Take a (Spiritual) Summer Road Trip, or: How Rte. 66 Can Lead You to Bliss

        It’s Summertime…and the highway is calling. With vacations planned and wanderlust on the rise, now is the time that we find ourselves striking out on the road to adventure and discovery. On our drive to discovering a few different Americas out there, it can be all too easy to find a disheartening drone of interstate arteries, drained by identical off-ramps evenly spaced, fed by the same corporate fast-food chains, pitching a kind of fabricated heartland patriotism – a navigated, located, ATM card “freedom” that’s only designed to free you from your vacation savings while propelling you past an alien, deeply divided America. It almost makes me just want to stay home and cry…but wait—there is another way! 

The Buddha said this about Life’s transit:

We are created by our thoughts; we become what we think.

Pain and suffering follow negative thoughts like the 

wheel follows the ox that pulls it.

The Dhammapada, 1:1

        What if we struck out on a different route instead? On a path inspired by our longings for a truly fulfilling vacation – healthful, connected, and discovering our uniquely diverse American wholeness, lined with joyful creativity and camaraderie? Well here’s the good news: That America is out there, waiting for you…but how do we find it?

        Recently, my wife and I left our home of many years in New York City, and drove cross-country for twelve days to our new home in the West; across a southern route we’d never taken before. Along the way we accidentally – almost magically – discovered a beautifully spiritual route, right through those limited options and glaring cultural divisions we might otherwise drive by without investigation. It happened as a result of one amazing “secret” trick that I’ll give you in a minute, but also by following a couple pretty intuitive tips that made it all possible. So here’s the dharma of the road trip we discovered…

        First of all, don’t crowd the drive into fewer days than necessary – getting there really is half the fun. Lay out your days in a general way, and limit yourself to four or five hours of driving per day, starting in the morning, and arriving to your daily destination in the early afternoon, giving yourself time to explore along the way, and to settle into your overnight surroundings with some space and energy. The variety of excellent lodging apps makes finding a place to stay as easy and worry-free as spending five minutes after lunch to book your top pick.

        While traveling, be willing to venture off the beaten path, and be positive and open-hearted to everyone you meet. Remember that practicing radical, unconditional kindness is an incredibly powerful way to open doors and possibilities. It’ll precondition every experience you encounter, and magically gain you upgrades and invitations that you could have never dreamed of. Let the trip show you where to go next – synchronicities and “magical” meetings will pile up as evidence that the Universe is showing you where you have to go, and what you have to see next; and introducing you to exactly who you’re supposed to meet. The coincidences will be custom-made, but won’t appear unless you’re fully flexible, and open to the energies generated by each experience. You’ll find yourself being mysteriously woven into the fabric of everywhere you are. 

        And naturally, If a place is telling you not to stay, get in the car and leave. 

“Let the road home, be home.”

Anonymous

        Now here comes the secret trick – and it came to us because my wife is a vegan, and I’m a vegetarian, but whether you’re a non-meat-eater or not, you’ll find this method works miraculously well. (It worked especially well considering that we traveled across the old Route 66 – through a slice of the heartland where you wouldn’t expect veggie-types to find many easy meals…)  Now here’s the secret:

        Do a search for vegan/vegetarian restaurants before getting to your daily destination – whether you’re a veggie or not, and watch how it will transform your trip, and maybe your life!

        It (literally) turns out that as you navigate towards those destinations, you’ll find yourself completely avoiding the big boulevards lined with corporate tourist-traps and “neighborhood” chains, and heading into the artistic, architectural, entrepreneurial, and “alternative” neighborhoods instead – the parts of town where you can really eat well, and feed your soul at the same time. 

        There aren’t any aggressive 24-hour TV truckstops blaring where “alternative lifestyles” are quietly creating the new sustainable businesses of the future; bringing the solid old (often industrial) neighborhoods back to life after having been abandoned by the rigid corporations and their forced, soulless “food and fun.” They’re the parts of town where you find new galleries, boutiques, coffee shops, music venues, live theater, and of course, cutting-edge food. Right away, you’ll thank God it isn’t Friday.

