Riding The Big Blue Avatar

You don't see many blue people around. Or on the other hand, maybe you see a lot of them. The blue people (who actually are blue) mostly live in one of our imaginary worlds, like the cat people in the movie Avatar. Or the shapely, shape-shifting mu-tant in the X-Men movies. The Blue Man Group, or Smurfs!
 All the other blue people we see, the ones who just feel blue, usually feel that way because their minds have been cast into some sort of sadness. Such is Life.  

There is another well-known blue man, probably the original, and that's the Hindu deity Krishna – an incarnation of the spiritual preserver and sustainer of our Universe, Vishnu. He is God as an avatara (the origin of the movie's title) in human, albeit blue human form. In the amazing Hindu scripture The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna appears on Earth as the chariot driver of a confused warrior, and takes the opportunity to instruct the poor fellow about how to best occupy his human form in this life. He simply teaches him all about life. It's like having God as your cab driver in New York City.

Body

Sporting a beautiful blue body is obviously unusual, which is no doubt why Krishna picked it. It's quite likely that you'll pay very close attention to everything that comes out of a beautiful blue persons mouth. The first, and most obvious point it makes is that our bodies are simply vehicles that can be colored differently, like cars. And Krishna is very clear when he talks about our relationship to our bodies:

"The body is mortal, but he who dwells in the body is immortal and immeasurable."   Bhagavad Gita 2:18

"As a man abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.

The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire...cannot be made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundation of eternity."  

BG 2:23-25

So we are really just the rider, and as we occupy these different bodies, we begin to learn the things we can only learn by living in this particular human form. I like to think of it like this: when I see a middle-aged asian guy, for example, I try to think to myself, "There's one of us – in that form." When I see a freckled, red-headed teenage girl, I think, "There's one of us – in that form." And when I see myself in the mirror, I think, "There's one of us (that happens to be me) – in that form." Sometimes, that's what makes me a little blue. Sometimes it's an easy ride, sometimes not.

Listen up, because here's what's so important about all this. It means that we are a race of energy beings assigned to living in these human bodies, surrounded by a world of changing forms. We are truly one race, with or without the bodies – that's why human racial distinctions are so antithetical to our truest natures, but are also so necessary for pointing out our shared underlying reality.

It sounds a lot like science fiction, doesn't it? Well, that's one of the big problems with our limited human perception. We tend to want to think of it in terms of science fiction, because that's the funny, "self-protective" twist our body/minds use to label the spiritual facts of our unusual existence. Within our truest self – our shared being – of course we know it's true. Even "skeptics" know it. If any one of us has realized this, there's a very good chance that everyone may realize it too.

I know because I'm a person who's had multiple near-death exper-iences that eliminated whatever choice I had. It usually takes something to help you get it, just listening to an imaginary blue guy may not be enough. You can gain some real understanding through deep meditations, or by taking the testimony of certain teachers to heart. You may also tell it's true by the simple fact that your inner spirit – your inner experience of life– never changes all that much, while if you're anything like me, your body keeps changing whether you want it to or not.

Mind

If our spirit is animating our changing body, then what, exactly, is our mind? Generally, I think it's what I think with, but body-wise it's really my brain that's doing that. My thinking organ. My mind seems to live in three different ways: The part where I learn and apply knowledge – my "rational intellect." Observing, comparing, labeling, analyzing, planning…all that. Then there's a reactive much less rational part, which is unfortunately often fearful and opinionated. That's the part we usually call ego – our kind of fussy (sometimes neurotic) interface with Life. Hindu yogis call these aspects of mind "chitta." They function in the realm of the seen and known.

But then there's that third way my mind works – as all the things I know but have never had to learn. Everything I just know. That's a deeper kind of shared, instinctual mind – an intelligence that doesn't change, and accepts life in what ever form it takes,  without labeling or judging. This part of my mind just is. I don't make it up or change it, I access it. Yogis call this "purusha." Where the mind functions in the psychic realm of the spirit. What's largely unseen, but very deeply known and felt. 

This more shared, less individual form of intelligence can be difficult to recognize because it's so natural, so unconscious. How do I even know how to walk and talk? Or when I'm going to laugh? Or what is really to be feared (and what will probably be okay)? We all share all that rather critical information, that "common sense," without really having to think about. It doesn't matter whether we're yellow, or red, or blue.

