Spiritual Criminology

 I introduced this field of study in "The World's First Ever Baptist Crime Novel." A character in the book, Viola Trumpett, a spiritual criminologist, was instrumental in solving the little Baptist church's crime that was reeking such havoc. She used both scientific and shamanistic methods. 

Spiritual criminology itself can be defined as a set of procedures using both objective and subjective methods for the identification and resolution of spiritual crimes. 

Expect to hear more from me on this matter.

Confluence

Confluence

"The meeting of the two seas" (Quran)

"For now we see through a glass darkly;
but then face to face: now I know in part;
but then shall I know even as also I am known."
(Bible)

Two zones, two space-time zones: Now, Then

In this world we live in now, we do not see so clearly.
Our vision is distorted, obstructed.
We mostly see ourselves.
We peer through the clod that we are.
We see darkly.

But then (when we drop the clod),
we shall see face to face.
Nothing will be hidden.
Can we handle it?

In many cultures, that first look,
with nothing hidden, is called "the judgment."
We see the purity of our soul.

We have "gone over."
We are on the other side of the confluence,
of the meeting of the two seas.

This need not seem so strange.
We drop the clod now from time to time.
Feelings of one-ness, of whole-ness pour through us.

Awareness opens. Breathing deepens.
We see clearly.
No one is DOING the seeing.
Seeing IS.
We know as we are known.
Simultaneously.

3:06 a.m.

Pre-occupation with this physical body blocks my clear seeing. I have occupied this body once; now do I have to let it occupy me? I think not (and I mean that in at least two ways).

Treat it nice but rise beyond it. Emerge... Be born out of the body the way the body was born and is born out of the Mystery. Be born into the Mystery. Be borne into the Mystery. On the backs of angelic forces. You have strong backing.

What produced you physically will produce you, is producing you, spiritually.

You may make that birth difficult due to your position in the spiritual womb. Quit contorting yourself. Quit doing contortions except for those that un-contort you.

Relax and trust in your birthing. The process is natural and in your favor.

May 2010

Pardon me for saying so, but death is mid-life. All you sprouts out there wandering around in chaotic formation, take heart (or else succumb to the deepest misery; death is only halfway through. What goes down must come up. Death is our comeuppance. This life is what is going down. There is no ascent of you. 

We have not ascended. We have descended int this form. Have you not noticed? We continue to descend. And yet there remains in us a strong spark of that from which we came. We are light making its descent int the nether regions.

Each of us wanders through this world of denseness, making as much light of matter as we can. Middle age is not measured in years. Middle age is at the point of death, that door which swings on its hinges into the next half of life, the ascent, the eternal return. We have taken on matter. We have become matter. We have become attached to matter. We have made matter of the utmost importance. At our midlife, we release ourselves from material fascination and move on. What comes down must go up. This is a principle, a major principle, of the non-material realm.

May 2010

We have no meaning without context. Each of us maintains the context that gives us meaning. What happens when we dare step out to a context of no context? Is it even possible? Is this what all the spiritual paths mean by dying to self?

We fear that if we step out of the snug cocoon of context we have woven about ourselves, we will die. And we will. Without context, the self we know, the self we wear like comfortable pajamas (even though at times it is a hair shirt) will disappear.

We fight to maintain our context, the text by which we abide. We make our living with our context. We get through the day with it, snug in its bubble.

Like missionaries, we look to sell our context to others while preferring to think we are giving it away,

Like dung beetles, we prefer to sit in our context, enjoying its sweet aroma, so happy to have a home.

May 2010

Whatever you believe or disbelieve, someone is going to badmouth it. We are creatures of scorn of others and believe that if everyone would be like us, the world would be a better place. 

We are also creatures of compassion. We are suffering and wish to eliminate it, to assist the sufferer. Some of us encase ourselves within ourselves. Most of us have hearts of lovingkindness.

May 2010

Our comprehension of reality and our designations and definitions as to what is reality and what is fantasy (fantasy, in a wider view, being part of reality) are determined by our experience and our experience of others' experiences, some of which we hold up as models and others denigrated and shunned. Thus our acceptance of others' experiences and the interpretive spin they put on their experiences is determined by their accord with our own experiences and our own spin. Like minds cluster. Disparate minds dispel.

May 2010

To know anything, you must "go native." You must become that which you are trying to understand. To know God, you must become God, a simultaneous leap into each other's skins, laughing and whooping with the playful joyousness of it all. Do you think that he who formed the platypus has no sense of humor? I say unto thee: Jump into while being jumped into! Leap into the leaping!

We are known as we know, and we know as we are known. 

We are inquired into as deeply as we inquire.

This is what is meant by shaman theologian. 

We leap into God as God leaps into us.

May 2010

All this must be taken personally while not taking it personally.

May 2010

We are God's soulful longing for expression, for companionship. We are the cry into the darkness. We are the burning, the burning bush, the lowest densest form of matter blazing our cry into the heavens. We are not consumed in our burning. We cry out for love, for understanding. All else pales. Here is only the fire and its weeping, its weeping flames of desire for expression and companionship in the expressing, the interflow of love.

May 2020

The way for moving out of the sensory temporal (temporary) world is well-known. A first step is mindfulness, being here now in this moment. One is mindful while sitting and while on the move. Both practices are essential for developing capaciousness. In sitting mindfully, one can meditate ON something. This is eventually let go and one simply sits and opens. One moves into contemplation (con-templum-ation),the temple being the clear open space required for divine seeing by the ancient augurs. It is in this open space that one hears, sees, merges, with the world that exists beyond the temporal. One is developing, exercises one's subtle body. This is the body that one truly is, the body that goes on after one's dense matter falls away. In Christian language, it is called laying up your treasures in heaven. In Buddhist language, it is called opening to your buddha body. In Taoist language, it is called waving with the ocean. In Bhagavad Gita language, it is called getting up off the chariot floor. In Hebrew language, it is called meeting and margin with the Shekinah. In Persian language, it is called opening to the xvarnah, the light of glory. In Zoroastrian language, it is called meeting the logos language. In Zen language, it has no name.

