I've sat here for the last 10 minutes gathering my thoughts about how to write this blog entry. I am due to start my training as a kundalini yoga teacher in early December. From my experience of the spiritual path it is not one path for the whole of one's lifetime. Many of the spiritual disciplines have an exclusivity around them which is not my experience of progression on this path. I was born and brought up a catholic and so I remained until 1988 when Mahayana Buddhism found me and I then went onto study and practice that for almost 10 years.
In 1999 I had what I am calling a conversion experience while on a meditation retreat in Southern England. Then in 2005 I found the transformative education offered by Landmark Education and through Landmark I have progressed through the second stage of spiritual awakening which is transformation. I firmly believe that without transformation the final stage of spiritual awakening - Enlightenment is not possible. Transformation is about taking responsibility for having created everything in ones life up to that point. In the taking of that responsibility transformation happens. Taking responsibility is the vehicle for Transformation. Having used the tools of Landmark Education to bring about a transformation in myself and my life. I am now moving to the final stage which is to have mastery over the incredibly powerful spiritual energy that rests at the base of all of our spines called the Kundalini energy by becoming a certified Kundalini yoga teacher trainer.
My dilemma is this, that as a teacher I am going to recommend that everyone I teach do the weekend Landmark Forum offered by Landmark Education. This weekend is so powerful that it can cause conversion and transformation in one weekend if one is spiritually inclined. Landmark is not a spiritual programme but energy will go where attention goes and for people like me who uses everything she comes across in life to act as a spiritual catalyst there is nothing that comes close to the experience of the Sunday evening when responsibility is taken and the past is put firmly back into the past, leaving a future that is like a blank canvass just waiting to be created on.
The way that I have done the spiritual is not the usual way. The usual way is that you take on a practice and stick doggedly at it for life. I agree with this to a certain point. After all I spent almost 10 years studying and practicing Mahayana Buddhism but there will come a point where there is a letting go of all that and I assert that it is because there is so little of this letting go amongst spiritual masters and guru's that there is so little enlightenment in the world. It takes courage to let go and move deeper into the unknown and the uncertain. It is easy to remain cushioned among like-minded people and be obedient and sell out on reason and intuition but to do this is to close on the door on any future enlightenment.
Going for Enlightenment before experiencing conversion and transformation is like a child wanting to run a marathon before it can even crawl - impossible. There have been accounts of people who achieved enlightenment without seemingly going through either of these experiences but I have never met one so can't verify that. From my own experience which is all I will ever and only speak from there are three definite stages to this path; conversion, transformation and enlightenment. All three are necessary to experience fully. The ultimate end of enlightenment is no witness, nothing or nobody to write.....but that cannot come before the other two stages.
Given my declared commitment that everyone becomes spiritually enlightened in this lifetime my insistence on those I teach doing the weekend Landmark Forum is likely to bring me into conflict with kundalini yoga authorities. Spiritual disciplines are rigid in their thinking that their discipline and only theirs can deliver enlightenment. I had an experience of this with my kundalini yoga teacher who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for. I have met many people on the spiritual path and he is one of the most authentic I have met. But even he when I tried to explain about what there is to experience on the Sunday evening of the Landmark Forum was rigid and inflexible about it 'going against his beliefs'. In that word 'belief' lies the trap of rigidity and inflexibility. I never had beliefs just a deep unshakeable faith that when Buddha said the enlightenment was possible in this lifetime I never had any doubt that he spoke the truth. It wasn't a question of belief but of faith. And faith doesn't adhere rigidly to anything...it goes with the flow....for what is possible.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Everything......is grace...
This is the realization that hit me when I was in the gym yesterday. Absolutely everything that has happened to me has been a gift of grace and I couldn't see it because I was too busy searching for evidence. What I realized ia that whether or not the lack of sight in my right eye has anything to do with the spiritual experiences and insights that I have had that everything is a gift of grace. This realization has left me profoundly humbled. At the moment I am reading Osho's Book of Secrets and everything I read resonates so profoundly. I would like to think that I am the female version of Osho as he writes everything that I think. I can't believe that I dismissed him for so many years because I decided that he was a guru who had feet of clay just because of his Rolex watches and fleet of limousines. But what I also see is that I didn't reject Osho but my identity did because it knew that once I touched Osho and his writings that its days were numbered and yet the identity is never totally transformed, it has layers and layers just like the layers of an onion. The identity put simply is our animal nature. It's sole purpose is for survival. To embrace and be compassionate to this animal nature of ourselves is to be well on the way to freedom.
