic, of data, of "empirical" observation, based solely on what our current senses and devices permit us to perceive and calculate. In the past, these means were limited, but Science was still very sure of itself, and it's description of the world. As means of observation improve, the world and being itself changes—according to Science.

Now, as evolving consciousness allows perception beyond our five senses (and is verified scientifically), and technology enables us to observe more and more of our (formerly invisible) nature of being, Science begins to resemble a dogma chasing a tale that Mysticism has been telling for a long, long time. And here's how that tale ends: 

 Everything is connected and interdependent; and, if we aren't willing to investigate the truth behind our being, and the motivations that suppress that truth, then "That will destroy us."

There is a form of Maya that can free us from the delusional limitations of the other (scary) three: We can switch to a Maya of inner experience and collective ecological sanity...The Maya of Nature. Turn off your mind, open your heart and your senses, and the truth will rise up out of the ruins of our false structures of ego—media and science.

The Universe is an awesome and beautiful mystery, activated by our shared Consciousness. If we bring forth that Universe that is within us—that we all share—then what we bring forth will save us.

Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor is due out early 2018, from Llewellyn Worldwide can be pre-ordered online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available everywhere – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Pt.2: The Maya of Religion (Essene but seldom heard...)

"Yeshua said: If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Logion 70, The Gospel of Thomas

There are lots of obstacles to Enlightened Consciousness inherent in this human form, most of which are created by a level of unconsciousness that will never allow that goal to be reached. We struggle with these obstacles, usually not recognizing them for what they actually are, often denying their very existence – so it's necessary to show great care when pointing them out, lest we ruffle some feathers. Of course, some feathers probably need to be ruffled.

Presenting abstract or hard-to-grasp concepts of self-realization to people has often led to the invention of elaborate mythologies that end up permanently concealing the simplest, most effective truths. The beauty of the core teaching can be obscured and subverted by human ego, and it's pathological need for control. This leads to The Maya of Religion (of many religions really) illustrated in this "passion play" example of the early Church of Rome.

Prior to the inception of the Church, it's fathers saw the influence and potential of "Gnostic" post-Hebraic Eastern–influenced mysticism, like that taught and practiced by the (possibly mythological) Essene Master, Yeshua (Jesus), throughout Egypt (where he may have studied), into Asia Minor, and then upon his storied return to Judaea. 

The Essenes were a wide-ranging sect (or sects) of Hebraism, whose communal inns where all were welcome were the inspiration for modern hospitals. They fed and healed anyone who needed their help. They celebrated meals. They practiced advanced hygiene, and herbal medicine. They were strictly vegetarian, and disapproved of the taking, or disrespecting of any life. They wore white. They were into foot washing and massaging (feet were especially important back then). Love and service was their rule. In short, they were the christians before Christianity. It is from this school that Yeshua came. The Gospel of Thomas, quoted above, is one of their texts.

Hebrews, and Pagans, weary of the politics, corruption, and barbarity of Jerusalem and Rome, were very likely hungry for the Alexandrian synthesis of Eastern mystic "religion," like Buddhism, The Bhagavad Gita, and The Tao te Ch'ing that traveled the road from Egypt to India; mixed with the simple wisdom of the Ten Commandments, and consciousness expanding practices as taught by Yeshua. This wisdom from the east taught that The Kingdom of God was to be found within each person. That "heaven" was here and now – accessible to anyone, based on personal realizations of transcendent unity, or gnosis. It became the heart of the Gnostic (Essene, Ebionite), or Nazorean teachings, and it became quite popular.

Over the next several hundred years, the shifting power base of the Roman Empire systematically usurped and subverted the potential of this Gnostic message by cobbling together a synthesis of their own: They consigned the Feminine Divine to a subservient role; they fashioned a mythology from existing mythologies, replete with a ritual life that only they could administer – the Eucharist; and they synthesized the appealing aspects of numerous competing religions by styling messianic narratives for each group of potential followers whose ultimate message established the deadly authority of Rome. They even aligned popular holidays of pre-existing religions to their version of "Christianity." They began a ceaseless campaign of genocide against "heretics," and of scriptural suppression, effectively removing The Essenes and their texts from Western history.

