Category: Spiritual Practice

Posted on by — Leave a comment

I Learned Something About Love

I write alot about love as a force we can use to effect positive change around us, but I rarely talk about the need to charge ourselves with love so we can live in its abundance and share that positive energy with our fellows.

Sometimes this can be easy; if our lives are going the way we want, then connecting to a feeling of love takes little effort. If, however; we are at odds with what’s happening in our lives, it may seem like love isn’t there to connect to. I have always been told that God loves me and is always there for me. This is hard not to take as an empty platitude when you don’t know how you’re going to provide for your family, whether there will be enough to pay the rent, buy food, etc… It’s hard if you are fighting with family members or people at work. We all know struggle; it defines the human experience.
With 2 small children, it can be a challenge to find some “me” time. I feel guilty telling my wife I need to do something for myself. We both work hard and spend all our spare time taking care of our children and trying to keep up with the housework. The other day I expressed my desire to work on an art project. My wife insisted I take the time to do it. Many of our arguments are the opposite of normal arguments with us each advocating for the other to do the thing they want.
My newest bent on creating art is to attempt to do them all like zen calligraphy. Zen Calligraphy is a process where the Calligrapher becomes the instrument of what is called “Chi” in Chinese. In Japanese it’s called “ki”, in Korean it’s called “Qi”. Seeing as how none of these languages use the alphabet we use, I consider the word to be basically the same in these languages. In Sanskrit the concept is known as prana. These words all mean “life force” or energy. The process involves being in a meditative state during the execution of the project. Zen masters say the process is the same whether one is doing calligraphy, flower arranging, or swordfighting.
When the children are screaming and I leave my wife in the next room to deal while I guiltily go to a quiet room to do art, it is difficult for me to put myself in this state. It is a state of love. how can I put myself in a state of love, which is giving and caring, and selfishly go to create art?
I realized that I was missing the love that was there. My children were screaming because they love me and want me near them. My wife gave me the time to work on my project because she loves me. It was the love charge I was needing that was there all along. Part of love is being able to accept it.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Kali Nights

Bless Christine Blasey Ford. May she speak with clarity strength. May no one stand in her way. Give her strength and confidence, courage and willpower. May her ferocity be that of Kali Ma, that none may oppose her.

 

I’m updating this post to include paintings of Kali incarnated as her traditional Goddess, replete with blue skin, lolling tongue, necklace of skulls and skirt of arms. These frightening accouterments strike fear into the hearts of those who are not familiar with her. But her devotees know that she destroys that which keep them from obtaining enlightenment.

For my series of paintings, “Kali Night,” I have chosen as my subject matter, a stormy night. My inspiration comes from driving home from work one evening and seeing the sky lit up eerily beautiful and ominous. I was reminded of the Goddess Kali, who is a paradox of beauty, compassion, violence, love and is ultimately nearly as incomprehensible as the ultimate reality she represents. She has been worshipped for longer than recorded history, which is fitting since one interpretation of her name is “beyond time.”

Kali Nights

Kali is misunderstood in the west. Really she is the perfect boogeyman for Puritan Americans; She’s naked (being infinite and unfathomable makes it hard to find something in your size, besides, Kali is indifferent to human conventions), except for the skirt of human arms! (being pure energy, Kali/Shakti is the receiver of all action, these limbs represent those who have been liberated from karma) Also she is adorned by a necklace of skulls! (one for each letter of the Sanskrit alphabet. This is a very “Alpha & Omega symbol. Alphabets contain the seeds of everything that can be expressed, thus attributing to God all that exists. Also, it is the beginning and the end of everything, thus skulls are appropriate.)

Kali is really a compassionate mother whose fearsomeness represents the way in which she destroys evil and all that stands in the way of her devotee’s liberation from the bondage of self.

I choose a stormy night to represent Kali as a metaphor for her ominous and fearsome qualities as the Goddess is everywhere and the various experiences we have in life remind us of the myriad manifestations of the Goddess.