May 2020

The Personification of the Universe

The perennial question, answered firmly in the negative by Yahweh, the Judeo-Christian Warrior God, and that continues to be a matter of debate is: Shall you have any images before you?

The Zen folk agree with Yahweh. Do not put a head on top of your head. Snap out of, stay out of reflection. Revery is a block to clear seeing. All we need to know is in this Now.

As a Zen Baptist, I tend to follow that approach. It has allowed me to move through much difficulty. The Baptist consciousness, however, opens to a personified cosmos rich with personality.

May 2020

"God" is a name for what is In Here opening to the Out There. The experiencing of God is the opening to the ongoing reverberation of this synthronicity.

***
There is an entire inner Infinity which encompasses and gives birth to the observable outer Infinity. As a human, we are a gateway between the two Infinities, which are one. In this Kali-Yuga age, the tendency and rule is to give more attention and to "lay up our treasures " in the outer Infinity though its formation arises from the Inner. In this age of dissolution we celebrate appearance and form rather than that which births us, that which gives rise to formation. Lamentations are definitely in order, appropriate. But lamenting does not get us very far. We can only sit so long in the ash heap and scrape our running sores with pot shards. We must get up and face the god we have created. This is effective only if we move out of and from deep centering in the Inner. The Inner is more powerful than the External. The external we are now stems from our shallowness. Deep calls too deep.

May 2010

"Thine eye is the light of the world." "Let the light of thine eye be single."

Brad, in his workshop, said James Hillman described soul as a point of view. 

One's point of view is not just intellectual cha-cha. One's point of view is light.

Heaven and hell body correlation. Nether regions of body = dark = hell. Upper ascendant regions = eye = light.

May 2010

Long ago, and even now, there was and is a circle with no circumference, a sphere with no surface, boundless with no origin. A stirring formed, compassion being born, but not without self-doubt. For how can there be compassion with no object of compassion? 

The boundless birthed the bounded, doubt demanded compassion, compassion required doubt. And with that, an eternal yearning saturated the cosmos. 

Twins at birth, each now consoles the other. Doubt consoles compassion consoling doubt. The boundless birthing the bounded rejoices in its inter whirling division. The great sacrifice has been made and all is on the altar and all is the altar, holy fires raging with the sweet incense of burning doubt consumed by compassion.

12/6/2017

The tribal mental structure, in which we cling to the thought system of "our own" tribe, has outlived its usefulness, is a deficient mental structure producing a sense of superiority, suspicion, and tribal warfare. 

Consciousness mutations have arisen in the past (Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Muhammad) and of an era (Axial Age).  One is being born today: Interflow or Integral Awareness. You can see it in the writings of Kazantzkis, of Ken Wilber, of Ewert Cousins, of Panikkar, of Jean Gebser. The writings are not just words on a page but expressions of a mutational consciousness.

Consciousness mutations arise when the current consciousness has become just that: a rigid structure, a con job. The old consciousness structure (Personal and Tribal Domination) is putting up a fight but it is doomed.

We can no longer live in boxes, the rigid boxes of former minds. We are opening to the beauty of the circle, in which all are present -- a circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere.

9/23/17

In the beginning 
was an Urge, 
an urgency.

Then came a Surge
closely followed
by an Insurgency.

Divergency eventually
produced a Purge,
a radical Emergency.

Then a new Mourning
lit the Day.

Humans, encased in flesh,
ingrown heirs,
kissed their own lips
with renewed and frantic
frequency.

Unable to become Verge-ions,
they settled on attempting
Merge-inity.

Labor Day 2017

A dance is not a dance until it is seen as a dance.  

Language is the seen. No language, no seen. Language creates seen.

Raw experience is not even raw experience until language says it is.

Raw experience is dance.

True dance is Forget You.

Remember You is institutional dance. Now you are in the Dance Hall.

The Dance Hall is what makes a dance a dance.

Outside the Dance Hall is no dance.

What is it? As soon as you say, it is confined.

To be sure, there are elegant Dance Halls, but they are still Dance Halls.

Where there is no dance hall,

there is no dance.

Language is the dance hall.

As soon as you step into the

dance hall, you are dancing.

Some would sy we are always

within the dance hall.

That is their dance hall speaking.

Some would say there are space/times

we are not in the dance hall.

The Dance Hall of no dance hall.

How does that go? 

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

Where can I find a man with no words 

so I can have a word with him.

We build vast structures then

swing and dance within them.

Adam named the animals. Until then,

they did not know what they were capable of.

***

"Mystics are men who by their own inner experience and their speculation concerning this experience discover new layers of meaning in their traditional religion." -- Scholem, On the Kabbalah 

and Its Symbolism, p. 32

My experience at age 12 whether considered "inner" or "out of the body" or both, did not focus on the angelic or higher realms of mystical consciousness but on the Earth. I was "out there' looking at the Earth. My body was the Cosmos, yet not THE Cosmos, but a point of view. My body was the Cosmos, no differentiation, infinity in every "direction," while being a specific view point, a location.

Conversation with myself. August 2017

When will we humans open to embodying as the Cosmos? 
--Do you mean rather than experiencing yourself as an isolated protoplasmic blob? As an alienated chunk of spastic Spam? 
--Laughing. Something like that.
--Yes. you do seem to develop a concert image of yourself, then cling to it like an alcoholic to her bottle, like a hermit crab to his shell. 
--Well, it's a mean world out there and we need solace and protection.
--Yes, you do. So you cluster and seek refuge in your cluster groups.
--What's wrong with that?
--Nothing much. But it is just a half-way house on your road to accepting the cosmos as your body.