Many years ago I did a 10 day silent Vippasana meditation retreat in India. I was totally amazed at how when the silence was broken on the 10th day at how difficult I found it to speak. I knew what I wanted to say, but somehow the words wouldn't come. I have thought back on this many times and from it I saw just how powerful silence is but there was something else that I knew was there about silence but couldn't put my finger on it. Last night I read it in Osho's book of secrets where he explained that it is easier to go from sounds to the soundless than to come back from the soundless to sounds. He gave the example of Meher Baba who kept silent for 40 years. At certain times he would write a note about when he would break his silence but he never did. According to Osho if you remain silent for three years then the mechanism for sound is gone and talking becomes impossible. This is the missing piece of the jigsaw for me. I could see this process beginning in how difficult I found it to speak and that was only after 10 days. I would love to know if it is like this in the silent orders that still remain. Of course, I am taking all of this on faith from Osho. Part of it corresponds with my own experience which is so important when on this path. Vigilance about being hoodwinked is one of the most important qualities to have on a spiritual path. To be spiritually discerning.
This brings me on to the subject of the types of people who follow a spiritul path. Essentially they are of two types. The intellectual and the devotee. I definitely fall into the former category. I am always reasoning and trying to fit what I read with my own experience. Not with my thoughts and feelings about what I have read but about what my own experience and intuition tells me about what I read. This is why the writings of Osho resonate so strongly with me at the moment. Yet even my intellectual seeking had humility. I remaining saying to the Divine 1% of me is true and authentic, you make that stronger and let me work on the 99% that is arrogant, superior, out to prove that you are just a mechanism in the brain. I think it is this that has kept me safe thus far on this path.......
Many years ago I did a 10 day silent Vippasana meditation retreat in India. I was totally amazed at how when the silence was broken on the 10th day at how difficult I found it to speak. I knew what I wanted to say, but somehow the words wouldn't come. I have thought back on this many times and from it I saw just how powerful silence is but there was something else that I knew was there about silence but couldn't put my finger on it. Last night I read it in Osho's book of secrets where he explained that it is easier to go from sounds to the soundless than to come back from the soundless to sounds. He gave the example of Meher Baba who kept silent for 40 years. At certain times he would write a note about when he would break his silence but he never did. According to Osho if you remain silent for three years then the mechanism for sound is gone and talking becomes impossible. This is the missing piece of the jigsaw for me. I could see this process beginning in how difficult I found it to speak and that was only after 10 days. I would love to know if it is like this in the silent orders that still remain. Of course, I am taking all of this on faith from Osho. Part of it corresponds with my own experience which is so important when on this path. Vigilance about being hoodwinked is one of the most important qualities to have on a spiritual path. To be spiritually discerning.
This brings me on to the subject of the types of people who follow a spiritul path. Essentially they are of two types. The intellectual and the devotee. I definitely fall into the former category. I am always reasoning and trying to fit what I read with my own experience. Not with my thoughts and feelings about what I have read but about what my own experience and intuition tells me about what I read. This is why the writings of Osho resonate so strongly with me at the moment. Yet even my intellectual seeking had humility. I remaining saying to the Divine 1% of me is true and authentic, you make that stronger and let me work on the 99% that is arrogant, superior, out to prove that you are just a mechanism in the brain. I think it is this that has kept me safe thus far on this path.......
Thursday, 21 October 2010
The spiritual path....happens in cycles....
Many years ago after I had been following a Buddhist path for many years I was in my flat one Saturday morning and I remember feeling so disillusioned about this path. I had returned from a trip to India where I had tracked the life of the Buddha and I felt lost and didn't know where to go next. Then I heard either my own thoughts or a voice that said just three words. These were 'give it up'. I couldn't believe it. The pursuit of the spiritual was something that had become a part of me and wasn't something that I did and so to have this thought of giving everything up was shocking for me. Yet I listened and gave up reading any spiritual books, writing or going to workshops/talks. I can still remember the emptiness I felt.