 Now notice the similarity, even the simultaneity of our shared mind and all it's little parts, like say, the next time you're standing in a slow-moving line at a bank or in a store. If you could hear the thoughts of each person in line, it would sound like a chorus of complaints in unison. First the rational intellect: If they opened another window, they could take care of all of us in a much more efficient manner. Then, there's the ego: Doesn't anyone here know what the hell they're doing? I can't wait in this line all day!  Then there's our shared mind, our "common sense:" I'm either going to do this now, or some other time, and now is the only time things actually happen.

While the first two "personal" forms of mind lead us to believe we are in control, the third, shared form, is evidence of a much deeper reality where, as Joseph Campbell put it: "We don't live life, life lives us." 

Then there's this too – we are subject to the ways of the world, which, like each of us, is comprised of all its parts, demanding, contributing, reflecting. It's another even greater body/mind in which we all share – the mind and body of our planet and it's inherent cumulative intelligence. Its life. You may have heard it called "Gaia."

Astrologers recognize this form of the spiritual occupation of the planets, and the greater life of the cosmos. By spiritual fact – not by science fiction – we are a part of that greater shared intelligence, expressed by what we, as riders, demand from, and contribute to, the body and mind of the living Earth. Sometimes it's an easy ride. Sometimes not. We learn what we can only learn by riding on our planet – and it doesn't matter if our planet is yellow, like Venus; or red, like Mars. Or, like the body/mind of our Earth, if it's blue too.

"In this world there are two orders of being: the perishable, separate creature and the changeless spirit. But beyond these there is another, the supreme Self, the eternal Lord, who enters into the entire cosmos and supports it from within."

The Bhagavad Gita, 15:16,17

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!

The Neuroscientists' Map of Heaven

Recently, I was being interviewed about my three Near Death Experiences and the spiritual realizations that grew from them. The interviewer asked me if there was any scientific support for my views, or if my assertions were "just a matter of opinion."  But all profound spiritual experience is a matter of opinion. There is no proof I could give her, other than to show her what's in my heart. What has happened for me. 

For that variety of spiritual skeptic devoted to "proof" – to results of the scientific method – profound spiritual experiences always present an intriguing problem: finding a provable explanation for mysterious, personal phenomena. When one has predetermined that any extra-dimensional cause, or “magical” explanation is impossible, the problem is how to simply reveal the source of the phenomenon by applying scientific methodology. Like flicking on the lights on at a fraudulent séance. 

These days, the favorite way to conduct that search comes through "mapping" the human brain, whose incredibly complex workings are currently being captured and cataloged by ever-expanding artificial intelligence. Since there's so much going on inside of our brains, naturally the paranormal – even "The Divine" – has simply got to be in there somewhere too.

  

The idea that there's a spiritual part of the brain, an area where cellular electro-chemical activities generate sensations of unity and transcendence (neurotheology) isn't really new, but thanks to advances in brain-mapping, it's been getting a lot more airplay lately. Locating and documenting the "God Part" of the brain could provide a tidy explanation for the persistent belief that an external, or even cumulative, intelligence is at work in the world. It could decisively debunk all the claims of transpersonal, extra-dimensional spiritual experiences, like those made by the growing ranks of near death survivors, and other such witnesses of the sublime. 

After all, even we mystics and navel-gazers ourselves suggest that it’s an inward path to spiritual realization, so doesn't it just make scientific sense that divine experience doesn’t originate from without, but from somewhere within – within the circuitry of our brains, that is?

The real problem is that every direction you look in turns magical pretty quickly. Looking outside of our brains, we’re immediately assailed by the totally incomprehensible domain of our very being. That darn infinite cosmos. First, there's the fabric of Time/Space, loaded with the galaxies and question marks that we see when we look into the night sky. Then, there's the limitless sub-atomic universe, described by the ridiculously magical – yet scientifically reliable – quantum mechanics. In both cases, Science's very best explanations are at best conditional, and otherwise reliably subject to change.

In our larger, avowedly "magical" context, mapping the mysterious processes within our brain may someday function to demonstrate how the neural pathways of the brain work, but not necessarily what the brain may actually be capable of doing. It's a bit like capturing lightning in a bottle.There's a whole lot more to it than just how it works.  