August 2017

If you think about it, you can see that everything is story. We talk to ourselves and to each other about what is going on. We are also told stories from birth about what is going on (WIGO). Even before that, in the womb, we are deciphering and understanding within the potency of the nonverbal realm, creating a consistent story. (Twins and triplets, etc, share this story both then and later. 

We are beings who feel a compelling need to make sense of our sensings. Combined with that is our need for, our continuous search for, unity. We want a complete story, one that satisfies.

We generally stick to our story and don't want any story missionaries to deliberately try to dislodge us from our story dwelling place and insert us into a new home. This is as true for science stories as for religion stories.

The story we tell ourself has impact both internally, within our personal consciousness set, and externally, throughout our group consciousness set. We live by story, a continuous reverberation of meaning.

July 2017

Early in my life I rejected all man-made institutions. In my way of thinking at the time, this included all forms of the Christian church, As a result I was set free to roam "outside the camp." I became acquainted with the inner teachings of most of the major religions and philosophies on earth.

Now, in my later years, I am realizing that the true Christian church is the mystical body of Christ pervading the entire Cosmos. I knew that before but never so deeply and so certainly.

I also realize, on a more cognitive and less spiritual level, that a human institution is essential these days or the teachings would be scattered or lost.

"Be ye reconciled," says the scripture. So I am reconciled. Form is emptiness and emptiness is forms the Buddhists. Except in this case. Form is Fullness and Fullness is Form.

Unconditional Abandon

Somebody had to do it, had to follow the will and flow of the Cosmos, of God absolutely and completely and perfectly. Someone had to break through the Barrier. Jesus said, I will. And he did. Unconditional abandon. No holding back.

Fathoming the Deep

God's ground and our ground are the same ground says Meister Eckhart. No, no, you may say. My ground is so much smaller, is rooted in a social being, is a selfie. No, no, I say. Our ground is fathomless. No matter how long a fathom line we cast into its depths, we cannot sound a bottom. Any bottom we discover is a self-created bound, a false bottom. God's ground and our ground are the same ground -- an expansive interflow with no bounds. "Deep calls unto deep."

July 12, 2017

It is easy to cry Doom! That is like a baby sitting in the mess of its own diaper. Not a very pleasant position. Wah, wah, wah, the baby wails.

To get up, discard the diaper, and cleanse yourself of all your buts is essential. But, but, but! All buts are barriers to action. Buts are a baby pen in which you hide and shake your rattle.

Action! Action is needed! What is this action? Deploy your skills in the nitty gritty world of today, this day!

What is your skill? You may not know but others do. Ask them. You will recognize when they speak truth.

You are a sun that shines. You have also been through dark nights with fierce storms. "Rise, take up your bed and walk." Walk into the world and do your thing.

***
When your eyes are open,
you do not see things,
they show themselves to you.

July 18, 2017

When we learn to stop at nothing, we are fully awake and aware. We experience, embody both senses of the phrase simultaneously. We stop at nothing: persevere. We stop at nothing: become nothing. Motion and rest are the same. We persevere in being nothing.

We are no thing. We are not-hinged, the gateless gate.

Of course, this is no way for  citizen consumer to live. We are supposed to be things, passive participants in a group consensus reality. Even the much heralded path of resistance (re-cyst-ance: becoming a cyst again) is a counterpoint to the societal point.

Stopping at nothing is a way out of the maze with the monster at the center thirsting for ever more quantities of your blood. When stopping at nothing, the maze disappears.

In Meister Eckhart's terms, we become one with the ground of being. "God's ground and my ground is the same ground." We then live in the world but we are not of the world. This is the path of the spiritual warrior. Become as nothing. Stop at nothing.

6/28/2017

In orthodox Christian terms, Trump can be seen as the Anti-Christ, "full of lies and deceit." [Note: I say "can be." I do not say "is."] When stepping out of the enclosed realm of orthodoxy, we can see Trump as an outgrowth, a representation of the national psyche, a nation of people concerned with individual "selfies" and the using of those selfies as a guide to dealing with the world. As you respond to my selfie, so I respond to you.

Trump seems to actually believe that his selfie is incorruptible and that with it and through it, he can rule the world, that no policy is needed, that through his magnetic presence, others will fall in line. Those who do notary regarded as fake and false and are cast into outer darkness, rejects to be disparaged. As I said, he is an extension of the current national psyche: I and those who think like me are the truth (we reflect a common selfie). The others live in a land of unenlightened darkness. Trump is a manifestation of this tendency within ourselves.

June 20, 2017

Out of the One, all religions arose. The basis of a religion is an awareness of a link to a mystery beyond oneself. At the subtlest levels, all existing has this awareness. This awareness is called interflow. The One pervades all. All exists through the One.

Out of the One comes All. Out of the One came all. The One continues to produce All. All is manifested by the One, is manifesting. 

The One produced and continues the slow motion explosion that lit the universe, this universe and all universes.

Slow motion means slow enough to allow a person to cross the street. Slow motion means room. Time means space.

The One is mystery and yet is closer than our very breath.

A separation, a veil, exists between us and the One or else we would burst into flame. This veil is, and can become, quite thin.
Religion is a system of methods for approaching the veil and seeing through it, even dissolving it.

(Science, no matter what is said, is also a religion.)

Everyone, each person, has a system of methods for seeing through the veil. Everyone has a religion. My systems contemplation. I move to a clear open space and wait for understanding. Open awareness is my religion.

I love Jesus. I love Buddha. I love the wisdom teachers of all the ages. I love all those of open awareness.

June 17, 2017

No camera with me on walk yesterday. And so I begin my slow withdrawal from the world.

79 this month. Healthy body so expect a long slow demise. Walk amongst the young and nod and smile. They don't like to be interrupted for too long. My mind seems to be more expansive, more free than theirs. Not so caught with worldly concerns. But that has always been the case. I march to a different drummer so goes the cliche'. And who and what might that drummer be?

