nondualmind

The Resurgence of the Feminine in 2014

January 1, 2014 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

Back in 1997, a psychic told me I should read “The Mists of Avalon.” I don’t remember the context in which he made that suggestion, but I bought it and started to read it. I’d always been fascinated by the Arthurian legends, but never found any that put the female characters at the forefront. This one had that unique perspective and it gave me greater insight into the worship of the Goddess before the spread of Christianity. Some have called it feminist, but there is much more going on here. Over the centuries, women have been pretty much relegated to the cheap seats in every world arena, but that may be changing in this present paradigm shift, which is the crisis of perception all are currently witnessing and experiencing on a global…and personal level. I feel this may be a resurgence of the Feminine, the Goddess, that we are experiencing.

Andrew Harvey, mystical scholar, author, and founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism, asserts that “…the new cherishing of the values of compassion, interconnectedness… the attention being paid to holistic medicine, the passion for a new vision of cooperation in business and a new vision of ecological sustainability, … are all evidence of the return of the Feminine as Sacred.” He goes on to note, “…What this means is that the force of divine compassion and interconnected understanding and love in action that is the Sacred Feminine … is the way through for humanity … the Sacred Feminine is a force that can save the planet.”

455px-Holy_mother_sarada — Sri Sarada Devi

You could say that the Feminine has always been an important focus of my own spiritual practice. My guru repeatedly tells us that, “The Shakti is the teacher.” The Shakti is the Feminine – the creative power of the universe – and even though she wears many faces, as every culture has these archetypes in their history, what we see and experience as the world is the manifestation of the Shakti, the Goddess. Sri Ramakrishna recognized the Sacred Feminine when, in one ritual, his wife and spiritual companion Sarada Devi, sat at the altar of Kali and Ramakrishna worshipped her as the Divine Mother. Perhaps our goal for 2014 could be to strive to re-awaken and re-connect to the feminine archetype we recognize and resonate with according to our own personal beliefs and which resides in all of us.

Below is the final scene from the miniseries made from the book, “The Mists of Avalon.” It depicts the return of Morgaine and Arthur to Avalon and Morgaine’s recognition that although Avalon and the Goddess seem to have been forgotten as she knew them, the Goddess still lives on in a new incarnation…

Wishing you all a magical 2014!

You are Nobody

December 11, 2013December 12, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

In December 1990, I was contemplating (and secretly preparing for) a difficult but necessary life change. I felt scared, helpless and alone. At a Christmas party with friends, I remember thinking that this was probably going to be the last time we would all be together like this. My sadness deepened and I felt the fear of change crystallize inside my being. Then, the Christmas grab bag ritual began. I reached in and pulled out a book by Og Mandino. I’d never even heard of him until that moment and for the life of me I can’t remember the title, but that book gave me great comfort and courage at a time when I needed it most. I also recognized that it came to me at that moment in time for a reason. It gave me the validation I needed that I was making the right decision regarding my new life path. A month later, I made my move.

According to Forbes, “Americans spent $11 billion in 2008 on self-improvement books, CDs, seminars, coaching and stress-management programs.” And although, according to PRWeb, that number hadn’t risen very much in 2012 due to the recession and various scandals, that kind of money is still pretty hefty for an industry full of experts (some more qualified than others) who, for a price, are willing to help us achieve all that society deems important: the best career, the best relationship, and the best body, because as you know, this is the only way we can feel good about ourselves and the life we are living. Now, I don’t have a problem with people wanting to better their circumstances as they do glean insights into themselves, and gaining those insights is a not only a step on the journey, but those same insights can help them through some difficult times. Yes, it’s psychological insight, but it’s still insight and we all have to start somewhere. I believe that psychological insight into the personality is an important tool in the eventual “bigger picture thinking” aka “spiritual seeking” that inevitably follows. Advaita Master Mooji says that when a part of your life crashes you experience “birth pains to a deeper awakening inside you.”