It seems to me that the real questions posed by the neuroscientific skeptics are: How are all of our sensory – and "extra-sensory" – expe-riences explained by the idea that each of our brains is independently conscious? Are our brains exclusively the generators of everything we perceive (including "God") – or aren't they quite possibly receivers, and projectors too? The answers to those questions almost seem obvious.  

Naturally, there's a part of my brain that experiences spiritual sensations. There's a part of it that experiences heat and cold and hunger and heartbreak, too. There's a degree to which all sensations are received, and generated, and projected out into my life (and yours sometimes) by me, and my little ol’ eight pound brain. And the same is true for you too. That’s how we process this life, whether our “reality” reaches us from the outside, or grows out of the many ways we create it ourselves, utilizing these clunky (but elegant) vehicles we run around in. (No wonder they're so expensive to maintain.) 

No scientist worth his salt would suggest that temperature only exists because my brain tells me it does, though how sensitive I am to it, or how much of it I generate myself can vary quite a bit. The same holds true for the experience of profound spiritual realizations. The reality of spiritual awareness, consciousness, and extra-dimensionality is, no doubt, realized in the part of our brain that takes care of all that for us. Why wouldn’t it be? We’re only human, after all.

For thousands of years, we have been describing spiritual experiences of an extra-dimensional nature with far more solidarity and consistency than the scientific community has managed to muster in its comparatively brief life. And  even the proposition that there's an individual, brain-centered experience of the spiritual, that manifests a kind of spiritual mass delusion throughout humanity, suggests the participation in a shared field of consciousness  – the conceptual lightning that quantum mechanics let out of the bottle long ago.

And what of the human heart? Can we map that as well? Studies now demonstrate conclusively that the heart, with cellular similarities to the brain, serves a cognitive function, at times controlling intellectual judgment, as well as emotion. 

Feelings of sublime connectedness, the generation of Love, and our compassionate impulses are all processed by a mixture of mind and heart. So, too, those deep, transformative realizations of a spiritual reality, most convincingly testified to by meditators and trauma survivors (including near death experiencers). But as usual, the people who have the most trouble “scientifically” squaring these kinds of testimonials with their own expectations are those who may never have had such profoundly spiritual experiences themselves. Once they do, they usually change their tunes in pretty short order.

While we don’t seem to be evolving much physically these days, we unquestionably are spiritually. The internet, synchronicity (a connecting principle without cause, according to Jung), measurable instances of global consciousness, spiritual realization of all sorts on a mass scale (not just on Oprah), as well as the incredible potential revealed by mapping the human brain, all point to an increasing awareness that demonstrates this evolution. 

Like the evolution of those parts of our brains that have allowed us to process logical thought, vision, communication, creativity, and cooperative effort, our brains –and hearts– are evolving to process our growing spiritual potential. We’re not just simply generating spiritual sensation, we’re becoming more and more capable of observing, receiving, and projecting spiritual energy through our shared field of consciousness.

I hope the skeptics discover what we believers found “within” a long time ago – namely serenity, compassion, and the deep understanding of the nature of our absolute unity. And that maybe, Love is a kind of quantum field itself.


How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) is available now, from Llewellyn Worldwide, and will help you realize Heaven as a state-of-being—not just a wishful destination. 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!

Meditation is a Spiritual Spring

Each Spring, my wife and I are happy when it's time to head back up to the river, to reopen our little house on the Upper Delaware. It's usually still cold, and a little barren, but there's that vitality starting to percolate with the early birdsong, and the green shoots everywhere, fighting skyward. As always, the Spring brings me a new chance to reconnect with my angels, and myself.

My city meditations are calming and inspirational, but at last, again, I get to unfurl my blanket on a rock by the river, and tether my serenity to the simple magic alive in every natural moment. The early neighbors, mostly red-shouldered blackbirds, don't mind that I open with an audible OM.  My voice breaks, unsteady at first, but I manage to round off the changing syllable, and drop an octave to a solid end.