5/25/2017

Birth Pangs:
The spiritual-psychological-emotional pain we feel is a result of, coincides with, our continuous forming, our formation. The nature of our forming directly related to our thoughts, the images we hols in our minds, and especially in our hearts, at the core of our being.

"As we think in our heart, so are we." Thus we have some control over the spiritual and psychological form we are manifesting (and with its accompanying emotions). What we see is what we get. We create who we are by the direction of our thoughts. The images we hold in our minds set up a chain reaction of our formation, the form we are and becoming.

5/20/2017 1:13 a.m.

The concept of God is no side eddy becoming stagnant over time, but an open dynamical sphere unfolding all possibility formerly impossible. I have no time to debate those who wish to focus on a stagnant eddy ("let the dead bury the dead"). The open dynamical sphere absorbs both my experience and my rational thought.

As the open dynamical sphere unfolding impossible possibility, "God is my help in every need. Gos does my every hunger feed." This is not just a statement of faith, but more importantly, an ongoing reality. This goes far beyond religious tribal groups, encompasses all reality. This is emergence. We respond daily, hourly, now-ly to this ongoing emergence-y.

***

Archimedes has said that if he had a place to stand and a lever long enough, he could move Earth from its orbit. But there is no place to stand, no such thing as a detached observer. We are co-creators. We influence what we observe. (See the "experimenter effect.") If our stance becomes too rigid, it will automatically erode. The Flow will wear it down, like water on rock. Dance is more realistic than the trance of a stance.

5/18/2017

When embedded in the consciousness matrix of one's tribe (religious, political, social, racial, blood kin, etc.), one follows a dualistic pattern of us-them, right-wrong, acceptable- not acceptable unique to the tribe. When one tribal con mat meets another, conflict amidst harmony occurs. Mind, which consists of cognition and emotion (a co-motion) goes against mind, creating both "internal" (to the group and to the individual) and "external" distress. 

What has been labelled as Zen is a consciousness matrix that does not produce such a set-up. The Zen tribe is all existing, the Eternal Now Ever Emerging. Such a con mat state (the state of no-state) produces right action. This is what is known in the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures as "accepting the empty circle" and "returning to the market place with bliss-bestowing hands."

5/17/2017

Each of us humans consists of infinite constellations of consciousness matrices. We can and do "jack into" a consciousness matrix. A finite cluster of matrices tightly adjacent make up our usual matrix habitat. We call this cluster our "self."An extension of this cluster we call "the world." Though we inhabit this cluster, we generally consider it as "not us." We draw lines of demarcation.

In essence, we light up certain matrices and hang our cosmic hats there. Though an infinite number of matrices abound, a teeming cosmos, they are dark to us. Why? Because we lack the verge, the initiative to venture out. We are like baby birds in a semi-fouled nest, clinging to familiarity, afraid to fly.

We hear the sounds, catch the visions of nearby realms, yet sit firmly, semi-fearful, identifying more with our anuses and mouths than with our wings.

The veil is thinnest in the midnight hours, they say. According to Kabbalistic lore, this is when God speaks. And what is the voice of God but the calling of nearby matrices inviting us to open into and inhabit/occupy their realms?

***
Rather than thinking of my boyhood experience as an OBE, think of it as a venture into a nearby consciousness matrix. I find this more realistic, more satisfying, than to label it a mystical experience. No. A nearby consciousness realm called and I went, jacked into.

OBE terminology is useful however. What is the body but a spaceport for venturing into further realms? A place from which to leap. The Buddha was/is right. Being born into a body is a unique opportunity for consciousness change. A transfer station.

***
"Con mat" may be a useful short hand for consciousness matrix. After all, in a certain sense, it is a con job by which we are taken to the mat.

***
Humans have been tortured, crucified, hanged, buried alive for the particular consciousness matrix they occupied and its variance from the con mat of those with physical power. Some con mats simply cannot accept that other con mats are also valid and real. This still goes on. There are tribal con mats to which we swear allegiance. No new news here. Song: "Stuck in a con mat with you."

3/16/17

The concepts of redemption and salvation are built into our very lives. When we are so tired we feel our every ache and pain, we eventually go to sleep. We awake refreshed. We have gone into the grave and been resurrected. We are redeemed, brought back to life, made new. Salvation has occurred. The salve of healing, of being made whole, has been applied. And all this while we were unconscious except for dreams. Brought down from our frenetic scurrying, brought down even against our will. Brought down by the nature of who we are, then given new life. Redeemed and saved, boyz and girlz, redeemed and saved!

3/12/17

"Appreciate one's own intellectual tradition" (Nasr)

What is my intellectual tradition, the ingredients of the soup in which I swam in early life? And those who led me further?

Richard Maurice Bucke

Evelyn Underhill

Abraham Maslow

George MacDonald

Henry Corbin

Toshihiko Izutsu

Jacob Needleman

Huston Smith

Ewert Cousins

Panikkar

***

Each person has a religion. Each person is a religion. A religion is a path to which you swear obedience over and over. A religion is a consciousness realm you inhabit. Thus it is both a linear path and a point of awareness. This linear path circles on itself as you age, producing a spiral of continuity. At the core of the spiral is the ongoing point of awareness. The consciousness realm that you ARE is your religion.

All externality is your external church. All internality is your internal church. A church is a place of awareness of a greater reality. Of animality. Of letting go of old ways and opening to the new. Of weeping tears and singing songs.

Your everyday life is your church.You are crucified on the cross of space and time. You are resurrected every moment. You are called to prayer, to remembrance, several times a day. Prayer is a returning to the core of your consciousness realm and allowing both deepening and opening. 

You already live in the eternal, this eternal Now. This is your heaven. This is your purgatory in which you continually purge yourself. This is your hell. Your religious life is a fluctuation of all three. These are the frictions both producing and existing as the eternal transformational spiraling of your soul, of the consciousness realm you both are and are becoming.

