In a front-page article that Madonna supposedly wrote for Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Madge talks about how her life was changed by a Jewish mystic who told her that "being rich and famous is not the end of the road, but only the beginning." Guess a lot of us aren't even allowed on the road at all, then. And apparently on a writing streak, she also wrote a song for ex Guy Ritchie, just after returning from London with Jesus Luz. Jennifer Love Hewitt is writing her own comic book. Donald Trump partied with Rihanna at Katy Perry's Hammerstein Ballroom show. Taylor Momsen supposedly didn't down tequila shots with Ed Westwick, Jessica Szohr, Matthew Settle, and Chace Crawford at her 16th-birthday bash at Hiro. Those close to Mischa Barton think it's too soon after her hospitalization for her to begin filming on the CW's The Beautiful Life, because, you know, playing a supermodel with a drug problem is going to be an exhausting stretch.
Official statement from Jude Law's rep: "Jude Law can confirm that, following a relationship last year, he has been advised that he is to be the father of a child due in the fall of this year." So, um, congratulations to him? Joe Jackson confirmed that Norwegian performer Omer Bhatti is, in fact, Michael Jackson's love child. While partying with his pregnant girlfriend at L.A.'s Playhouse, Mel Gibson burst into a brawl with a Life & Style reporter posing as a fan who took his picture, which ended in Gibson ripping the reporter's shirt and his security guard deleting the photo. Amy Winehouse's dad faked a heart attack and had his doctor tell Amy he was dying in an effort to (unsuccessfully) "shock her" out of her heroin addiction. Clearly brains run in the family.
Eliot Spitzer is throwing a fund-raiser at his and Silda's Fifth Avenue apartment for Cy Vance, who's vying for Manhattan D.A. At a screening of his new movie, Adam, Hugh Dancy wouldn't say when he and Claire Danes will marry, but Cindy Adams says it's going to be in the next few months. Meanwhile Heath Ledger's family showed up for their first movie since the actor's death, and even stayed for the after-party at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Jay-Z and Beyoncé picked up hair products at Ricky's on Sixth Avenue. Bruce Willis stopped into Babbo for a few drinks. Mets infielder Jose Reyes, who's been on the disabled list since May with an "injured hamstring", was spotted dancing into the wee hours with a slew of Latin ladies at Serie 56 in Washington Heights.
George Clooney's latest Italian model-companion is also a lap dancer. Ali Larter's getting hitched in Maine this weekend. Tony Romo used to meet up with other women at Jessica Simpson's concerts. Because that's where all the real catches hang out. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted over whiskey at 675 Bar. Twilight's Rachelle Lefevre is "stunned" that the studio would replace her character, Victoria, in the film's third installment, owing to her own scheduling conflicts. And during the CFDA's "town hall" meeting to discuss the fashion industry's steep price markdowns, Anna Wintour suggested implementing discounting ground rules that all the retailers could agree to. When Diane Von Furstenberg pointed out that that would be illegal, Wintour replied, "Is that something we can change? We have friends in the White House now."
By: Katie Goldsmith
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
Astrology and the Spiritual Path
Two things fill the heart with ever new and increasing awe and admiration: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. Immanuel Kant
>Astrology can be difficult to integrate into one’s spiritual life. It is easy to get caught up in the trivialized version of astrology we often see in quick-read takes on “glib Gemini” or “lazy Libra”…Talking about oneself as a “wild and crazy Aquarian” or a “deep, dark Scorpio” can be very self-limiting when there is so much more we can learn from seeing ourselves through the marvellous prism of Astrology. And nowadays, it is truly so easy to get into Astrology as both a passionate hobby and a spiritual art. It is a wonderful group thing too – friends can share a completely unique perspective on themselves and their families, and often find insights to heal or prevent relationship, career and other social or personal problems.
Astrology is indeed an art and science…despite what sceptics say, those who study Astrology with an open mind come away startled by the rich “coincidences” between what is in a person’s birth chart and the events and patterns which are in their life. As with Feng Shui, whether the theories are convincing or not, it is simply not rational to argue with the results! So while the sceptics talk, the huge business successes of our times continue to consult both astrologers and practitioners of Feng Shui, and the rest of us continue to heal the energy patterns of our homes, and find life-changing insights in our birth charts.
Astrology is not a religious or spiritual path as such, nor is it a psychological therapy by itself. However, the study of astrology can be a dynamic partner in both spiritual and psychological development. It provides a portal, a doorway, into an unfolding realm of self-knowledge. It can get our attention by its clear outlining of a problem area, and thus it helps us stop deluding ourselves. We can see why an avenue has never worked for us, what directions might be better, and face some home-truths along the way. So Astrology helps us grow up, really – and that is no small thing! It softens us up a bit, as self-knowledge tends to do. We become more open to truth in all spheres of life, and this helps us open up to things like forgiving someone, looking at things “from both sides now”, and seeing we might need some help – especially the grace of God – with some major areas of our life which a glance at the birth chart so often pinpoints.
Astrology is an excellent partner in one’s chosen spiritual path as a source of insight and inspiration. It starts by helping with Faith. Faith is a spiritual Gift – we cannot demand it, but we can work faithfully for it, and then one day, or one lifetime, it simply happens, and we will never look back. Astrology helps plow the earth of Life, helps us sow those seeds of self-knowlege and openness to the mysteries of God’s great universe. And then, one day, when the rains of God’s grace do come, our fields will suddenly bloom, and we will find Faith, where once there was stoney bare ground.
Astrology also helps us get to Faith by offering the very intriguing suggestion that our intuitions and reading of our lives are based in cosmic facts. At a certain point, the “coincidences” between what is in our birth chart and what is and has been going on in our life are too many to dismiss as pure chance. This is especially true when we consider that the birth chart arrives with us and does not get “doctored” along the way. Nor is it fair to suggest, as some might do, that a birth chart is self-fulfilling, that people try to live out the patterns they have been told exist in their birth chart. In my experience, most people never lay eyes on their birth chart till mid-life or later…and frankly, the knowledge required to read a chart, or even to remember what one is told about it in any detail, precludes such a suggestion.
>Astrology can be difficult to integrate into one’s spiritual life. It is easy to get caught up in the trivialized version of astrology we often see in quick-read takes on “glib Gemini” or “lazy Libra”…Talking about oneself as a “wild and crazy Aquarian” or a “deep, dark Scorpio” can be very self-limiting when there is so much more we can learn from seeing ourselves through the marvellous prism of Astrology. And nowadays, it is truly so easy to get into Astrology as both a passionate hobby and a spiritual art. It is a wonderful group thing too – friends can share a completely unique perspective on themselves and their families, and often find insights to heal or prevent relationship, career and other social or personal problems.Astrology is indeed an art and science…despite what sceptics say, those who study Astrology with an open mind come away startled by the rich “coincidences” between what is in a person’s birth chart and the events and patterns which are in their life. As with Feng Shui, whether the theories are convincing or not, it is simply not rational to argue with the results! So while the sceptics talk, the huge business successes of our times continue to consult both astrologers and practitioners of Feng Shui, and the rest of us continue to heal the energy patterns of our homes, and find life-changing insights in our birth charts.
Astrology is not a religious or spiritual path as such, nor is it a psychological therapy by itself. However, the study of astrology can be a dynamic partner in both spiritual and psychological development. It provides a portal, a doorway, into an unfolding realm of self-knowledge. It can get our attention by its clear outlining of a problem area, and thus it helps us stop deluding ourselves. We can see why an avenue has never worked for us, what directions might be better, and face some home-truths along the way. So Astrology helps us grow up, really – and that is no small thing! It softens us up a bit, as self-knowledge tends to do. We become more open to truth in all spheres of life, and this helps us open up to things like forgiving someone, looking at things “from both sides now”, and seeing we might need some help – especially the grace of God – with some major areas of our life which a glance at the birth chart so often pinpoints.
Astrology is an excellent partner in one’s chosen spiritual path as a source of insight and inspiration. It starts by helping with Faith. Faith is a spiritual Gift – we cannot demand it, but we can work faithfully for it, and then one day, or one lifetime, it simply happens, and we will never look back. Astrology helps plow the earth of Life, helps us sow those seeds of self-knowlege and openness to the mysteries of God’s great universe. And then, one day, when the rains of God’s grace do come, our fields will suddenly bloom, and we will find Faith, where once there was stoney bare ground.
Astrology also helps us get to Faith by offering the very intriguing suggestion that our intuitions and reading of our lives are based in cosmic facts. At a certain point, the “coincidences” between what is in our birth chart and what is and has been going on in our life are too many to dismiss as pure chance. This is especially true when we consider that the birth chart arrives with us and does not get “doctored” along the way. Nor is it fair to suggest, as some might do, that a birth chart is self-fulfilling, that people try to live out the patterns they have been told exist in their birth chart. In my experience, most people never lay eyes on their birth chart till mid-life or later…and frankly, the knowledge required to read a chart, or even to remember what one is told about it in any detail, precludes such a suggestion.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Looking for Spirituality in Political Action
Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action explores whether one person can make a difference in an age of global economic collapse, war, terrorism and mega-corporations. The movie takes filmaker Velcrow Ripper across the globe in an attempt to understand the relationship between activism and spirituality. What results is a beautiful and powerfully compelling film which sadly does not quite reach its full potential.
The film begins with stunningly gorgeous photography of the Oaxacan countryside in Mexico. Ripper's close friend and fellow documentarian Brad Will is covering the 2006 Oaxaca protests, a conflict which started between the government and teachers unions but quickly exploded into massive protests and riots.
As the government sends in riot police to control the crowds, Will catches a stray bullet and dies. Will's death is the catalyst which propels the film forward. Ripper takes the audience around the world, examining sites of social activism.
Beneath it all, he is on a journey of self-discovery, trying to ascertain his own spirituality and how this informs his activist zeal.
Fierce Light's scope is staggering. Ripper covers the history of the civil rights movement in America, disenfranchised social classes in India, the life of Ghandi, the history of apartheid and much more.
His most compelling material comes from Los Angeles, where a treasured urban green space faces demolition by encroaching developers. He interviews activists, politicians, artists and spiritual leaders from all different walks of life.
Many of these interviews are both intriguing and entertaining, offering relevant insights into the themes Ripper develops. Some, however, seem thrown in with little regard to content or context -- such as an interview with a great granddaughter of Ghandi who didn't have anything relevant to add to the film.
Fierce Light is an expertly filmed and produced documentary. Ripper's cinematography is often exceedingly beautiful. The film is edited well, effectively combining excellent footage with various stock materials. The soundtrack is approriate -- if forgettable -- and keeps the film moving at the proper pace.
The film's ordering, both spatially and chronologically, is occasionally schizophrenic, jumping from place to place with little logical progression. This is rather unavoidable, considering the huge array of infor- mation Ripper condensed into the film.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the piece was an exploration of Ripper's own spiritual life. The film briefly touches on his reluctance to accept any one established religion, yet this idea is rarely touched on after it is introduced. His attempt to address spirituality in a documentary about activism results in a lot of aimless discussion of new-age spirituality and Buddhism.
Those eagerly looking forward to a comprehensive examination of spirituality will find a lot of half-baked, pseudo-religious ideas that are never effectively woven into the film.
Ripper runs into the same problem when covering various activist causes. He addresses so much that he's hardly able to delve deeply into anything. Ripper would have done Fierce Light much justice had he narrowed his focus, favouring a more nuanced look at his various causes of interest.
Activists and the socially conscious will find a lot to like in this film. Those looking for an in-depth exploration of larger social and spiritual themes are going to leave the theatre unsatisfied.
By Joel Cummings
The film begins with stunningly gorgeous photography of the Oaxacan countryside in Mexico. Ripper's close friend and fellow documentarian Brad Will is covering the 2006 Oaxaca protests, a conflict which started between the government and teachers unions but quickly exploded into massive protests and riots.
As the government sends in riot police to control the crowds, Will catches a stray bullet and dies. Will's death is the catalyst which propels the film forward. Ripper takes the audience around the world, examining sites of social activism.
Beneath it all, he is on a journey of self-discovery, trying to ascertain his own spirituality and how this informs his activist zeal.
Fierce Light's scope is staggering. Ripper covers the history of the civil rights movement in America, disenfranchised social classes in India, the life of Ghandi, the history of apartheid and much more.
His most compelling material comes from Los Angeles, where a treasured urban green space faces demolition by encroaching developers. He interviews activists, politicians, artists and spiritual leaders from all different walks of life.
Many of these interviews are both intriguing and entertaining, offering relevant insights into the themes Ripper develops. Some, however, seem thrown in with little regard to content or context -- such as an interview with a great granddaughter of Ghandi who didn't have anything relevant to add to the film.
Fierce Light is an expertly filmed and produced documentary. Ripper's cinematography is often exceedingly beautiful. The film is edited well, effectively combining excellent footage with various stock materials. The soundtrack is approriate -- if forgettable -- and keeps the film moving at the proper pace.
The film's ordering, both spatially and chronologically, is occasionally schizophrenic, jumping from place to place with little logical progression. This is rather unavoidable, considering the huge array of infor- mation Ripper condensed into the film.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the piece was an exploration of Ripper's own spiritual life. The film briefly touches on his reluctance to accept any one established religion, yet this idea is rarely touched on after it is introduced. His attempt to address spirituality in a documentary about activism results in a lot of aimless discussion of new-age spirituality and Buddhism.
Those eagerly looking forward to a comprehensive examination of spirituality will find a lot of half-baked, pseudo-religious ideas that are never effectively woven into the film.
Ripper runs into the same problem when covering various activist causes. He addresses so much that he's hardly able to delve deeply into anything. Ripper would have done Fierce Light much justice had he narrowed his focus, favouring a more nuanced look at his various causes of interest.
Activists and the socially conscious will find a lot to like in this film. Those looking for an in-depth exploration of larger social and spiritual themes are going to leave the theatre unsatisfied.
By Joel Cummings
Monday, June 15, 2009
Spirituality theme of street festival
The African American Street Festival has used fellowship, friendship and fun to grow itself into the annual celebration that took place Saturday.
About 200 people gathered Saturday at the Clarksville Jaycees Building at Fairgrounds Park for the celebration organized by Progressive Citizen Advocates, where the smell of freshly cooked food, the sounds of gospel, hip hop and dance performances all were part of the day's activities.
Francesca Hayes, secretary for PCA, said the event has grown because of increased publicity and interest from the community.
"What happened was we got the word out," Hayes said, who also said the unity of local churches helped make the event a success.
Frank Washington, lead organizer for PCA, said this year's event took a more spiritual theme, but fun was being had by all.
"It's singing, dancing and good food all over the place," he said.
The celebration officially ends today at 4 p.m. at St. John's Missionary Baptist Church with a close-out worship.
The event began seven years ago with the intent of celebrating the emancipation of Tennessee slaves. While the emancipation is still a driving force behind the festival, it has grown to include friends, fun and the creation of fresh memories for those involved.
"It's getting bigger, and that's a good thing," Washington said.
About 200 people gathered Saturday at the Clarksville Jaycees Building at Fairgrounds Park for the celebration organized by Progressive Citizen Advocates, where the smell of freshly cooked food, the sounds of gospel, hip hop and dance performances all were part of the day's activities.
Francesca Hayes, secretary for PCA, said the event has grown because of increased publicity and interest from the community.
"What happened was we got the word out," Hayes said, who also said the unity of local churches helped make the event a success.
Frank Washington, lead organizer for PCA, said this year's event took a more spiritual theme, but fun was being had by all.
"It's singing, dancing and good food all over the place," he said.
The celebration officially ends today at 4 p.m. at St. John's Missionary Baptist Church with a close-out worship.
The event began seven years ago with the intent of celebrating the emancipation of Tennessee slaves. While the emancipation is still a driving force behind the festival, it has grown to include friends, fun and the creation of fresh memories for those involved.
"It's getting bigger, and that's a good thing," Washington said.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Calling all saviors
I was speaking with a close family member when the topic of religion and spirituality entered the scene. In explaining my beliefs I stated that I do believe Jesus to have been an amazing individual with a divine message of the truth that God lies within. I also stated that I don’t believe Jesus to be someone I need to call on as my savior in order to go to a place called heaven in the afterlife. After explaining this belief, I received the often-heard comment “well I may not be practicing [as a Christian] but I do still believe.”
If you’re New Thought and from a Christian background you may have experienced hearing similar statements. I have many family members–all of whom I love dearly–that have commented on my new spiritual status, and lack of personal savior, in one way or the other. To them it seems, if you don’t have Jesus the Christ as your personal savior, you don’t have anything at all.
So what are we to do then? Even in the Bible, where verses often seem contradictory, we are encouraged to “judge not, that ye be not judged” and to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” While both pieces of advice are logical and seem ideal, it often seems harder for humans to put into practice. The domination of Christianity seems to be so deeply woven into the framework of American society that anyone who dares to stray from this belief system is immediately discarded into the “going to hell” pile or is subjected to endless attempts to “save their soul”.
I honestly don’t believe that anyone should be condemned for their spiritual beliefs. I believe that we all connect with God the best way we know how. And that the very search to be closer to God, that commitment–in whatever form it takes–is to be celebrated and honored.
What do you think? Was Jesus just more in tune with his divine nature as a child of God than the rest of us? Or was Jesus a savior that we must accept and surrender to before we can truly make God happy?
Joy Brownridge
If you’re New Thought and from a Christian background you may have experienced hearing similar statements. I have many family members–all of whom I love dearly–that have commented on my new spiritual status, and lack of personal savior, in one way or the other. To them it seems, if you don’t have Jesus the Christ as your personal savior, you don’t have anything at all.
So what are we to do then? Even in the Bible, where verses often seem contradictory, we are encouraged to “judge not, that ye be not judged” and to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” While both pieces of advice are logical and seem ideal, it often seems harder for humans to put into practice. The domination of Christianity seems to be so deeply woven into the framework of American society that anyone who dares to stray from this belief system is immediately discarded into the “going to hell” pile or is subjected to endless attempts to “save their soul”.
I honestly don’t believe that anyone should be condemned for their spiritual beliefs. I believe that we all connect with God the best way we know how. And that the very search to be closer to God, that commitment–in whatever form it takes–is to be celebrated and honored.
What do you think? Was Jesus just more in tune with his divine nature as a child of God than the rest of us? Or was Jesus a savior that we must accept and surrender to before we can truly make God happy?
Joy Brownridge
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Your request is being processed... Jonathan Ellerby Jonathan Ellerby Author of Return to the Sacred, Spiritual Program Director for Canyon Ranch Hea
Have you heard of the www.thespiritualitysurvey.com? We are looking for answers. Why? Spirituality is one of those complicated fields of study in which there are as many questions as answers; as many charlatans as masters; as many practical dimensions as completely absurdities; and without a doubt, there is potentially as much hurt as help. Why then do we persist? Why does spirituality show up in all cultures since the very origins of humanity? Even in the most austere atheistic laboratory there is typically a cult of information and protocol that rivals the Catholic church in its religiosity and reality defining group worldview... that too (like it or not) is also a form of spirituality.
In a simplistic way, you could see spirituality as very closely aligned with "worldview" - its not just the beliefs and practices you profess or subscribe to - that might be your religion. Spirituality is the essential lens through which you see the world, it's the way you make meaning and how you feel about those universal questions of purpose, connection, and self-concept. Much like your physical nature, like it or not, we all have a spiritual nature. For example, whether you exercise and eat healthfully is your choice, but if you are reading this, then you are still undeniably a physical being as well. Whether you intentionally explore life's questions of meaning and self or not, you still have assumptions about those things that rule your every move. Is your spirituality intentional or reactive? Is it fear based, or purposefully grown? Does it matter to you or not?