Almost immediately, thoughts become rather superfluous (thank God). Voices of my angels and ancestors begin to arise as I settle in to the gentle cacophony of the birds' chorus, and the light effervescence of simply being springs open in my heart, and surrounds my mind. I ask my "guardian angel," if I may enter that special place. “Of course,” she answers, "...of course."

A Canadian goose honks past on the wing, and suddenly, a bright, creaky cry puts my meditation on hold. Just down river, a matched pair of Bald Eagles take perch, sitting in their stately patience, welcoming me back to the edge of their river. Life is really alive. The sun rises over a slight saddle in the hills, directly above them, and pours a reflection onto the water, in a line from the pair to my heart.

Then, the voices of my angels arise, not like someone talking in my ear (don’t call the men in white coats…yet), but as intuitive understandings, originating in my heart. My guardian angel tells me, "Be yourself." My favorite childhood aunt says, "We love you."  Our late uncle, a famous philosopher and author, tells me, "Keep writing." Our cat Max, who passed over two years ago, says, "I will help you keep your heart open." My gnostic angel says, "We have work to do." My Buddhist angel advises, "Just sit, and be." It gets a little noisy, being so peaceful.

As the evidence of this deepest magic, when we visit Max's burial site in a fern grove above the house, the path leading to his marker is already dark, exposed earth – when all around are old leaves and forest debris. It looks like it's been raked, even though we haven't set foot there for nearly seven months. Obviously, somebody  has. There are cat paw prints– bigger than I like to see in the neighborhood. Next to them are deer hoof impressions, and other signs. They've all been visiting our friend.

I end my meditation with a stronger, clearer OM, and know that all of this peace and magical connectedness isn’t just imaginary. I've died, and come back to life so many times – this Spring is no different. This meditation is my path back into my truths.

When I return to the city, there will be things that need to be done. There will be talking heads barking the latest. Crowded commutes. Franchise coffee. Clients who wanted color – but not that color!   I ask you, does our reality live in this insistent, numb bombardment of "what must be done," or down that miracle path of meditation, to what truly is, within us, and without us, all? I think you know what I know.

As always, this meditation – like every meditation – is the rediscovery of my spiritual spring.

How to Survive Life (and Death) Interview on BlogTalkRadio 4/26

Here's a fun, two-hour interview I did recently with the Supernatural Girlz Radio team.The interview with me begins at about 10:30 –

Listen To Paranormal Internet Radio Stations with Supernatural Girlz Radio on BlogTalkRadio with Supernatural Girlz on BlogTalkRadio

The Painful Beauty of Being "Broken-Open"

"Water finds limitless power by seeking it's lowest point."
– Zen saying

There's an essential aspect of our growth through this life that, by it's very nature, is so undesirable and contradictory to our search for happiness that it's often purposely overlooked, even by the most ardent self-examiners. In fact, I almost don't want to mention it (but I will). It's what happens to us when unavoidably awful things are happening to us…that is, when we have really good reasons to be unhappy.

This is a miraculously beautiful world we get to inhabit, no doubt about it, but it's also fraught with terrible passages, and what appear to be injustices of the worst kind all around. Unfortunately, none of us will escape these experiences completely. But is it really misfortune, or is it our opportunity to discover our greatest potential? After all, feelings will come and go in a predictable way. Bad things feel bad, good things feel good. It is a sensory world.

When something awful happens to us: When we're laid-off from a "secure" job; we lose a loved one in an unfair way; when we are ourselves suddenly victimized by bad health; when we "fail" at finance – or with a relationship; or even when we're just forced to confront our flaws again. At all those times when we're forced into a situation we don't want to be in (a place no one wants to be), but simply must go through at one time or another, then there are choices we can make based on our not having any choice.

Unavoidable powerlessness in the face of Fate evokes a deep, personal response in everyone who's ever lived. Suddenly, involuntarily, we discover true humility at it's most profound level. It's thrust upon us when there's no alternative. Nothing can be done except to face the situation standing as firmly as you can on the ground of your most basic being, with all pretense of specialness or entitlement (gratefully) stripped-away.

Ouch. You've been fired. Your Mother is dying. Your boyfriend has betrayed you. A soulless corporation is exploiting you and your pristine world. Your car won't start. Instantly, you are no longer the VP of your company, or untouched by loss, or in a happy relationship, or safe from the unconsciousness of a developer's greed, or getting there on time – you're just a human being, being washed-over by the tsunami of Life – it's very unavoidable erosion suddenly stripping away all of your artifice.