This inexorable reconstruction project guided it's mostly illiterate followers along a "Path to God's Kingdom" controlled by an organized elite. Spiritual seekers were directed to take part in a tailored mythology – a kind of occult hall of mirrors that continues today – The Maya of Religion – full of constructions that conceal and subvert true spiritual discovery, limiting it to a fraction of it's potential. The Church parcels out the benefits of the underlying spiritual wisdom with corrupt or unconscious authority, forcing their adherents to accept the most egregious offenses of material humanity; politics, war, slavery, money-worship, sexual predation and pedophilia. Ironically, from it's own central text the truth comes, to paraphrase: "You shall know the tree by the fruit it bears."

This post-Christmas Tale is the story of the wealthy, corrupt—yet for some, spiritually irreplaceable—Church of Rome; but the recipe for The Maya of Religion described here has been applied many times through the ages, and can be clearly seen in more contemporary examples, in fabricated religious myths and dogma like those found in Scientology, or the anti-Essene versions of Christianity that replace humility with a prideful lust for material "superiority."

It's a testament to the illuminative power of the true light that shines through all that dogma and artifice – that even though it's potential is seriously stifled, the little bit that escapes this vacuum of delusion can still be enough to inspire profound spiritual transformation to take place. Direct inner, "mystical" experience has always provided this solution to the conundrum posed by institutionalized religion.  

The compassion and unconditional Love that gives us a connection to the Divine. Faith without works is dead. Showing up for one another. Releasing the false attachments of material desire. Entering into transcendent union though the means of self-examination and meditation. The silent surrender to the loving Universe, and the power that grows out of it – out of what Mahatma Gandhi called ahimsa – absolute non-violence. The powerhouse of Love to heal the rift between the two – Ego and Spirit, as taught by the Essene Master, Yeshua (...whose true story can only be found in your own heart).

"Yeshua said: If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move Away,' and it will move away."

Logion 48, The Gospel of Thomas



Read about concepts like these 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 at your local bookstore!

Tales: The Water's Fine - (1)The Maya of Individuality

"Yeshua said: If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Logion 70, The Gospel of Thomas

This profound and timeless lesson by the Gnostic Master Yeshua speaks of ancient spiritual concepts, like The Kingdom of Heaven, The Tao, and Buddhist Karma, and in two little sentences underlines the whole of Modern Psychology as well: Freud, Jung, Adler, Maslow, and more. This is scripture that was left out of the New Testament, and largely purged from history by the Roman church.

For me, it inspires this first of three explorations into the Hindu concept of Maya, a term often defined as "The Illusion of Life," but is closer to delusion – the intellectual and emotional investment people make in various unreal surface "realities" or constructions in order to give their lives definition and purpose. I've heard it compared to living by looking at a map of your surroundings, rather than using your senses to experience them. It's the development of our sixth sense that enables our ability to perceive maya, and is the goal of Buddhism, Jnana Yoga, Gnosis, and Jungian Individuation.

Water has always stood for the mysterious depth of being, the unity of all things, the fluidity of spirit, the profundity of the unconscious. With that in mind, consider the New Testament metaphor of Jesus' "walking on the water," most often thought of literally, as something Jesus could actually do. He could, and so can you.

A Religious Literalist would attribute this ability to the human manifestation of an all powerful God, who can basically do whatever the heck He wants without regard for the physical laws of nature. An Agnostic Scientist, who needs a rational explanation for any magic trick, might suggest that Jesus was a master of quantum reality, and commanded the mechanics necessary to engage a phase transformation of the water on a sub-atomic level, temporarily changing it's physical characteristics to support his weight.

