Wisdom Forum

In response to topics of spirituality which appear on the Blooming Rose Press web site, viewers and practitioners offer their perspectives and feedback. We don't subscribe in all cases to every view expressed here, but we do invite their expression.

Reflections from Lily:

The year of 1972 was waning. My partner and I had been on the road full-time for over a year, as sales agents for imports and cottage-manufactured items. We called on a range of shops and boutiques. This meandering route throughout the U.S. led us to explore nature's beauty as well as to discover gems of wisdom in unlikely places along with happenings that would otherwise be unavailable to us.

My spiritual path expanded at the time through an exploration written by Ralph Metzner called Maps of Consciousness. Of the six traditions richly detailed in his book, it was initially the section on I Ching that provided the platform for the next stage of journey into deep spiritual practice, not just for its role in understanding fundamental unity of all, and recognition that there's no need to go "anywhere," that opening to inner awareness is the key...but more, this paragraph in Metzner's Notes and References introduced me to one who became fundamental in my discovery of dharma: "The more recent version translated directly from the Chinese by John Blofeld, The Book of Change (London: Allen & Unwin; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1965), is much briefer because it omits the philosophical commentaries entirely and restricts itself to elucidating the practical use of the I Ching in divination. Blofeld is a distinguished orientalist with both experiential and scholarly knowledge of Zen, Tantras, and Taoism. His version has much to recommend it and his introduction and explanatory chapters are especially admirable."

Soon I acquired Blofeld's translation -- in Washington, D.C., if memory serves. Somewhere in Virginia I was able to glean yarrow stalks along the roadside which I dried and used for sorting. The yarrow stalks have long since disintegrated, but John Blofeld's translation is still with me, kept wrapped in a silk scarf and stored on a high shelf according to tradition.

Here is how that path wended: Blofeld conveyed to me a potent motivation toward absorbing the living spirit of mysticism. His were the texts I sought out. They traveled with me and pushed out my spiritual boundaries with fundaments of Zen through his superb translations; I learned of his lifetime in the Orient through his biography The Wheel of Life (my copy is stamped with the shop's name, "Freak Imports, Fort Worth, Texas"); and most instrumental of all, I soon acquired the book that would strike such deep inner chords that they continue to resound in these late years of my life: The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, John Blofeld's splendid coverage of the Vajrayana or Adamantine Vehicle, a school of Mahayana Buddhism.

Now I have belabored you with all this history because it was then, in the early '70s, when I came to recognize the splendid spiritual methods preserved by the lamas and people of Tibet...and learned about the Tibetan take-over and ensuing brutal regime. Although it had been in 1959 that His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with urging from the Nechung Oracle, fled into exile, as early as 1950 Chinese intentions toward the country of Tibet were clear.

Most people are aware of the uprisings in and around Tibet since March 10, 2008. It is important to be cognizant of the Middle Path when responding, each in our individual ways, to these conflicts. We recommend His Holiness' official website as a deeply helpful source to maintain clarity about these matters. Here is a page from that site with his personal message to Tibetans: http://dalailama.com/news.222.htm

We also recommend www.savetibet.org for suggestions about how we can help.

With deep respect, Lily G. Stephen

"It seems that Eternal Recurrence will be the final theory of everything. The interested reader should have a look at http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612053 in which Eternal Recurrence is found to be the only self-consistent model of the universe." -G.C.

Our reply: The almost impossible way out is the same for any theory or whatever it is we buy into. To realize the true nature of mind and the origin of a self "concept" with all that produces. Just check in with the highest wisdom teachers on this planet. For example...

"As long as we think there is any 'I' to recur or reincarnate, there is a misconception. The entire body of the teachings of the Buddha is concerned with alleviating this erroneous view. The realization of the true nature of mind must be accomplished." -Kalu Rinpoche

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From Bob and Lily: A contact through this site on January 23, 2007 elicited our thoughtful response. Several efforts to send this reply have indicated a faulty email address and have been undeliverable. Due to the nature of this visitor's inquiries, here are her questions and our responses:

"OK, I believe the concept, but I'm having a hard time with, why do we do this to start with? Why if we are all spirit, and perfect ones at that, and at death remember everything, what's the point in coming here, earth, and experiencing this??when it's all an illusion." -J

Hi J, Thank you for your curiosity. It is all too rare.