Research shows that America has more obese people than any other country in the world and the problem is only getting worse. So we know that there is a neglect of the body. Is there a neglect of the spirit? The problem with a lot of the research, especially polls and surveys, is that they only show the results - a thin snapshot that tell us little to help reshape our assumptions or help us get out of the trouble we may be reporting. In recent years polls have shown that over 90% of Americans believe in some kind of a Higher Power, it also shows that fewer people are self-identifying as religious, and specifically that America is predominantly Christian but declining in numbers every year. Other studies and speculation shows that other traditions such as Islam and Buddhism and practices that may exist outside of traditions, like meditation and yoga, are all on the rise. So, what is truth?
Most interesting to me is the question: are we becoming more spiritual as a nation, driven by the intuitive heart and an inclusive worldview that seeks peace for all; or, are we still mostly a religious nation, bound to our faith, our communities, and our intent to capture and grow only our own piece of the world?
I regularly travel to speak about my book, run workshops, and do private counseling work. I work with thousands of people a year and more often than not when I ask people about their spiritual life, they choke. The first thing I hear is some guilty inventory of their relationship to their church or synagogue. They run through what their parents expect/ed of them (even if they are grandparents themselves) and then... then they tell me what they "really" feel. They often say things like, "I'm Christian, but I don't agree with everything in my church, I actually feel more spiritual than religious." Or they will say, "I'm Jewish" or "Hindu" and "its more of a culture than a religion to me, I read about and explore other traditions and philosophies - they all have something to offer."
Now, I am the first to note that maybe I just have a very refined self-selected group that I encounter. However, it does represent a sample of this nation and of this world. Looking to the media really hasn't been a help either, it seems just as biased a sample that we hear from. It's the extremes of religion and science that always seem to get the most air play, and I just don't think the extremes ever speak for the whole. What do you think?
I have created a simple survey to address the hidden truth about spirituality in America and the world today. It is only 4 questions, takes 1 minute to complete and requires no personal information. It is called "The Spirituality Survey" and you can participate at www.thespiritualitysurvey.com or at my website where there is a link to the survey www.returntothesacred.com - check it out, take part. There is nothing to lose, you might even learn something about yourself. If you like, spread the word, we want to hear from all walks of life. We are only interested in seeing what is true, not in proving an agenda.
What is the true American spirituality? Is there one?
By Jonathan Ellerby
In a simplistic way, you could see spirituality as very closely aligned with "worldview" - its not just the beliefs and practices you profess or subscribe to - that might be your religion. Spirituality is the essential lens through which you see the world, it's the way you make meaning and how you feel about those universal questions of purpose, connection, and self-concept. Much like your physical nature, like it or not, we all have a spiritual nature. For example, whether you exercise and eat healthfully is your choice, but if you are reading this, then you are still undeniably a physical being as well. Whether you intentionally explore life's questions of meaning and self or not, you still have assumptions about those things that rule your every move. Is your spirituality intentional or reactive? Is it fear based, or purposefully grown? Does it matter to you or not?
Research shows that America has more obese people than any other country in the world and the problem is only getting worse. So we know that there is a neglect of the body. Is there a neglect of the spirit? The problem with a lot of the research, especially polls and surveys, is that they only show the results - a thin snapshot that tell us little to help reshape our assumptions or help us get out of the trouble we may be reporting. In recent years polls have shown that over 90% of Americans believe in some kind of a Higher Power, it also shows that fewer people are self-identifying as religious, and specifically that America is predominantly Christian but declining in numbers every year. Other studies and speculation shows that other traditions such as Islam and Buddhism and practices that may exist outside of traditions, like meditation and yoga, are all on the rise. So, what is truth?
Most interesting to me is the question: are we becoming more spiritual as a nation, driven by the intuitive heart and an inclusive worldview that seeks peace for all; or, are we still mostly a religious nation, bound to our faith, our communities, and our intent to capture and grow only our own piece of the world?
I regularly travel to speak about my book, run workshops, and do private counseling work. I work with thousands of people a year and more often than not when I ask people about their spiritual life, they choke. The first thing I hear is some guilty inventory of their relationship to their church or synagogue. They run through what their parents expect/ed of them (even if they are grandparents themselves) and then... then they tell me what they "really" feel. They often say things like, "I'm Christian, but I don't agree with everything in my church, I actually feel more spiritual than religious." Or they will say, "I'm Jewish" or "Hindu" and "its more of a culture than a religion to me, I read about and explore other traditions and philosophies - they all have something to offer."
Now, I am the first to note that maybe I just have a very refined self-selected group that I encounter. However, it does represent a sample of this nation and of this world. Looking to the media really hasn't been a help either, it seems just as biased a sample that we hear from. It's the extremes of religion and science that always seem to get the most air play, and I just don't think the extremes ever speak for the whole. What do you think?
I have created a simple survey to address the hidden truth about spirituality in America and the world today. It is only 4 questions, takes 1 minute to complete and requires no personal information. It is called "The Spirituality Survey" and you can participate at www.thespiritualitysurvey.com or at my website where there is a link to the survey www.returntothesacred.com - check it out, take part. There is nothing to lose, you might even learn something about yourself. If you like, spread the word, we want to hear from all walks of life. We are only interested in seeing what is true, not in proving an agenda.
What is the true American spirituality? Is there one?
By Jonathan Ellerby
Friday, May 15, 2009
The punk rocker with 'industrial-strength spirituality'
If rockers were the cultural gurus of the sixties, and techies like Steve Jobs and Nicholas Negroponte were the nineties' watered-down version, documentary filmmakers may very well be emerging as the new prognosticators of where we're headed.
Velcrow Ripper, the 45-year-old filmmaker with the part-punk, part-New Age pseudonym who lives on the Toronto Islands, is a clear example. His widely praised 2004 documentary Scared Sacred, a tour of war-devastated lands, was intended to be less a documentary and more of a meditative piece and call to arms.
And so is his second film in a planned trilogy – Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. The new film takes Scared Sacred a step further by trying to get at the motivation for activism, examining how inward-focused spirituality can compel people to act outwardly, protesting against injustice and environmental degradation.
While filming Scared Sacred, Ripper found that what got people through horrific, wartime tragedy was a sense of personal meaning. “I witnessed it firsthand. Those who had a sense of meaning, whatever it was that gave them that, were the ones who survived. Those without any meaning were the ones who gave up,” he says.
“One of those sources of meaning was to take action, to actually try to stop what had happened to them from happening to anybody else. And I began to realize that the relationship between sources of meaning – a depth of understanding in one's inner life – and taking action to create change is a really harmonious thing. The spirit and the action, they go together really well. In fact, they are meant to go together.”
This kind of talk has made Ripper the doc community's version of a star. He gives lectures and conducts workshops to share his vision of spiritually conscious activism. Still, he rejects the idea that Fierce Light simply preaches to the choir. Instead, he deliberately lets emotions run high in the film to move audiences – even if not everyone agrees with its political assumptions.
“The theme of Fierce Light is about coming from the heart, as well as the head. It's going to be unsatisfying if you go to it looking for facts, facts, facts. The reason I did that is because the film is about soul force … what I call almost an industrial-strength spirituality.”
Yet Fierce Light doesn't aim for a kind of Chicken Soup for the Soul self-help airiness, nor does it reach transcendence like the 1979 documentary masterpiece Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy. Fierce Light never strays from its street-level, activist core.
The filmmaker, born Steve Ripper, grew up on British Columbia's idyllic Sunshine Coast and was raised in the Baha'i faith, which is based on the spiritual unity of all religions.
But even that was too confining for him. As a young punk rocker, he felt torn between spirituality and activism. At a hippie gathering, surrounded by kids called Feather and Crystal, someone gave him the nickname Velcrow, with an added “w” to lend a measure of mystique. (Velcrow's friends know him as Crow.)
“As I went along, it became clear in many activist circles that you had to stay in the closet as a spiritual person,” Ripper says. “Spirituality wasn't something that was part of the picture. There had been a real rejection of religion because of fundamentalism and the human-rights abuses done in the name of religion.”
However, something new is afoot, his films argue, and that's what Ripper is becoming a figurehead for: It's the interest, building for years now, among those on the left – an acknowledgment that spirituality seems to be at the heart of activism.
As Ripper adds: “My Facebook profile has a quote from Antony Hegarty, the New York musician, that says, ‘Hope and sincerity are the new punk.'”
GUY DIXON
Velcrow Ripper, the 45-year-old filmmaker with the part-punk, part-New Age pseudonym who lives on the Toronto Islands, is a clear example. His widely praised 2004 documentary Scared Sacred, a tour of war-devastated lands, was intended to be less a documentary and more of a meditative piece and call to arms.
And so is his second film in a planned trilogy – Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. The new film takes Scared Sacred a step further by trying to get at the motivation for activism, examining how inward-focused spirituality can compel people to act outwardly, protesting against injustice and environmental degradation.
While filming Scared Sacred, Ripper found that what got people through horrific, wartime tragedy was a sense of personal meaning. “I witnessed it firsthand. Those who had a sense of meaning, whatever it was that gave them that, were the ones who survived. Those without any meaning were the ones who gave up,” he says.
“One of those sources of meaning was to take action, to actually try to stop what had happened to them from happening to anybody else. And I began to realize that the relationship between sources of meaning – a depth of understanding in one's inner life – and taking action to create change is a really harmonious thing. The spirit and the action, they go together really well. In fact, they are meant to go together.”
This kind of talk has made Ripper the doc community's version of a star. He gives lectures and conducts workshops to share his vision of spiritually conscious activism. Still, he rejects the idea that Fierce Light simply preaches to the choir. Instead, he deliberately lets emotions run high in the film to move audiences – even if not everyone agrees with its political assumptions.
“The theme of Fierce Light is about coming from the heart, as well as the head. It's going to be unsatisfying if you go to it looking for facts, facts, facts. The reason I did that is because the film is about soul force … what I call almost an industrial-strength spirituality.”
Yet Fierce Light doesn't aim for a kind of Chicken Soup for the Soul self-help airiness, nor does it reach transcendence like the 1979 documentary masterpiece Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy. Fierce Light never strays from its street-level, activist core.
The filmmaker, born Steve Ripper, grew up on British Columbia's idyllic Sunshine Coast and was raised in the Baha'i faith, which is based on the spiritual unity of all religions.
But even that was too confining for him. As a young punk rocker, he felt torn between spirituality and activism. At a hippie gathering, surrounded by kids called Feather and Crystal, someone gave him the nickname Velcrow, with an added “w” to lend a measure of mystique. (Velcrow's friends know him as Crow.)
“As I went along, it became clear in many activist circles that you had to stay in the closet as a spiritual person,” Ripper says. “Spirituality wasn't something that was part of the picture. There had been a real rejection of religion because of fundamentalism and the human-rights abuses done in the name of religion.”
However, something new is afoot, his films argue, and that's what Ripper is becoming a figurehead for: It's the interest, building for years now, among those on the left – an acknowledgment that spirituality seems to be at the heart of activism.
As Ripper adds: “My Facebook profile has a quote from Antony Hegarty, the New York musician, that says, ‘Hope and sincerity are the new punk.'”
GUY DIXON
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Spirituality in the Cockpit
The title of this article alone is enough to scare off most helicopter pilots. And if it doesn't scare them away, it's going to remind them of those occasional moments of terror when even the non-believers among us seek divine intervention, “just this one time,” to save us from one folly or another. But the spirituality I have in mind is of a different sort.
I consider myself fortunate in many ways. One is that I've had the opportunity to move back and forth as the need has arisen between three different career paths: helicopter pilot, writer and healthcare professional. As my financial requirements have surged or waned; as the need to be closer to home for a period has arisen; or sometimes, as the mood has suited me, I've been able to move to or return from each of these career paths in my life. My current path is back in healthcare. But I am, at all times, a helicopter pilot.
I am currently employed by a large, faith-based hospital system and recently had the mandatory “opportunity” to attend a two-day Leadership Development Institute. One of the themes of the Institute was “Spirituality in the Workplace.” We discussed the meaning of spirituality and how it compared and contrasted with religion. Admittedly, these are not subjects often overheard in the pilot break room or during safety briefings. But I discovered a meaningful connection that touched me, and — since we're in that touchy-feely frame of mind — I thought I would share it with my flying brethren.
Spirituality vs. Religion
During our training sessions one morning, we divided into small discussion groups and pondered the meaning and relevance of spirituality. Here are some of the revelations that came forth:
• For those who are religious, religion — and a fundamental belief in God — is the foundation for one's spirituality. One's belief in God drives one's spirituality.
• It is very possible to be religious, yet not possess a molecule of spirituality (not a good thing).
• Comparably, it is possible to be spiritual, but not necessarily religious (not a bad thing).
Regarding those who fall into this last camp, questions arose as to the source of their spirituality: if not from “God,” then from where? In my extremely humble opinion, the “where” is nothing more but nothing less than the thread of shared humanity that links all of us, one to another.
Now you may have noticed that I've avoided any attempt to define “spirituality.” That is intentional — and, candidly, reflects a bit of cowardice on my part. Spirituality is not an easy word to define, particularly outside of the scope of religion. But to me, and most of the members of my group, spirituality refers to one's active role as a caring member of humanity: our interest in and willingness to play a role in the lives of others; our concern for the future of our species; and our ability to have empathy for others and to act on that empathy.
The Grand Canyon Experiment
OK, if you're starting to look around the room for someone to hug, relax. I'm about to start talking about helicopters again.
For several years, one of my flying jobs was working as a tour pilot in the Grand Canyon. While many young people see this job as a stepping stone to something grander and more prestigious, like ENG or EMS, I have to tell you: I loved that job and I felt privileged to be paid to fly a new jet aircraft over one of the most beautiful and inspiring places on earth. Now I was not paid much, I confess… but I was paid, nonetheless. Of course, there were those days — with 100-degree temperatures, 30-knot winds, and almost eight hours in the cockpit — when I found myself with too much of a good thing. But not a day went by that I didn't have moments of sheer joy and gratitude to be where I was, doing what I was doing.
The Grand Canyon tour business is highly federally regulated. Every passenger on every commercial trip over the Canyon is counted and only two real routes are approved: the “Short Tour” through the Dragon Corridor and the “Long Tour” through the Zuni Corridor. Though both are beautiful, the Long Tour offers pilot and passengers a magical, spiritual moment that is unsurpassed in any other place I've flown (including Hawaii and other mesmerizing locations). Let me attempt to describe it — though I think it is impossible to capture in words or pixels.
The official entry point to the Zuni Corridor requires that you fly tightly defined paths and altitudes from the airport for about 10 minutes before you reach the Canyon. The Canyon is over to your left, but because you are flying with departing aircraft immediately overhead, for much of this time you're just 100 feet over a forest. The Canyon remains invisible, below the tree line, except for a few tantalizing glimpses that make the tourists leap for their cameras just in time to see a brief snatch of red rock disappear beneath a carpet of pines.
As you get nearer to the launching point, the forest slopes gently uphill to your left and you begin a sweeping left turn, pointing your aircraft straight towards the Canyon, still unseen, in front of you. The forest slopes up towards the belly of your aircraft as you hold your altitude. Closer and closer you get to the treetops as you near the precipice. Finally, you suddenly launch into space as you go from 50 feet AGL over the trees, to one mile AGL over the Grand Canyon. The windscreen is simultaneously painted, from one end to the other, with the Canyon's reds, purples, oranges and browns.
It is a moment that takes your breath away. It is magical. And yes, it is spiritual for pilot and passenger alike. I have flown this moment nearly 1,000 times, and every single time, the hair on the back of my neck has stood up, driven by something bigger than me and something shared with those around me.
Cockpit as Laboratory
Now, back to my training session and spirituality discussion. As we began pondering this concept of spirituality, it occurred to me that for years, I spent every day in a spirituality laboratory. In my laboratory, my cockpit, I was able to repeat the same experiment over and over and observe the results. In fact, there may be some important information to be learned from these experiments and resulting observations.
My leaps out into the Grand Canyon were, in fact, a crucible in which was mixed mankind, incomparable beauty, excitement, power, and, for many, a touch of fear. The whole mixture was ignited by “the moment” and the result was a spiritual experience. While people's reactions varied widely from the humorous to the highly emotional, one could see patterns emerge:
Group 1
The walnuts. I'm sorry to say this, but there are some people in this world who just don't get it. I don't know whether it is a permanent disability (I suspect so, for many) or a temporal lapse, but this group is lacking something fundamental found in the rest of us. They are totally unmoved by the Grand Canyon moment, and in fact lack cognizance that the moment has occurred. They may be arguing with their spouse, yelling at their kids, or just cleaning their fingernails. But they don't get it. What a shame. I call these few the “walnuts” because in my characterization of their clinical condition, they have a void, about the size of a walnut, at that place in their brains that for most of us contains the nucleus of what makes us human. I do not say this unkindly, but with sadness and sympathy.
Group 2
The religious. For people with a fundamental belief in God, “the moment” confirms everything they ever thought they knew about their God and immediately brings them into his presence. They cry. They shout. They sing. They pray. The see the hand of their God at work in the Canyon and they are deeply moved by it. Even if you are not religious, it is meaningful and powerful to be in the presence of someone living this experience. There is no doubt in my mind that for many of the religious, the moment served as a renewal of their relationship with their God.
Group 3
The spiritual. For the spiritual, “the moment” appears no less moving and emotional than it does to the religious. It may be a sense that there is something larger than us at work in the universe or just a profound appreciation of beauty and majesty that is so much bigger than we are. It is something to be shared with those around you — and sharing is what links us spiritually together. For that moment, everyone in the cockpit is linked together. That in itself is very spiritual.
Group 4
The totally freaked out. Like Group 1: a minority. The best example of this group that I ever saw was a woman seated next to me who began to have an epiphany about what was going to happen to her about five seconds before we exploded into the Canyon. Totally involuntarily, her legs began running backwards, attempting to propel her into the back seats to postpone the inevitable. Alas, the harness prevented this from happening, and she leaped into the Canyon with the rest of us, screaming bloody murder. Her spirituality was in question at the moment.
OK, so where am I going with this whole idea? I'm not entirely sure. Except that for me, the whole thought process has given me a new appreciation for what we do. My helicopter has allowed me to share a spiritual moment with thousands of other spiritual beings. The net result: thousands of spiritual moments in my life that otherwise would not have occurred. How cool is that?
Other Cockpit Moments
As I began contemplating this idea a little more fully, I started to spot other moments in the cockpit where humanity and, perhaps, spirituality are revealed.
Think about the times you have been flying when you have found yourself approaching dangerous weather or IFR conditions, or have encountered a mechanical emergency. Your life was reduced — or perhaps elevated — to moments of complete clarity and focus. You were presented with a problem and you were entirely focused on the data, the options and the decision. You were living as much in the moment as it is possible to be. This is what living is about, and that is a spiritual experience. While these moments are not to be sought out (in fact, we are educated and trained to avoid them), when they do occur, we are transcended into a different state — perhaps, a form of spirituality.
What about instructing? As you take a new student through their introductory flight and watch them barely able to control any single element of the aircraft — but at the same time filled with excitement and awe with what they are doing — it is a powerful, perhaps spiritual experience. We have been there ourselves. As they continue with their training you get to learn much about them as you share the same space with them and observe them in the cockpit crucible. You see them angry. You see them frustrated. You see them scared. And you see them filled with joy: the first time they hover, their first solo. These are wonderful, spiritual moments that link us one to another.