        There you’ll also find the greatest local diversity – people bridging ethnic and generational differences who may have had to live outside of local expectations – the real innovative rebels, often rejected by common dogma and unconscious politics. These are people who’ve learned the real value of tolerance and compassion, first-hand. They’re the people who are growing new alternatives towards a new reality, preparing for the actual challenges of our changing planet – without burying their heads in some shallow Fox-hole, or blindly consuming another Bud and double-double bacon cheese burger…and they’re in every town, forming brands that are timelessly fresh, inventively earned, and altruistically authentic…and there’ll be a tattoo or two…

        Along Interstate 40 and the old Route 66 you’ll find incredible vegan cuisine at the stylish bistro Bizou, on the resurrected Main Street Mall in Charlottesville, VA (the most sadly maligned beautiful little town in recent media history). At the delicious Laughing Seed, in the cool part of downtown Asheville, NC. Then on the outskirts of Knoxville, TN, tuck into comfort food at Sanctuary Vegan Café, whose proceeds go to save condemned animals…and you’re on your way to the heartily excellent Wild Cow, in the globally-countryfied neck of Nashville. From there, wander over to Oklahoma City, OK? for the truly super-deliciousness of The Loaded Bowl (where they have weekly alt ok-bingo and watercolor classes too); and before you bust out across the Texas panhandle, load up on delicious dumplings at Three Fold Noodles & Dumplings, on South Main in Little Rock. AR. Take a Texas break at The 806, for great coffee, veggie-fare, local color, and live music, in old Amarillo. When you officially hit the semi-hip Southwest, stop for a chile relleño at the iconic Rte. 66 Silver Moon Café in Santa Rosa, NM…and drop in for excellent locally-roasted coffee and not-to-be-beat breakfast at Java Joes, on the edge of downtown Albuquerque, NM.

…and absolutely DO NOT MISS one of the best meals you’ll ever have at Chef Ahmed’s amazing Jambo Café, just a little bit south of Old Santa Fe, NM. As you roll towards the sunset, don’t miss the beautiful Palestinian family that really is the Oasis Mediterranean Café, out on the western edge of Gallup, NM.

...beautiful food and beautiful people at The Oasis, Gallup, NM

        To paraphrase what Mahatma Gandhi said: If you be the change you’re looking for, you’ll find it – by following your heart, and your health (mental, physical, and spiritual). All the food you encounter on this path tastes like Love, because it’s being brought to you with that secret ingredient, wherever you go..

        Stick to the Blue Highways, follow your heart, Google Vegan/Vegetarian and you’ll find people—and food—that you’ll swear you’ve loved all your life, and that you’ll never forget. 

        Blessings, and safe travels…vaya con Dios!…and remember what the Buddha said about heading out onto the road:

We are created by our thoughts; we become what we think.

Happiness attaches itself like an inseparable shadow to 

the positive thoughts that precede it.

The Dhammapada, 1:2

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!

Animals Are Our Partners in The Sacred: An Excerpt

   

This selection about recognizing the Sacred and spiritual stewardship is excerpted from 

       How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near Death Survivor

      Our continued misuse of the sacred expression of animals to feed

our needs is quite harmful to our spiritual growth and realization.

This idea may sound extreme to you, but you can test it within yourself.

Does it make you uncomfortable to seriously consider livestock

factory conditions and methods of animal breeding and slaughter?

Look it up, focus on the actual techniques, and honestly consider

it in your own experience, and if it makes you uncomfortable at all,

you’ll know that you’re doing spiritual damage to yourself. You’re

making it virtually impossible to realize the graceful potential of Life

that’s available to us all when we recognize and respect the Sacred in

all things.

      Overlooking this potential is easy when we don’t recognize the

Divine Nature of Life, but many of us don’t think we can live any

other way. Acknowledging the Sacred in all things brings a saner and

more spiritually responsible way of living to light. For example, the

big beautiful steer we feel we must rely on for a source of protein got

big and beautiful by eating grass, so a more rational option, on every

level, is to do what benefits all Life, and try switching to a vegetable

protein–based diet. If it’s too big a leap at first, then take it a little at

a time. Look for providers who practice compassionate methods of

raising livestock—who treat, pasture, and feed animals in humanely

natural, spiritually evolved ways. Look at this issue from a spiritual

perspective—primarily as a respecter of Life, then as a responsible

steward of the planet.