That said, my biggest issue with self-help gurus, as well as the dreaded self-help aisle at the bookstore, is the emphasis placed on the impermanent. If you were to put your energy into finding out who you really are, then the rest of it won’t matter anymore. The biggest obstacle to seeking is that too much importance is placed on the life of the personality, largely because we still tend to separate out our earthly lives from our spiritual lives. And therein lies the problem. Even though our seeking tells us that ‘all is One,’ there is still a dualistic perspective to this life we are living.

“How do I integrate spirituality into my everyday life? Throw out the concept of “spiritual life” and “everyday life.” There is only life, undivided and whole. ~ Adyashanti”

Another pitfall stemming from this dualistic perspective is that once the spiritual search has begun, the personality thinks that its life should benefit from this seeking, which is missing the point of the search entirely. We feel we should be rewarded in some way for our diligence by finally attaining that perfect job or mate. What we forget is that everything in our lives is there for our spiritual benefit. The ultimate goal of the spiritual search is to kill off the ego, not make it stronger by pandering to it. The ego wants to be somebody; but You are nobody.

I will be forever grateful for the Og Mandino book I pulled out of the grab bag that winter night. But I also know that it was supposed to happen that way. In the twenty years plus since, I can safely say that although my life hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would, and whose life has – be honest, I wouldn’t change a thing. The Universe knows what it’s doing. We need to trust it.

The bottom line is that every personality, every ‘body’, will have the life it is supposed to have. And if you gain inspiration or solace on the journey from a book or person, there is nothing wrong with that, just recognize it for what it is: something that was supposed to be there in your life, at that particular moment.

My child, because you think you are the body, for a long time you have been bound. Know you are pure awareness. With this knowledge as your sword cut through your chains and be happy! ~ Ashtavakra Gita (1.13-14)

Being Empty

October 26, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts, Yoga

The cup needs to be half-full and an empty room is pitied. Changing perceptions is about as easy as changing eating habits, but let’s look at what can be gained from an alteration in mindset. When we allow ourselves to become empty, it’s not that we provide a space for something else to come in; we provide the opportunity for the recognition of what is already there – the space of pure Awareness – which is where you meet yourSelf.

“Only when a human being becomes empty of ego does it become a vessel of the manifestation of the Supreme. When there is sufficient space made through the absence of the person, then the Divine cannot hide.” ~ Mooji

We are constantly made aware of the many negative connotations associated with the idea of emptiness. If there is a part of your life that is empty, then it is perceived that you are “lacking” in something or not doing something right. That promotes guilt. So there’s that. But, I would say the most negative connotation is the fear that comes with the sense of incompleteness and aloneness. A fear perpetrated by the mind while holding us hostage to the unreal. It’s a conspiracy really – a conspiracy of the mind. Society, an accomplice, makes every attempt to ensure that no part of our lives has any emptiness at all. We fill up our minds and days with external stimuli to the point that we are never devoid of a thought or an action. We physically fill up spaces with things, even people, we feel will make us happy or “complete” us. Thoughts, emotions, things and others define the personality, which is who we erroneously think we are. So, we equate emptiness with non-identity, and that is the scariest idea of all.

Let me repeat that: …we equate emptiness with non-identity, and that is the scariest idea of all.

“Let yourself be merged into that pure emptiness which is the presence of God and true source of all spiritual strivings.” ~ Mooji

Spiritual practice is a type of feng shui for our lives. Cleaning out the clutter is an important step as the outer is a reflection of the inner. In yoga, the asanas and breath work help empty the body of stress and pain (physical, mental and emotional). As a result, we create a space for the recognition of pure awareness, which is not empty at all but is really a space of completeness. Meditation also provides the opportunity to enter into the vast fullness of our true Selves.

When you empty yourself of all that comes with the personality, all the mental, emotional, and material baggage, you reveal what was hidden but all the while waiting for you to discover: your true Self. Yes, live in the material world – let it give you what you need and enjoy, but remember that none of it defines You.

“… I slide like an empty boat pulled over the water.” ~ Rumi

What do You Want?