Then I had what to most people is a normal common everyday experience where an emotional situation triggered a reaction in me in a normal everyday setting of a work situation. Weeks later I accidentally grabbed a book from my bookshelf to take to read on a bus journey that I was making. My heart sank when I saw that it was a spiritual book that I had promised to give up months ago but still I opened the book. As my eyes glided over the sentences I realized that I had a different ease of understanding that definitely hadn't been there before. I was so engrossed in reading that I completely missed my stop.
Now why am I writing this in the blog when it has been written in my book? I have seen in myself that events that happened years ago are happening again which is why I say that this path happens in cycles. A while ago I went to see the film 'Eat, Pray, Love' and I really enjoyed it. I was particularly interested in the experiences of the ashram that were shown. Then a woman who I work with asked me if I had read the book and I said 'no' and she said 'I will lend it to you'. She was true to her word and on Monday she produced the book for me.
Last night on the bus going home reading it, I missed my stop to get off. Why did I get so absorbed in what I was reading? The reason is because to my absolute astonishment I read the closest account I have read about the energy that lies at the base of the spine and what happens when it rises. The film was the ideal opportunity to bring this information to the world and it didn't happen..why? Why didn't the film bring this information to the world. It could have been done in a dialogue between two of the actors in the ashram. To me this was such a golden opportunity and it would have shifted how people saw the spiritual. This energy at the base of the spine is common to all therefore it's not purely a spiritual energy. It is a human energy which when it is experienced gives the realization that we are spiritual beings having human experiences.
As I was reading it I realized with a jolt that I had experienced what is called the 'blue eye' in meditation. The closest I can relate this to is the view from a kaleidoscope where the eye suddenly opens up and 'something' is seen. I vaguely remember this happening but because I was so against 'seeing' anything in meditation I didn't give what I saw any importance. This is unlike my yoga teacher who told us that when he experienced this eye that when it parted there was a big spider there. As he was terrified of spiders this broke his meditation. So at every stage of this path there are challenges to overcome.
The writer of Eat, Pray, Love has a Guru and all I can think of is that when she was involved in the making of the film that she consulted the guru who advised her not to mention the powerful kundalini experience she had while meditating. I don't have a guru which is why I'm more objective/scientific about the whole thing. I think that this is such a shame as to have had the kind of conversation about it that she has written in the book would have profoundly shifted the spiritual path from one which is thought just for certain people to a path that everyone has a right to and indeed what is at the root of the profound emptiness that is so often found in the west.
She writes on page 142 'I fall asleep for a while (in meditation. When I awake I can feel the soft blue electrical energy pulsing through my body in waves (the 'waves' is exactly the same experience as I had'. It's a bit alarming but also amazing. I don't know what to do, so I just speak internally to this energy. I say to it 'I believe in you' and it magnifies, volumizes in response. It's frighteningly powerful now, like a kidnapping of the senses. It's humming up from the base of my spine'. There is more but this is the most important part. Over the next pages to page 146 she investigates kundalini but nowhere in the film is there a discussion about any of this and this just amazes me. I was so absorbed in this part of the book that for the second time in my life I missed my stop on the bus. What is also familiar is the process of letting go which came before.
Yesterday I declared that I would let go my story about the right brain and spirituality. I don't know though how I have shifted by reading this book. All I am left with is a huge frustration that knowledge and information that could have been brought to the world wasn't. A couple of my friends who read the book before seeing the film expressed a disappointment in the film but couldn't say why. Maybe deep down they also feel there was......a golden opportunity lost.....
Then I had what to most people is a normal common everyday experience where an emotional situation triggered a reaction in me in a normal everyday setting of a work situation. Weeks later I accidentally grabbed a book from my bookshelf to take to read on a bus journey that I was making. My heart sank when I saw that it was a spiritual book that I had promised to give up months ago but still I opened the book. As my eyes glided over the sentences I realized that I had a different ease of understanding that definitely hadn't been there before. I was so engrossed in reading that I completely missed my stop.