Kali Nights II
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Blessed Muladhara root chakra mandala


The Muladhara chakra is often referred to as the root chakra because it is located at the root of your spine. It is also the root of the sacred chakra tree of Kundalini. The word chakra means “wheel”, and it is thought to be like a circuit in the spiritual wiring we possess. Just as the seven Kundalini chakra corespond with our spinal cord, there are several “lesser” chakras that occur in conjunction with our nervous system throughout our bodies. Just as the spinal chord is the most important nerve we have so are the seven chakras associated with it. Activating them is one way to achieve enlightenment.

This is because Kundalini is the name for the latent energy that lays dormant within us which corresponds with Shakti, the creative force of the universe. When we complete the circuit of Kundalini from Muladhara to Sahasrara, or crown chakra, we connect this inner energy with the outer energy of Shakti, thus becoming one with the primal creative force. This is the purpose for which we were born.

The Muladhara is where to start. It is here that the dormant Kundalini serpent is coiled waiting to be awakened. Once awakened, the sacred Kundalini uncoils and travel up through the remaining chakras. The Muladhara chakra is therefore very important, for without activating it, the remaining chakras Can do nothing for us.

To activate this sacred chakra, and thus awaken Kundalini, we must focus our attention on it as we meditate each day.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Love Is the Most Powerful Force in the Universe

We see ourselves as limited, finite beings. We’re only human. We’re fragile. While on some levels, these things are true, and we need to treat each other with care, that is only part of the story. The other part is that we spiritual, luminous beings. We are limitless energy. We are conduits of the most powerful force in the universe: love. We are, in fact comprised entirely of love. We can learn to focus this miraculous energy, and heal ourselves and each other.

You don’t have to quit your job & become a monk to harness this power. It is your birthright. There are simple steps that you already know how to do that can lead you in the right direction. Smile. This sends the people who receive your smile positive energy. They can probably use it. Everyone has a struggle they are going through, and a little encouragement can go along way. Once you feel comfortable with this, you can expand your methods. Smile at strangers. Don’t expect anything in return. If they smile back, that’s great, if not, that’s ok too. If you get caught up in whether or not you’re getting reciprocation, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment, which is the opposite of positive energy. Nobody bats 1000. That means nobody is successful 100% of the time.

Another method of conveying positive energy is the hug. However, hugs are only for people you are close enough to feel comfortable with. Forcing a hug on a stranger is not helpful and could be a crime! But that energy can be sent without physical contact. The wholesome, positive encouragement you convey in a hug can be sent psychically. You don’t have to be a jedi to transmit positive energy to people. Don’t exhaust yourself, and don’t be obsessive. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get immediate results. When you find out someone is sick, send them positive vibes. You can focus your energy by vocalizing what you’re doing. You can do it silently. Just say to yourself, “I’m sending so & so positive, healing energy.”

Don’t ever focus your energy in a negative way. Don’t send energy to hurt someone you’re mad at. If you can, send people you’re mad at a blessing. Even if you can’t do it while you’re angry, do it later. We all get angry, and we all act on anger in ways we regret. Don’t chanel your energy in a negative way. It can become a habit, and will be hard to come back from. Don’t let simple mistakes ruin this process for you. If you do something negative, just put it behind you and stick to the positive. Always take responsibility for your actions.

Also, it should go without saying that while sending healing vibes is an honorable way to learn to focus spiritual energy, always seek professional medical help for illnesses or injuries. Do not under any circumstances think that the methods described above can replace or substitute a doctor’s attention.

Fill your life with positive love & actions. Be love. That’s what you are.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Heal those around you with love

I am convinced we are here to spread love. We are surrounded by wounded people. Most people have no idea what life is about and wander around looking for happiness, but end up sowing pain. We are told money and things will make us happy, safe and secure. Only love can do these things.
We are not saints ourselves, so we must make due with what inspiration we can provide for each other. We all struggle with challenges and the pain of human experience. We all wish we could avoid the things that cause us pain, especially tragic loss, but it is these very experiences that show us who we really are. We may not always like what we see, but we can learn from even our worst moments.

I have a new baby, and although I love her, I am not getting enough sleep and am experiencing challenges like I never have before. My impulse is to not make that part of the journey I share with you because I want you to see me in the best light, but if my struggle helps anyone, it doesn’t matter if everyone else judges me harshly for my shortcommings.