     Proof of this improved reality exists in embodying all the benefits
that a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle can bring. Not only will you always
have more and better energy pouring through your body, and be
physically much healthier by every available measure, but you'll also
likely live a lot longer. You'll find it easier to maintain a better attitude,
and to be happy—free from the subconscious guilt of participating in
any unnecessary exploitation of the Sacred. Instead, you'll elevate
your spiritual well-being by consciously celebrating it in every form.
It's the single best way you can personally address the extreme
environmental destruction and waste that animal exploitation inarguably generates, and you'll comfortably contribute to the recovery of the environment and the spiritual balance of the world. 

The Spiritual Consciousness of Animals – A Vegan Resolution

"I am the true Self in the heart of every creature...the beginning, middle, and end of their existence."

The Bhagavad Gita 10.20

In sharing this thing we call consciousness, we all share the singular expression of the creative source that takes place on this planet. We share what we might call "the Consciousness of Earth." Deep within us, we have a sense of the most basic elemental forces of the Earth; the deepest cold of the icy subterranean. The dense, smoldering pressure and heat of the innermost; the heedless baking burn of the unabated sun.

Deep within us, we know the natural experience of life, of the wild. We feel the elements as any animal does, and like any animal we live the play of forces that govern our needs for sustenance, for regeneration, for love in the form of the mysterious power of creation.

Look within yourself and you'll see that somewhere deep within, you understand the exhilarating speed of the cheetah, or the overwhelming seasonal sleepiness of the grizzly bear – especially on those days when it's tough to get out of bed. Likewise you can identify with the fear a young calf feels when surrounded by the slaughterhouse cries of his family; or the panic of a yellowtail tuna or porpoise as the indiscriminate mile-long nets of a fishing trawler scoop up the contents of your entire world.

It's not just humans that share the experience of this thin veneer of consciousness that tenderly wraps and energetically enlivens this planet, it's all life on earth. Despite our differences, species to species, we are all one thing: the consciousness on this earth.

"...my own true inner being actually exists in every living creature...[and] is the ground of that compassion upon which all true, that is to say, unselfish, virtue rests..."

Schopenhauer

Animals simply live their being. Their consciousness is joined with source purpose and intention, and so they attain a purity of experience within consciousness, through their senses, that humans seldom know. They have developed senses which allow them to live in a much richer world infused by light, sound, and electromagnetic wave perception that connects them to the field of being, and so they are not burdened by elaborately convoluted thinking, as are humans.

Being ignorant, and unwilling to experience or imagine the sublimely transcendent intelligence alive in the spirit/mind of a whale or an elephant, for example, the human ego denies all other creatures their true positions in the hierarchy of being, simply because it threatens human self-enhancement and self-importance. Also because it suggests a fatal assumption of human intelligence; that we have the "divine" right to kill animals for our own purpose – which is a conclusion based solely on delusion and ignorance. Some indigenous peoples have naturally found the way through The Great Spirit to respectably cycle the energies of hunted and farmed animals to meet their needs for sustenance, but this has little to do with the barbaric industry of animal subjugation and slaughter most of us contribute to today. 

And, for those sticklers, I wouldn't suggest that a hungry crocodile wouldn't eat me, if given the chance. That's what he lives to do. Not to accomplish. Not to steward. Not to choose.

The fact is that the actual nutritional needs of the earth's entire population could be met in a much more healthful and efficient manner agriculturally, with a bare minimum of animal slaughter and consumption. (All the flavors, textures, and nutritional qualities that are supposedly exclusive to meat can be reproduced with vegetable substitutes) In this way, wildlife populations would be brought back into balance, and humans could begin to exercise their divine dominion over the other occupants of the planet.

Unfortunately, the regressive human psyche has developed an appetite for something else: the energy of fear. The collective human ego manipulates and exploits it's animal relatives, feeding on the energy of fear generated by this exploitation. Feeding on the bodies of our animal brothers and sisters while ignoring their actual place in the divine order of life, and, without properly honoring their sacrifice, failing to release their spirits with love, imbues people with a deep, negative energy of guilt and fear.

In this way, the collective human ego, the singular most destructive force in all being, enforces the separation of human individuals from the divine source of being, which is the consciousness of the earth. It also contributes to the build-up of the energy of fear at a cellular level in the bodies of meat-eaters that leads to the inability to perceive the spiritual on a personal and collective level, and provides those fear-triggers that are regularly exploited by unethical interests to elicit the ignorant and inhumane mass attitudes that so threaten all life on earth. Simply put, it's why there are far more fist fights at barbecues than at vegan yoga retreats!