The religion you are is both similar to and unlike any other religion existing.

3/8/17

The time for all beings to fully embody is now. Open to the Highest within you. More energy will come. The battle lines are drawn. All is clear. Act accordingly. Act according to the Highest within you. The die is cast. "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

***
A symbol is for seeing through. No eye stop.The Sefirot are symbols for gazing into the Divine.

***
Yes, I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Our depth of understanding of the Bible depends upon the depth of our own soul. Deep reading of the Bible also deepens our soul. Deep reading comes through continuous reading, daily reading. I have read thousands and thousands of books. For me, no other book has this soul-deepening capability.

Yes, I experience God both as personal and as Ultimate Mystery. A leaf on a tree experiences a personal relationship with the tree: first with the branch to which it is attached, then with the main trunk, the roots providing nutrient, and the Earth herself. The leaf also experiences the breath of air, the light and warmth of Sun. The leaf's experience moves past these and dissolves into Mystery, a relationship with Mystery, thus having both a personal and mysterious interflow.

***
If you are still thinking in a science versus religion mode, consider yourself old-fashioned. Consider instead conceptual thinking and situational thinking ("and" -- no "versus" here). Conceptual thinking is more in the realm of philosophy -- the spinning of concepts to answer a problem. Situational thinking is more phenomenological -- looking to make sense out of the situation you are in, not just the personal situation, but the global and cosmic.
***
You can receive only according to your capacity to receive. If you are closed up, you receive nothing. Only you know where and how you close yourself up.
***
Righteousness is not a prideful willful arrogance but is the sense and energy of being in the right place: the embodying of heaven and earth, of the above and below. Righteousness is the grounded compassionate energy flowing from this right place.

3/5/17

I trust the poor more than the rich. Why? Because the rich are occupied with the shell in which they dwell. Any of us occupied with external trappings (aptly named), including the clothing of social status, I designate as rich. Shell dwellers.The poor are those who, no matter the external circumstances, view life with a clear and open heart.

All realms (business, politics, religion, society) encourage shell creation, the place from which all wars start. The wise walk naked and free through all realms, forming no barnacles, no accretions, shell beginnings. These are the poor.

We must learn to see through the eyes of, to sense through the senses of, every aspect of the cosmos, from the subatomic to the metagalactic. This may be called compassion or empathy. Both are loaded terms. Call it identity. "Put on the whole armor of God." Wear the clothing of the Cosmos. Then let that go and be What Is.

3/4/17

God and sects. Why do we have to wrestle God to the ground and clothe God in our peculiar fancies? Why can we not allow God to roam naked and free, moving in and out with our breath at every pore, forever transforming us? 

No wearing of anyone's too-tight God shoes nor throwing God out the door with the hazy confusion of a-gnosis nor the slammed shut door of a-theist.  Distractions! For heaven's sake, let God alone! 

When we are quiet and loving and open, we are in God and God is in us. Interflow. A seamless whole. When seamless, we do not seem less. We feel God grin. We hear pleasant laughter. Life is simple and profound.

3/3/17

Do not think that you cannot affect the state of the world. We are the Life Force embodying. Our radiance affects all around us: our household, our community, the wellbeing of our friends, every person, plant, and animal we meet. We are spheres of influence.

The quality of our being affects all around us. Sir Arthur Eddington said it well: "When the electron vibrates, the universe shakes." 

I will say it this way: The quality of our emotional and spiritual state creates the quality of the world around us. As we go, so goes the world. When we join together in common aim, nothing can stand before us.

Claim your power.

3/2/2017

No accident that symbol and cymbal are homophonic. When symbol sounds, reverberations transform. Symbols / Cymbals: Caduceus, Kabbalah, Jacob's Ladder, Cross, Star of David, Tao Sign, Infinite Circle. When deeply understood, stood under, experienced, merged with, then consciousness transforms.

2/28/17

3 a.m. or so
I was reading one of the passages from the Zohar, the one about Midnight, the time when God appears in the Garden of Eden to visit with all who are open. I felt Presence as I was reading. I finished the passage and sat quietly. The lights went off, total darkness, then back on again. The digital clock reset to midnight. Strong Presence and happy open heart.

2/25/17

Want to know what original sin is? (Now don't go climbing up on your high horse and stomping all around at the very mention of the two words. You can always do that later.) 

It is the separation of ourselves from the Interflow of Life Itself. We stand erect and proud and separate. This sets up a chain reaction where we have to do something about the Other. We have divided ourselves into Me and All That. All That has now become foreign. Love goes away and Fear-Anger-Anxiety move in.We have lost our Birth Right. We have sold it on the market of Separation. 

The good news is this separation can be overcome with Humility and Compassion, the two-fold formula for transformation

Humility: Becoming as Humus while not losing your sense of Humor. I was meeting with a Healing class on the Winnebago Reservation some time ago. We began by introducing ourselves. An older woman, grey-haired and with a sparkle in her eyes, said: Just call me Rag Bag. We laughed with understanding. 

Okay. You can get up on your high horse now if you wish but doing so is an example of Original Sin, the moving away from Humility and Compassion.

2/23/17

On reading "Ethnographic Sorcery" --
When I call metaphor what you call reality, I am being a colonial imperialist. I wish to colonize your consciousness with my truth claims. Of course, my reality is not metaphor at all.

(Understand political parties as ethnographic sorcery)

What you have faith in is what works for you.
In the '60s, I lost my faith in Christianity because the people I went to church with were so exclusionary. 

I opened to the humanists, in particular the transpersonal psychologists and to panentheism. 

Later, I opened to Christianity in its form taken by Pseudo-Dyonysius and by Meister Eckhart.

To understand another's belief system, you have to allow yourself to be converted to it. I did this several times a day as a psychotherapist. You keep your Ariadne's thread, of course, so you can emerge safely from the maze, or rather, the maze becomes diaphonous, is translucent to your understanding. You may wish to do the same for your own belief system. Hardened scales give way to wings.