Both of these explanations only serve to separate us from the Divine by making any kind of real identification with the experience impossible. Which way can you realistically use to walk on water? Maybe Yeshua, the "Nazorean," Gnostic teacher had something else in mind.

Consider the water metaphorically standing for the depth of your personal experience; the formative moments, patterns of coping, and genetic predispositions that constitute your psyche, and provide the foundation for "who you are," determining your life actions and beliefs. The effects of those early experiences assert themselves in your conscious mind, often positively, when you remember a life lesson you've learned in the past, and make decisions based on that knowledge. Sometimes you might still behave irrationally, ignoring the lessons of your past and acting out on some destructive impulse, out of habit. You know you're acting irrationally, but the reason you have to do it is rooted in your subconscious mind, the "...that which is within you," in our opening quote by Yeshua.

When we don't know why we make certain life decisions, or harbor certain beliefs, it's time for some healthy self-examination, "If you bring forth that which is within you" – especially if it's manifesting as self-sabotage. If it's a destructive script we're compelled to act out over and over. (People experience this a lot in bad relationships...) Then it's our karma, a place our past actions are bringing us to so we can learn the lesson and move ahead with our lives. In these cases, our Ego forms some unfortunate opinion about how to "protect ourselves," which becomes a kind of survival instinct run amok. Often it's about something we feel we must have, or something we're clinging to. But if it's not Love, let it go. You're not protecting anything. There's nothing to protect. It's more likely, you're doing new damage based on old damage.

Time to dive in! to your conscious past. Jacques Cousteau around your memories, the circumstances and experiences that may have formed this instinctive need to repeat certain actions. Things arise from the depths to help you. Answers may have been staring you in the face all along.

"To dive into these dark waters and stay conscious, you have to take off your individual personality and leave it on the shore." Eknath Easwaran

Now comes the hard part about "walking on the water." Some destructive behaviors arise from deeper down, from your unconscious mind. These are based on experience that hasn't just been repressed subconsciously, but has been fully suppressed, deep in the watery reservoir of your psyche. Ancient fears. Shameful fears. The simplicity of being that you had as a child is stuck in the mud at the bottom by this stuff. You may never be able to fully "bring forth" these deep motivations, but you can become more aware of them. There are ways of bringing them into the light, where they might "save you," rather than stay within and "destroy you."

First, sit in meditation, where you learn to recognize the false internal voice of the neurotic Ego. It's easily recognizable: anything that's judgmental, comparative, or fearful...anything that's not Love. "Bring [that] forth..." You are not that. Disassociate yourself. (I discussed this method in more detail back on 11/11, in "Tales: Through a Glass Darkly.")

Next, realize there are seven billion people here, all going through very similar experiences. You are not so special or so important. Individuality is something of a delusion that your Ego will cling to, even if it destroys you. There's nothing to hide, everyone knows who you are already. They are the same thing.

If you believe it's especially difficult  even inescapable, if it's just "who you are, and that's all there is to it," if you just react, fearfully and unconsciously, then you'll sink into those depths and drown.

"What you do not bring forth will destroy you." In Matthew (14:30), Peter takes a stab at walking on the water, but as soon as his fears take over, he sinks. Guess who saves him? The simplest interpretation of this is look to Christ to save you, but that might lead you to neglect the actions you need to take yourself.

There are lots of creatures who walk on the water all the time. They're insects. They're just being. Their "personal gravity" isn't great enough to break the surface tension of those dark waters, so they can simply skate across the surface, using all that underneath as support. We can do that too, when we lighten our personal gravity and know we're not that special – except for Love. We have nothing to fear, nothing to protect. We never have to be what we used to be.

When we "bring forth that which is within you," we can use all that deep, murky stuff as a foundation for just being what we are truly meant to be, and "What you bring forth will save you." Then you can walk on the water too.

"Water finds it's power by seeking it's lowest point."

Zen saying

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is now available everywhere, but ask for it it at your local bookstore!