Now why am I writing this in the blog when it has been written in my book? I have seen in myself that events that happened years ago are happening again which is why I say that this path happens in cycles. A while ago I went to see the film 'Eat, Pray, Love' and I really enjoyed it. I was particularly interested in the experiences of the ashram that were shown. Then a woman who I work with asked me if I had read the book and I said 'no' and she said 'I will lend it to you'. She was true to her word and on Monday she produced the book for me.
Last night on the bus going home reading it, I missed my stop to get off. Why did I get so absorbed in what I was reading? The reason is because to my absolute astonishment I read the closest account I have read about the energy that lies at the base of the spine and what happens when it rises. The film was the ideal opportunity to bring this information to the world and it didn't happen..why? Why didn't the film bring this information to the world. It could have been done in a dialogue between two of the actors in the ashram. To me this was such a golden opportunity and it would have shifted how people saw the spiritual. This energy at the base of the spine is common to all therefore it's not purely a spiritual energy. It is a human energy which when it is experienced gives the realization that we are spiritual beings having human experiences.
As I was reading it I realized with a jolt that I had experienced what is called the 'blue eye' in meditation. The closest I can relate this to is the view from a kaleidoscope where the eye suddenly opens up and 'something' is seen. I vaguely remember this happening but because I was so against 'seeing' anything in meditation I didn't give what I saw any importance. This is unlike my yoga teacher who told us that when he experienced this eye that when it parted there was a big spider there. As he was terrified of spiders this broke his meditation. So at every stage of this path there are challenges to overcome.
The writer of Eat, Pray, Love has a Guru and all I can think of is that when she was involved in the making of the film that she consulted the guru who advised her not to mention the powerful kundalini experience she had while meditating. I don't have a guru which is why I'm more objective/scientific about the whole thing. I think that this is such a shame as to have had the kind of conversation about it that she has written in the book would have profoundly shifted the spiritual path from one which is thought just for certain people to a path that everyone has a right to and indeed what is at the root of the profound emptiness that is so often found in the west.
She writes on page 142 'I fall asleep for a while (in meditation. When I awake I can feel the soft blue electrical energy pulsing through my body in waves (the 'waves' is exactly the same experience as I had'. It's a bit alarming but also amazing. I don't know what to do, so I just speak internally to this energy. I say to it 'I believe in you' and it magnifies, volumizes in response. It's frighteningly powerful now, like a kidnapping of the senses. It's humming up from the base of my spine'. There is more but this is the most important part. Over the next pages to page 146 she investigates kundalini but nowhere in the film is there a discussion about any of this and this just amazes me. I was so absorbed in this part of the book that for the second time in my life I missed my stop on the bus. What is also familiar is the process of letting go which came before.
Yesterday I declared that I would let go my story about the right brain and spirituality. I don't know though how I have shifted by reading this book. All I am left with is a huge frustration that knowledge and information that could have been brought to the world wasn't. A couple of my friends who read the book before seeing the film expressed a disappointment in the film but couldn't say why. Maybe deep down they also feel there was......a golden opportunity lost.....
I have had.....a shocking realization...
Yesterday I realized with a sickening jolt to my stomach that I am more interested in proving that I am right about my brain theory and spirituality than I am about enjoying my spiritual transformation. This obsession with wanting to be right about this is limiting what is possible for me. What I have been doing though is no different to what we all do as human beings and that is that we all have to be right about our view, opinion and we make being right more important than being happy. Is this why both the scientific and the spiritual community in their own ways have distanced themselves from me. Both communities cannot believe that given the gift of grace that I have without any doubt been given that I should dare to look for a scientific reasonable, rational explanation to account for it.
Yes, there are certain facts about me which can be verified to be true. I have been born with an uncorrected lazy right eye but everything else I have made up as a story and then I have systematically gathered the evidence to support the story. This is also what we do as human beings. We make a decision about something or someone and then the rest of life is spent gathering the evidence to support the story. But the story by virtue of it only being story is not real and yet I have lived my life like my story that the lack of sight in my right eye was the cause of all the profound spiritual experiences and insights I have had was the truth. It wasn't and isn't....it's just a story I made up to give what happened to me meaning. But any story no matter what it is about limits what's possible. It limits what's possible because a story can never be the truth. A story is fiction....it has no basis in reality.