Enter another person's reality and travel with them. Maintain your center while entering and opening.

2/16/17

My son asked me long ago why, as people get older, they tend to get more religious. As an older person, 75 in a few months, I think I can more adequately answer that question. It is not so much that I am more religious in the sense of church attendance unless by church is meant the realm of nature and the actions of daily life. I am more open to the spiritual realm because my mind is less entangled with the ways of the world. Sure, I know what is going on, but I am less attached to it. I am making a transition. I can feel my body letting go (though it is a good horse and seems to have some years left). 

I am fortunate in that my mind has been capacious most of my life. But now that capaciousness is more my abiding place than the worlds of daily human sociodrama. I am "in the world but not of the world." It is as if elders share a secret which is a secret only because it cannot be fully shared with younger persons as they flash past on their zip line of life.

I think older people get "more religious" or, in my terms, more spiritual or more capacious, because we are making a felt transition to other realms. We are shifting energies. We are "dying before we die" and are continuing opening our awareness that new adventures await.

Jan 5, 2017

All these books are as nothing compared to letting go of the Hive Mind and hive activity. All these actions are as nothing compared to letting go of Hive Action.

All this flashing glitter is as nothing when letting go of self enhancement. Even glimpses of yourself walking mindfully through the day, awake, aware, especially these glimpses, are so far off the mark you may as well be buried at sea.

***
Jacob's Ladder
Ascend: All names drop off
Descend: Names multiply

The divinization of the intelligence requires dropping off all names.

Notes 2017

Jan 1, 2017
What can I do for God before I leave this life?
God: Clean your room.
Laughter

The physical room and spiritual room interflow. As one is, so is the other. God, who speaks truth, also has a sense of humor. I love God. I will obey.

***
My Scofield Bible is in front of me. I bought it at the Baptist Book Store in Atlanta in 1957 and took it with me into the Marine Corps. I had not been initiated into the world of men. I had not been proved, been tested. I outdid them all physically. But I paid a price. I grew hardened -- resistant to anyone's will but my own. A two-edged sword.

No need to sit and stare at our willful mistakes of the past nor at our ignorance, our ignore-ance. All arises out of Now. "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God."

Forward. Always forward.

***
Body
"Weight underside" -- One of the Ki (Energy) principles taught by Aikido Sensei Koichi Tohei at our training camp in the summer of 1974 (Fullerton, California).

Stop holding yourself up. Settle down. Breathe sigh of relief, of release. Let go.

***
World of Matter (Sand) and World of Spirit (Rock)

The entire physical world, including your body, all that you see with your physical eyes, is the world of matter, is condensed spirit. It is sand, ever-shifting.

The physical body will eventually harden, like a scab, and fall away. What is left? What remains? That which has always been here. You.

***
"And he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways." Psalm 91:11 What is true for Jesus is true for the brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Angelology  Angelomorphosis

***
Hierarchy is also holoarchy

***
Shamanistic Epistemology

***
Interfaith Dialogue

***
Spiritual Detox -- A part of the Regeneration process where your sins have found you out. 
***
"Whenever Kazantzakis began a project, he first concluded the necessary research, amassing extensive notes and also recording. ideas for the future work's structure, characterization, and theme." -- Peter Bien "Tempted by Happiness"

***
This book invites us to focus on, to activate, and to operate out of our essence, our core, our soul. Rather than face the world with our personality self, the surface self, the mask (persona) that we have devised over time, the invitation is to open from the center of our being, to own and become the energetic sphere with no bounds that we are. 

Simple, clear, and practical instructions are given for doing so.

This move from personality self to soul self allows the dissolving of fear and anxiety. We are at home in the universe. With the opening of the soul self, room is made for wisdom and understanding. Blockage and confusion no longer hold sway. This book is easily read and enjoyable.

We live in three realms: the external, internal, and the Eternal. The external realm is the physical world. The internal realm is the spiritual. The Eternal realm is the Heavenly, the Wellspring, the All Inclusive. 

Placing hope in the external realm alone leads to despair. Opening and growing in the spiritual realm provides a strong base of operation for dealing with the external world. The spiritual realm cannot grow without opening to the Eternal. The Eternal is our Source of energy, of power, of expanding awareness. The Eternal is the All Giving Interflow of Love.

***
***
Ode to Toenails

I bow to thee,
my toenails freshly cut.
Once exuberant protuberances,
now forlorn, alone, shorn,
victims of some clip joint,
with naught but fading memories
of their fall, and legends of once belonging
to some Larger Body.

Monk

Feeling and living more like a monk these days, which is what I am anyway -- a solitary living in society. My struggle has always been to live in accord with The One Who Breathes Me And Births Me while tending to daily busy-ness. 

Two things have pushed me more out of the societal wrang dangle into this hermitage existence: the plague; my physical condition. With the first, I am on the "endangered species" list (age and surgery) so am supposed to avoid encounter. With the second, I cannot walk far without considerable pain. These are just statements of fact. Neither is my focus here.

Got shocked out of my gourd a few moments ago. In reading a biography of Thomas Merton (a monk who wrote "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander" among other works), I found that he thought he was old when he was in his early 50's, not long before his accidental death. And here I am, 82! Why, that young whippersnapper!

I am enjoying my monkhood, arising in the predawn, drinking a cup of coffee while reading whatever calls to me -- mostly Bible passages but often excerpts from other scriptures of the world. After daylight comes, I go outside, sit under the crabapple tree and enjoy the singing of the birds, the soft morning breeze, the first rays of the sun.

Thor's Day Evening

Early Morning Ruminations

Self Prediction

In learning the research methods of science as I was pursuing my doctorate in the late 60's (I was in my late 20's), I practiced the use of predictive equations. If I wished to predict X, I had to name and measure the variables that brought X into existence. For example, in my early research, I wanted to predict the degree of intimacy between any two people in conversation. The variables appeared to be amount of eye contact, voice tone, facial expression, physical distance, shoulder orientation, gestures, and so on. 