For example, I don’tike getting g thrown up on. We have some awesome burp cloths that our wonderful friends made for us, but Adelia missed the one I had right under her and threw up on me. The sight of my baby throwing up (I have a 2 year old too, so it’s not new to me) combined with being covered with it, along with the kind of sleep deprivation that only comes from weeks of little to no sleep culminated in a string of expletives that would make a sailor want to shower. 

Immediately I felt bad. luckily, the baby was oblivious to me, what with being sick and all, and even while cursing, I still handle the baby with gentle care and cleaned her up and got both our shirts off and calmed down enough to get her calmed down. She really responds to being sung to well. Gabriel used to also, now he just shakes his head.

While these things are going on in my life, I am around others going through pain too; people I work with whom I care about, customers I don’t know, random strangers in traffic: we are all struggling with our own personal trials. 

Sometimes, I can see someone is in pain, but I am unable to do anything concrete. But I can give them moral support, encouragement, and spiritual energy. And almost without knowing it, the people around me send me healing vibes, too. This struggle combined with a symbiotic giving and receiving of spiritual energy is the key dynamic in out lives.

Again, I’m not pretending some of the horrific tragedies we face have value or meaning. I’m not one of those people who are like, “God gave that person cancer for a reason. There’s good to be found in the death of our loved ones” or things of that nature. Any good to come from any horrible situation has to be manufactured by the people going through it, and it’s cruel and wrong to say that people are better off for going through tragedy. What I’m saying is the everyday things that we have to deal with allow us to help each other deal with these things as well.

The more love we spend, the more love we have. If we share each other’s burdens, we won’t have to bare them alone.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Original Sin

I have spent most of my spiritual life avoiding argument. It is usually a better idea to find common ground where one can and let people have their own spiritual truths. The exception would be if someone’s religious beliefs promoted violence, oppression, inequality, or caused physical harm. There are aspects of these negatives to most religions, particularly Monotheism, in which, not only is only one specific deity is recognized, but the worship of the deity is specific to one religion or religious sect. However, most people recognize the importance of extending the courtesy of religious freedom to others that they themselves would want to have extended to themselves. It prevents war.

This argument is really more of the bomb throwing kind. I’m not actually looking to start a fight, but I could easily avoid one by not making the following thesis: The Adam & Eve story is so ridiculous that it could never have been meant to be taken literally. That is; it was written by someone who thought the very idea of what they were writing was too ridiculous to be taken literally. It was probably a kind of teaching story that we lost the lesson part of in the ensuing millenia.

Here’s what I mean: Adam & Eve are created without original sin by an all-knowing, all-powerful, Loving, forgiving God. A God so loving and forgiving, he eventually sends Jesus to save mankind from itself. God places Adam & Even in the Garden of Eden, where they can eat or drink anything they want. The world is literally their oyster. With one notable exception: They cannot eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. You will probably agree that this is a very specific kind of tree. It’s not the tree of bad haircuts, or the tree of drunk driving; it’s the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And, although, the completely new, innocent and inexperienced Adam and Eve can eat from any tree in their garden, they can not eat of this tree. that’s also in their garden, where they can eat anything they want.

So at first they do pretty good. But then the devil comes as a snake in the grass to tempt Eve. And it works. She eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And then she tempts Adam into doing it. And then God, who is everywhere, comes to the garden. The all-knowing God asks Adam and Eve what they were up to. Well, they hide, because what do they have now that they didn’t have before? Knowledge of good and evil. So they know they’ve done something wrong. So the All forgiving, loving God, what does He do to these first offenders? He Sentences them to death! And not just them; but all their progeny for all time. That’s me and you. We didn’t eat from the damn tree! Why are we being punished? So the all-knowing, all-wise God gave Adam and Eve free will and the all-powerful God put the temptation in their garden. In their refrigerator, if you will. “Hey, I’m gonna stock your fridge with food, you can eat whatever you want, but not this fruit that’s basically the same as all the other fruit except you can’t eat it.” “k. by.!”

What was the name of that tree? The tree of knowledge of good and evil. So, they didn’t know good from bad before they ate from the tree? So they couldn’t know it was wrong to do it? And God being all-knowing, knew they would eat from it. Hell, I knew they would eat from it, and I’m not all-knowing. So the all loving all forgiving, Just God punishes Adam and Eve for doing something they couldn’t conceive was wrong in the first place. And He’s punishing us for it, when we didn’t even do it! He gave them free will. He put the fruit tree in their garden and told them not to eat that one.