October 1, 2013April 5, 2014 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

This is an excerpt from a letter Mooji read at his weekly satsang on 9/29/13 (around the 1:29 mark). I thought it needed to be shared. It stands on its own – no commentary needed… By the way, I happened to tune into Mooji’s weekly satsang right at this point…

“I don’t want anything

I don’t want to know

I don’t want to carry

I don’t want to hold

I don’t want to know what is ego

I don’t want to know what is mind

I don’t want to know what is consciousness

I don’t want to know what is self

I don’t want to know even what it is ‘to know’

I don’t want to know happiness, sadness, suffering or joy

I don’t want to know what is ‘I’

I don’t want to know what this ‘me’ is

I don’t want to know ‘who’ it is that doesn’t want to know these things

… let me be without me always

let me forget me

let the universe forget me

Please hear my prayer

Don’t let me appear any longer

Kill me now

Destroy what remains.”

From Satsang with Mooji, 9/29/13. I had the video posted, but it was removed. Here is the link:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/39371808

Mind, Heart, and the Current Culture of Fear

September 23, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

Eleven-year-old Sebastien De La Cruz sang the national anthem at one of the NBA games and racist rants on twitter followed. Then, just recently, the twitter world became inflamed once again with the crowing of Nina Davuluri, an Indian-American, as Miss America. Both incidents captured a bit of on-air news time, but what is not being addressed is the underlying cause of these less-than-enlightened knee-jerk reactions.

I was reminded of something I took note of two years ago in the post The Eve of Destruction…of Fear! where I wrote:

“…look at immigration reform. If you really think about it and look beyond the rhetoric, you will see that we are being manipulated to regard anyone who is not ‘American’ as a threat.”

Only now, it’s not just people who come here from another country who are being shunned; people who are born here are not considered to be “American” because of the way they look.

I remember a talk Jean Houston, author and scholar, gave at the National Headquarters of the Theosophical Society back in 1992, titled “The Greening of the American Psyche.” She said that nationalism among a country’s citizens would become stronger. The Balinese would become more Balinese etc. Her statements at the time surprised me because I thought we were supposed to be evolving past the idea of duality (separateness) and moving toward the truth of non-duality (Oneness). But today, twenty years later, I see that she was right. With the rise of hate and so-called ‘patriot’ groups , the notion of “we are all one” is relegated to being a quaint new-age notion that has no grounding in the material world.

Krishnamurti said, “Patriotism, whether it is of the western kind, or of the eastern kind, is the same, a poison in human beings that is really distorting thought. So patriotism is a disease, and when you begin to realize, become aware that it is a disease, then you will see how your mind is reacting to that disease. When, in time of war, the whole world talks of patriotism, you will know the falseness of it, and therefore you will act as a true human being.” You can see how those statements would have brought K to the FBI’s attention. He was under their surveillance for a time and he did not speak in public from 1940-1944.

Media outlets have been reporting on the changing demographics of this country, which are being analyzed, politicized and debated with so much rhetoric, that we need a scorecard to keep track of all the perceived traits used to identify and separate ourselves from each other. Unfortunately, this separation has it cheerleaders in certain political and media circles, resulting in the acrimony and hate we saw directed at Sebastien De La Cruz and Nina Davuluri.

Identity, and thus duality, originates in the mind. All rhetoric, patriotic or religious, gets processed through the mind, which is where fear originates. Where are our hearts? Our heart is the place where our inner life is nurtured and from where compassion, understanding, tolerance, and yes, non-duality, is expressed.

When I wrote “The Eve of Destruction…of Fear!”, I stressed the importance of cultivating one’s inner life, through techniques like meditation, to get past the fear mongering, which is engendering a mean-spiritedness in people who claim to be Christian and who supposedly love God, but who continue to fail to recognize that there is no difference between us and the Divine. No Difference. But isn’t it interesting that every modality that would help us reach that understanding of ‘Oneness’ by cultivating our inner life is consistently attacked by some organized religions, who really don’t fully understand the concept in the first place, which is evident in this article from the Baptist Press. When they hear the word “meditation,” they counter with phrases like “alternative religions” or “cults.”