To be honest with you, I've never had these thoughts before, let alone shared them. And yet, I knew there was something special about what I did and always felt fortunate to be doing it. It wasn't the money (God knows — for the religious among us). It wasn't just the fun. It wasn't just the excitement and the challenge. Perhaps all along, a part of it has been the spiritual nature of what we do. Fly safe. Fly aware.
Tony Fonze
I consider myself fortunate in many ways. One is that I've had the opportunity to move back and forth as the need has arisen between three different career paths: helicopter pilot, writer and healthcare professional. As my financial requirements have surged or waned; as the need to be closer to home for a period has arisen; or sometimes, as the mood has suited me, I've been able to move to or return from each of these career paths in my life. My current path is back in healthcare. But I am, at all times, a helicopter pilot.
I am currently employed by a large, faith-based hospital system and recently had the mandatory “opportunity” to attend a two-day Leadership Development Institute. One of the themes of the Institute was “Spirituality in the Workplace.” We discussed the meaning of spirituality and how it compared and contrasted with religion. Admittedly, these are not subjects often overheard in the pilot break room or during safety briefings. But I discovered a meaningful connection that touched me, and — since we're in that touchy-feely frame of mind — I thought I would share it with my flying brethren.
Spirituality vs. ReligionDuring our training sessions one morning, we divided into small discussion groups and pondered the meaning and relevance of spirituality. Here are some of the revelations that came forth:
• For those who are religious, religion — and a fundamental belief in God — is the foundation for one's spirituality. One's belief in God drives one's spirituality.
• It is very possible to be religious, yet not possess a molecule of spirituality (not a good thing).
• Comparably, it is possible to be spiritual, but not necessarily religious (not a bad thing).
Regarding those who fall into this last camp, questions arose as to the source of their spirituality: if not from “God,” then from where? In my extremely humble opinion, the “where” is nothing more but nothing less than the thread of shared humanity that links all of us, one to another.
Now you may have noticed that I've avoided any attempt to define “spirituality.” That is intentional — and, candidly, reflects a bit of cowardice on my part. Spirituality is not an easy word to define, particularly outside of the scope of religion. But to me, and most of the members of my group, spirituality refers to one's active role as a caring member of humanity: our interest in and willingness to play a role in the lives of others; our concern for the future of our species; and our ability to have empathy for others and to act on that empathy.
The Grand Canyon Experiment
OK, if you're starting to look around the room for someone to hug, relax. I'm about to start talking about helicopters again.
For several years, one of my flying jobs was working as a tour pilot in the Grand Canyon. While many young people see this job as a stepping stone to something grander and more prestigious, like ENG or EMS, I have to tell you: I loved that job and I felt privileged to be paid to fly a new jet aircraft over one of the most beautiful and inspiring places on earth. Now I was not paid much, I confess… but I was paid, nonetheless. Of course, there were those days — with 100-degree temperatures, 30-knot winds, and almost eight hours in the cockpit — when I found myself with too much of a good thing. But not a day went by that I didn't have moments of sheer joy and gratitude to be where I was, doing what I was doing.
The Grand Canyon tour business is highly federally regulated. Every passenger on every commercial trip over the Canyon is counted and only two real routes are approved: the “Short Tour” through the Dragon Corridor and the “Long Tour” through the Zuni Corridor. Though both are beautiful, the Long Tour offers pilot and passengers a magical, spiritual moment that is unsurpassed in any other place I've flown (including Hawaii and other mesmerizing locations). Let me attempt to describe it — though I think it is impossible to capture in words or pixels.
The official entry point to the Zuni Corridor requires that you fly tightly defined paths and altitudes from the airport for about 10 minutes before you reach the Canyon. The Canyon is over to your left, but because you are flying with departing aircraft immediately overhead, for much of this time you're just 100 feet over a forest. The Canyon remains invisible, below the tree line, except for a few tantalizing glimpses that make the tourists leap for their cameras just in time to see a brief snatch of red rock disappear beneath a carpet of pines.
As you get nearer to the launching point, the forest slopes gently uphill to your left and you begin a sweeping left turn, pointing your aircraft straight towards the Canyon, still unseen, in front of you. The forest slopes up towards the belly of your aircraft as you hold your altitude. Closer and closer you get to the treetops as you near the precipice. Finally, you suddenly launch into space as you go from 50 feet AGL over the trees, to one mile AGL over the Grand Canyon. The windscreen is simultaneously painted, from one end to the other, with the Canyon's reds, purples, oranges and browns.It is a moment that takes your breath away. It is magical. And yes, it is spiritual for pilot and passenger alike. I have flown this moment nearly 1,000 times, and every single time, the hair on the back of my neck has stood up, driven by something bigger than me and something shared with those around me.
Cockpit as Laboratory
Now, back to my training session and spirituality discussion. As we began pondering this concept of spirituality, it occurred to me that for years, I spent every day in a spirituality laboratory. In my laboratory, my cockpit, I was able to repeat the same experiment over and over and observe the results. In fact, there may be some important information to be learned from these experiments and resulting observations.
My leaps out into the Grand Canyon were, in fact, a crucible in which was mixed mankind, incomparable beauty, excitement, power, and, for many, a touch of fear. The whole mixture was ignited by “the moment” and the result was a spiritual experience. While people's reactions varied widely from the humorous to the highly emotional, one could see patterns emerge:
Group 1
The walnuts. I'm sorry to say this, but there are some people in this world who just don't get it. I don't know whether it is a permanent disability (I suspect so, for many) or a temporal lapse, but this group is lacking something fundamental found in the rest of us. They are totally unmoved by the Grand Canyon moment, and in fact lack cognizance that the moment has occurred. They may be arguing with their spouse, yelling at their kids, or just cleaning their fingernails. But they don't get it. What a shame. I call these few the “walnuts” because in my characterization of their clinical condition, they have a void, about the size of a walnut, at that place in their brains that for most of us contains the nucleus of what makes us human. I do not say this unkindly, but with sadness and sympathy.
Group 2
The religious. For people with a fundamental belief in God, “the moment” confirms everything they ever thought they knew about their God and immediately brings them into his presence. They cry. They shout. They sing. They pray. The see the hand of their God at work in the Canyon and they are deeply moved by it. Even if you are not religious, it is meaningful and powerful to be in the presence of someone living this experience. There is no doubt in my mind that for many of the religious, the moment served as a renewal of their relationship with their God.
Group 3
The spiritual. For the spiritual, “the moment” appears no less moving and emotional than it does to the religious. It may be a sense that there is something larger than us at work in the universe or just a profound appreciation of beauty and majesty that is so much bigger than we are. It is something to be shared with those around you — and sharing is what links us spiritually together. For that moment, everyone in the cockpit is linked together. That in itself is very spiritual.
Group 4
The totally freaked out. Like Group 1: a minority. The best example of this group that I ever saw was a woman seated next to me who began to have an epiphany about what was going to happen to her about five seconds before we exploded into the Canyon. Totally involuntarily, her legs began running backwards, attempting to propel her into the back seats to postpone the inevitable. Alas, the harness prevented this from happening, and she leaped into the Canyon with the rest of us, screaming bloody murder. Her spirituality was in question at the moment.
OK, so where am I going with this whole idea? I'm not entirely sure. Except that for me, the whole thought process has given me a new appreciation for what we do. My helicopter has allowed me to share a spiritual moment with thousands of other spiritual beings. The net result: thousands of spiritual moments in my life that otherwise would not have occurred. How cool is that?
Other Cockpit Moments
As I began contemplating this idea a little more fully, I started to spot other moments in the cockpit where humanity and, perhaps, spirituality are revealed.
Think about the times you have been flying when you have found yourself approaching dangerous weather or IFR conditions, or have encountered a mechanical emergency. Your life was reduced — or perhaps elevated — to moments of complete clarity and focus. You were presented with a problem and you were entirely focused on the data, the options and the decision. You were living as much in the moment as it is possible to be. This is what living is about, and that is a spiritual experience. While these moments are not to be sought out (in fact, we are educated and trained to avoid them), when they do occur, we are transcended into a different state — perhaps, a form of spirituality.
What about instructing? As you take a new student through their introductory flight and watch them barely able to control any single element of the aircraft — but at the same time filled with excitement and awe with what they are doing — it is a powerful, perhaps spiritual experience. We have been there ourselves. As they continue with their training you get to learn much about them as you share the same space with them and observe them in the cockpit crucible. You see them angry. You see them frustrated. You see them scared. And you see them filled with joy: the first time they hover, their first solo. These are wonderful, spiritual moments that link us one to another.
To be honest with you, I've never had these thoughts before, let alone shared them. And yet, I knew there was something special about what I did and always felt fortunate to be doing it. It wasn't the money (God knows — for the religious among us). It wasn't just the fun. It wasn't just the excitement and the challenge. Perhaps all along, a part of it has been the spiritual nature of what we do. Fly safe. Fly aware.
Tony Fonze
Monday, May 04, 2009
Spirituality in Britain today - a personal reflection
I write this as an observer of the culture, and as someone who is interested in the burgeoning of the multifaceted culture of spirituality, apparent in almost every area of life. This is a quick summation of the thoughts that have been running through my head following the ROMBS Conference last weekend.
Almost ten years agonow I was invited to be a part of a Christian group who placed stalls into Mind Body Soul exhibitions, at the time what we called New Age Spirituality was becoming a noticeable part of culture. This rise in a search for spirituality away from the mainstream religions ( or possibly because of them) reflected the cultural shift from modernity to post-modernity. Questions were being asked of the religion and its power bases and at the same time the search for spirituality was being spoken about in ways it had not been before, being a spiritual person was a good thing to be and topics that would have previously been taboo were suddenly firmly on the agenda.
For the following 5 years the Mind Body Soul exhibitions grew in popularity and attracted larger and larger crowds, to be spiritual said something really positive about you as a person. Supermarkets and advertisers were quick to catch on and products were marketed according to the experience they might give you rather than on a list of facts and figures, a spiritual experience was a plus.
In the subsequent 5 years something interesting began to happen, some of the big exhibitions were replaced by a proliferation of smaller ones, village halls and pubs became popular venues, I have even been asked to advise a schools on the subject of hosting spirituality fairs as fundraisers.
Spirituality is still firmly on the agenda, people are more open to speak about spiritual things and see spirituality as an essential part of being human. One thing that challenges me is the current readiness of folk to talk about Jesus in a positive manner, most recently this trend has been highlighted for us by Jade Goody and her statements about faith and baptism.
The question to the Church today is, are we ready to engage with the God who has gone before us, do we have eyes to see, and ears to hear where he is working so that we can join in?
Eternal Echoes
Almost ten years agonow I was invited to be a part of a Christian group who placed stalls into Mind Body Soul exhibitions, at the time what we called New Age Spirituality was becoming a noticeable part of culture. This rise in a search for spirituality away from the mainstream religions ( or possibly because of them) reflected the cultural shift from modernity to post-modernity. Questions were being asked of the religion and its power bases and at the same time the search for spirituality was being spoken about in ways it had not been before, being a spiritual person was a good thing to be and topics that would have previously been taboo were suddenly firmly on the agenda.
For the following 5 years the Mind Body Soul exhibitions grew in popularity and attracted larger and larger crowds, to be spiritual said something really positive about you as a person. Supermarkets and advertisers were quick to catch on and products were marketed according to the experience they might give you rather than on a list of facts and figures, a spiritual experience was a plus.
In the subsequent 5 years something interesting began to happen, some of the big exhibitions were replaced by a proliferation of smaller ones, village halls and pubs became popular venues, I have even been asked to advise a schools on the subject of hosting spirituality fairs as fundraisers.
Spirituality is still firmly on the agenda, people are more open to speak about spiritual things and see spirituality as an essential part of being human. One thing that challenges me is the current readiness of folk to talk about Jesus in a positive manner, most recently this trend has been highlighted for us by Jade Goody and her statements about faith and baptism.
The question to the Church today is, are we ready to engage with the God who has gone before us, do we have eyes to see, and ears to hear where he is working so that we can join in?
Eternal Echoes
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The Scientific and Spiritual Implications of Psychic Abilities
Since ancient times spiritual teachers have described paths and practices that a person could follow to achieve health, happiness, and peace of mind. Considerable recent research has indicated that any sort of spiritual practice is likely to improve ones prognosis for recovering from a serious illness. Many of these approaches to spirituality involve learning to quiet the mind, rather than adhering to a prescribed religious belief. These meditative paths would include all the mystic branches of Buddhism, Hinduism, mystical Christianity, Kabalistic Judaism, Sufism, and many others. What is hinted at in the subtext of these teachings is that as one learns to quiet his or her mind, one is likely to encounter psychic-seeming experiences or perceptions. For example, in The Sutras of Patanjali, the Hindu master tells us that on the way to transcendence we may experience all sorts of amazing visions, such as the ability to see into the distance, or into the future, the ability to diagnose illness, and to cure them. But, we are told not to get attached to these abilities they are mere phenomena standing as stumbling blocks on the path to enlightenment. In this paper we describe the laboratory evidence for some of these remarkable phenomena, and their implications for science, mental health, and peace of mind.
Introduction
What do the spiritual healer, the mystic, and the scientist all have in common They are all in touch with their interconnected mind as well as their community of spirit. As we move into the new millenium, in every area of human activity we are experiencing a climax in which science and religion are finally becoming coherent in the exclamation of a single unified truth. In my work with remote viewing research at Stanford Research Institute, we observed the in-flow of information that is the hallmark of psychic perception. We also saw an out-flow of intention that plays a part in facilitating distant healing. My purpose here is to show that the in-flow and the out-flow reside on either side of the quiet mind, and that self awareness can arise between these two flows. We have also noticed that narrowly focusing on phenomena, and the seeming omniscience available from ESP may be just a trap that prevents us from discovering who we really are, and what we should be doing. However, as we describe in The Heart of the Mind,1 we are confident that whenever any one person demonstrates an ability beyond the ordinary, it is can be seen as an inspiration to the rest of us, as an indication of an immense and still largely undeveloped human potential.
The scientific and spiritual implications of psychic abilities illuminate our observation that we live in a profoundly interconnected world. The most exciting research in quantum physics today is the investigation of what physicist David Bohm calls quantum-interconnectedness or non-local correlations. It has now been demonstrated repeatedly that quanta of light that are sent off in opposite directions at light speed, maintain their connection to one another, and that each little photon is affected by what happens to its twin, many kilometers away. This surprising coherence between distant entities is called non-locality. In writing on the philosophical implications of nonlocality, physicist Henry Stapp of the University of California at Berkeley says these quantum connections could be themost profound discovery in all of science.
Psychic abilities and remote viewing are demonstrations of our personal experience with such non-local connection in consciousness. Mind-to-mind connections give us expanded awareness, which is entirely consistent with life in a non-local world. Our knowledge of these remarkable abilities allows us to awaken each morning in wonder at the fact that our expanded awareness is not limited by either time or space. And it should have become clear to us by now that although we reside in bodies, there is more to us than skin and bones. Our quiet moments of self inquiry can reveal what thatmore is.
Remote Viewing
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) conducted investigations into the human mind's capacity for expanded awareness, also called remote viewing, in which people are able to envision distant places and future events and activities. For two decades SRI's research was supported by the CIA and other government agencies. I was co-founder of this once secret program which began in 1972. Our task was to learn to understand psychic abilities, and to use these abilities to gather information about the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We have found from years of experience that people can quickly learn to do remote viewing, and can frequently incorporate this direct knowing of the world-both present and future-into their lives.
For a phenomenon thought in many circles not to exist, we certainly know a great deal about how to increase and decrease ESPs accuracy and reliability. Remote viewers can often contact, experience and describe a hidden object, or a remote natural or architectural site, based on the presence of a cooperative person at the distant location, or when given geographical coordinates, or some other target demarcation-which we call an address. Shape, form and color are described much more reliably than the target's name, function, or other analytical information. In addition to vivid visual imagery, viewers sometimes describe associated feelings, sounds, smells and even electrical or magnetic fields. Blueprint accuracy has occasionally been achieved in these double-blind experiments, and reliability in a series can be as high as 80 per cent. For example, the authors recently achieved 11 hits out of 12 trials in such a series2 With practice, people become increasingly able to separate out the psychic signal from the mental noise of memory, analysis, and imagination. Targets and target details as small as 1 mm can be sensed. Moreover, again and again we have seen that accuracy and resolution of remote viewing targets are not sensitive to variations in distance. In 1984 I organized a pair of successful 10,000 mile remote viewing experiments between Moscow and San Francisco with famed Russian healer, Djuna Davitashvili. Djuna's task was to describe where our colleague would be hiding in San Francisco. She had to focus her attention ten thousand miles to the west, and two hours into the future to correctly describe his location. These experiments were performed under the auspices and control of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Ten years earlier, in 1974, my colleague Hal Puthoff and I carried out a demonstration of psychic abilities for the CIA in which Pat Price, a retired police commissioner, described the inside and outside of a secret Soviet weapons laboratory in the far reaches of Siberia given only the geographical coordinates of latitude and longitude for a reference. (That is, with no on- site cooperation.) This trial was such a stunning success that we were forced to undergo a formal Congressional investigation to determine if there had been a breach in National Security. Of course, none was ever found, and we were supported by the government for another fifteen years. As I sat with Price in these experiments at SRI, he made the sketch shown below right, to illustrate his mental impressions of a giant gantry crane that he psychically 'saw rolling back and forth over a building at the target site!
Above right is Pat Price's drawing of his psychic impressions of a gantry crane at the secret Soviet research and development site at Semipalatinsk, showing remarkable similarity to a later CIA drawing based on satellite photography shown at left. Note, for example, that both cranes have eight wheels.
Here is a CIA artist tracing of a satellite photograph of the Semipalatinsk target site. Such tracings were made by the CIA to conceal the accuracy of detail of satellite photography at that time.
Data from our formal and controlled SRI investigations were highly statistically significant (thousands of times greater than chance expectation), and have been published in the world's most prestigious journals, such as Nature, The Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and The Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences. 3 The twenty years of remote viewing research we conducted for the CIA is outlined in Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing, co-authored by Targ and Katra.4
One day, while we were working with Pat Price, he didnt arrive for the scheduled experiment. So, in the spirit ofthe show must go on, I spontaneously decided to undertake the remote viewing myself. Prior to that, I had been only an interviewer and facilitator for such trials. In this series we were trying to describe the day-to-day activities of Hal Puthoff as he traveled through Columbia, in South America. We would not receive any feedback until he returned, and I therefore had no clues at all as to what he was doing. I closed my eyes and immediately had an image of an island airport. The surprisingly accurate sketch I drew is shown below. What we learned from this trial, is that even a scientist can be psychic, when the necessity level is high enough.
Sketch produced by physicist Russell Targ, when he spontaneously took the role of remote viewer in the absence of psychic Pat Price.
This photograph shows the target, which was an airport on an island off San Andres, Columbia. Targ correctly saw, "Ocean at the end of a runway."
Recent research in areas as different as distant healing and quantum physics are in agreement with the oldest spiritual teachings of the sages of India, who taught that 'separation is an illusion. This concept suggests that there is no distance for consciousness, and we have an intuitive inner knowledge of time and space. In fact, we now know that information from the future regularly filters into our dreams one could fairly say that these precognitive dreams indicate that the future affects our past. That is, our dream tonight may sometimes be caused by an event which we will experience at a later time strongly violating our ordinary understanding of causality. In research by the authors, who are respectively a physicist and a spiritual healer, we have been exploring how our mind's ability to transcend the limits of space and time is linked to our now well-documented capacity for distant healing.