So what is possible for me if I give up my story and stop trying to find evidence in the way that I have? The first thing that comes to mind is complete freedom around the experiences I have had. The experiences are real and I will never deny that they happened but what I can be responsible for is the story I made up about what they meant and then I lived my life from this story. The story limited me because I was always trying to fit it with whoever I may have been writing to or speaking with. If I can let it go and just be with what happened, without making it mean anything then I can be totally myself. I can tell my story from the facts and deal with the facts of what happened and this will give me a level of ease and freedom that up to now I haven't experienced.
Where did I get this revelation. Many readers of my blog will know that from 2005 I have been participating in a transformative education which has been run by Landmark Education. I am presently doing a seminar on Excellence which is where the revelation came from last night. What I saw was that I have a story around why I can't be excellent and that is because I haven't got two proper functioning eyes and therefore I can't be excellent which is a total story. As I said there is a fact there that I have been born with only one functioning eye but all the rest of it is a story and it limits me from being excellent. A story also takes up the space for excellence; the two cannot co-exist, there is either story or excellence.
From my spiritual journey I have identified three distinct stages. The first is conversion and there are many examples of this. It is when the consciousness shifts from the outer to the inner. The second stage is transformation which is why I am so heavily involved in the programmes offered by Landmark. It is the only education I know that offers transformation. It is why I unreservedly recommend its flagship programme the weekend Landmark Forum. And the final stage which I am clear that I am working towards is Enlightenment. Transformation is not Enlightenment, but without Transformation Enlightenment is not possible. Transformation is putting the past back into the past, recognising that a story is just a story, not the truth; giving up the right to be right for what is possible. Transformation creates the space for something new to be created. For me that space is for Enlightenment but I fully appreciate that it's not the space for everyone, nor does it have to be.....
Yes, there are certain facts about me which can be verified to be true. I have been born with an uncorrected lazy right eye but everything else I have made up as a story and then I have systematically gathered the evidence to support the story. This is also what we do as human beings. We make a decision about something or someone and then the rest of life is spent gathering the evidence to support the story. But the story by virtue of it only being story is not real and yet I have lived my life like my story that the lack of sight in my right eye was the cause of all the profound spiritual experiences and insights I have had was the truth. It wasn't and isn't....it's just a story I made up to give what happened to me meaning. But any story no matter what it is about limits what's possible. It limits what's possible because a story can never be the truth. A story is fiction....it has no basis in reality.
So what is possible for me if I give up my story and stop trying to find evidence in the way that I have? The first thing that comes to mind is complete freedom around the experiences I have had. The experiences are real and I will never deny that they happened but what I can be responsible for is the story I made up about what they meant and then I lived my life from this story. The story limited me because I was always trying to fit it with whoever I may have been writing to or speaking with. If I can let it go and just be with what happened, without making it mean anything then I can be totally myself. I can tell my story from the facts and deal with the facts of what happened and this will give me a level of ease and freedom that up to now I haven't experienced.
Where did I get this revelation. Many readers of my blog will know that from 2005 I have been participating in a transformative education which has been run by Landmark Education. I am presently doing a seminar on Excellence which is where the revelation came from last night. What I saw was that I have a story around why I can't be excellent and that is because I haven't got two proper functioning eyes and therefore I can't be excellent which is a total story. As I said there is a fact there that I have been born with only one functioning eye but all the rest of it is a story and it limits me from being excellent. A story also takes up the space for excellence; the two cannot co-exist, there is either story or excellence.
From my spiritual journey I have identified three distinct stages. The first is conversion and there are many examples of this. It is when the consciousness shifts from the outer to the inner. The second stage is transformation which is why I am so heavily involved in the programmes offered by Landmark. It is the only education I know that offers transformation. It is why I unreservedly recommend its flagship programme the weekend Landmark Forum. And the final stage which I am clear that I am working towards is Enlightenment. Transformation is not Enlightenment, but without Transformation Enlightenment is not possible. Transformation is putting the past back into the past, recognising that a story is just a story, not the truth; giving up the right to be right for what is possible. Transformation creates the space for something new to be created. For me that space is for Enlightenment but I fully appreciate that it's not the space for everyone, nor does it have to be.....