This may be disjointed, but it's an attempt to answer your comment, to an admittedly limited extent.

Spirit -- a term used by people trying to label what is beyond conceptual thinking -- has never been very helpful in a practical way.

Remembering at death is usually but not always short-lived. All major life experiences are "stored" as mental image pictures in the surrounding subtle energy fields (auras) of the body. A common example occurs in near-drowning experiences as the consciousness is leaving the denser physical focus moving through the higher frequency auric fields -- etheric, astral, mental, etc. This makes up in different guises a "life review." If someone is heavily medicated, for example, or has a very traumatic death, no "review" may be experienced.

Now the "we" or "I" -- what is that? As Lao Tzu said (paraphrased), "the tao that can be explained or described is not the tao." Gurdjieff said, "All our problems come from the wrong concept of 'I'". The "I" that we call ourselves really does not exist. It comes from the mind not realizing its true nature as emptiness. So due to this fundamental ignorance, an "I" concept, or self, is experienced. This of course is accompanied by "other than self" (subject-object). The mind's "awareness" of this duality produces likes and dislikes (desires and aversions), so of course, actions follow -- producing what can be called "karma" because action produces apparent results. This is a very self-perpetuating scenario so that "rebirths" occur over and over on some level or other. Wow! So a "we" or "I" seems to be on this earth level going through all this..."illusion"...YES! Easy to escape from -- NO...but possible.

We need a METHOD to realize "true nature." The most expedient is meditation, using breath, mantra, visualization, a combination of these, or simply the following: just sit and watch the mind, back straight, no direction; just observe the constant arising and passing away of thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. Just keep withdrawing attention from grasping or attaching to any of it. Over and over, watching it all come and go, if attention is not allowed to connect, to "go" with any of it. (Start with five minutes whenever you can, or longer, if possible.) This is how the essential emptiness of the mind is recognized -- what "we" are -- beyond any conceptual terminology.

Please let us know if this helps. It's a tough one. Most will never make the needed effort. It is always "tomorrow."

Love from Bob and Lily

Dear Friends,

Today I’ve been thinking about these young men and women who have humiliated and terrorized Iraqi prisoners. "What’s wrong with this picture," I ask. Our highest leaders are apologizing, seemingly because of pressure to do so and not necessarily due to honest sorrow. I question whether our president is sorry for what’s happening any more than a young child is sorry for getting caught. In fact, my guess is that young children may feel more honest regret over wrong-doing than our president whose primary goal seems to be maintaining a sense of order, control, and dignity.

Kerry keeps making statements finding fault with how our president is doing things, yet I have not heard him say anything particularly unique about how he would do things differently. In fact, I haven’t heard him say anything that gives me hope that he is significantly different in his approach to life than our current leader. Does he have anything substantial to offer regarding U.S. economic policies, military policies, how the behavior of citizens of our country affect each other and how we affect the well-being or harm of other peoples?

I have an uncle, my father’s brother, named George Kraemer who believes that Jesus’ words should be taken literally, "Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If a Roman soldier orders you to carry his goods one mile, go with him two miles…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." Perhaps Jesus greatest demonstration of non-violence was praying for his tormentors from the cross, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

I saw a bumper sticker recently that read, "Would Jesus bomb Iraq?" Another said, "Which enemies was Jesus talking about?" I don’t think a non-violent approach to evil has ever been tried. Most of us obviously don’t believe that such an idea makes any sense. I would like to make a proposal. How about if we all try a non-violent approach to human evil for one hundred years and see what happens? If someone flies a plane into one of our tall buildings, instead of demanding justice and retribution, we’ll call for peace meetings to try to understand why anyone would be so desperate to engage in such behavior. We’ll chant or pray or meditate for peace and try to give forgiveness and mercy instead of hatred and vengeance. We’ll call all the top leaders together to mourn for the loss of life, for the loss of human dignity expressed by the attackers, and for the loss of loved ones and human potential.