We do not yet know the physics underlying psychic abilities. But, researchers in the field of parapsychology agree on the undeniable observation that it is no more difficult to psychically describe a picture or an event in the near future, than it to describe such a target in the present, when it is hidden from view.5It is as though our bodies reside in the familiar four-dimensional geometry of Einstein's space-time, while our consciousness has access to another aspect of this geometry that allows us to find a mental path of zero distance to seemingly distant locations. This is how a physicist expresses such an idea, while mystics for the past three millennia tell us from their experience that 'separation is an illusion and we are all one in spirit, or consciousness. From experimentation in laboratories around the globe, it is clear that we significantly misapprehend the physical nature of the space-time in which we reside. It is this knowledge, together with our experience, that drives our passion to understand and learn more about the universe and the transformational opportunities offered us.
Joseph Campbell is famous for teaching that our lives are fulfilled only when wefollow our bliss or passion. For Thomas Aquinas this passion was pursued through conscious reasoning. He wrote that:
The ultimate human felicity is found in the operation of the intellect, since no desire carries us to such heights as the desire to understand the truth. Indeed all our desires for pleasure or for other things can be satisfied, but the desire to understand does not rest until it reaches God.
However, those who truly understand the truth of God tell us that God can not be understood only experienced.
Distant Mental Influence of Living Systems
More than thirty years of investigations clearly show that one person's thoughts can affect the physiological functioning of another, distant person. We do not yet understand the causal mechanism involved, but the results are indisputable, and have obvious implications for our ability to facilitate healing in others. We take for granted the calming effects that a mother's gentle cooing has on her distressed infant, not really thinking about the effects of her soothing intentions. How do we know that our thoughts affect others A significant body of research now exists demonstrating that one person's focused intentions can directly influence the physiological processes of someone far away.Do unto others as you would have them do unto you takes on new meaning when you realize we are all truly connected, as the following research studies show.
Exciting experiments in the area of Distant Mental Influence of Living Systems (DMILS) have been carried out by psychologist William Braud at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, and anthropologist Marilyn Schlitz, Research Director for the Institute of Noetic Sciences.6 They have repeatedly shown that if a person simply attends fully to a distant person whose physiological activity is being monitored, he or she (acting as a sender) can influence the distant person's autonomic galvanic skin responses. In four separate experiments involving 78 sessions, one person staring intently at a closed-circuit TV monitor image of a distant participant, influenced the remote person's electrodermal (GSR) responses. In these cases no techniques of intentional focusing or mental imaging were used by the influencer. He or she simply stared at the "staree's" image on the video screen during the thirty-second trials which were randomly interspersed with control periods.
In these studies, Braud and Schlitz discovered something even more interesting than this telepathically-induced effect on our unconscious system. They found that the most anxious and introverted people being stared at had the greatest magnitudes of unconscious electrodermal responses. In other words, the more shy and introverted people reacted with significantly more stress to being stared at than did the sociable and extroverted people. Quiet introverts may possess, or have developed, a sensitivity of consciousness that others are less aware of. This experiment gives scientific validation to the common human experience of feeling stared at and turning around to find that someone is, indeed, staring at you.
We are all familiar with the idea of premonition, in which one has an intuitive apprehension of something about to happen in the future usually somethingbad! There is also the experience of presentiment, wherein one has an inner sensation-a gut feeling that something strange is about to occur. An example would be for you to suddenly stop on your walk down the street because you feltuneasy, only to have a flower pot then fall off a window ledge and land at your feet instead of on your head. That, of course, would be a useful presentiment.
In the laboratory, we know that showing a frightening picture to a person produces a significant change in his or her physiology. Their blood pressure, heart rate, and skin resistance all change. This fight-or-flight reaction is called anorienting response. Researcher Dean Radin at the Boundary Institute, in Los Altos, California, has shown in his research that this orienting response is also observed in a person's physiology a few seconds before viewing the scary picture! If ESP were an electro-magnetic phenomenon, this would be called an advanced wave.
In balanced, double-blind experiments, Radin has demonstrated that just before viewing scenes of violence or sexuality, your body apparently reacts to defend itself against the oncoming insult or surprise. However, such strong anticipatory shock reactions did not precede the viewing of a picture of a wastebasket, or flower garden. Of course, fear is much easier to measure physiologically than bliss. Here, it seems, your direct physical perception of the shocking picture, when it occurs, causes you to have a unique-five seconds earlier-physical response. Your future is affecting your past. These intriguing experiments are also described in Radin's comprehensive book The Conscious Universe.
Distant Healing
From the dawn of history certain individuals have been recognized as possessing special healing gifts. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt viewed healers as revered advisors. And it was healers who actually founded the world's great religions: Gautama Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, and the prophet Muhammad were all gifted healers. The earliest Christians were primarily a healing community. And centuries before Jesus, the Hebrew prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah were acknowledged healers; and Moses is said to have healed many Israelites from serpent bites.
Medicine men and healing shamans throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas held some of most esteemed positions in their tribes. In contrast, the progression of Western thought has largely ignored the broad range of mind-to-mind healing that has worked in other cultures. With our reverence for Humanism and Reason, we have much to relearn about the role of consciousness in healing. Only now are we realizing the power of the mind to heal through the scientific method. In recent years, a number of pioneering experiments have explored the role one person's consciousness may have on another person's health.
In his 1993 book Healing Research, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Benor examined over 150 controlled studies from around the world. He reviewed psychic, mental, and spiritual healing experiments done on a variety of living organisms-enzymes, cell cultures, bacteria, yeasts, plants, animals, and humans. More than half of the studies demonstrate significant healing.8
An important study by Fred Sicher, Dr. Elisabeth Targ, and others was published in the December, 1998 issue of The Western Medical Journal describing healing research carried out at California Pacific Medical Center.9 It describes the positive therapeutic effects of distant healing on men with advanced AIDS.
In this mainstream medical journal the researchers defined non-local or distant healing as an act ofmentation intended to benefit another person's physical and/or emotional well-being at a distance; adding that,It has been found in some form in nearly every culture since prehistoric time. Their research hypothesized that an intensive ten-week distant healing intervention by experienced healers located around the U.S. would benefit the medical outcomes for a population of advanced AIDS patients in the San Francisco area.
The researchers performed two separate, randomized, double-blind studies: a pilot study involving twenty male subjects stratified by number of AIDS-defining illnesses, and a replication study of forty men carefully matched into pairs by age, T-cell count, and number of AIDS-defining illnesses. The participants conditions were assessed by psychometric testing and blood testing at enrollment, after the distant healing intervention, and six-months later, when physicians reviewed their medical charts.
In the pilot study, four of the ten control subjects died, while all of subjects in the treatment group survived. But this result was possibly confounded by unequal age distributions in the two groups.
In the replication study, men with AIDs were again recruited from the San Francisco Bay Area. They were told that they had a fifty-fifty chance of being in the treatment group, or the control group. All subjects were pair-matched for age, CD4 count, and AIDS defining diseases. Forty distant healers from all parts of the country took part in the study. Each of them had more than five years experience in their particular form of healing. They were from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Native American, and shamanic traditions, in addition to secularbio-energetic schools. Each subject in the healing group was treated by a total of ten different healers on a rotating healing schedule. Healers were asked to work on their assigned subject for approximately one hour per day for six consecutive days, with instructions todirect an intention of health and well-being to the subject they were attending to. None of the forty subjects in the study ever met the healers, nor did they or the experimenters know into which group anyone had been randomized.
By the mid-point of the study neither group of subjects was able to significantly guess whether or not they were in the healing condition. However, by the end of the study, there were many fewer opportunistic illnesses, allowing the healing group to be able to identify itself-with significant odds against chance. Since all subjects were being treated with Triple-Drug Therapy, there were no deaths in either group. The treatment group experienced significantly better medical and quality of life outcomes (odds of 100 to 1) on many quantitative measures, including fewer outpatient doctor visits (185 vs. 260); fewer days of hospitalization (10 vs. 68); less severe illnesses acquired during the study, as measured by illness severity scores (16 vs. 43); and significantly less emotional distress.
Dr. Targ concludes,Decreased hospital visits, fewer severe new diseases, and greatly improved subjective health supports the hypothesis of positive therapeutic effects of distant healing.
The editor of the journal introduced the paper thus:The paper published below is meant to advance science and debate. It has been reviewed, revised, and re-reviewed by nationally known experts in biostatistics, and complementary medicine. We have chosen to publish this provocative paper to stimulate other studies of distant healing, and other complementary practices and agents. It is time for more light, less dark, less heat.
Two other studies of distant healing have been published in prestigious medical journals. In 1988 Dr. Randolph Byrd published in The Southern Medical Journal a successful double-blind demonstration of distant healing. The study involved 393 of his cardiac patients, at San Francisco General Hospital.10 And in 1999, cardiologist William Harris of the University of Missouri in Kansas City, published a similar successful study with 990 heart patients. His paper appeared in The Archives of Internal Medicine.11
Scientists dont yet clearly understand how the mind-stuff of one's own intentions results in the contractions of one's muscles. It remains a mystery, how the invisible mind moves the physical body. But we do know now that it is more powerful than we previously thought. Twentieth century science has documented that our thoughts affect others that we are all interconnected through our consciousness. We arent even alone in experiencing the effects of our own thoughts!
We are actually already hooked up to the psychic Internet Jung'scollective unconscious. But the users are primarily those who have learned to stop their thoughts and rest their attention. They are tuning in to access and affect the exchange of information.
Why Would A Scientist Pray?
Today, many of us are searching for a comprehensible spirituality, one in which experience takes primacy over religious belief. It is evident that a person need not believe or take on faith anything about the existence of universal spirit, because the experience of God is a testable hypothesis, as we describe below. However, philosophical proof is not our purpose. Rather, we have become aware that this experience is available to anyone seeking a spiritual life who at the same time desires to remain a critical and discerning participant in the twenty-first century. We can include God in our lives without giving up our minds, if we can transcend our usual analytical thoughts and learn to become mindful. A scientist might pray, or search forthe peace which passes understanding as a way to experience the truth without conscious thought.
In his 1939 essay 'science and Religion, Albert Einstein suggested that we each have the potential for a greater awareness of truth than analysis alone can offer:Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends. But, the ultimate goal itself, and the longing to reach it, must come from another source.
Wisdom teachers throughout history have shown that the experience of God is possible without belonging to a church or following a religion, as long as one's basic motive is to discover truth. Dr. Herbert Benson recently proposed that we our bodies and our brains arehard-wired for God. By this he means that throughout the past twenty-five hundred years from Buddha, Jesus, and the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hassidic Judaism), to such poets as Rumi, Blake, and Emerson mystics have shared a common experience that is actually available to us all. In all the mystic paths, the experience of God is celebrated, rather than the belief in God, or the religious ritual. The Sufi poet Rumi shared his thoughts which arose after experiencing his own divinity:
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, Im sure of that,
And I intend to end up there.
Whenever we sit peacefully and quiet our mind, we have an opportunity to experience an oceanic connection with something outside our separate self. To many, that connection is experienced as an overpowering feeling of love, and it may well constitute part of our evolutionary process as a species.
This feeling of universal love, without any particular object, is often associated with the realization that we reside within an extended community of spirit enveloping all living beings. Such feelings of unbounded interconnected consciousness have been described by many as an experience of God. The gift of a quiet mind allows us to understand what it means to be in love, like being immersed in loving syrup, as contrasted with being in love with another person. It is possible to reside in love (or gratitude) as a way of life. This experience is the source of the often-heard expression thatGod is love, which in an ordinary context is easily dismissed as a simple clich, or worse, as not even comprehensible.
These oceanic, loving, peaceful experiences are examples of the compelling feeling ofoneness that mystics have been urging us to explore for millennia. Jesus called this state of awarenessthe peace that passes all understanding, and akingdom which is not of this world. Hindus call itbliss, or ananda. And Buddha called it a state ofno-mind, meaning the absence of thoughts disrupting awareness of indivisible unity.
This state is available to us now, while we reside in the world, whether or not we know or follow any religious teachings. Psychologist Joan Borysenko has written,When the heart is open, we overcome the illusion that we are separate from one another.
The Path Of Self Inquiry
Early in the twentieth century, two of the world's greatest logicians, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alfred Ayer attempted to describe the physics and metaphysics of what can be known about reality. These Logical Positivists proclaimed that nothing meaningful could be said about God, because no experiment could be designed to either prove or disprove (verify or falsify) whatever one might say. But, by the end of their lives, both Wittgenstein and Ayer were willing to seriously examine the idea that the experience of mystics might actually be considered data something observable in an experiment. In fact, in Wittgenstein's last book, On Certainty, he gave primacy to experience over theory. This pre-eminent logician tells us,The solution to the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.
For thousands of years, various wisdom teachers have presented a world view to all who will listen. They have described a 'sit down and be quiet practice that is available for all to observe and experience. They then invite us to examine our experience, and see if it corresponds with their teaching. Ultimately, this seems like an acceptably scientific, empirical approach to spirituality.
Thirty years ago national U.S. magazines proclaimed on their covers thatGod is dead. Today, we would say that God is neither alive nor dead, but rather manifesting as activity in consciousness-transcending and transforming one's ordinary awareness. God is an active personal experience rather than a distant entity in the sky. Our five familiar senses bring us data of the material world, while filtering out and limiting our exposure to the wider, transcendent world of active awareness available to the quiet mind. The direction of our attention is the most powerful tool we have to transform our lives.
After centuries of academic bombast, we are finally coming to recognize how tentative so-called scientific truth really is. In a scientific world increasingly governed by so-called laws ofindeterminacy (Werner Heisenberg) andnonlocality (John Bell) in physics andincompleteness (Kurt Gdel) in mathematics, we are beginning to find room for the experience of God.
Philosopher Ken Wilber makes this point with great force in his book Quantum Questions.12 He asserts convincingly that although physics will never explain spirituality, the spiritual realms may be explored by the scientific method:
The preposterous claim that all religious experience is private and noncommunicable is stopped dead by, to give only one example, the transmission of the Buddha's enlightenment all the way down to present-day Buddhist masters (which allows it to be experienced and discussed today).
Wilber describes three different, but equally valid, avenues of scientific empiricism: The eye of the flesh, which informs us about the world of our senses; the eye of the mind, which allows us access to mathematics, ideas, and logic; and the eye of contemplation, which is our window to the world of spiritual experience. None of these approaches suggest that we must embrace any body of dogma, or that we need to integrate Santa Claus into a scientific view of the modern world. They do, however, invite us to look beyond our thinking mind to discover who we are.
People everywhere are searching for ways to bring meaning into their stressful lives. Our days are filled with an increasing number of activities, and a decreasing amount of time in which to do them. We look for happiness through the acquisition of things. We want things, and we want them desperately. We want them now, and we want them to last forever. Despite owning more possessions than any people in history, despite our advanced learning, sophisticated communication and technological apparatus, our lives often seem overshadowed by feelings of isolation, despair, and powerlessness. And we feel this during the greatest period of prosperity and good health in history. We seem unable to change the course of our individual lives, our communities, or our environment, where life often seems hopelessly threatened. This frustration occurs because our wealth and all its distractions cannot substitute for what is really essential our ability to take control of our own minds, and investigate the source of our consciousness.
The Perennial Philosophy first described by Aldous Huxley is the thread of universal truth that permeates all the world's spiritual traditions. It teaches us that alongside the actions we take to improve our world, we also have the opportunity to experience either unity and peace, or isolation and fear. And from the ancient Hindu Vedas, as well as the contemporary teaching of A Course in Miracles, we learn that we give all the meaning there is, to everything we experience. While we cant always control the events around us, we do have power over how we experience those events. At any moment, we can individually and collectively affect the course of our lives by choosing to direct our attention to the aspect of ourselves which is aware - and through the practice of self inquiry, to awareness itself. We can ask,Who is aware and then,Who wants to know The choice of where we put our attention is ultimately our most powerful freedom. Our choice of attitude and focus affects not only our own perceptions and experiences, but also the experiences and behaviors of others. Spiritual teacher Gangaji, who points to the path of self-inquiry, reminds us that we arealready completely whole, totally free, and permanently at peace. She suggests that we are beings of consciousness, participating in what the authors would call non-local awareness. She writes:
What is choiceless is the truth of who you are. Choice lies in the mind's ability to either deny that truth or accept it That choice is free will. You are naturally consciousness You are naturally one with God. 13
Mahatma Gandhi taught thatThe only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. That is where the battles should be fought. Heaven and Hell are available for the asking, but no experience can take place in our lives except in our consciousness, and with our agreement. A master told his student:You dont have to look for God. God is here now. If you were ever here, you would see him.
We conclude that the scientific and spiritual implications of psychic abilities are evident in the continually unfolding mystery of the space-time in which we live. And a quiet mind has the opportunity for experiencing itself as love that is timeless, eternal, and unseparated by our bodies.
If one wishes to investigate this perennial experience, he or she can follow the suggestions offered by A Course in Miracles which, like the Vedas, teaches that walking with God is like surrendering to gratitude, or the experience of oneness that is available at all times. It is not talking about self-improvement, but rather self-realization. It has the following to say about the purpose of this surrender-and the life-changing power of transcendence packed into the simple-seeming idea thatI rest in God:
This thought will bring you the rest and quiet, peace and stillness, and the safety and happiness you seek. This thought has the power to wake the sleeping truth in you whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is. Here is the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will come to linger for a while. Completely undismayed, this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God.
Russell Targ and Jane Katra, Ph.D
Introduction
What do the spiritual healer, the mystic, and the scientist all have in common They are all in touch with their interconnected mind as well as their community of spirit. As we move into the new millenium, in every area of human activity we are experiencing a climax in which science and religion are finally becoming coherent in the exclamation of a single unified truth. In my work with remote viewing research at Stanford Research Institute, we observed the in-flow of information that is the hallmark of psychic perception. We also saw an out-flow of intention that plays a part in facilitating distant healing. My purpose here is to show that the in-flow and the out-flow reside on either side of the quiet mind, and that self awareness can arise between these two flows. We have also noticed that narrowly focusing on phenomena, and the seeming omniscience available from ESP may be just a trap that prevents us from discovering who we really are, and what we should be doing. However, as we describe in The Heart of the Mind,1 we are confident that whenever any one person demonstrates an ability beyond the ordinary, it is can be seen as an inspiration to the rest of us, as an indication of an immense and still largely undeveloped human potential.
The scientific and spiritual implications of psychic abilities illuminate our observation that we live in a profoundly interconnected world. The most exciting research in quantum physics today is the investigation of what physicist David Bohm calls quantum-interconnectedness or non-local correlations. It has now been demonstrated repeatedly that quanta of light that are sent off in opposite directions at light speed, maintain their connection to one another, and that each little photon is affected by what happens to its twin, many kilometers away. This surprising coherence between distant entities is called non-locality. In writing on the philosophical implications of nonlocality, physicist Henry Stapp of the University of California at Berkeley says these quantum connections could be themost profound discovery in all of science.
Psychic abilities and remote viewing are demonstrations of our personal experience with such non-local connection in consciousness. Mind-to-mind connections give us expanded awareness, which is entirely consistent with life in a non-local world. Our knowledge of these remarkable abilities allows us to awaken each morning in wonder at the fact that our expanded awareness is not limited by either time or space. And it should have become clear to us by now that although we reside in bodies, there is more to us than skin and bones. Our quiet moments of self inquiry can reveal what thatmore is.
Remote Viewing
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) conducted investigations into the human mind's capacity for expanded awareness, also called remote viewing, in which people are able to envision distant places and future events and activities. For two decades SRI's research was supported by the CIA and other government agencies. I was co-founder of this once secret program which began in 1972. Our task was to learn to understand psychic abilities, and to use these abilities to gather information about the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We have found from years of experience that people can quickly learn to do remote viewing, and can frequently incorporate this direct knowing of the world-both present and future-into their lives.