What gifts could possibly be there to meet you, when you're beset upon by these catastrophes? The gift may just be that clear window of self-realization. A realization of the principles which underly personal survival and happiness at their deepest level. You are forced to confront a powerful, more appropriate respect for all life; an unconditional identification with everyone else who's ever been in the same difficult spot; a real understanding of the importance of Love; and a resolve to meet the challenge (and maybe then, all your life) with honesty, openness, and willingness. It's the gift of an involuntary faith that you can only find by becoming profoundly vulnerable.

In the clarity of your resolve to live – to get through it – you might realize that you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. It's not so bad, being a human in pain. This is the moment that you are really alive. Life is showing you what's real. The injury is really a state of grace.

That's what that spiritual presence is (Buddhist "Right Occupation"): compassionate purpose without self-interest. Occupying that difficult, unavoidable place and choosing to reject the imaginary penalties of fear and separation. Recognizing the true medium of Love that flows underneath, within, and through everything; and becoming it's facilitator, it's medium, if you can.

So we occupy these difficult places tentatively, often unwillingly to start, but then we can enter into the pain completely, knowing this too shall pass. Then we can choose to show up for Life with an innate positivity that's made evident in that pure light, made visible to us by being thoroughly broken-open to it. In that difficult place, whatever it might be, we can truly celebrate this delicate condition we all share. We are cycling back to where all love lost will be rediscovered.

Am I suggesting that we seek pain, and enter it willingly? Thanks, but no thanks! But as there isn't much hope of avoiding it, I ask only that you try to recognize what it might be offering you – the chance to occupy that place the best way you possibly can – with Love in your heart; and there to meet another you – the inter-dimensional, spiritual you that's alive within everything you are, and without everything you were "supposed to be."

"The Heart is the centre of the real...the ego is the [human] link between spirit and matter; it is...the knot of radical ignorance...When this knot is cut asunder by proper means you find the centre." "Go back constantly to the question "Who am I?" Tear everything away until only the source of all is left."

Ramana Maharshi


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!

Happy Earth Day!

When I was a kid, there was no environmental movement to speak of. There was very little awareness or consideration of what the exploitation of our global resources might lead to. Everything seemed to be such a long ways away, and it appeared that there would always be plenty to go around.

The world has gotten a lot smaller since then. More "right sized," in fact. More and more of us, all the time, are becoming aware of the real circumstances we're generating; the way our combined consciousness is shaping the conditions we see around us on our little planet. Our little planet that's everything to us. Now we can recognize that just actually doing something about it – even if it's just the little we can do – makes much more sense than publicly complaining about it.

So how's about today let's everybody start by taking the original Outdoor Life Conservation Pledge, (adapted for global application)? Raise your right hand, Global Earth Scouts, and repeat after me:

I give my pledge as a [an American] Human Being to save & faithfully to defend from waste the natural resources of my [country] planet - its air, soil, and minerals, its forests, waters & wildlife.

Now, all we gotta do is do something about it, big or small, do something about it – today, and everyday, if at all possible.
Here's the link to an excellent American Experience documentary, all about how the environmental movement came to be.

And some good action agencies: The National Resources Defense Council; Environmental Action; World Wildlife Fund...

http://www.nrdc.org/
http://environmental-action.org/
http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/index.html

Thanks, and Happy Earth Day everybody!

"How to Survive Life (and Death)," An Author Q&A for Patheos Book Club

Here's a very nice, and very informative Author Q&A about the book, from the Patheos Book Club. I hope you enjoy!

Second Sight Radio Interview for How to Survive Life (and Death)

This past Thursday night I had the great pleasure of being the guest of Second Sight Radio, with it's terrific hosts, Victor Fuhrman and Chris George. It was a wonderful couple hours, as we got to delve quite deeply into the new book, How to Survive Life (and Death). I hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed doing it!

SECOND SIGHT RADIO Guest Author Robert Kopecky,How to Survive Life

soundcloud.com

SECOND SIGHT RADIO Guest Author Robert Kopecky,How to Survive Life Hosted by...