For one hundred years we’ll see if evil people could be shamed into being good, not shamed by attacks from others, but shamed by the kindness and forgiveness of others toward their inhumanity. Perhaps human tears of sorrow might replace human sacrifices motivated by hatred. I teach seven and eight year olds. Children are quickly broken by the sadness of those they hurt. When a child who has been harmed, either accidentally or on purpose, does not fight back, the natural response of the perpetrator is one of regret. If the child harmed attacks back, either verbally or physically, the perpetrator is now justified in his or her own mind and fights still harder. The cycle is without end. Both children’s feelings of hatred escalate until they attempt to destroy each other. Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye results only in human blindness." If children’s violence can be quelled by one child’s self-control, then it seems reasonable that the same principle holds for adults. After all, adults are really not that much different than children.

Frequently, people are willing to kill others because they are afraid of dying themselves. What if the reality of life is that death is not something to be feared, but simply a transition from one life into another? What if killing someone produces a living death? Has the killer preserved his own life or has he taken his own life in an attempt to save it? Perhaps our purpose in life is not so much what we accomplish in the material sense, but who we become in the spiritual sense. Perhaps Jesus words would make more sense if we believed that our lives are about becoming kind, becoming merciful, patient, forgiving, loving. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

And back for a moment to these 20-25 year olds who have been caught humiliating Iraqi soldiers. These are very young adults. Only a few years ago, they were smoking pot behind the bleachers. Now we put them into war. We train them to kill people and to not let the killing upset them. We dehumanize the "enemy." We send out our children to do our dirty work. Lest we think they are not children, look into their eyes. Their eyes are red from lack of sleep, from living in a human hell day after day without hope of it ending. They have watched their friends be blown up into pieces. They have run around picking up the body parts of their best friend and weeping into that friend’s gaping wounds. Now, take that same person, commanded to kill in one moment, and then because he takes the enemy as prisoner, commanded to obey the laws of the Geneva Conference on the treatment of prisoners the next.

And while our children are killing other people’s children, our president has reportedly discouraged the showing of the names and faces of those coming home in coffins. "What is wrong with this?" I ask again. What is going on? Why does our president not want the names and pictures of these young people who have died in combat being shown on television? It’s obvious. He doesn’t want us to be touched by the reality of war. He wants us to just keep paying for this war without facing the reality of war. It’s terrible that our soldiers have humiliated and abused Iraqi soldiers, but is it better to just kill them? Is shooting them and bombing them acceptable, but humiliating them, abusing them not acceptable? Isn’t the entire battle humiliating and abusive?

And if, the purpose of life is to become a loving, caring, merciful, forgiving human being, made in the image and likeness of his or her Creator, then why kill people anyway? Would it not be better to die with all the character intact given by the Creator than to live with all the character in shambles? How much is so-called freedom worth? Even less honorable, how much is oil worth? Human kingdoms are worthless in the eternal. Greater is the one who has accomplished nothing of physical value who loves deeply than the one who has built kingdoms out of mud and straw. King Solomon, in all his glory and power and splendor, said, "Meaningless, Meaningless. All is meaningless."

Let’s try non-violence for a hundred years. That will cover at least your and my lifetimes and if each generation tries non-violence for a hundred years, there will be very little war and very much peace. For peace will not be the enforced control of human peoples, but the inward condition of the human heart. Peace on earth will be the outward visible reality of peace internally. The condition of my heart, whether it be one of hatred or love, vengeance or forgiveness, retribution or mercy, anger or kindness, this is what I must live with. This is my heaven or my hell. And this is what I will take with me into the next world, nothing more and nothing less. This is what our lives are meant to be and this is what real life is. There is no other. I would rather die and live than kill and thus die.