For a phenomenon thought in many circles not to exist, we certainly know a great deal about how to increase and decrease ESPs accuracy and reliability. Remote viewers can often contact, experience and describe a hidden object, or a remote natural or architectural site, based on the presence of a cooperative person at the distant location, or when given geographical coordinates, or some other target demarcation-which we call an address. Shape, form and color are described much more reliably than the target's name, function, or other analytical information. In addition to vivid visual imagery, viewers sometimes describe associated feelings, sounds, smells and even electrical or magnetic fields. Blueprint accuracy has occasionally been achieved in these double-blind experiments, and reliability in a series can be as high as 80 per cent. For example, the authors recently achieved 11 hits out of 12 trials in such a series2 With practice, people become increasingly able to separate out the psychic signal from the mental noise of memory, analysis, and imagination. Targets and target details as small as 1 mm can be sensed. Moreover, again and again we have seen that accuracy and resolution of remote viewing targets are not sensitive to variations in distance. In 1984 I organized a pair of successful 10,000 mile remote viewing experiments between Moscow and San Francisco with famed Russian healer, Djuna Davitashvili. Djuna's task was to describe where our colleague would be hiding in San Francisco. She had to focus her attention ten thousand miles to the west, and two hours into the future to correctly describe his location. These experiments were performed under the auspices and control of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Ten years earlier, in 1974, my colleague Hal Puthoff and I carried out a demonstration of psychic abilities for the CIA in which Pat Price, a retired police commissioner, described the inside and outside of a secret Soviet weapons laboratory in the far reaches of Siberia given only the geographical coordinates of latitude and longitude for a reference. (That is, with no on- site cooperation.) This trial was such a stunning success that we were forced to undergo a formal Congressional investigation to determine if there had been a breach in National Security. Of course, none was ever found, and we were supported by the government for another fifteen years. As I sat with Price in these experiments at SRI, he made the sketch shown below right, to illustrate his mental impressions of a giant gantry crane that he psychically 'saw rolling back and forth over a building at the target site!
Above right is Pat Price's drawing of his psychic impressions of a gantry crane at the secret Soviet research and development site at Semipalatinsk, showing remarkable similarity to a later CIA drawing based on satellite photography shown at left. Note, for example, that both cranes have eight wheels.
Here is a CIA artist tracing of a satellite photograph of the Semipalatinsk target site. Such tracings were made by the CIA to conceal the accuracy of detail of satellite photography at that time.
Data from our formal and controlled SRI investigations were highly statistically significant (thousands of times greater than chance expectation), and have been published in the world's most prestigious journals, such as Nature, The Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and The Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences. 3 The twenty years of remote viewing research we conducted for the CIA is outlined in Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing, co-authored by Targ and Katra.4
One day, while we were working with Pat Price, he didnt arrive for the scheduled experiment. So, in the spirit ofthe show must go on, I spontaneously decided to undertake the remote viewing myself. Prior to that, I had been only an interviewer and facilitator for such trials. In this series we were trying to describe the day-to-day activities of Hal Puthoff as he traveled through Columbia, in South America. We would not receive any feedback until he returned, and I therefore had no clues at all as to what he was doing. I closed my eyes and immediately had an image of an island airport. The surprisingly accurate sketch I drew is shown below. What we learned from this trial, is that even a scientist can be psychic, when the necessity level is high enough.
Sketch produced by physicist Russell Targ, when he spontaneously took the role of remote viewer in the absence of psychic Pat Price.
This photograph shows the target, which was an airport on an island off San Andres, Columbia. Targ correctly saw, "Ocean at the end of a runway."
Recent research in areas as different as distant healing and quantum physics are in agreement with the oldest spiritual teachings of the sages of India, who taught that 'separation is an illusion. This concept suggests that there is no distance for consciousness, and we have an intuitive inner knowledge of time and space. In fact, we now know that information from the future regularly filters into our dreams one could fairly say that these precognitive dreams indicate that the future affects our past. That is, our dream tonight may sometimes be caused by an event which we will experience at a later time strongly violating our ordinary understanding of causality. In research by the authors, who are respectively a physicist and a spiritual healer, we have been exploring how our mind's ability to transcend the limits of space and time is linked to our now well-documented capacity for distant healing.
We do not yet know the physics underlying psychic abilities. But, researchers in the field of parapsychology agree on the undeniable observation that it is no more difficult to psychically describe a picture or an event in the near future, than it to describe such a target in the present, when it is hidden from view.5It is as though our bodies reside in the familiar four-dimensional geometry of Einstein's space-time, while our consciousness has access to another aspect of this geometry that allows us to find a mental path of zero distance to seemingly distant locations. This is how a physicist expresses such an idea, while mystics for the past three millennia tell us from their experience that 'separation is an illusion and we are all one in spirit, or consciousness. From experimentation in laboratories around the globe, it is clear that we significantly misapprehend the physical nature of the space-time in which we reside. It is this knowledge, together with our experience, that drives our passion to understand and learn more about the universe and the transformational opportunities offered us.
Joseph Campbell is famous for teaching that our lives are fulfilled only when wefollow our bliss or passion. For Thomas Aquinas this passion was pursued through conscious reasoning. He wrote that:
The ultimate human felicity is found in the operation of the intellect, since no desire carries us to such heights as the desire to understand the truth. Indeed all our desires for pleasure or for other things can be satisfied, but the desire to understand does not rest until it reaches God.
However, those who truly understand the truth of God tell us that God can not be understood only experienced.
Distant Mental Influence of Living Systems
More than thirty years of investigations clearly show that one person's thoughts can affect the physiological functioning of another, distant person. We do not yet understand the causal mechanism involved, but the results are indisputable, and have obvious implications for our ability to facilitate healing in others. We take for granted the calming effects that a mother's gentle cooing has on her distressed infant, not really thinking about the effects of her soothing intentions. How do we know that our thoughts affect others A significant body of research now exists demonstrating that one person's focused intentions can directly influence the physiological processes of someone far away.Do unto others as you would have them do unto you takes on new meaning when you realize we are all truly connected, as the following research studies show.
Exciting experiments in the area of Distant Mental Influence of Living Systems (DMILS) have been carried out by psychologist William Braud at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, and anthropologist Marilyn Schlitz, Research Director for the Institute of Noetic Sciences.6 They have repeatedly shown that if a person simply attends fully to a distant person whose physiological activity is being monitored, he or she (acting as a sender) can influence the distant person's autonomic galvanic skin responses. In four separate experiments involving 78 sessions, one person staring intently at a closed-circuit TV monitor image of a distant participant, influenced the remote person's electrodermal (GSR) responses. In these cases no techniques of intentional focusing or mental imaging were used by the influencer. He or she simply stared at the "staree's" image on the video screen during the thirty-second trials which were randomly interspersed with control periods.
In these studies, Braud and Schlitz discovered something even more interesting than this telepathically-induced effect on our unconscious system. They found that the most anxious and introverted people being stared at had the greatest magnitudes of unconscious electrodermal responses. In other words, the more shy and introverted people reacted with significantly more stress to being stared at than did the sociable and extroverted people. Quiet introverts may possess, or have developed, a sensitivity of consciousness that others are less aware of. This experiment gives scientific validation to the common human experience of feeling stared at and turning around to find that someone is, indeed, staring at you.
We are all familiar with the idea of premonition, in which one has an intuitive apprehension of something about to happen in the future usually somethingbad! There is also the experience of presentiment, wherein one has an inner sensation-a gut feeling that something strange is about to occur. An example would be for you to suddenly stop on your walk down the street because you feltuneasy, only to have a flower pot then fall off a window ledge and land at your feet instead of on your head. That, of course, would be a useful presentiment.
In the laboratory, we know that showing a frightening picture to a person produces a significant change in his or her physiology. Their blood pressure, heart rate, and skin resistance all change. This fight-or-flight reaction is called anorienting response. Researcher Dean Radin at the Boundary Institute, in Los Altos, California, has shown in his research that this orienting response is also observed in a person's physiology a few seconds before viewing the scary picture! If ESP were an electro-magnetic phenomenon, this would be called an advanced wave.
In balanced, double-blind experiments, Radin has demonstrated that just before viewing scenes of violence or sexuality, your body apparently reacts to defend itself against the oncoming insult or surprise. However, such strong anticipatory shock reactions did not precede the viewing of a picture of a wastebasket, or flower garden. Of course, fear is much easier to measure physiologically than bliss. Here, it seems, your direct physical perception of the shocking picture, when it occurs, causes you to have a unique-five seconds earlier-physical response. Your future is affecting your past. These intriguing experiments are also described in Radin's comprehensive book The Conscious Universe.
Distant Healing
From the dawn of history certain individuals have been recognized as possessing special healing gifts. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt viewed healers as revered advisors. And it was healers who actually founded the world's great religions: Gautama Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, and the prophet Muhammad were all gifted healers. The earliest Christians were primarily a healing community. And centuries before Jesus, the Hebrew prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah were acknowledged healers; and Moses is said to have healed many Israelites from serpent bites.
Medicine men and healing shamans throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas held some of most esteemed positions in their tribes. In contrast, the progression of Western thought has largely ignored the broad range of mind-to-mind healing that has worked in other cultures. With our reverence for Humanism and Reason, we have much to relearn about the role of consciousness in healing. Only now are we realizing the power of the mind to heal through the scientific method. In recent years, a number of pioneering experiments have explored the role one person's consciousness may have on another person's health.
In his 1993 book Healing Research, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Benor examined over 150 controlled studies from around the world. He reviewed psychic, mental, and spiritual healing experiments done on a variety of living organisms-enzymes, cell cultures, bacteria, yeasts, plants, animals, and humans. More than half of the studies demonstrate significant healing.8
An important study by Fred Sicher, Dr. Elisabeth Targ, and others was published in the December, 1998 issue of The Western Medical Journal describing healing research carried out at California Pacific Medical Center.9 It describes the positive therapeutic effects of distant healing on men with advanced AIDS.
In this mainstream medical journal the researchers defined non-local or distant healing as an act ofmentation intended to benefit another person's physical and/or emotional well-being at a distance; adding that,It has been found in some form in nearly every culture since prehistoric time. Their research hypothesized that an intensive ten-week distant healing intervention by experienced healers located around the U.S. would benefit the medical outcomes for a population of advanced AIDS patients in the San Francisco area.
The researchers performed two separate, randomized, double-blind studies: a pilot study involving twenty male subjects stratified by number of AIDS-defining illnesses, and a replication study of forty men carefully matched into pairs by age, T-cell count, and number of AIDS-defining illnesses. The participants conditions were assessed by psychometric testing and blood testing at enrollment, after the distant healing intervention, and six-months later, when physicians reviewed their medical charts.
In the pilot study, four of the ten control subjects died, while all of subjects in the treatment group survived. But this result was possibly confounded by unequal age distributions in the two groups.
In the replication study, men with AIDs were again recruited from the San Francisco Bay Area. They were told that they had a fifty-fifty chance of being in the treatment group, or the control group. All subjects were pair-matched for age, CD4 count, and AIDS defining diseases. Forty distant healers from all parts of the country took part in the study. Each of them had more than five years experience in their particular form of healing. They were from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Native American, and shamanic traditions, in addition to secularbio-energetic schools. Each subject in the healing group was treated by a total of ten different healers on a rotating healing schedule. Healers were asked to work on their assigned subject for approximately one hour per day for six consecutive days, with instructions todirect an intention of health and well-being to the subject they were attending to. None of the forty subjects in the study ever met the healers, nor did they or the experimenters know into which group anyone had been randomized.
By the mid-point of the study neither group of subjects was able to significantly guess whether or not they were in the healing condition. However, by the end of the study, there were many fewer opportunistic illnesses, allowing the healing group to be able to identify itself-with significant odds against chance. Since all subjects were being treated with Triple-Drug Therapy, there were no deaths in either group. The treatment group experienced significantly better medical and quality of life outcomes (odds of 100 to 1) on many quantitative measures, including fewer outpatient doctor visits (185 vs. 260); fewer days of hospitalization (10 vs. 68); less severe illnesses acquired during the study, as measured by illness severity scores (16 vs. 43); and significantly less emotional distress.
Dr. Targ concludes,Decreased hospital visits, fewer severe new diseases, and greatly improved subjective health supports the hypothesis of positive therapeutic effects of distant healing.
The editor of the journal introduced the paper thus:The paper published below is meant to advance science and debate. It has been reviewed, revised, and re-reviewed by nationally known experts in biostatistics, and complementary medicine. We have chosen to publish this provocative paper to stimulate other studies of distant healing, and other complementary practices and agents. It is time for more light, less dark, less heat.
Two other studies of distant healing have been published in prestigious medical journals. In 1988 Dr. Randolph Byrd published in The Southern Medical Journal a successful double-blind demonstration of distant healing. The study involved 393 of his cardiac patients, at San Francisco General Hospital.10 And in 1999, cardiologist William Harris of the University of Missouri in Kansas City, published a similar successful study with 990 heart patients. His paper appeared in The Archives of Internal Medicine.11
Scientists dont yet clearly understand how the mind-stuff of one's own intentions results in the contractions of one's muscles. It remains a mystery, how the invisible mind moves the physical body. But we do know now that it is more powerful than we previously thought. Twentieth century science has documented that our thoughts affect others that we are all interconnected through our consciousness. We arent even alone in experiencing the effects of our own thoughts!
We are actually already hooked up to the psychic Internet Jung'scollective unconscious. But the users are primarily those who have learned to stop their thoughts and rest their attention. They are tuning in to access and affect the exchange of information.
Why Would A Scientist Pray?
Today, many of us are searching for a comprehensible spirituality, one in which experience takes primacy over religious belief. It is evident that a person need not believe or take on faith anything about the existence of universal spirit, because the experience of God is a testable hypothesis, as we describe below. However, philosophical proof is not our purpose. Rather, we have become aware that this experience is available to anyone seeking a spiritual life who at the same time desires to remain a critical and discerning participant in the twenty-first century. We can include God in our lives without giving up our minds, if we can transcend our usual analytical thoughts and learn to become mindful. A scientist might pray, or search forthe peace which passes understanding as a way to experience the truth without conscious thought.
In his 1939 essay 'science and Religion, Albert Einstein suggested that we each have the potential for a greater awareness of truth than analysis alone can offer:Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends. But, the ultimate goal itself, and the longing to reach it, must come from another source.
Wisdom teachers throughout history have shown that the experience of God is possible without belonging to a church or following a religion, as long as one's basic motive is to discover truth. Dr. Herbert Benson recently proposed that we our bodies and our brains arehard-wired for God. By this he means that throughout the past twenty-five hundred years from Buddha, Jesus, and the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hassidic Judaism), to such poets as Rumi, Blake, and Emerson mystics have shared a common experience that is actually available to us all. In all the mystic paths, the experience of God is celebrated, rather than the belief in God, or the religious ritual. The Sufi poet Rumi shared his thoughts which arose after experiencing his own divinity:
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, Im sure of that,
And I intend to end up there.
Whenever we sit peacefully and quiet our mind, we have an opportunity to experience an oceanic connection with something outside our separate self. To many, that connection is experienced as an overpowering feeling of love, and it may well constitute part of our evolutionary process as a species.
This feeling of universal love, without any particular object, is often associated with the realization that we reside within an extended community of spirit enveloping all living beings. Such feelings of unbounded interconnected consciousness have been described by many as an experience of God. The gift of a quiet mind allows us to understand what it means to be in love, like being immersed in loving syrup, as contrasted with being in love with another person. It is possible to reside in love (or gratitude) as a way of life. This experience is the source of the often-heard expression thatGod is love, which in an ordinary context is easily dismissed as a simple clich, or worse, as not even comprehensible.
These oceanic, loving, peaceful experiences are examples of the compelling feeling ofoneness that mystics have been urging us to explore for millennia. Jesus called this state of awarenessthe peace that passes all understanding, and akingdom which is not of this world. Hindus call itbliss, or ananda. And Buddha called it a state ofno-mind, meaning the absence of thoughts disrupting awareness of indivisible unity.
This state is available to us now, while we reside in the world, whether or not we know or follow any religious teachings. Psychologist Joan Borysenko has written,When the heart is open, we overcome the illusion that we are separate from one another.
The Path Of Self Inquiry
Early in the twentieth century, two of the world's greatest logicians, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alfred Ayer attempted to describe the physics and metaphysics of what can be known about reality. These Logical Positivists proclaimed that nothing meaningful could be said about God, because no experiment could be designed to either prove or disprove (verify or falsify) whatever one might say. But, by the end of their lives, both Wittgenstein and Ayer were willing to seriously examine the idea that the experience of mystics might actually be considered data something observable in an experiment. In fact, in Wittgenstein's last book, On Certainty, he gave primacy to experience over theory. This pre-eminent logician tells us,The solution to the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.
For thousands of years, various wisdom teachers have presented a world view to all who will listen. They have described a 'sit down and be quiet practice that is available for all to observe and experience. They then invite us to examine our experience, and see if it corresponds with their teaching. Ultimately, this seems like an acceptably scientific, empirical approach to spirituality.
Thirty years ago national U.S. magazines proclaimed on their covers thatGod is dead. Today, we would say that God is neither alive nor dead, but rather manifesting as activity in consciousness-transcending and transforming one's ordinary awareness. God is an active personal experience rather than a distant entity in the sky. Our five familiar senses bring us data of the material world, while filtering out and limiting our exposure to the wider, transcendent world of active awareness available to the quiet mind. The direction of our attention is the most powerful tool we have to transform our lives.
After centuries of academic bombast, we are finally coming to recognize how tentative so-called scientific truth really is. In a scientific world increasingly governed by so-called laws ofindeterminacy (Werner Heisenberg) andnonlocality (John Bell) in physics andincompleteness (Kurt Gdel) in mathematics, we are beginning to find room for the experience of God.
Philosopher Ken Wilber makes this point with great force in his book Quantum Questions.12 He asserts convincingly that although physics will never explain spirituality, the spiritual realms may be explored by the scientific method:
The preposterous claim that all religious experience is private and noncommunicable is stopped dead by, to give only one example, the transmission of the Buddha's enlightenment all the way down to present-day Buddhist masters (which allows it to be experienced and discussed today).
Wilber describes three different, but equally valid, avenues of scientific empiricism: The eye of the flesh, which informs us about the world of our senses; the eye of the mind, which allows us access to mathematics, ideas, and logic; and the eye of contemplation, which is our window to the world of spiritual experience. None of these approaches suggest that we must embrace any body of dogma, or that we need to integrate Santa Claus into a scientific view of the modern world. They do, however, invite us to look beyond our thinking mind to discover who we are.
People everywhere are searching for ways to bring meaning into their stressful lives. Our days are filled with an increasing number of activities, and a decreasing amount of time in which to do them. We look for happiness through the acquisition of things. We want things, and we want them desperately. We want them now, and we want them to last forever. Despite owning more possessions than any people in history, despite our advanced learning, sophisticated communication and technological apparatus, our lives often seem overshadowed by feelings of isolation, despair, and powerlessness. And we feel this during the greatest period of prosperity and good health in history. We seem unable to change the course of our individual lives, our communities, or our environment, where life often seems hopelessly threatened. This frustration occurs because our wealth and all its distractions cannot substitute for what is really essential our ability to take control of our own minds, and investigate the source of our consciousness.