I’ve said before that the world is shallow, noisy, and divisive, so it’s not that difficult to keep people stuck in duality/fear as it’s constantly propagated by the patriotic and religious agenda pushing of governments, churches, and media outlets. They may be able to reach your mind, but they cannot reach your heart, unless you allow it.

“Mind, once swallowed by the Heart, is burped up as silence and peace.’ ~ Mooji

Cleaning Out The Attic

July 16, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

In this insightful and humorous video, Advaita Master Mooji addresses the struggle of getting past the mind and our misidentification with it. “Look, and sink more deeply until the arms of the mind are not long enough to reach You. Then you’re in a beautiful place.”

He urges us to stop investing in the personality; it will not lead to Truth. There is only the recognition of who you are that is necessary, and when that happens, all the rest will fall into place. Everything else just reinforces the ego, the body/mind personality. Know the “Self” and you will know peace.

By the way, at the end of the video, the person who asked the question remarked to Mooji, “That wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but it was the answer I needed.” And so it goes…..

The Summer of My Discontent – Part 2

July 5, 2013July 7, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

As my summer of discontent continues, I’ve been thinking a lot about the teacher/student relationship. What I found was that this connection changes and deepens as bhakti develops for the student.

The guru/disciple relationship remains a foreign concept to Westerners, who consider it to be suspicious or just downright scary. I’ve written about gurus on this blog before – The Idea of Guru – suggesting that a true teacher is merely a guide, for no one can show you truth; you must experience it for yourself. Still, there are those who continue to strongly reject ‘the idea of guru’. One such dissenter was Jiddu Krishnamurti, who said:

“You yourself have to be the master and the pupil. The moment you acknowledge another as a master and yourself as a pupil, you are denying truth. There is no master, no pupil, in the search for truth.”

“You must know for yourself, directly, the truth of yourself and you cannot realize it through another, however great. There is no authority that can reveal it.”

My teacher would be the first to agree with this. I believe that Krishnamurti was referring to those who put themselves in authority and their followers into a submissive position; the way organized religions do. Interestingly, Krishnamurti did have teachers; just not in the usual sense of the word. His sadhana was a rare one. It is known and accepted that Masters, who were not in the body, initiated him into the process leading to Realization, that state in which identification with the Immortal Self is uninterrupted.

Irina Tweedie describes her personal experience of the guru/disciple relationship and how it evolves for the student in Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master. Spanning five years, Tweedie’s account of her relationship with her teacher runs the gamut of emotions. In the beginning, ego strongly intact, she dealt with confusion, doubt, and at times, harsh treatment from her teacher. We should keep in mind that she was a Westerner living in a foreign country while dealing with an Eastern guru; all adding to the difficulties she encountered during her sadhana. She writes:

“I hoped to get instruction in Yoga, expected wonderful teachings, but what the teacher did was mainly to force me to face the darkness within myself…. I was beaten down in every sense until I had to come to terms with that in me which I kept rejecting all my life.” 

Tweedie, in an interview with Jeffrey Mishlove (Thinking Allowed series), dismisses the notion that the guru subjugates the student:

“One doesn’t surrender to the Guru – not really – ….One surrenders to the Light within oneself, the Light of the Soul, that part in us, which belongs to Eternity.”

As you read Tweedie’s diary, you are carried along on her journey of Self-discovery. You watch as her ego, which is where the doubts live, dissolves and she arrives at the place of complete love and devotion – a place far from where she started. In The Matrix, a movie with many non-dual themes including the guru/disciple relationship, there is a scene where Neo tells Trinity not to join him in his quest to save Morpheus. Trinity plainly tells him that she is sure that Morpheus means more to her than he does to him. The devotion they both feel, however, becomes clear as they risk their own lives to save their beloved teacher.