The task then was to measure the variables existing in different known levels of intimacy between a conversational pair. Which I did. Then to predict which of the three levels of nonverbal intimacy the pair belonged to. Which I did.

The same type of equation can be used to predict or describe the Self. Self = a + b squared - c + d cubed and so forth. Who are you? Let us say you are a Self, though we could just as easily, for these purposes, say you are an Oxymoron, a Wildebeest, or a Cinnamon Roll. It does not matter what we call you for purposes of depiction of your components but we have a certain degree of emotional investment in the word Self so let's use that.

What are the variables that make up the Self? EMOTION, of course. We could get into naming all the emotions but let's save that for later research. SELF TALK, both degree of self talk and quality of self talk. SELF FOCUS, degree of attention focused on self. OTHER FOCUS, degree of attention focused on others. This has to be divided into several variables: focus on claimed tribal members, focus on non-tribal members, focus on non-human life, focus on the planet, focus on the cosmos, focus on the Unseen, etc. PHYSICAL WELLBEING. And so on. You get the idea.

The equation would be Self = Emotion + Self Talk + Self Focus + Other Focus + Physical Wellbeing + Whatever Else Your Little Beanie Could Come Up With That Seems Relevant.

Who are we anyway? We describe ourselves on FB in ways that are glaringly obvious. It is easier in some ways to see who someone else is than who we are.

I will bet my bottom dollar (as the old expression goes) that none of us know who we are with scientific predictive equation certainty but we can flood FB with poetic phraseology of our circum stances (the circles around which we stand). We are ephemeral mists claiming a place in a particular schematic matrix of existence which we swear is Reality.

dear unborn kin

Dear Unborn Kin,

As you read this in the future, send your prayers back this way. We have a president who is clearly deranged. All his moves are made in self-adoration. He is a cesspool sinking in on itself. He is a boil on the butt of America.

He will not last.

Meanwhile, our local community is made up of people with open and caring hearts and the nerve to express their heart in daily action. There are many communities like us. We are the true America: people of all genetic and geographic backgrounds building a life together. 

Just as the roots of aspen trees form one large being underground while flourishing as individuals above, so is the American community and so are we. 

The spirit that we are will continue to flourish.

Your Loving Ancestor

synthronicity

Synthronicity (syn-throne-icity):Sitting on the same seat at the same time. Simultaneously sitting on each other's laps.

Being in a state of synthronicity with the Cosmos while sitting outside at the coffee shop yesterday, the image of a man I had not seen for over a year came into my mind. His presence was palpable. I wondered how he was doing. About ten minutes later, he came riding up on his bicycle and said hello. We sat and chatted for quite some time.

angel charge

"For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. Psalm 91:11

When we sign up for a forever tour of duty with the Cosmos, we get angel protection. Angels are personified Cosmos experienced in their endeavors of interflow between God and humans. Another name for an angel is messenger, one who bears light, healing, wisdom, and understanding. 

God has given angels a charge, an absorption of energy that is everlasting. Charge also means a responsibility. Angels are responsible (able to respond) for us humans in all our peculiarities, trials, and sufferings. Not an easy job. 

We can make the job of our angel easier by not resisting (re-cyst-ing: becoming a hard cyst again), by relaxing and opening to whatever situation, physical and spiritual, we are in. 

Opening to our angel brings great joy.

the show

No matter your belief (or deep knowing) of where it comes from, what births it, this Show is on the Road and will be played out through its various transformations. Each of us has a predestined/chosen role. Enjoy your part! Play it with gusto.

Word

Word

In the beginning was the Word
And the Word was with God
And the Word was God

And they said, spoke, worded
Let us make Man in our own image

Man means all genders
All genders were reflected
Genderflect

Words create images
Images produce words

We are word. We are creators of image.
Imagination. Magi. A Magi Nation.

We re-verb-earate.
We an-noun-ce.
We put ourselves in a predicate-ment.

We are subject to no one.
We are subject to all.
We object.

Word.

proverbs

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way,
before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, or ever the earth was." Proverbs 8: 22-23

I know that the "me" and the "I" in these two verses are traditionally interpreted as referring to the Messiah, to Wisdom, or to Jesus. I wish to suggest that it refers to us, to you and me.

With the Great Cosmic Unfolding which continues in the unfolding of this Now, the seeds of you and me were already included in this radiant outburst. We are surfing the wave of the Unfolding. We ARE the unfolding.

We were "set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." We are the current embodying of "the beginning of his way."

bubbles in the froth

We are bubbles in the froth at the edge of the speeding wave emerging from the ocean of now.

personification

You do not like it that I personify, give person to, the ongoing creative creation of the cosmos as God? Get over it. God personifies, gives person to, me. Turnabout is fair play.

the larger context

As a psychologist, I say that we cannot understand humans by roaming around inside their heads. We must understand the context and their relation to that context. This, of necessity, includes the Larger Context.

dead cats

Dear Unborn Kin, 

Decades ago I was driving across the rural South late at night and heard on the radio a preacher preaching about dead cats on the line. 

This seems to be what we have become today: two cats with tails tied to each end of a single rope tossed over a clothesline. They claw each other’s guts out. 

A graphic image but that old preacher had a point. We need justice but we also need compassion.

There are lots of belly scars in America today. I hope we are over this divisiveness by the time you are born.

Your Loving Ancestor

outside body

One thing I know for sure from my own experience: the mind exists outside the body.

mind

Given that the mind I am exists outside my body and the mind is in permeable relationship with all other minds, what is prayer for the healing of the body but an invitation and exhortation for Mind At Large to produce healing results?Faith is the assured belief that it can do so. Yet, it is also necessary to add: not my will but thine be done.

role models

In these times, we need Warriors of Spirit. We have examples, role models from the past. Seven come to me clearly this morning: Arjuna, Buddha, Teresa, Moses, Joan, Jesus, Mohammad. Whether or not you agree with them is beside the point. THEY WENT OUT THERE AND DID SOMETHING! 