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Evidence is mounting.....that my theory about the right brain....might not be the entire story..
It is slowly occuring to me that the powerful experiences and insights that I have experienced since beginning a spiritual path when I was 12 may have little or nothing to do with my theory that I have accelerated right brain development. That in some way that I still find incredibly hard to believe that my intention made at the age of 12 that I was going to be spiritual and not religious has been like rocket fuel for everything that has happened. It is impossible to underestimate the power of a decision made in childhood and early adulthood. These are the decisions that go on to shape who we become as individuals. They are what make up our ego/identity/personality and they come about as the result of the development of mind. Mind is the structure that holds all the decisions that we made when we were growing up.
Why have I suddenly gone less than certain on what was for me a definite reason for why I was the way I was. Well the strongest reason is that I have come across the work of Dr Mario Beauregard who has written a book called 'The Spiritual Brain'. In it he suggests that mystical/spiritual experiences involve the brain but are not limited to it. In my theory I had completely limited what happened to me to the workings of the brain and more particular to increased activity in the right side and nothing else. A couple of weeks ago I put pen to paper and sent him an email briefly outlining the experience where I experienced the rising of an energy from the base of my spine to my head and the transformation that happened afterwards. I explained about the lack of sight in my right eye and the link between the eye and the brain and asked him about the possibility of having some brain scan done on my brain to see the level of right brain activity vis a vis the left. He replied to me the next day which I was really grateful for and told me that spiritual activity involves both sides of the brain and gave me some advice on how to go about getting a brain scan. There was no indication that he wished to be further involved with me.
I am used to this reaction by now because of all the experts in this field I have spoken to and I have a great deal of respect for Dr Beauregard. I have only just begun his book but I want to copy a sentence which has resonated. There is an old Sufi saying that says 'I thought about you so often, that I completely became you; little by little you drew closer; And slowly but surely I passed away' What this is saying is that to be focussed continuously on something is to bring it about. Now in Dr Beauregard's book, he says on page 33 when he is speaking about the field of quantum mechanics 'Experiments have shown that because the brain is a quantum system, if you focus on a given idea, you hold its pattern of connecting neurons in place. The idea does not decay as it would if it were ignored. But the action of holding an idea in place truly is a decision you make' So here we have a sufi and a scientist saying more or less the same thing. I think this is why also that when we focus on what we don't want in life, we get more of the same. The key to effortlessly manifesting is to focus continuously on what we do want.
For me from the age of 12 I wanted nothing more than to be spiritual. I had no idea what that looked like. I was born into an Irish Catholic family so I knew religion but I had no idea of spirituality yet I knew that there was a fundamental difference between being spiritual and being religious. I could also look at it like the continuous focus on being spiritual has driven my brain to develop in the way that it has. In this way we have a chicken and egg scenario, what came first, the brain development or my desire to be spiritual? The truth is that I don't know. One thing I am committed though is to be true to myself no matter what the experts try to tell me.....
Why have I suddenly gone less than certain on what was for me a definite reason for why I was the way I was. Well the strongest reason is that I have come across the work of Dr Mario Beauregard who has written a book called 'The Spiritual Brain'. In it he suggests that mystical/spiritual experiences involve the brain but are not limited to it. In my theory I had completely limited what happened to me to the workings of the brain and more particular to increased activity in the right side and nothing else. A couple of weeks ago I put pen to paper and sent him an email briefly outlining the experience where I experienced the rising of an energy from the base of my spine to my head and the transformation that happened afterwards. I explained about the lack of sight in my right eye and the link between the eye and the brain and asked him about the possibility of having some brain scan done on my brain to see the level of right brain activity vis a vis the left. He replied to me the next day which I was really grateful for and told me that spiritual activity involves both sides of the brain and gave me some advice on how to go about getting a brain scan. There was no indication that he wished to be further involved with me.