It's this essential barbarism, and these more esoteric – even occult – systems of exploitation that we may know, deep in our hearts, but continually deny for the simple, insanely selfish excuse that for a few minutes "it tastes really good." For a direct example of this, consider the epidemic of obesity in our culture, so often blamed on soda pop and fast foods. The chemicals fed factory animal to make them grow at an abnormal rate are consumed by meat-eaters, who then grow abnormally as well. Factory animal production destroys our spirits, our health, and our environment.  

The time has arrived in the evolution of humankind, to stop the barbaric and wasteful subjugation, cannibalization, and vanity slaughter of all crawling, walking, flying, swimming, thinking and feeling sentient creatures; and instead, to seek their wisdom of simple harmonious being-ness. And to stop and redirect the earth's energy and resources, squandered by this pointlessly egomaniacal vivocide, into an intuitively intelligent and sustainable (re: vegetarian) approach to being on earth, aligned with source energy, which is the consciousness of the earth. Studies now definitively demonstrate that it is the heartless, mindless exploitation of animals as a food source that is the single greatest contributor to global warming, sea life destruction, and ecological collapse – greater even than transportation or power generation in many areas.

 Keep in mind that mankind is not the top of the chain of being in this system of consciousness, the Earth is. As mankind continues to hasten the grievous imbalance of energies through the destruction of earth's natural systems and expressions of it's consciousness, the world will simply adjust to maintain it's harmony. We're not talking about the end of the world. The world will continue on, finding new ways to express divine consciousness, only Man will cease to exist. Wouldn't it be wiser to save our vanishing animal species, and live in a union of biodiversity with them, all contributing to the greater, and to the welfare of our precious Earth?

"I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation...The elements and the animals, and the birds, they live in a state of grace. They are absolute, they can do no wrong. It is only we, the two-leggeds, that can do this. And when we do this to our brothers, then we do the worst in the eyes of the Creator."

Oren Lyons, to the United Nations (1977)



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!

How Animals Share Consciousness

"I am the true Self in the heart of every creature...the beginning, middle, and end of their existence."

The Bhagavad Gita 10.20

When we approach The Milky Way galaxy from "deep space," it first appears as a distant luminous pinwheel. As we get closer, it's clear that there's plenty of room to go around. Turning our focus very specifically to one area along the outside edge, we find the collection of spherical bodies we call our solar system; and there, third from the star we call the Sun is the miniscule pinprick of blue that we call our Earth.

As we grow nearer, the features of Earth become more evident; the continental land masses; the dwindling polar ice caps; the expanse of oceans and seas. And there, at times just visible through the swirling marbleized cloud cover, is a bare, grey fuzz; a scant five o'clock shadow that we call humankind. It looks like a light fungus growing on the little terrestrial orb.

When we objectively view lichen on a rock, or moss on a tree stump, do we engage on a microscopic level with each moss cell as an individual? Of course not. We just refer to it as "moss," giving no consideration to what traits moss consciousness may recognize as individual from cell to cell. It's the remarkable arrogance of man (gender specificity intended) - the pride of ego - that insists that we, as humans, are somehow all separate from one another, and our source.

Across the continents, among the races, there is little or no difference between any of us from that viewpoint in space. We all think, or have thought, more or less the exact same thoughts at one time or another. We all continuously experience the same emotions, harbor the same fears, know the exact same joys and sufferings of one another on an intimate, interchangeable level. Within certain tolerances, we are all subject to the same conditions created from within or from without. Should the earth or atmosphere become inhospitable to us, without adapting to the changes, we shall all perish at about the same time, geologically speaking.

In sharing this thing we call consciousness, we all share the singular expression of the creative source that takes place on this planet. We share what we might call "the Consciousness of Earth." Deep within us, we have a sense of the most basic elemental forces of the Earth; the deepest cold of the icy subterranean. The dense, smoldering pressure and heat of the innermost; the heedless baking burn of the unabated sun.

Deep within us, we know the natural experience of life, of the wild. We feel the elements as any animal does, and like any animal we live the play of forces that govern our needs for sustenance, for regeneration, for love in the form of the mysterious power of creation.