It takes time for the teacher/student relationship to deepen. The ego needs to diminish enough for the Love, which is the Light within, to replace it.

If my summer went according to my plan, then I never would’ve acknowledged the depth of feeling for the guru that arises with spiritual practice. This experience was a great gift for me. This is the way sadhana works. You may not get what you want, but you get what you need and no one could ever predict what that might be.

The Summer of My Discontent – Part I

July 2, 2013May 18, 2017 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

Summer vacation for a schoolteacher is a sacred time. I plan, in fairly great detail, how I will spend those days. I’m going to do yoga ‘x’ number of times a week, read more books, eat healthier, etc. But it’s not just my summers that I plan; I try to plan most everything. It’s my way of controlling the future. You can probably tell where this is going.

During these summer months, I had plans of spending as much time with my teacher as possible. It’s more challenging to maintain a good spiritual focus during the school year as working lends it’s own brand of distractions, and since I’ve never really been good at walking and chewing gum at the same time, I’ve always looked to my work breaks as opportunities to place and keep my focus on more spiritual pursuits. That was the plan. The first week into my summer, the plan got flushed. My teacher’s ill health is preventing him from seeing students and this state of things will probably continue for a while. You get what you need in sadhana – and usually what you need is not what you want.

So, during these past few weeks, I’ve been reminded of the time before I moved here. Living in New Jersey early on in my process with no teacher or fellow students nearby, I had to work to keep my practice front and center. Being physically close to your teacher is not required, but it does help. It has also given me some insight as to how the teacher/student relationship changes over time, which I will address in part 2. Basically, all this has made me realize that I needed to take more responsibility for my sadhana, much like that time in New Jersey.

Lately though, I’ve been more worried that my teacher may not be here much longer. I have no reason to think this, he should be fine, but during these past weeks without him, I’ve been wondering what it’s going to be like when he does leave his body. He’s been preparing us for this inevitability, giving us the tools to make it easier to continue on our path without his physical presence. After the death of her guru, Irina Tweedie, author of Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master, began to realize that even though her beloved guru was gone he was still with her, and that she could have contact with him whenever she wanted. Oddly, in some ways, she felt that her real spiritual training began after her teacher’s death.

Sadhana is a conspiracy. It peels back the layers of the personality and forces you to know who you are. Not who you are as an ego, a character in this play, but the ‘You’ as the Immortal Self. That is no small task and, if you’re paying attention, you will understand that everything that happens is just another step in the long journey leading back to Yourself.

Photo credit: Red bench near Kilt Rock, on Skye Island (Scotland, United Kingdom). By Two Wings (own work)

Only Love

June 7, 2013June 7, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

Anne Pryor, artist, connector and inventor, created this Lovitude® image. Lovitude represents the quantum energy of Love and Gratitude.

Dr. Masaru Emoto is a researcher who has studied the effects of human consciousness on the molecular structure of water. I first became acquainted with his work in the movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” Mainstream scientists dismiss Emoto’s work as pseudoscience. I can’t say if his work is valid or not, but I see some non-dual connections that I’d like to share.

The metaphysical community has long held that “thoughts are things.” We know they can produce physical changes in the body: anger can raise blood pressure, meditation can reduce stress, etc. In the video, the result of the ‘higher’ vibrational energies (love, gratitude, devotion etc.) produced crystals with form. The lower vibrational energies (hate, anger, judgment etc.) did not. Pretty simple, even logical when you consider how our bodies react to the same stimuli. Now the leap…

Non-dualism teaches us that Love is the blood of Consciousness (the Absolute). The Christian view would be “God is Love.” Since Consciousness (God) creates form, I think you can extrapolate here that Love created the material universes. The Shakti, which is the creative power, (as well as the power of our own consciousness, since God dwells within us as us), manifests the dream of the Absolute into the form we perceive of as the material world.

So, if Emoto is indeed on to something and I’m correct in connecting the dots, all of what we see and perceive of as matter comes from Love, which could explain why we feel such bliss when experiencing ‘oneness’ while in Nature. No wonder bhakti (devotion/love) is so important in spiritual practice. Love is all there is.