The Perennial Philosophy first described by Aldous Huxley is the thread of universal truth that permeates all the world's spiritual traditions. It teaches us that alongside the actions we take to improve our world, we also have the opportunity to experience either unity and peace, or isolation and fear. And from the ancient Hindu Vedas, as well as the contemporary teaching of A Course in Miracles, we learn that we give all the meaning there is, to everything we experience. While we cant always control the events around us, we do have power over how we experience those events. At any moment, we can individually and collectively affect the course of our lives by choosing to direct our attention to the aspect of ourselves which is aware - and through the practice of self inquiry, to awareness itself. We can ask,Who is aware and then,Who wants to know The choice of where we put our attention is ultimately our most powerful freedom. Our choice of attitude and focus affects not only our own perceptions and experiences, but also the experiences and behaviors of others. Spiritual teacher Gangaji, who points to the path of self-inquiry, reminds us that we arealready completely whole, totally free, and permanently at peace. She suggests that we are beings of consciousness, participating in what the authors would call non-local awareness. She writes:
What is choiceless is the truth of who you are. Choice lies in the mind's ability to either deny that truth or accept it That choice is free will. You are naturally consciousness You are naturally one with God. 13
Mahatma Gandhi taught thatThe only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. That is where the battles should be fought. Heaven and Hell are available for the asking, but no experience can take place in our lives except in our consciousness, and with our agreement. A master told his student:You dont have to look for God. God is here now. If you were ever here, you would see him.
We conclude that the scientific and spiritual implications of psychic abilities are evident in the continually unfolding mystery of the space-time in which we live. And a quiet mind has the opportunity for experiencing itself as love that is timeless, eternal, and unseparated by our bodies.
If one wishes to investigate this perennial experience, he or she can follow the suggestions offered by A Course in Miracles which, like the Vedas, teaches that walking with God is like surrendering to gratitude, or the experience of oneness that is available at all times. It is not talking about self-improvement, but rather self-realization. It has the following to say about the purpose of this surrender-and the life-changing power of transcendence packed into the simple-seeming idea thatI rest in God:
This thought will bring you the rest and quiet, peace and stillness, and the safety and happiness you seek. This thought has the power to wake the sleeping truth in you whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is. Here is the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will come to linger for a while. Completely undismayed, this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God.
Russell Targ and Jane Katra, Ph.D
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A Selection of Spiritual Journeys
From the tops of Machu Picchu, to the rose-red rock of Petra’s canyon-like Siq, to the divinely-inspired churches of northern Ethiopia, there are plenty of places on earth that inspire. If you’re looking for a holiday with a spiritual element, here are a few suggestions:
Korean retreat
Live like a monk at the Lotus Lantern International Meditation Centre. Located two hours from Seoul, this 12-year-old Buddhist temple was designed for foreigners looking to study the religious philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Visitors sleep on traditional Korean cots, wake up at the crack of dawn (3:45 a.m., to be exact), slip into itchy grey training suits, eat simple food, wash their own dishes and meditate many times a day.
Sun rise in Namibia
Bordering South Africa and Botswana, Namibia is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the desert, and where rich wildlife and traditional African culture meet some of the world’s most stunning sunrises. A popular tourist activity is climbing up Dune 45, one of Namibia’s many natural sand castles. The hike along the ridge isn’t easy, but it’s all worthwhile when you see the sun’s warm, orange light illuminate the 80-million-year-old Namib Desert.
Get enlightened in India
Rishikesh, a holy city in northern India, is a place many travellers go to find themselves. It’s a wildly popular spot on the banks of the Ganges River that draws Hindu pilgrims, new-age hippies, young Israeli backpackers and wise Babas who spend their days in the lotus position. Located some 200 kilometres from Delhi, this self-proclaimed yoga capital of the world is packed with meditation centres, ashrams, Ayurvedic massage parlours, vegetarian restaurants and spiritual communities. With its nightly ceremonies along the river and vibe of collective spirituality, there’s something magical about Rishikesh.
Fountain of youth
For a look at the cradle of Incan civilization and a taste of her sacred waters, head to Isla del Sol on the shores of Bolivia’s sacred Lake Titicaca. On the south end of the island, walk up 200 steps to a sacred spring that’s said to be the fountain of youth. A sip of the water is not only refreshing, it’s an important part of Incan tradition. Lake Titicaca is also the highest navigable body of water in world — which means you may have difficulty differentiating between your own spiritual enlightenment and good old-fashion altitude sickness.
By Julia Dimon
Korean retreat
Live like a monk at the Lotus Lantern International Meditation Centre. Located two hours from Seoul, this 12-year-old Buddhist temple was designed for foreigners looking to study the religious philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Visitors sleep on traditional Korean cots, wake up at the crack of dawn (3:45 a.m., to be exact), slip into itchy grey training suits, eat simple food, wash their own dishes and meditate many times a day.
Sun rise in Namibia
Bordering South Africa and Botswana, Namibia is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the desert, and where rich wildlife and traditional African culture meet some of the world’s most stunning sunrises. A popular tourist activity is climbing up Dune 45, one of Namibia’s many natural sand castles. The hike along the ridge isn’t easy, but it’s all worthwhile when you see the sun’s warm, orange light illuminate the 80-million-year-old Namib Desert.
Get enlightened in India
Rishikesh, a holy city in northern India, is a place many travellers go to find themselves. It’s a wildly popular spot on the banks of the Ganges River that draws Hindu pilgrims, new-age hippies, young Israeli backpackers and wise Babas who spend their days in the lotus position. Located some 200 kilometres from Delhi, this self-proclaimed yoga capital of the world is packed with meditation centres, ashrams, Ayurvedic massage parlours, vegetarian restaurants and spiritual communities. With its nightly ceremonies along the river and vibe of collective spirituality, there’s something magical about Rishikesh.
Fountain of youth
For a look at the cradle of Incan civilization and a taste of her sacred waters, head to Isla del Sol on the shores of Bolivia’s sacred Lake Titicaca. On the south end of the island, walk up 200 steps to a sacred spring that’s said to be the fountain of youth. A sip of the water is not only refreshing, it’s an important part of Incan tradition. Lake Titicaca is also the highest navigable body of water in world — which means you may have difficulty differentiating between your own spiritual enlightenment and good old-fashion altitude sickness.
By Julia Dimon
Talk on Sustainability and Spirituality at College
Stony Brook Southampton will continue its Sustainability Speaker Series on Tuesday, April 28, with a talk and drumming session led by professor, shaman and environmental activist Peter Maniscalco in the Duke Lecture Hall at 7 p.m.
Mr. Maniscalco’s topic will be “Environmental Studies, Science, and Spirituality,” and he will address the separation of human nature and Mother Nature and the effect on climate change. The presentation will also include a “shamanic drumming” experience outside the hall, weather permitting. The event is free and open to the public.
Mr. Maniscalco is among the many people working to achieve environmental sustainability who believe that the various environmental issues we face today are symptoms of a far deeper, spiritual issue. He has studied and experienced shamanic ceremonies in the U.S., Mexico, and in the Amazon jungle, where he gained insight on how to become a responsible member of the Earth community.
Based on his years of experiential learning with shamans, Mr. Maniscalco created a course that he taught for seven years at Southampton College, “Spirituality of the Environment.” He taught other environmental classes and also served as the college’s first Environmental Coordinator. The Manorville resident is a Rutgers University graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics and city planning; he is currently a master’s degree candidate.
From 27 East
Mr. Maniscalco’s topic will be “Environmental Studies, Science, and Spirituality,” and he will address the separation of human nature and Mother Nature and the effect on climate change. The presentation will also include a “shamanic drumming” experience outside the hall, weather permitting. The event is free and open to the public.
Mr. Maniscalco is among the many people working to achieve environmental sustainability who believe that the various environmental issues we face today are symptoms of a far deeper, spiritual issue. He has studied and experienced shamanic ceremonies in the U.S., Mexico, and in the Amazon jungle, where he gained insight on how to become a responsible member of the Earth community.
Based on his years of experiential learning with shamans, Mr. Maniscalco created a course that he taught for seven years at Southampton College, “Spirituality of the Environment.” He taught other environmental classes and also served as the college’s first Environmental Coordinator. The Manorville resident is a Rutgers University graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics and city planning; he is currently a master’s degree candidate.
From 27 East
Friday, April 10, 2009
Blessing for the Sun
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Yesterday Jews around the world got up at dawn to recite the Birkat HaHamma, a Blessing for the Sun, a prayer of gratitude to the God that created, well, everything. It happens every 28 years when the sun returns to the point in the sky where, according to the Talmud, God placed it at the moment of creation. As the first rays of sun appear on the horizon, they pray:
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God and God of all the universe, who makes all things in creation.
This year was especially meaningful as the day ended with the beginning of Passover.
We have forgotten the sacredness of these natural cycles; we have forgotten how to pray the Earth. Every religious tradition has at its roots a worship of the presence of the sacred within the unfolding of creation and all its dynamisms — the sun and the moon (oh, did you see that full moon last night!?!?!), the winds and tides, the changing seasons, the four directions, the heavens and the Earth, the planting and the harvests. That we have forgotten these roots is not a sign of our advanced intellect, or the triumph of the rational mind, of science and modernity, over primitive being, but rather a sign of our spiritual impoverishment and false alienation from our true nature — as beings embedded within the Earth and cosmos.
In the pale beauty of the moon’s glow across the early evening sky as it rose from the east, in the western sky Orion was setting, the dog star Sirius following close behind, herald of the emerging spring, a last thrilling dance in the night as it slowly disappears from view, a constellation of the daylight hours from now until August when it will again rise in the eastern sky.
Do we pray these things? Why in the world would God make this creation of such magnificence and beauty if it was not to be observed and honored, to fill us with awe and delight, to get us up in the early morning to address the dawn, “Blessed are You, Adonai, God of all the universe!”
Whether or not one believes in a God who made the world, or sees the evolution of the cosmos as an expression of a Presence within all that is, not apart or separate from it, or does not believe in God at all but sees the cosmos itself as enough to incite reverence and awe — the problem comes when one experiences none of these things, does not SEE creation and does not care, or, worse, looks upon creation as something at the service of the human — as our western traditions so often do…
…because that alienation invites the abuse of creation which we see all around us, along with the results of the abuse in our poor, battered, depleted planet.
Today I read that John Holdren, Prez Obama’s science advisor and a brilliant scientist on climate and other things, is considering shooting cooling pollutants into the atmosphere in a desperate attempt to stop runaway global warming.
And I am stricken again by another sign of all that is wrong with us — we would rather further alter the chemical makeup of the atmosphere (geoengineering, a term that fills me with dread) in a grand experiment whose results we cannot possibly know beforehand, than do the hard work of reorganizing how we live on the planet. We would rather get the economy we know going again, with the same basic patterns of planetary abuse, using engineering to continue undoing the planet’s ecosystems (as we have the rivers and ocean shores and wetlands and soils and genetically altered plants and animals) then do the hard and holy work of learning how to live within the balance and limits of the ecosystems that made all this vibrant life — and us — possible.
So, again, it’s spring. It is a sacred time in the spiritual lives of human beings across the planet. It is a time for renewal and rebirth in that beautiful cycle of life in which we are privileged to participate. However you honor your religious traditions, or if you have none to honor, honor this blessed creation. Reinvigorate within your spirits a sense of your intimate connections with all that is — feel the sense of creation’s energies within your own being, but also all that is being destroyed by our human hubris — because we cannot separate ourselves from that either. As we are aspects of the creation story, both are happening to us.
We can lose the beauty, we really can. It is happening. If we can restore the intimacy of our connections with the natural world, we just might find the passion to save that world before it is altered beyond recognition, beyond that which has for millennia inspired worship and poetry and all that is best in the human spirit.
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Yesterday Jews around the world got up at dawn to recite the Birkat HaHamma, a Blessing for the Sun, a prayer of gratitude to the God that created, well, everything. It happens every 28 years when the sun returns to the point in the sky where, according to the Talmud, God placed it at the moment of creation. As the first rays of sun appear on the horizon, they pray:
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God and God of all the universe, who makes all things in creation.
This year was especially meaningful as the day ended with the beginning of Passover.
We have forgotten the sacredness of these natural cycles; we have forgotten how to pray the Earth. Every religious tradition has at its roots a worship of the presence of the sacred within the unfolding of creation and all its dynamisms — the sun and the moon (oh, did you see that full moon last night!?!?!), the winds and tides, the changing seasons, the four directions, the heavens and the Earth, the planting and the harvests. That we have forgotten these roots is not a sign of our advanced intellect, or the triumph of the rational mind, of science and modernity, over primitive being, but rather a sign of our spiritual impoverishment and false alienation from our true nature — as beings embedded within the Earth and cosmos.
In the pale beauty of the moon’s glow across the early evening sky as it rose from the east, in the western sky Orion was setting, the dog star Sirius following close behind, herald of the emerging spring, a last thrilling dance in the night as it slowly disappears from view, a constellation of the daylight hours from now until August when it will again rise in the eastern sky.
Do we pray these things? Why in the world would God make this creation of such magnificence and beauty if it was not to be observed and honored, to fill us with awe and delight, to get us up in the early morning to address the dawn, “Blessed are You, Adonai, God of all the universe!”
Whether or not one believes in a God who made the world, or sees the evolution of the cosmos as an expression of a Presence within all that is, not apart or separate from it, or does not believe in God at all but sees the cosmos itself as enough to incite reverence and awe — the problem comes when one experiences none of these things, does not SEE creation and does not care, or, worse, looks upon creation as something at the service of the human — as our western traditions so often do……because that alienation invites the abuse of creation which we see all around us, along with the results of the abuse in our poor, battered, depleted planet.
Today I read that John Holdren, Prez Obama’s science advisor and a brilliant scientist on climate and other things, is considering shooting cooling pollutants into the atmosphere in a desperate attempt to stop runaway global warming.
And I am stricken again by another sign of all that is wrong with us — we would rather further alter the chemical makeup of the atmosphere (geoengineering, a term that fills me with dread) in a grand experiment whose results we cannot possibly know beforehand, than do the hard work of reorganizing how we live on the planet. We would rather get the economy we know going again, with the same basic patterns of planetary abuse, using engineering to continue undoing the planet’s ecosystems (as we have the rivers and ocean shores and wetlands and soils and genetically altered plants and animals) then do the hard and holy work of learning how to live within the balance and limits of the ecosystems that made all this vibrant life — and us — possible.So, again, it’s spring. It is a sacred time in the spiritual lives of human beings across the planet. It is a time for renewal and rebirth in that beautiful cycle of life in which we are privileged to participate. However you honor your religious traditions, or if you have none to honor, honor this blessed creation. Reinvigorate within your spirits a sense of your intimate connections with all that is — feel the sense of creation’s energies within your own being, but also all that is being destroyed by our human hubris — because we cannot separate ourselves from that either. As we are aspects of the creation story, both are happening to us.
We can lose the beauty, we really can. It is happening. If we can restore the intimacy of our connections with the natural world, we just might find the passion to save that world before it is altered beyond recognition, beyond that which has for millennia inspired worship and poetry and all that is best in the human spirit.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Spirituality is Not Just a Religious Thing
Our thoughts, our dreams, our emotions… They are such an important part of who we are. They are the things that determine our actions on a minute by minute basis, yet they are an otherwise intangible and integral part of who we are. You cannot physically touch them, only experience them.
Through that experience they can be guided and modified. Our life paths are determined by these untouchable elements that are an undeniable part of what makes us human. They are, by definition, our spirit. Webster’s dictionary uses this description: An immaterial intelligent substance. Spirit is a substance in which thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of moving do subsist. (Subsist is the same as exist)
That is quite a powerful idea yet one that brings more understanding to the importance of “spirituality” in our lives. If spirit is that thing in us that causes us to act and react in particular fashions then no one is void of being spiritual. I think sometimes we just don’t realize it. However, I would have to guess that it is possible for some to be more so than others.
Let me pose this question to you. Being that the spirit in us is what makes us, “us”, is it reasonable to say that it is something we should take great care of… considering it is the things that causes us to move in one direction or the other?
Let me add in one factor. Webster’s defines spiritual as: relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit. Affecting basically means to have influence to effect change.
So it seems to me that being “spiritual” is really nothing more than personal growth (or lack there of) that effects change in our lives by influencing the way we think and react, thus determining where we go in life.
This is a very liberating idea!! Basically what it says is that because we truly are “spirit” beings, we have complete and total power to determine what happens in our lives and where we go.
So let me challenge you with this… take your “spirituality” seriously! Don’t just let the winds of life whip you aimlessly from one side to the other! Take the bull by the horns and make your determination and hit your destination. If you have questions and need answers… give the Bible a try. You might just find that its not as complicated as you once thought!!
Author: Jeremie Amos
Through that experience they can be guided and modified. Our life paths are determined by these untouchable elements that are an undeniable part of what makes us human. They are, by definition, our spirit. Webster’s dictionary uses this description: An immaterial intelligent substance. Spirit is a substance in which thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of moving do subsist. (Subsist is the same as exist)
That is quite a powerful idea yet one that brings more understanding to the importance of “spirituality” in our lives. If spirit is that thing in us that causes us to act and react in particular fashions then no one is void of being spiritual. I think sometimes we just don’t realize it. However, I would have to guess that it is possible for some to be more so than others.
Let me pose this question to you. Being that the spirit in us is what makes us, “us”, is it reasonable to say that it is something we should take great care of… considering it is the things that causes us to move in one direction or the other?
Let me add in one factor. Webster’s defines spiritual as: relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit. Affecting basically means to have influence to effect change.
So it seems to me that being “spiritual” is really nothing more than personal growth (or lack there of) that effects change in our lives by influencing the way we think and react, thus determining where we go in life.
This is a very liberating idea!! Basically what it says is that because we truly are “spirit” beings, we have complete and total power to determine what happens in our lives and where we go.
So let me challenge you with this… take your “spirituality” seriously! Don’t just let the winds of life whip you aimlessly from one side to the other! Take the bull by the horns and make your determination and hit your destination. If you have questions and need answers… give the Bible a try. You might just find that its not as complicated as you once thought!!
Author: Jeremie Amos
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Top 10 Spiritual Destinations
Are you looking for a travel experience that will totally transform your life? Justine Kim explores the best spots to satisfy your spirit.
Since the beginning of time, man has worshipped gods. Throughout the world, there is plenty of physical evidence that traces the history of man’s quest to reunite with the divine: ancient stone circles, majestic pyramids, gothic cathedrals and mountaintop shrines. People have visited these sacred sites for healing, inspiration and guidance.
Mainstream western scientists may scoff at suggestions of water from holy wells curing illnesses and the like, but the concept of powerful places has been known to many cultures for thousands of years.
Regardless of what religion you adhere to, or even if you're not religious, there are certain places that evoke feelings of awe and wonder. These places may not move you to suddenly believe in an unseen power, but the sheer beauty and depth of history can be enough to take your breath away. Here are ten of the most holy places that you can find on the globe.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
On the Corcovado mountain high above Rio de Janeiro, you will find one of the world’s most visited holy statues, the Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer. In 1931, the statue was inaugurated as an icon of faith to celebrate the Centenary of Brazilian Independence of 1822. The statue has open arms, a gesture of blessing, protection and power.
Mount Fuji, Japan
Japan is a very tranquil and picturesque country with a lot of religious and cultural history. The elegant Mount Fuji is a mysterious and spiritual landmark that has inspired art and literature throughout the ages.
For generations, Mount Fuji, also called Fujiyama (“everlasting life”) has been considered a sacred mountain that pilgrims climb as a religious experience. An estimated 200,000 people climb Mount Fuji every year, about 30 per cent are foreigners.