Look within yourself and you'll see that somewhere deep within, you understand the exhilarating speed of the cheetah, or the overwhelming seasonal sleepiness of the grizzly bear - especially on those days when it's tough to get out of bed. Likewise you can identify with the fear a young calf feels when surrounded by the slaughterhouse cries of his family; or the panic of a yellowtail tuna or porpoise as the indiscriminate mile-long nets of a fishing trawler scoop up the contents of your entire world.

It's not just humans that share the experience of this thin veneer of consciousness that tenderly wraps and energetically enlivens this planet, it's all life on earth. Despite our differences, species to species, we are all one thing: the consciousness on this earth.

"...my own true inner being actually exists in every living creature...[and] is the ground of that compassion upon which all true, that is to say, unselfish, virtue rests..."

Schopenhauer

Animals simply live their being. Their consciousness is joined with source purpose and intention, and so they attain a purity of experience within consciousness, through their senses, that humans seldom know. They have developed senses which allow them to live in a much richer world infused by light and electromagnetic wave perception that connects them to the field of being, and so they are not burdened by elaborately convoluted thinking, as are humans.

Being ignorant, and unwilling to experience or imagine the sublimely transcendent intelligence alive in the spirit/mind of a whale or an elephant, for example, the human ego denies all other creatures their true positions in the hierarchy of being, simply because it threatens human self-enhancement and self-importance. Also because it suggests a fatal assumption of human intelligence; that we have the "divine" right to kill animals for our own purpose -which is a conclusion based solely on delusion and ignorance. Some indigenous peoples have naturally found the way through The Great Spirit to respectably cycle the energies of hunted and farmed animals to meet their needs for sustenance, but this has little to do with our mass culture today. And I wouldn't suggest that a hungry crocodile wouldn't eat me, if given the chance. That's what he lives to do. Not to accomplish. Not to steward. Not to choose.

The fact is that the actual nutritional needs of the earth's entire population could be met in a much more healthful and efficient manner agriculturally, with a bare minimum of animal slaughter and consumption. (All the flavors, textures, and nutritional qualities that are supposedly exclusive to meat can be reproduced with vegetable substitutes) In this way, wildlife populations would be brought back into balance, and humans could begin to exercise their divine dominion over the other occupants of the planet.

Unfortunately, the regressive human psyche has developed an appetite for something else: the energy of fear. The collective human ego manipulates and exploits it's animal relatives, feeding on the energy of fear generated by this exploitation. Feeding on the bodies of our animal brothers and sisters while ignoring their actual place in the divine order of life, and, without properly honoring their sacrifice, failing to release their spirits with love, imbues people with a deep, negative energy of guilt and fear.

In this way, the collective human ego, the singular most destructive force in all being, enforces the separation of human individuals from the divine source of being, which is the consciousness of the earth. It also contributes to the build-up of the energy of fear at a cellular level in the bodies of meat-eaters that leads to the inability to perceive the spiritual on a personal and collective level, and provides those fear-triggers that are regularly exploited by unethical interests to elicit the ignorant and inhumane mass attitudes that so threaten all life on earth. Simply put, it's why there are far more fist fights at barbecues than at vegan yoga retreats!

The time has arrived in the evolution of humankind, to stop the barbaric and wasteful subjugation, cannibalization, and vanity slaughter of all crawling, walking, flying, swimming, thinking and feeling sentient creatures, and instead, to seek their wisdom of simple harmonious being-ness. And to stop and redirect the earth's energy and resources, squandered by this pointlessly egomaniacal vivocide, into an intuitively intelligent and sustainable (re: vegetarian) approach to being on earth, aligned with source energy, which is the consciousness of the earth. Keep in mind that mankind is not the top of the chain of being in this system of consciousness, the Earth is. As mankind continues to hasten the grievous imbalance of energies through the destruction of earth's natural systems and expressions of it's consciousness, the world will simply adjust to maintain it's harmony. We're not talking about the end of the world. The world will continue on, finding new ways to express divine consciousness, only Man will cease to exist.

"I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation...The elements and the animals, and the birds, they live in a state of grace. They are absolute, they can do no wrong. It is only we, the two-leggeds, that can do this. And when we do this to our brothers, then we do the worst in the eyes of the Creator."

Oren Lyons, to the United Nations (1977)



The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor is now on sale from Llewellyn Worldwide, and can be ordered online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available everywhere too – but ask for them it at your local bookstore!