I am used to this reaction by now because of all the experts in this field I have spoken to and I have a great deal of respect for Dr Beauregard. I have only just begun his book but I want to copy a sentence which has resonated. There is an old Sufi saying that says 'I thought about you so often, that I completely became you; little by little you drew closer; And slowly but surely I passed away' What this is saying is that to be focussed continuously on something is to bring it about. Now in Dr Beauregard's book, he says on page 33 when he is speaking about the field of quantum mechanics 'Experiments have shown that because the brain is a quantum system, if you focus on a given idea, you hold its pattern of connecting neurons in place. The idea does not decay as it would if it were ignored. But the action of holding an idea in place truly is a decision you make' So here we have a sufi and a scientist saying more or less the same thing. I think this is why also that when we focus on what we don't want in life, we get more of the same. The key to effortlessly manifesting is to focus continuously on what we do want.
For me from the age of 12 I wanted nothing more than to be spiritual. I had no idea what that looked like. I was born into an Irish Catholic family so I knew religion but I had no idea of spirituality yet I knew that there was a fundamental difference between being spiritual and being religious. I could also look at it like the continuous focus on being spiritual has driven my brain to develop in the way that it has. In this way we have a chicken and egg scenario, what came first, the brain development or my desire to be spiritual? The truth is that I don't know. One thing I am committed though is to be true to myself no matter what the experts try to tell me.....
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Had my kundalini class.....and now I'm irritated.....
Irritation seems to be a common and lasting feeling at the moment. Am doing my practice of being aware of it but I feel like a coiled spring in danger of springing out. I am feeling a build up of tension which is increasing in pressure and intensity. Regular readers of this blog will know that things that can't be seen with the eyes, I don't have much time for. This goes for reincarnation, past lives and stories of people appearing in subtle energy bodies. I deal with what I observe and experience and that is all. I feel this gives me a level of groundedness when so many in this field don't seem to me to be connected to reality. This goes also for authorities in this field.
Today in my class the teacher started speaking about it being the birthday of a famous guru over the weekend and how he (the guru) appeared many times in his subtle body after he died. The woman who was with me was really fascinated with all of this and I listened to it with mounting irritation. Finally when I could bear it no more I said 'surely if the mind wants to see something enough, a form will be created, desire will create a form in the imagination'. There was this uncomfortable silence for a minute and then my teacher who is so great started to speak about the field of quantum mechanics which is something I have trust in. That this phenomenon of a particle appearing in two places is a recognised and proven phenomenon. This stopped me somewhat in my tracks but I still found it too much of a leap to go from the qantum physics to an actual human being. That awkward moment passed and we got on with the class but all during the class I was irritated. The length of time I had to hold my arms up at an uncomfortable angle irritated me. I know that this is the purpose of these exercises to feel the pain and go beyond but I was just irritated. What was revealing for me was that the last meditation was one to do with cultivating trust and it was this exercise that I found the hardest of all to do. I had to stop many times to have a rest during the exercise. I think my teacher was trying to show me something in a very subtle way.
After the class the conversation moved onto reincarnation and past lives. This was just too much for me. There is so much to uncover and create in the present life, what on earth is the point in going back over past lives. What purpose can it serve. I see it as just more attention to that which is not-self. The conversation came up because of a fear my teacher has of spiders and he found that in a past life he had been killed by a spider!!! How on earth am I going to train to be a kundalini yoga teacher if this is the way I am about common spiritual conversations. And yet if there was nothing for me to learn I wouldn't be having this reaction around these conversations. I have been on this path long enough to recognise that anything where the behaviour is a react and not a response is an area where I am not being totally honest with myself......hm.....more work to do.....