We cannot wait for another messiah to appear today. As the familiar slogan says: WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. 

We can learn from the seven above (and others). We can and do embody their characteristics:

-- Reluctance-- Wu Wei-- Sacrifice-- Compassion -- Perseverance-- Origin-al-- Withdrawal

I will be writing about these seven and their seven characteristics for the next several months, then look to have it published. I will post on FB from time to time. In the meantime, make sense of it yourself. You do have Google, you know. 

Don't wait for me. It's time to act.

advancing age

Bobo: How do you feel about advancing age?
Tutu: Advancing where?
Bobo: Let's try it this way: how do you feel about growing older?
Tutu: Growing? It's more like shrinking.
Bobo: (Sigh) FEEL! FEEL! How do you FEEL about it?
Tutu: What was the question again?

three dimensions of reality

The World: The creation by humans based upon the lowest form of spiritual awareness primarily concerned with dense matter, its ownership, and its maneuvering. 

When Jesus' disciples were pressed about the paying of taxes, they came to him for guidance. He said, Give me a coin. (Evidently Jesus did not carry pocket change. He was interested in a different kind of change.) Someone flipped him one. He said, Whose image is on this coin? They said, Caesar's. He flipped it back and said, Give Caesar what is Caesar's, give God what is God's, and give me what is mine.

Three dimensions of reality: the world (Caesar's); the ORIGIN (that upon which no labels, no sticky notes can stick); the human (whose heart is open to the ORIGIN). 

Arranged in descending order (toward lower spiritual awareness), the three dimensions are (1) ORIGIN, (2) the ORIGIN aware human, (3) the world (humans obsessed with dense matter).

our energy field mind

The mind is the entire body and its energy field. The slab of meat in the head contributes but not near as much as the heart (which radiates 40 times more energy than the head slab). The heart and the head slab have a strong and active two-way connection with information continually flowing. Yet ALL parts of the body contribute to the energy field that we are, thus to our consciousness / awareness. Stub your toe and you will see what I mean.

Our energy field mind is in intimate connection with all other energy fields, from the submicroscopic to the metagalactic. When we release our hive mind thought helmets, we are immediately aware of this.

hive mind

Can humans form a hive mind? I suggest there are at least three hive minds in the U.S. -- the ConServe hive mind (who love to do service to a con), the LibTard hive mind (retarded liberals), and the ForgetYou! hive mind (who see themselves as fiercely independent). The three hive minds have their own publications, their own news outlets, their own sense of righteousness. Three hive minds of America! Except for you and me, of course, who are wise beyond our means.

salvation

The salvation of the human species depends upon each individual not having separative consciousness.

brain balls

They wanted to put a helmet on my mind, Mama. They wanted to castrate my brain. But I still have brain balls and I ride helmet free.

dung beetles

We humans are manifestations of the Hidden. Not knowing this or ignoring this, we push and shove the manifest into shapes suitable to satisfy our physical needs. If we stay at this level we are nothing more than advanced dung beetles.

rehearsal

If you rehearse a conversation you are to have in the future, a thought element in that rehearsal would consider itself to be separate and independent while it is actually in your mind. Similarly, as unfoldings of the Hidden, we perceive ourselves as separate and independent. Interflow is the true reality.

broadaxe

I perceive that in another lifetime, as a warrior, I was struck in the chest with a broadax, split open, and died. In this lifetime, I was split open with surgical instruments and my life prolonged.

dear unborn kin

Dear Unborn Kin,
Other people will try to weave you into their perception of reality. Do not fall for it. Keep on moving. You are a unique thought in the Mind of the Origin. Keep your Originality.
Your Ancestral Uncle

Cosmic Citizens

Cosmic Citizens

In my book, Embodying Spirit: The Inner Work of the Warrior, I point to the similarities among the martial arts, the spiritual arts, and the healing arts. Each of the three requires a certain mode of being of its practitioners. Here they are:

1. Centering
2. Opening
3. Surrender
4. Relentless Intent
5. Compassion
6. Mindfulness
7. Calm
8. Action

At the core of these practices is a letting go of self and opening to Self, the larger being we are. In the path of healing, in the path of the martial arts, in the path of the spiritual arts, the "little self" gets in the way. No one wants a daydreaming masseuse!

Today's world requires that we open beyond our restricted mind to our cosmic mind, beyond our restricted being to our cosmic being. Only then can we perform effectively in daily life. This is a process of letting go, of allowing Go!

Cosmic Citizen

Cosmic Citizen

"Citizen" may not be exactly the right word here, though it does contain both city and zen. "City" refers to the understanding and the lived experience that we are bound to humanity, to humanness. We are humanimals. "Zen" refers to boundless openness, that our awareness goes far beyond.

I bumped (delightfully) into the writings of Roberto Assagioli many years ago. A psychiatrist and the founder of Psychosynthesis, he had a simple exercise allowing us to unstick ourselves from three of our hardheaded identifications. Sit with each of these three statements until that statement becomes real:

I have a body and I am not my body.

I have emotions and I am not my emotions.

I have a mind and I am not my mind.

As we open to the deep understanding that we are not our body, not our emotions, not our mind, then who are we?

We do not have to rush to put descriptive words to ourselves but one answer is that we are the cosmos giving birth to itself. We are the cosmos embodying. As such, we can claim our place in the cosmos as cosmic citizens. 

We continue to have our feet on the concrete pavement of the physical and our hands in the doings of society, but we no longer identify with some constricted small self on which we ourselves and others around us may insist.

Our time is limited on this planet. We need to open to our larger selves. We are cosmic citizens.