The first reviews are coming in for my fun little book about living and dying, How to Survive Life (and Death), and I, for one, am very grateful to be around to see them...

Although it won't be released until April 2014, you can pre-order it on Amazon here!

Thanks&Blessings!

Break the Surface – Give 'Em a Break

Surfaces reflect a great many of this world's problems, especially if that's all you're looking at. Since they're most of what we see and seem to interact with, they're easily mistaken for being the compelling, important parts of life. But as we all know, surfaces can be deceiving, so what about the unseen?

You can neither tell a book by it's cover, nor the content of a person's heart from their hairdo or the clothes they wear. You can't see a turmoil's cause by the chaos it has created. Our vision can't penetrate into the whirring masses of subatomic particles dancing within the space of seemingly solid objects. There's an exponential, inwardly expansive relationship of the inside of everything visible in our world to it's outside. It's only in-visible.

Confronted by a world of surfaces – appearances, behaviors, perceived intentions, temporary "final results" – it's hard to react appropriately, because we'll often be reacting out of that limited vision of ours. Out of ignorance, or needless self-centered fear. We have to look for more, to look deeper into the spirit arising from the thing, wherever, whatever, or whoever it is.

"The great Tao flows everywhere

It fills everything...

All things owe their existence to it

and it cannot deny any one of them...

Tao is eternal...It brings all things to completion

without their...knowing it...

[it] is the home to which all things return...

Tao te Ching, 34

This occupation of everything by spirit is as mysterious as it is miraculous, and is truly the most important, interactive, and profoundly compelling aspect of being. Whether we can readily see past the surface of it or not, we know everything (every place, thing, person, action, occasion) holds and releases it's authentic nature. It's energetic origins, material intentions, psychic describers.  

"...I am the All.

The All came forth from me

and the All came into me.

Split the wood and I am there.

Turn over the stone,

and you will find me."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 77

One thing we we do know for certain is that our first response, if it's based on what appears to be "obvious," is often going to be wrong. Usually, we can tend to demonstrate the ignorance of our ego when we rely on some visible affirmation, some (self-enhancing) surface label that ego insists on. We know damn well that these surfaces are always changing, and that beneath them all there's a depth of causality from DNA to diet, from character to karma, that remains pretty invisible. Still we tend to habitually shortchange our potential to look deeper.

What we very reliably know for sure is that everything we witness with our eyes, our minds, and our hearts is definite proof of our shared composition – our ineffable connection to everything and everyone. We share 99.9% of our elemental make-up with all other life on Earth, proof of the shared substance and motivation of our Source. "There's more going on here than meets the eye..."  We've all said to ourselves, so what if we start by engaging with all of our senses?  What if we ground our reactions in that acknowledgement of our common mystery first, and then seek a truer way to witness the "more" that's going on here?

"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

The depth of "The Spiritual," is understandably hard to get a handle on (unless you've really experienced being disembodied) because it's the physical nature of our brains to require some kind proof, and...oops – that's usually surface stuff again. In fact the real proof is constantly around and within us all, within the shared mystery we all experience intuitively. Everything is empirical. Everything, and everyone is carried by that "nonlocal," "transpersonal" energy that even our current state-of-the-art Science empirically validates.

"...wherever you turn, there is the face of God."

The Qu'ran, Surah 2:115

We just need a different, simpler way...maybe a more careful, more generous, more respectful way of looking, like: What if we just counted to three before we react or respond – you know, give the inner spirit a chance to arise a bit? Let it demonstrate it's root cause. Allow ourselves to witness our shared part within it first, before we say or do something we shouldn't (like, waiting to send that hastily written e-mail). Then we may discover that we always have the luxurious opportunity to do absolutely nothing.

Putting it most simply, Compassion for all things (which ends up being compassion for yourself) is the key to this different vision of Life; and possibly even the root of all spiritual evolution. Listen to what a guy who knew all about science and mystery had to say about it:

"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

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 Educational Beauty in What We Avoid

"Everyone chooses a suffering that will change him or her to a well-baked loaf."

                                                  Rumi

Each of us has our own story of ourselves. If yours is anything like mine, then it's mildly heroic, in an appropriately humble way I hope. I'd like to think about myself in a positive way, so I suppose I've consciously (and subconsciously) fashioned a fairly favorable version of my personal history. It's full of challenges, disappointments, and properly scaled victories, like a good movie – without the final act.