Today in my class the teacher started speaking about it being the birthday of a famous guru over the weekend and how he (the guru) appeared many times in his subtle body after he died. The woman who was with me was really fascinated with all of this and I listened to it with mounting irritation. Finally when I could bear it no more I said 'surely if the mind wants to see something enough, a form will be created, desire will create a form in the imagination'. There was this uncomfortable silence for a minute and then my teacher who is so great started to speak about the field of quantum mechanics which is something I have trust in. That this phenomenon of a particle appearing in two places is a recognised and proven phenomenon. This stopped me somewhat in my tracks but I still found it too much of a leap to go from the qantum physics to an actual human being. That awkward moment passed and we got on with the class but all during the class I was irritated. The length of time I had to hold my arms up at an uncomfortable angle irritated me. I know that this is the purpose of these exercises to feel the pain and go beyond but I was just irritated. What was revealing for me was that the last meditation was one to do with cultivating trust and it was this exercise that I found the hardest of all to do. I had to stop many times to have a rest during the exercise. I think my teacher was trying to show me something in a very subtle way.
After the class the conversation moved onto reincarnation and past lives. This was just too much for me. There is so much to uncover and create in the present life, what on earth is the point in going back over past lives. What purpose can it serve. I see it as just more attention to that which is not-self. The conversation came up because of a fear my teacher has of spiders and he found that in a past life he had been killed by a spider!!! How on earth am I going to train to be a kundalini yoga teacher if this is the way I am about common spiritual conversations. And yet if there was nothing for me to learn I wouldn't be having this reaction around these conversations. I have been on this path long enough to recognise that anything where the behaviour is a react and not a response is an area where I am not being totally honest with myself......hm.....more work to do.....
Monday, 11 October 2010
To take on a spiritual path it is not necessary.....to take oneself away from the world..
What I am realizing more and more is that the spiritual is not a path as such but a way of being. It is a declaration that I am a spiritual being who is having human experiences. When this is the context then everything that happens is fodder for spiritual growth and development.
To pay my bills, I work as a fundraiser for a number of charities. Each call presents itself as an opportunity for me to choose who I am going to be on each call. As you can imagine given the nature of the work some calls are more harmonious than others. What is invaluable about this job for me given my self-declared path towards self-realization and enlightenment is that when the energy of anger is there I can watch it impassively, like an observer. I don't get identified with it and I certainly don't project it onto the person I am speaking to. I just watch it rising up. Everything is energy and anger is just one form that the energy takes. In another instant that same energy can transform into love or compassion. What is important is not the form that it changes into but to be aware of its presence and to watch its rise and more importantly its fall. To follow it back until it dissolves into the formless. Only then will it result in a deep and abiding peace.
The person who caused me to get angry has no part to play. The anger was within me and it is only when we take responsibility and own that we have anger, but anger is not who we are that a level of ease and freedom can be experienced around anger and indeed around any energy whether this is hate or love. It is all the same energy but the form in which it is expressed is different. But the principle is the same for whatever form it takes. Become aware of its presence, don't act out or project and follow it back to its source.
I feel blessed that at least once each day I am given the opportunity to engage with this process and it has led to deepening peace and calm. In this way there is no need for me to take myself to an ashram or even have a teacher. The willingness to take myself on at every moment is enough.....
To pay my bills, I work as a fundraiser for a number of charities. Each call presents itself as an opportunity for me to choose who I am going to be on each call. As you can imagine given the nature of the work some calls are more harmonious than others. What is invaluable about this job for me given my self-declared path towards self-realization and enlightenment is that when the energy of anger is there I can watch it impassively, like an observer. I don't get identified with it and I certainly don't project it onto the person I am speaking to. I just watch it rising up. Everything is energy and anger is just one form that the energy takes. In another instant that same energy can transform into love or compassion. What is important is not the form that it changes into but to be aware of its presence and to watch its rise and more importantly its fall. To follow it back until it dissolves into the formless. Only then will it result in a deep and abiding peace.
The person who caused me to get angry has no part to play. The anger was within me and it is only when we take responsibility and own that we have anger, but anger is not who we are that a level of ease and freedom can be experienced around anger and indeed around any energy whether this is hate or love. It is all the same energy but the form in which it is expressed is different. But the principle is the same for whatever form it takes. Become aware of its presence, don't act out or project and follow it back to its source.
I feel blessed that at least once each day I am given the opportunity to engage with this process and it has led to deepening peace and calm. In this way there is no need for me to take myself to an ashram or even have a teacher. The willingness to take myself on at every moment is enough.....
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