At this point, I would like to point out that I often use the analogy of a kid who sticks his finger in an electric socket when his parents have told him not to. The electric shock the kid suffers is not punishment for disobeying his parents, but merely the consequence of putting your finger in the socket. That’s not what’s happening to Adam and Eve. We are told specifically and repeatedly that this is punishment for disobeying God’s commandment. This God is an asshole.

That’s why I think this story was not meant to be taken literally. As Tori Amos says; “I thing the Good book is missing some pages…”

I think most of the fables in the Bible are meant to make us think. There are also some teachings that contradict others. There are some that I just don’t agree with. I think this is a case of “we don’t have the whole story.”

But it won’t make you think, if you just take it literally as this is how things are and how God operates. It’s not how things are, and it’s not how God operates. Learn to think, to ask questions.

I worship an all knowledgeable, all-powerful, all Loving God. This story does not depict that God.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Devotion

Often when we engage in spiritual or religious conversations, some varient of the word “Devotion” is part of it. We art devoted to our path, devotees of our diety, and we measure our success by the amount of devotion we commit to our cause. When I met my first spiritual teacher, we talked about the life long commitment I would be undertaking. I don’t spend every minute of every day contemplating my relationship with the Source, but I do spend time everday, even spare time, not just, “ok, I have to spend a half hour meditating”, but throughout the day, because it is what I am most interested in, I come back to it over and over again.

What I am proposing is rather than creating a difficult regimen to stick to, instead think about just how important your devotion is to you. I like things to not be too structured so that my life can happen organically and I can still make time for what’s important to me. I was lucky that at some point on my journey, I heard a priest being interviewed for the radio, NPR’s “On Being” which is a fascinating look at how various people approach the divine. In anycase, the priest said that he liked to think of God as someone to have over for dinner, in an informal setting. His point was that rather than make every interaction with God formal, you make time for God in your everyday life, wearing your everyday clothes. Yes, there’s time for formal ritual, but I’m a believer that every moment of every day is worship, whether we mean for it to be or not, so how we act when we’re not “at church” is more important than the show we attend once a week.

Much of my work is devoted to the spiritual, but not all of it is specifically focused on that. I figure what I devote to God because I want to will have a better quality than doing it because I feel obligated to do it. There are many ways to devote yourself to God: all the way from simple prayer to becoming a monk or priest. How we treat each other is of primary importance.

I’m trying to keep this vague because whatever path you’re on, I want that to work for you. My understanding of the Deity evolves over time, which I think is healthy because if you have a perfect idea of the deity to start with, and no further understanding is needed then your education on this plane is complete, and you would no longer be confined to it. It may be useful as we go along for me to be specific about my beliefs, which I will do for the sake of getting from point A to point B. If the details of my beliefs don’t mesh exactly with yours, feel free to substitute your specifics for mine, if you find that to be helpful. It can be useful to bring us closer to our Higher Power to have details fill in blank areas that aren’t really turning points in spiritual advancement. For instance; I was raised Catholic, and Catholics believe that Mary was a Virgin when she conceived Jesus. This story helps some people realize the divine nature of Jesus, but to me, my faith in the divinity of Jesus doesn’t hinge on this detail. In some ways this is a story that brings the culture of the ancient world to us so we can enjoy being part of something ancient. On the other hand, it seems to say that even sex between to holy reverent people is somehow bad and Mary conceived Jesus without sex. (The idea that sex was involved, just not w/Joseph, since he was technically not Jesus’ father smacks of a kind of Zuesian tale, which it may in fact have been. My point is all this is a distraction from the teachings of Jesus, which are the focus of the religion.) I know it opens a can of worms to bring up this particular story, but that’s kind of the point. It’s a huge distraction from what important about Christianity. Just one point further on this argument: one often hears that God does this to show that all things are possible through God. Well, then why isn’t it possible for God to do it the conventional way? Of course, God is trying to make a point by doing it uncovnetionally, but I don’t think the point is that all things are possible, it’s that Jesus is more divine that human conception can yield (but if all things were possible to God, human conception could yield a divinity like Jesus; it’s that God is making a point, not that God is constrained.