Sedona, Arizona
You don’t have to leave North America to find places known for miracles. Sedona, especially the Navajo region, is a noted spiritual hotspot. It has been a pilgrimage destination since prehistoric times. Long before the Europeans settled North America, the indigenous Navajo aboriginals and natives from Canada and Central America journeyed here for healing and learning.
Sedona features rich red sandstone buttes and monoliths. These rocks are said to emit a powerful energy, which may be because of their high concentration of magnetic iron. The spiritual pull is palpable, especially at sunset when the mountains catch fire with reflected glow.
Egypt
If you ever get a chance to visit Egypt, witnessing the absolute wonder of the ancient pyramids is a must. West of Cairo, the three pyramids of Giza rise from the edge of the Nile’s west bank in perfect geometric form. They are thought to be the work of Egyptians from around 2500 B.C. The pyramids are the only remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Machu Picchu, Peru
Each year, over 65,000 backpackers make the 25-mile hike up the 500-year-old path. Machu Picchu (“ancient peak”) is found amid the Andes mountain range, just northwest of the former Incan capital of Cusco. For centuries, it was buried in Peru’s jungle and was discovered in 1911 by a Yale historian. The spectacular ruins include staircases, towers, fountains, terraces and a temple. The magic here is unmatched.
Goa, India
There is no dearth of spiritual destinations in India. The country is overflowing with them. Goa is located on the west coast of India and thanks to nearly 500 years of Western influence, it represents an entirely different landscape compared to the rest of the country. The region is embraced for its quiet and peaceful atmosphere. It is known for its architecture, including the Basilica of Bom Jesus. Perhaps the most interesting trait of the area is that for the most part, Hindus and Catholics coexist.
Tibet and Nepal
These bordering regions are epicentres of religion and holiness. Tibet is the traditional centre of Tibetan Buddhism and the homeland of spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama. A journey here with the monks will certainly change you.
Nepal is a small country between the People’s Republic of China and India. More than eighty per cent of its people practice Hinduism. Trek to Nepal to see the Himalayas and Mount Everest.
Vatican City and Rome, Italy
This list wouldn’t be complete without the Vatican and Rome. They make the cut not only for their religious history, but also for their magnificent past as a capital for the arts, literature and culture.
Don’t miss St. Peter’s Basilica, the heart of Vatican City and the home of the Catholic Church. Even if you aren’t a Catholic, the church’s design will stop you in your tracks.
Mecca, Saudi Arabia
It is the centre of the Islamic world and the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. It is located in the Sirat Mountains of central Saudi Arabia. Every Muslim hopes to make a hajj, or pilgrimage, to its shrine at least once in his or her lifetime. When they pray, Muslims face in the direction of this city no matter where they are in the world.
Jerusalem, Israel
It can be argued that no other city comes close to Jerusalem in terms of historical and religious significance. Judaism, Christianity and Islam can all trace their roots back to the Holy City. It is also the home of The Dome of the Rock, a shrine completed in 691 A.D., and is believed to be where the Prophet Muhammad began his journey to heaven. So if you want to visit the site of the three monolithic religions, then Jerusalem’s the place.
By Justine Kim
Since the beginning of time, man has worshipped gods. Throughout the world, there is plenty of physical evidence that traces the history of man’s quest to reunite with the divine: ancient stone circles, majestic pyramids, gothic cathedrals and mountaintop shrines. People have visited these sacred sites for healing, inspiration and guidance.
Mainstream western scientists may scoff at suggestions of water from holy wells curing illnesses and the like, but the concept of powerful places has been known to many cultures for thousands of years.
Regardless of what religion you adhere to, or even if you're not religious, there are certain places that evoke feelings of awe and wonder. These places may not move you to suddenly believe in an unseen power, but the sheer beauty and depth of history can be enough to take your breath away. Here are ten of the most holy places that you can find on the globe.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
On the Corcovado mountain high above Rio de Janeiro, you will find one of the world’s most visited holy statues, the Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer. In 1931, the statue was inaugurated as an icon of faith to celebrate the Centenary of Brazilian Independence of 1822. The statue has open arms, a gesture of blessing, protection and power.
Mount Fuji, Japan
Japan is a very tranquil and picturesque country with a lot of religious and cultural history. The elegant Mount Fuji is a mysterious and spiritual landmark that has inspired art and literature throughout the ages.
For generations, Mount Fuji, also called Fujiyama (“everlasting life”) has been considered a sacred mountain that pilgrims climb as a religious experience. An estimated 200,000 people climb Mount Fuji every year, about 30 per cent are foreigners.
Sedona, Arizona
You don’t have to leave North America to find places known for miracles. Sedona, especially the Navajo region, is a noted spiritual hotspot. It has been a pilgrimage destination since prehistoric times. Long before the Europeans settled North America, the indigenous Navajo aboriginals and natives from Canada and Central America journeyed here for healing and learning.
Sedona features rich red sandstone buttes and monoliths. These rocks are said to emit a powerful energy, which may be because of their high concentration of magnetic iron. The spiritual pull is palpable, especially at sunset when the mountains catch fire with reflected glow.
Egypt
If you ever get a chance to visit Egypt, witnessing the absolute wonder of the ancient pyramids is a must. West of Cairo, the three pyramids of Giza rise from the edge of the Nile’s west bank in perfect geometric form. They are thought to be the work of Egyptians from around 2500 B.C. The pyramids are the only remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Machu Picchu, Peru
Each year, over 65,000 backpackers make the 25-mile hike up the 500-year-old path. Machu Picchu (“ancient peak”) is found amid the Andes mountain range, just northwest of the former Incan capital of Cusco. For centuries, it was buried in Peru’s jungle and was discovered in 1911 by a Yale historian. The spectacular ruins include staircases, towers, fountains, terraces and a temple. The magic here is unmatched.
Goa, India
There is no dearth of spiritual destinations in India. The country is overflowing with them. Goa is located on the west coast of India and thanks to nearly 500 years of Western influence, it represents an entirely different landscape compared to the rest of the country. The region is embraced for its quiet and peaceful atmosphere. It is known for its architecture, including the Basilica of Bom Jesus. Perhaps the most interesting trait of the area is that for the most part, Hindus and Catholics coexist.
Tibet and Nepal
These bordering regions are epicentres of religion and holiness. Tibet is the traditional centre of Tibetan Buddhism and the homeland of spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama. A journey here with the monks will certainly change you.
Nepal is a small country between the People’s Republic of China and India. More than eighty per cent of its people practice Hinduism. Trek to Nepal to see the Himalayas and Mount Everest.
Vatican City and Rome, Italy
This list wouldn’t be complete without the Vatican and Rome. They make the cut not only for their religious history, but also for their magnificent past as a capital for the arts, literature and culture.
Don’t miss St. Peter’s Basilica, the heart of Vatican City and the home of the Catholic Church. Even if you aren’t a Catholic, the church’s design will stop you in your tracks.
Mecca, Saudi Arabia
It is the centre of the Islamic world and the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. It is located in the Sirat Mountains of central Saudi Arabia. Every Muslim hopes to make a hajj, or pilgrimage, to its shrine at least once in his or her lifetime. When they pray, Muslims face in the direction of this city no matter where they are in the world.
Jerusalem, Israel
It can be argued that no other city comes close to Jerusalem in terms of historical and religious significance. Judaism, Christianity and Islam can all trace their roots back to the Holy City. It is also the home of The Dome of the Rock, a shrine completed in 691 A.D., and is believed to be where the Prophet Muhammad began his journey to heaven. So if you want to visit the site of the three monolithic religions, then Jerusalem’s the place.
By Justine Kim
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Spiritual Questions for People
In this day of political correctness, it’s sometimes difficult to come up with conversation starters that won’t come back and bite you. Many people, especially if they’re the shy type, may feel that there are no appropriate questions to ask people for fear of causing offense or misunderstandings from which they can’t recover. The result is a bunch of wallflowers, dying on the vine for any meaningful communication. Here we take a look at five questions which will stimulate everyone’s thinking and offer a venue for the exchange of ideas. This is what communication is all about. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll learn. You might well make some new friends, too.
When thinking of questions to ask people, keep in mind that everyone loves talking about themselves. This is not a bad thing. People are so different in the way they perceive the world, and you can gain some interesting insights on how another person has arrived at an opinion on any subject.
For example, global warming is a hot topic these days. The only opening you need is a very hot or cold day. Wow, can you believe this heat? Did you see Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’? If the person has, there’s much meat here for a lively conversation. If not, you can throw out a few remarks to capture their interest. Did you know that polar bears are dying out because they can no longer swim from one ice floe to another?
There are a range of answers you might receive. Perhaps this person doesn’t think global warming is real. That’s your cue to find out why they hold this opinion. Don’t try to be argumentative. Part of the art of successful questions to ask people requires a genuine curiosity on your part to understand their position. Another person of whom you ask the same question might be very involved and knowledgeable on the issue. In either case, you’ll learn a lot.
Let’s say you’re into the fashion scene. A simple question like, Where did you find those beautiful earrings?, can launch an entire conversation, beginning with the earrings and ending with an invitation to a fashion event. If nothing else, you’ll certainly gain a sense of that person’s fashion perspective and probably learn a thing or two.
When you formulate questions to ask people, it’s essential to remember that what you’re after is learning what others think on any given subject and how they arrived at their conclusions. You don’t need to agree with the other person. When you learn to draw people out, without disagreeing in an offensive manner, you’ll learn a great deal about humanity in general. The more people you talk to, the more enriched you become. It’s a two way street, because both parties are equally satisfied in having learned a new perspective. When you practice the art of questions to ask people, everyone wins.
When thinking of questions to ask people, keep in mind that everyone loves talking about themselves. This is not a bad thing. People are so different in the way they perceive the world, and you can gain some interesting insights on how another person has arrived at an opinion on any subject.
For example, global warming is a hot topic these days. The only opening you need is a very hot or cold day. Wow, can you believe this heat? Did you see Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’? If the person has, there’s much meat here for a lively conversation. If not, you can throw out a few remarks to capture their interest. Did you know that polar bears are dying out because they can no longer swim from one ice floe to another?
There are a range of answers you might receive. Perhaps this person doesn’t think global warming is real. That’s your cue to find out why they hold this opinion. Don’t try to be argumentative. Part of the art of successful questions to ask people requires a genuine curiosity on your part to understand their position. Another person of whom you ask the same question might be very involved and knowledgeable on the issue. In either case, you’ll learn a lot.
Let’s say you’re into the fashion scene. A simple question like, Where did you find those beautiful earrings?, can launch an entire conversation, beginning with the earrings and ending with an invitation to a fashion event. If nothing else, you’ll certainly gain a sense of that person’s fashion perspective and probably learn a thing or two.
When you formulate questions to ask people, it’s essential to remember that what you’re after is learning what others think on any given subject and how they arrived at their conclusions. You don’t need to agree with the other person. When you learn to draw people out, without disagreeing in an offensive manner, you’ll learn a great deal about humanity in general. The more people you talk to, the more enriched you become. It’s a two way street, because both parties are equally satisfied in having learned a new perspective. When you practice the art of questions to ask people, everyone wins.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Comic Spirituality
Coyote is a key trickster figure in Native American mythology. He’s a shape shifter, part human and part animal, combining within himself all that makes up the human character. In numberless exploits, he is portrayed as greedy and gluttonous, thieving and lecherous. Clever and foolish at the same time. Yet he is the one who created the world, created people, stole sun and moon and the seasons and made them available to the people he created, shaped the very character of the land.
Here’s one story about this fascinating being: Coyote is sealed up in a hollow log as punishment for some trick he played. Once again, he’s been too smart for his own good. So he’s caught in this log and he tries with all his own personal power to escape but it’s useless, he can’t move an inch, the fit is too tight. He’s stuck.
Which makes what happens next so ironic. There he is, stuck in the log with no way out, and all of a sudden he hears the sound of a woodpecker pecking away at the hollow log. And while you’d think that Coyote would be overjoyed at this possibility of release, he’s cranky instead. “What a racket!” he says to himself. “What an irritating sound,” he says. Doesn’t even occur to him that Woodpecker was going to be his salvation. He just hates all the noise. So he shouts at Woodpecker to get away. “Stop that!” Luckily, Woodpecker keeps on pecking. He can’t hear Coyote shouting from within the log. He keeps on pecking away until he’s drilled a small hole that lets in a bit of the light.
And Coyote sees the light—in more ways than one. Suddenly he’s not at all irritated by the sound. Now he wants more of it! He starts shouting again, but this time, it’s to say, “Hurry up! Get me out of here!”
But now that there’s a hole, Woodpecker can hear Coyote more clearly, and Coyote’s shouting scares him away. He just flies away. It’s only when Coyote begins to appreciate the humor of his situation and disengages from all his anger and irritation and just shuts up that Woodpecker feels safe enough to come back and start pecking at the log again, according to a pace and a rhythm that is natural for him. Coyote just shuts up. Doesn’t say another word. Just waits until enough of the log is pecked away, and he is free, and then … he laughs!
For me, a story like this suggests some of the central themes of comic spirituality, which is what I want to talk about today. Comic spirituality is about being at home in the world amidst all its conflicts and struggles and dangers. Comic spirituality counters the temptations of the tragic point of view. Comic spirituality also says that, when life is at its worst (or when it just happens to be another round of Daylight Savings), a sense of humor saves. Laughter saves. Asbestos gelos. The person and the community and the world that laughs, lasts.
One of the things I love about Coyote stories is that they give us a behind-the-scenes look at how things came to be and how they are—which is playful. Coyote represents an unquenchable lust for being and life, and he creates and acts out of this lust, but he does not do this like the God of the Hebrew Bible, who always seems to know what he is doing and has everything in control. Coyote acts, but he is vulnerable to the surprising and unexpected consequences of his actions, so he can find himself stuck in a jam, and he’s got to figure a way out, and he does, and this results in yet another close call, leading to yet another burst of creativity, and on and on, and such is the process of the evolution of the world. Not by long-range planning—design established from the very beginning and then executed ideally without flaw—but experimentation, throwing yourself into it, seeing what happens next, facing loose ends and incongruities, experiencing breathtaking beauty and meaning but only to the degree you expose yourself to risk and therefore to pain. Shrugging shoulders at this fact of life; perhaps even laughing at the joy and absurdity of it all….
This is what Coyote stories reveal to us, as they take us behind-the-scenes of our everyday here-and-now. The heart of reality is not serious, but playful. Incongruity and pain are an integral part of the deal; sometimes it’s our fault, sometimes it’s not, and our best bet is to stay cool—to resist nurturing resentments and rage—to go with the flow, stay creative and loose. “One day,” goes another story, “Coyote was walking along. The sun was shining brightly, and Coyote felt very hot. ‘I would like a cloud,’ he said, so a cloud came and made some shade for Coyote. But he was not satisfied. ‘I want more clouds,’ he said, and more clouds came along, and the sky began to look very stormy. But Coyote was still hot. ‘How about some rain?” he said, and the clouds began to sprinkle rain. ‘More rain,’ Coyote demanded. The rain became a downpour. But now Coyote wanted a creek to put his feet in, so a creek sprang up beside him, and Coyote walked in it to cool off his feet.’ It should be deeper, said Coyote, and so the creek became a huge, swirling river, and now Coyote got more than he bargained for. He found himself swept up into the currents, rolled over and over, thrown up on the bank far away, nearly drowned. When he woke up, he saw buzzards circling him, trying to decide if he was dead, and he shooed them off. He looked around him. He had made the Columbia River. This is how that great river began.
I always think of Coyote when I sing “Bring Many Names,” #23 in the grey hymnal. There’s a verse that captures his essential spirit: “Young, growing God, eager still to know, / willing to be changed by what you started, / quick to be delighted, singing as you go: / hail and hosanna, young, growing God!” This is the only kind of God I could ever believe in, I think. Not a God that somehow stands outside of the natural order of the universe, who intervenes supernaturally in ways that favor one person over another or one tribe over another. Not a God that is locked inside the metaphor of maleness, or the metaphor of the human. Not a God that is all-powerful, with unlimited ability to act and yet appears to remain passive and uncaring when evil in the world is truly excessive, far beyond what seems needful for people to grow strong and wise. Especially not this last part, since then, how could the heart of reality be playful? How could anyone truly feel at home in a world in which a God existed who had the power to prevent evil but held back from using it? Allowed the very worst to occur?
There is a current in contemporary theology, called process theism, that takes very seriously the idea that behind-the-scenes is a playful force like Coyote, or the “young, growing God” of our hymnal. Process theism sees God as the creativity of the universe, and there are two sides to this. One is the body of the universe, the evolving interdependent web of all existence. Process theology tells us that it is sacred: galaxies and stars, trees and animals, you and I. All of it is part of God’s growing body. The world is God’s body. That’s the first side, and here is the second. God is a consciousness over and above the universe, just as you and I have a consciousness that is over and above our own bodies. You and I feel our bodies and think about them; we hope things for them and envision goals and futures; and it’s the same thing with God. God has a conscious side to complement God’s physical side. God is both the world and the consciousness of the world. Put the two together, and this is the kind of God that process theology envisions.
One of the immediate implications of this picture of things takes us right back to Coyote, and to comedy. God simply cannot force the universe to do whatever God wants. Therefore, things can get tangled up. Slapstick happens. Evil happens. God’s power is not unlimited. The universe has creative independence and freedom, just like your own body when it gets sick. Your mind doesn’t want it to be sick, but it is anyhow, and you have got to deal. Same thing with God. God doesn’t want the world to be sick, and yet the world has creative independence. God simply can’t enter into the world supernaturally, like a bull in a china shop, and stop this and start that. All God can do is influence the world from the inside—and I know this might sound strange, but think of how cancer patients participate in their own healing. Cancer patients visualize their immune system as strong, as powerful, as potent, and the immune system responds. Similarly, God visualizes blessing and healing for this world, and if we are open to it, we can respond and receive. Nothing supernatural here at all. God influences the world from the inside, showers continual blessing up on us, impartially, universally, and does it without us having to ask. But the world has creative independence too, and so the blessing might not be received, we might be so stuck in the log of our fears and angers and resentments that we can’t hear God’s still small voice…. The blessing might not be received. That is simply the reality and risk of freedom.
And by now you may be noticing something about comic spirituality. It’s not frivolous. It’s a way of being in the world richly, in the midst of incongruity of every kind—pain, suffering, death. It says, if the heart of reality is like Coyote, or like the God of process theism, then there’s nothing malicious behind-the-scenes for us to resent and rebel against, like some tragic existential hero. Life is an open adventure. Accidents do happen. We can get firmly stuck in logs of all kinds. But don’t forget about the woodpeckers out there, who are on their way. All we have to do is stay calm, and let them do their work to free us, so we can continue the adventure.
And this takes us to the next theme of comic spirituality, which has to do with resisting the temptations of the tragic point of view. The temptations are great. Two quick illustrations are in order. One has to do with an observation about kite string. Ever gone kite flying, and (wind being the trickster that it is) your kite takes a nose dive, and in the process of reclaiming your kite, you tangle up the string? If you are like me, trying to untangle it can make you impatient, and then angry, and suddenly you feel like a tragic hero. The world is unfair, the world is against me, the world is doing this to me … and before you know it, you have forgotten that your best bet is to finesse things. You are pulling on the tangles way too hard, jerking and tugging them, making a bad situation worse. What was originally just tangle is now a hard knot, an unredeemable mess.