Photo note: The image used was inspired by Dr. Emoto’s work.

(If you go to the you-tube link, there is a short explanation as to how Emoto conducted his research)

Born-Again!?

May 29, 2013May 29, 2013 by nondualmind, posted in Thoughts

There are polls suggesting that atheism is on the rise. I just read through a list of ‘famous atheists’ and noticed that many of these people (there are a lot of celebrities on this particular list) consider themselves atheists because they equate God with organized religion. Heck, I’d probably be one too if I made that connection. I wish more people realized that God and organized religion (as it is today) are about as mutually exclusive as you can get. And although Pope Francis tried to bridge the gap between believers and non-believers, the Vatican still holds that if you don’t follow the Church’s teachings you are going to hell. Talk about lousy public relations. And to dare contradict what the Pope said shows how afraid the Vatican is of losing control over the masses. The interesting thing, though, is that atheism, organized religion, and the material world share a common bond; they are all born and live in duality.

Organized religions attempt to take something that is formless and give it form or structure. To believe that God, the Absolute, which is pure Consciousness, has no form is a tough concept to get, so religions give God a form or face. The form that people use as their personal God is called their Ishwara. There is nothing wrong with having an Ishwara – it certainly helps with bhakti (devotion) – but there will come a time when all form needs to be discarded. Form perpetuates duality (God is separate from who I am) and to be stuck in form will keep you stuck in duality (separation).

A major reason atheists reject the notion of the Divine, is their assumption that religions contradict each other with the assertion that theirs embody the only true God. Sri Ramakrishna, probably the greatest saint India has ever produced, studied all religions, including Christianity and Islam (yes, Islam) and found they all lead to the same God, having truth at their heart. Unfortunately, that truth gets lost under the layers of dogma, rules, control, and fear mongering, which bastardize the teachings and give rise to the divisive right-wing fanaticism we see today. And while I understand the reasoning behind rejecting organized religion, I don’t get rejecting the notion of the Sacred because of it. That’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you ask me.

The rest of the people on the list of “famous atheists” are either scientists or some other sort of academic, which use curiosity as the driving force. Curiosity is important; it is the spark that propels the search for truth, but scientific research is limited and words are limited, as they attempt to explain something that essentially defies explanation in the material world. It’s not that they’re useless in searching, but the seeker should not pin his or her hopes of finding Truth on either.

When you engage in philosophical discussion, even if the discussion is about non-duality, eventually you get caught up in the illusion of the ego as it becomes buried under a mountain of thoughts. When you engage in scientific research, you are bound by a methodology that also keeps you stuck in the illusion. So, a laboratory or philosophical debate can never yield Truth because the medium used to find the answers is based in duality – the unreal. You’re either stuck in a lab or in the mind and you can never find the real in the unreal. In these scenarios, the best you can hope for is a direction for your seeking or an intellectual understanding of some sort, which is not entirely a bad thing because it keeps you asking questions. Also, let me add that science is beginning to recognize that there may be more to what we see as the ‘material’ world, which leads me to the next point.

As I see it, the basic problem with atheism is the unwillingness to consider the idea that anything exists outside of the material world. And even though science is making some headway in this area, i.e. the world as a hologram, it will be a bitter pill for many to swallow. Not only because old habits (beliefs) die hard, but also because it will be difficult to fully comprehend the ramifications such discoveries have on our perception of the world and our lives in it. This would mean bridging the gap between duality and non-duality, acknowledging that the idea of a world with form (duality) will need to be discarded in favor of the idea of a world composed of One Consciousness (non-duality). Shifting paradigms is no easy task – just ask Copernicus.

I found it interesting that some of the atheists listed said (I’m paraphrasing here) that what is important is that we be kind to each other. If they only realize that we should be kind to each other because we are each other, then they will have captured Truth – without following any dogma or doctrine. Imagine that!