 My story of myself is undoubtedly different than the story you have of me, and vice versa. Your story of me may even be more favorable than the one I've been working on for myself (which would be nice of you), or it may possibly be less favorable. But one thing is certain: I've been working much harder on my story than on yours. I have a lot at stake in the carefully crafted picture of myself that I've created.

It never really occurred to me that the areas where I was not entirely honest in my self-account were exactly the same areas where my life seemed to hurt the worst. It was as if I had hand-crafted some protective finish to conceal a painful wound or blemish in the smoothed-out story of who I am – often without even noticing that I'd gone to all the trouble of leaving many of the difficult parts out. Imagine that. So something had to happen to open my eyes to the uncomfortable truths I'd hidden in my story. This is where the stuff we usually avoid becomes just the stuff we really need.

Eventually, like a phony showing off his bullwhip tricks, I experienced severe and sobering self-induced pain. A shock to the pride that could have been predicted. Then I had to walk around with my nasty injury exposed, whether others noticed it or not, I sure did. I couldn't not notice it – it hurt. And it hurt because 1) It's supposed to hurt, in order to capture my attention; and 2) Because I was afraid everybody else would see the truth I'd been concealing (I'm really no good with a bullwhip). Something was kicking up again, and I couldn't smooth it over, or ignore it anymore.

   "Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth."

                                                    Pema Chodron

That pain and fear made me realize that there was something (or somebody) at work in here. An anonymous, invisible editor, obscuring my uncomfortable truths in a very sneaky, and very effective way. Me, and my shadow, strollin' down the avenue. My shadow editor, my ego, tells me that I have to cover up my hurt – that I'll lose something that I can't afford to lose, or fail to get something that I "really need" if I don't. Of course, by now I hope that we've established that he can always be relied upon to make trouble, but maybe he's doing something beneficial too. All that activity obscuring the truth and securing a delusion happens around something. It's within the pathology of the perpetrator to lead us back to the scene of the crime.

So, while it may seem that you have to be a little crazy to focus on instances of fear and pain, on causes and conditions of discomfort, in order to reveal the blemished reality of your self, maybe you have to be a little crazy not to. A little pathological, as it were. But since pathology isn't really a choice, but more of a geography, then it isn't something to avoid, but something to explore.

"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

Fear and pain are inevitable in Life – so what if they're really showing me something about myself that if I got to work on, I'd be less pathological, and much happier? Something very specific to my ongoing story, some old subconscious editing, inserted to self-enhance, or hide a hurt I'd caused. What if the subtle lies of omission point to what's missing, to the source of my suffering, and the bleeding heart of my selfishly low self-esteem? 

When I can step outside of myself with that objectivity, I may finally start to escape the self-centered importance of my story, and begin to think more about everyone else in my life, and in the world. Maybe I can help them write a more successful story of themselves. That would be a better way to spend my time. Maybe my fear and pain can free me to help ease someone else's fear and pain, and help them realize that we can all be one, that we all are one – unified by our shared experience. Now the story really starts getting better for everyone.

In Buddhism, this is called bodhicitta, and your hardcore Buddhist monks really go a little overboard on this idea, this path to self-realization and transcendence. Listen to this:

"Adverse conditions are spiritual friends. Devils and demons are emanations of the victorious ones. Illness is the broom for evil and obscurations. Suffering is the dance of what is."

                                                                Lord Serlingpa

That's probably why I'll never be a hardcore Buddhist monk. But it is kind of an amazing, selfless approach, isn't it? A radical way to defuse and redefine our typical view of fear and pain. A kind of revolutionary attitude that reveals the beautiful underlying purpose of all the stuff I usually want to avoid. "Suffering is the dance of what is." I mean, I hate to suffer, but I love to dance...perhaps being injured can help me to hear God's music.

So I guess I'll put the bullwhip down, for now. I think the best trick I ever learned with it was snapping my own ass, after all. Anyways, no one ever called me a bullwhip artist.  

  

"There is only one thing I dread – not to be worthy of my sufferings."

                                                       Dostoevsky


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!