Second illustration. Think Achilles, from ancient Greek mythology: his famous rage. Rage is the fundamental emotion that moves Achilles in the Trojan War—rage at being dishonored by the Greek general Agamemnon, so he will not fight; then rage at the Trojans who killed his close friend Patroclus, so now he will fight. Rage has him in its grip, and he is bursting with it, and not once does he question whether the Gods are on his side. He does not think: he acts. His deeds are larger-than-life and always to be remembered, but no one would call Achilles wise. The tragic mindset is not wise. Fundamentally reactive as it is, it simply cannot step back from the righteous heat of the moment and cool off; and this means it has a hard time being self-critical, or empathetic towards a different point of view, or creative. Every problem is a nail, to be solved by hammering. Our world—with all its curves and complexities and behind-the-scenes jitters—is just not a good fit for straight-arrow people like Achilles, and that’s why the traditional ending of a tragic story is not the journey that runs ever on, but the journey stopped short by the death of the hero. Tragic heroes are swept under and destroyed by the very life that they are so ill-equipped to understand and work with.
Succumb to the temptations of the tragic point of view, and the result is disaster. We never get out of the log, in one sense of another. Emotions like anger and sadness and fear sweeping us away, and out of these we react to whatever life sends us; we become so noisy we scare away savior woodpeckers for good. This is the key ingredient of the tragic mindset: stuckness in difficult emotions, endless rumination, which makes it difficult to stay loose and creative in our thinking, keeps things way too serious, causes us to feel discomfort with ambiguity and complexity, prevents us from being able to walk a mile in another’s shoes. In other words, low emotional intelligence. People finding themselves in a tangle, challenged by a diversity of valid perspectives and valid concerns, and before you know it, the tangle, which could have been finessed, has become a hard knot, another Middle East conflict. Well intentioned people wanting to fight for justice and for peace, but somehow they bring the fight to each other, and there is petty bickering and posturing and rigid political correctness and a party line; and suddenly these well-intentioned people, wanting to fight for justice and for peace, find themselves in the middle of a circular firing squad of their own creation. If you have ears to hear, then hear this.
But a comic perspective keeps things sane. It keeps us working together in world that is impure, keeps us hopeful even when the system we can’t extricate ourselves from is compromised and flawed. In this regard, I like what Chinese writer Lin Yutang has to say: “[T]he tremendous importance of humor in politics can be realized only when we picture for ourselves … a world of joking rulers. Send, for instance, five or six of the world’s best humorists to an international conference, and give them the plenipotentiary powers of autocrats, and the world will be saved. As humor necessarily goes with good sense and the reasonable spirit, plus some exceptionally subtle powers of the mind in detecting inconsistencies and follies and bad logic, and as this is the highest form of human intelligence, we may be sure that each nation will thus be represented at the conference by its sanest and soundest mind. […] Can you imagine this bunch of international diplomats starting a war or even plotting for one? The sense of humor forbids it. All people are too serious and half-insane when they declare a war against another people. They are so sure that they are right and that God is on their side. The humorists, gifted with better horse-sense, don’t think so.”
Amen to that. The temptation of the tragic point of view is ultimately a temptation to do violence and war—especially in the name of our highest and noblest ideals. But comic spirituality counters it. A sense of humor saves us. Which leads to the third and last theme of comic spirituality I want to address today: the power of laughter—unquenchable, invincible laughter. Asbestos gelos. The person and the community and the world that laughs, lasts.
Consider the experience of Captain Gerald Coffee, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. After three months in captivity, Coffee’s Vietnamese jailor ordered him to wash in a rat-infested shower room littered with rotting things and garbage all around him. As he felt the stream of cold water against his body, he was overcome with despair. There he was in a dismal hole, body broken, totally uncertain of his fate, pressure to do this, do that, hostility his daily fare, men dying every day, the fate of his crewmen unknown. That’s where he was, mind, body, spirit, as the cold water washed over his body. Then he raised his head, and saw something. There at eye level on the wall in front of him, scratched in by some other American who’d been there before him, were these words: “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” And he couldn’t help but smile. In that crazy place, woodpecker had come for him, and he laughed out loud. He felt such gratitude for the spunk of that unknown American who was able to rise above his own dejection and pain to inscribe a line of encouragement. And Captain Gerald Coffee, there in captivity in a Vietnam prison, found strength to go on.
Sometimes laughter takes us by surprise, and we find strength to go on. Better yet, though, is a conscious intent to nourish our sense of humor regularly. Never allowing the humor tank in us to go empty. Brush your teeth every day, top off your humor tank every day. Watch John Stewart, or Bill Maher, or South Park. Read The Onion. Whatever. Whatever can puncture our self-righteous pretensions, loosen us up, bring us back down to earth, keep us energized and plucky. We laugh so that we can last.
I want to close with some humor aerobics. It’s just like regular aerobics to get the blood pumping—humor aerobics to get the sense of humor pumping. To do it, you don’t have to feel particularly happy beforehand; although by the end, you might just be laughing like crazy, and it feels so good….
Here’s the exercise. It’s one of my favorites—it’s called The American Bat Face. It’s especially good to do right before you are about to enter into a difficult conversation. Let me describe it first:
1. Place your hand on top of your head, with the fingers pointing straight forward
2. Reach down with the middle two fingers and touch the tip of your nose—pull the nose up, flaring the nostrils
3. Flap your tongue in and out of your mouth while making a high-pitched squealing noise
4. Think to yourself repeatedly, “This is not stupid, it’s silly.”
If this feels too uncomfortable for you, you absolutely have permission not to do it. But I hope as many of you as possible will try it and see what happens. As you do it, see if you can hear Coyote laughing with you…
Ready? Let’s go on three…..
*
You see, there’s an important difference between “stupid” and “silly” that comedian Steve Allen’s son, Steve Allen Jr., points out. He says that “stupid” means ignorant and uneducated. But having fun and playing is not stupid—it’s “silly,” and “silly” is a word that comes from the Old English, meaning completely happy, completely blessed. Silly was a blessing you wished upon those you loved.
I wish that upon you today, and forever. Be more silly in your life, and be blessed.
Here’s one story about this fascinating being: Coyote is sealed up in a hollow log as punishment for some trick he played. Once again, he’s been too smart for his own good. So he’s caught in this log and he tries with all his own personal power to escape but it’s useless, he can’t move an inch, the fit is too tight. He’s stuck.
Which makes what happens next so ironic. There he is, stuck in the log with no way out, and all of a sudden he hears the sound of a woodpecker pecking away at the hollow log. And while you’d think that Coyote would be overjoyed at this possibility of release, he’s cranky instead. “What a racket!” he says to himself. “What an irritating sound,” he says. Doesn’t even occur to him that Woodpecker was going to be his salvation. He just hates all the noise. So he shouts at Woodpecker to get away. “Stop that!” Luckily, Woodpecker keeps on pecking. He can’t hear Coyote shouting from within the log. He keeps on pecking away until he’s drilled a small hole that lets in a bit of the light.
And Coyote sees the light—in more ways than one. Suddenly he’s not at all irritated by the sound. Now he wants more of it! He starts shouting again, but this time, it’s to say, “Hurry up! Get me out of here!”
But now that there’s a hole, Woodpecker can hear Coyote more clearly, and Coyote’s shouting scares him away. He just flies away. It’s only when Coyote begins to appreciate the humor of his situation and disengages from all his anger and irritation and just shuts up that Woodpecker feels safe enough to come back and start pecking at the log again, according to a pace and a rhythm that is natural for him. Coyote just shuts up. Doesn’t say another word. Just waits until enough of the log is pecked away, and he is free, and then … he laughs!
For me, a story like this suggests some of the central themes of comic spirituality, which is what I want to talk about today. Comic spirituality is about being at home in the world amidst all its conflicts and struggles and dangers. Comic spirituality counters the temptations of the tragic point of view. Comic spirituality also says that, when life is at its worst (or when it just happens to be another round of Daylight Savings), a sense of humor saves. Laughter saves. Asbestos gelos. The person and the community and the world that laughs, lasts.
One of the things I love about Coyote stories is that they give us a behind-the-scenes look at how things came to be and how they are—which is playful. Coyote represents an unquenchable lust for being and life, and he creates and acts out of this lust, but he does not do this like the God of the Hebrew Bible, who always seems to know what he is doing and has everything in control. Coyote acts, but he is vulnerable to the surprising and unexpected consequences of his actions, so he can find himself stuck in a jam, and he’s got to figure a way out, and he does, and this results in yet another close call, leading to yet another burst of creativity, and on and on, and such is the process of the evolution of the world. Not by long-range planning—design established from the very beginning and then executed ideally without flaw—but experimentation, throwing yourself into it, seeing what happens next, facing loose ends and incongruities, experiencing breathtaking beauty and meaning but only to the degree you expose yourself to risk and therefore to pain. Shrugging shoulders at this fact of life; perhaps even laughing at the joy and absurdity of it all….
This is what Coyote stories reveal to us, as they take us behind-the-scenes of our everyday here-and-now. The heart of reality is not serious, but playful. Incongruity and pain are an integral part of the deal; sometimes it’s our fault, sometimes it’s not, and our best bet is to stay cool—to resist nurturing resentments and rage—to go with the flow, stay creative and loose. “One day,” goes another story, “Coyote was walking along. The sun was shining brightly, and Coyote felt very hot. ‘I would like a cloud,’ he said, so a cloud came and made some shade for Coyote. But he was not satisfied. ‘I want more clouds,’ he said, and more clouds came along, and the sky began to look very stormy. But Coyote was still hot. ‘How about some rain?” he said, and the clouds began to sprinkle rain. ‘More rain,’ Coyote demanded. The rain became a downpour. But now Coyote wanted a creek to put his feet in, so a creek sprang up beside him, and Coyote walked in it to cool off his feet.’ It should be deeper, said Coyote, and so the creek became a huge, swirling river, and now Coyote got more than he bargained for. He found himself swept up into the currents, rolled over and over, thrown up on the bank far away, nearly drowned. When he woke up, he saw buzzards circling him, trying to decide if he was dead, and he shooed them off. He looked around him. He had made the Columbia River. This is how that great river began.
I always think of Coyote when I sing “Bring Many Names,” #23 in the grey hymnal. There’s a verse that captures his essential spirit: “Young, growing God, eager still to know, / willing to be changed by what you started, / quick to be delighted, singing as you go: / hail and hosanna, young, growing God!” This is the only kind of God I could ever believe in, I think. Not a God that somehow stands outside of the natural order of the universe, who intervenes supernaturally in ways that favor one person over another or one tribe over another. Not a God that is locked inside the metaphor of maleness, or the metaphor of the human. Not a God that is all-powerful, with unlimited ability to act and yet appears to remain passive and uncaring when evil in the world is truly excessive, far beyond what seems needful for people to grow strong and wise. Especially not this last part, since then, how could the heart of reality be playful? How could anyone truly feel at home in a world in which a God existed who had the power to prevent evil but held back from using it? Allowed the very worst to occur?
There is a current in contemporary theology, called process theism, that takes very seriously the idea that behind-the-scenes is a playful force like Coyote, or the “young, growing God” of our hymnal. Process theism sees God as the creativity of the universe, and there are two sides to this. One is the body of the universe, the evolving interdependent web of all existence. Process theology tells us that it is sacred: galaxies and stars, trees and animals, you and I. All of it is part of God’s growing body. The world is God’s body. That’s the first side, and here is the second. God is a consciousness over and above the universe, just as you and I have a consciousness that is over and above our own bodies. You and I feel our bodies and think about them; we hope things for them and envision goals and futures; and it’s the same thing with God. God has a conscious side to complement God’s physical side. God is both the world and the consciousness of the world. Put the two together, and this is the kind of God that process theology envisions.
One of the immediate implications of this picture of things takes us right back to Coyote, and to comedy. God simply cannot force the universe to do whatever God wants. Therefore, things can get tangled up. Slapstick happens. Evil happens. God’s power is not unlimited. The universe has creative independence and freedom, just like your own body when it gets sick. Your mind doesn’t want it to be sick, but it is anyhow, and you have got to deal. Same thing with God. God doesn’t want the world to be sick, and yet the world has creative independence. God simply can’t enter into the world supernaturally, like a bull in a china shop, and stop this and start that. All God can do is influence the world from the inside—and I know this might sound strange, but think of how cancer patients participate in their own healing. Cancer patients visualize their immune system as strong, as powerful, as potent, and the immune system responds. Similarly, God visualizes blessing and healing for this world, and if we are open to it, we can respond and receive. Nothing supernatural here at all. God influences the world from the inside, showers continual blessing up on us, impartially, universally, and does it without us having to ask. But the world has creative independence too, and so the blessing might not be received, we might be so stuck in the log of our fears and angers and resentments that we can’t hear God’s still small voice…. The blessing might not be received. That is simply the reality and risk of freedom.
And by now you may be noticing something about comic spirituality. It’s not frivolous. It’s a way of being in the world richly, in the midst of incongruity of every kind—pain, suffering, death. It says, if the heart of reality is like Coyote, or like the God of process theism, then there’s nothing malicious behind-the-scenes for us to resent and rebel against, like some tragic existential hero. Life is an open adventure. Accidents do happen. We can get firmly stuck in logs of all kinds. But don’t forget about the woodpeckers out there, who are on their way. All we have to do is stay calm, and let them do their work to free us, so we can continue the adventure.
And this takes us to the next theme of comic spirituality, which has to do with resisting the temptations of the tragic point of view. The temptations are great. Two quick illustrations are in order. One has to do with an observation about kite string. Ever gone kite flying, and (wind being the trickster that it is) your kite takes a nose dive, and in the process of reclaiming your kite, you tangle up the string? If you are like me, trying to untangle it can make you impatient, and then angry, and suddenly you feel like a tragic hero. The world is unfair, the world is against me, the world is doing this to me … and before you know it, you have forgotten that your best bet is to finesse things. You are pulling on the tangles way too hard, jerking and tugging them, making a bad situation worse. What was originally just tangle is now a hard knot, an unredeemable mess.
Second illustration. Think Achilles, from ancient Greek mythology: his famous rage. Rage is the fundamental emotion that moves Achilles in the Trojan War—rage at being dishonored by the Greek general Agamemnon, so he will not fight; then rage at the Trojans who killed his close friend Patroclus, so now he will fight. Rage has him in its grip, and he is bursting with it, and not once does he question whether the Gods are on his side. He does not think: he acts. His deeds are larger-than-life and always to be remembered, but no one would call Achilles wise. The tragic mindset is not wise. Fundamentally reactive as it is, it simply cannot step back from the righteous heat of the moment and cool off; and this means it has a hard time being self-critical, or empathetic towards a different point of view, or creative. Every problem is a nail, to be solved by hammering. Our world—with all its curves and complexities and behind-the-scenes jitters—is just not a good fit for straight-arrow people like Achilles, and that’s why the traditional ending of a tragic story is not the journey that runs ever on, but the journey stopped short by the death of the hero. Tragic heroes are swept under and destroyed by the very life that they are so ill-equipped to understand and work with.
Succumb to the temptations of the tragic point of view, and the result is disaster. We never get out of the log, in one sense of another. Emotions like anger and sadness and fear sweeping us away, and out of these we react to whatever life sends us; we become so noisy we scare away savior woodpeckers for good. This is the key ingredient of the tragic mindset: stuckness in difficult emotions, endless rumination, which makes it difficult to stay loose and creative in our thinking, keeps things way too serious, causes us to feel discomfort with ambiguity and complexity, prevents us from being able to walk a mile in another’s shoes. In other words, low emotional intelligence. People finding themselves in a tangle, challenged by a diversity of valid perspectives and valid concerns, and before you know it, the tangle, which could have been finessed, has become a hard knot, another Middle East conflict. Well intentioned people wanting to fight for justice and for peace, but somehow they bring the fight to each other, and there is petty bickering and posturing and rigid political correctness and a party line; and suddenly these well-intentioned people, wanting to fight for justice and for peace, find themselves in the middle of a circular firing squad of their own creation. If you have ears to hear, then hear this.
But a comic perspective keeps things sane. It keeps us working together in world that is impure, keeps us hopeful even when the system we can’t extricate ourselves from is compromised and flawed. In this regard, I like what Chinese writer Lin Yutang has to say: “[T]he tremendous importance of humor in politics can be realized only when we picture for ourselves … a world of joking rulers. Send, for instance, five or six of the world’s best humorists to an international conference, and give them the plenipotentiary powers of autocrats, and the world will be saved. As humor necessarily goes with good sense and the reasonable spirit, plus some exceptionally subtle powers of the mind in detecting inconsistencies and follies and bad logic, and as this is the highest form of human intelligence, we may be sure that each nation will thus be represented at the conference by its sanest and soundest mind. […] Can you imagine this bunch of international diplomats starting a war or even plotting for one? The sense of humor forbids it. All people are too serious and half-insane when they declare a war against another people. They are so sure that they are right and that God is on their side. The humorists, gifted with better horse-sense, don’t think so.”
Amen to that. The temptation of the tragic point of view is ultimately a temptation to do violence and war—especially in the name of our highest and noblest ideals. But comic spirituality counters it. A sense of humor saves us. Which leads to the third and last theme of comic spirituality I want to address today: the power of laughter—unquenchable, invincible laughter. Asbestos gelos. The person and the community and the world that laughs, lasts.
Consider the experience of Captain Gerald Coffee, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. After three months in captivity, Coffee’s Vietnamese jailor ordered him to wash in a rat-infested shower room littered with rotting things and garbage all around him. As he felt the stream of cold water against his body, he was overcome with despair. There he was in a dismal hole, body broken, totally uncertain of his fate, pressure to do this, do that, hostility his daily fare, men dying every day, the fate of his crewmen unknown. That’s where he was, mind, body, spirit, as the cold water washed over his body. Then he raised his head, and saw something. There at eye level on the wall in front of him, scratched in by some other American who’d been there before him, were these words: “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” And he couldn’t help but smile. In that crazy place, woodpecker had come for him, and he laughed out loud. He felt such gratitude for the spunk of that unknown American who was able to rise above his own dejection and pain to inscribe a line of encouragement. And Captain Gerald Coffee, there in captivity in a Vietnam prison, found strength to go on.
Sometimes laughter takes us by surprise, and we find strength to go on. Better yet, though, is a conscious intent to nourish our sense of humor regularly. Never allowing the humor tank in us to go empty. Brush your teeth every day, top off your humor tank every day. Watch John Stewart, or Bill Maher, or South Park. Read The Onion. Whatever. Whatever can puncture our self-righteous pretensions, loosen us up, bring us back down to earth, keep us energized and plucky. We laugh so that we can last.
I want to close with some humor aerobics. It’s just like regular aerobics to get the blood pumping—humor aerobics to get the sense of humor pumping. To do it, you don’t have to feel particularly happy beforehand; although by the end, you might just be laughing like crazy, and it feels so good….
Here’s the exercise. It’s one of my favorites—it’s called The American Bat Face. It’s especially good to do right before you are about to enter into a difficult conversation. Let me describe it first:
1. Place your hand on top of your head, with the fingers pointing straight forward
2. Reach down with the middle two fingers and touch the tip of your nose—pull the nose up, flaring the nostrils
3. Flap your tongue in and out of your mouth while making a high-pitched squealing noise
4. Think to yourself repeatedly, “This is not stupid, it’s silly.”
If this feels too uncomfortable for you, you absolutely have permission not to do it. But I hope as many of you as possible will try it and see what happens. As you do it, see if you can hear Coyote laughing with you…
Ready? Let’s go on three…..
*
You see, there’s an important difference between “stupid” and “silly” that comedian Steve Allen’s son, Steve Allen Jr., points out. He says that “stupid” means ignorant and uneducated. But having fun and playing is not stupid—it’s “silly,” and “silly” is a word that comes from the Old English, meaning completely happy, completely blessed. Silly was a blessing you wished upon those you loved.
I wish that upon you today, and forever. Be more silly in your life, and be blessed.
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