Brian, 5/9/04, Pasadena, CA. Email: linus_blanket_2001@yahoo.com

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I have only recently discovered your site and must tell you that I believe I have recently had an "awakening" or what feels more like a rediscovering of myself. I was raised and educated as a Roman Catholic but once reaching teenage years I began to find it flawed and rejected it. I went through several phases, I was kind of lost as to what to believe, should I be an atheist, agnostic, I never really felt like taking anything at face value, and all this blind faith nonsense, well really. I sought answers elsewhere, fantastic thinkers, the people who entertain us with "wild" ideas of alternate realities and the such. A few years ago I began to experiment with pyschotropic substances, LSD, but mostly Magic Mushrooms, through gradual sessions of heavy tripping, I began to devise theories on existence, and reality, and then I noticed certain things, which if explained to any one could possibly make me sound mad. In conclusion I ended up forming a theory of who I was, and what reality was, and most importantly I discovered that there is no such thing as death of the consciousness, only of what we percieve to be the physical. These thoughts I had discovered by myself through inner exploration. I felt alone in my thoughts, the only things that agreed with my beliefs were the odd science fiction or fantasy story. But then I started to search around and Woah, suddenly I'm not so alone, and hey these aren't new ideas after all, they outdate Christianty! Plato, Baudrillard, Aristotle, they all concurred with my beliefs. Not only that but now more and more everything seems to make sense. Through looking at things with the view that everything is interconnected I can put reason behind most things and I am at peace with myself. I don't need to worship, I don't need temples, or churches, My only commandment is to respect life, my own and others. I don't even feel the need to try to convert others because it is my belief that the truth can only be discovered within. Now, surely, if everyone had that belief the world would be a greater place.

Richard - U.K. 4/29/04

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I used the idea of eternal ocurrence as a lense to observe my life, both the daily cycle and the life long cycle, and certainly came to the conclusion that I simply revolved in mechanical cycles--always the same gestures, thoughts, actions, ideas, words, the same decisions over the length of my life, the same problems the same idiocy. I was a pattern of existence. I received an interesting shock from all this, certain "facts" as Ouspenski might have said, manifested themselves, so to speak.

Ouspenski once wrote that, to paraphrase, "if only the "fact" of consciousness out of the body could be proven then..." And indeed it has, hasn't it? Well it has for me, at least, I have experienced it personally, as they say. Does that mean upon death that this other 'body' will perhaps live for longer than the physical body?

Obviously the whole problem of understanding has to do with the 'level' of the person seeking understanding.

Your level of being is connected with your understanding, after all. So we have people who know certain 'facts' seeking answers and other people who know nothing, personally experienced that is, also seeking answers. There is the higher and the lower. A person who has seen with all their being a UFO has different questions to the person who has never seen a UFO.

A person who has "remembered" themself, whilst plodding around on the surface of Earth in the middle of their particular society, needs a deeper reality, dimension, to their search. And of course one cannot simply pour understanding or personal experience from one full mouth to one empty one. Personal gnosis is, or telos is, what it's all about. What does a dead man know of life?

A person who wakes up in this life, knows that there was a before and after before this life, and many other things to boot. The whole of the understanding is the key. The answers to questions of recurrence may be located behind doors with different labels.

Victor Manukian - 4/3/04
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Recurrence to me, eternal recurrence the concept or theory proposed in much detail throughout the writings of P.D. Ouspenksy, seems to me to make so much sense and to be the one hopeful "theory" regarding the question "why we are here." I just tonight read in Jung's "synchronicity" essay that Jung thought deja vu to be explained by prior dream material, which does not jibe with my personal experience. However, when you take a look at deja vu experiences in the light of 'eternal recurrence' the 'seen before' been here, done that experience makes a whole lot of sense. I have been working on a novel for some years that involves recurrence, which my literary agent now has got a publisher interested in reading. This is probably due to the fact that I have had half a dozen celebrity biographies published in the past few years but could be the synchronicity that I have anticipated because I have already done a rewrite of much of the manuscript, preparing it for that fateful day when it will be read by someone other than my circle of friends.

Have you read Ouspensky's 'novel' or kini script as he called it titled the Strange World of Ivan (the last name eludes me at this late hour) Sorokin or Osakin perhaps? he's not a very good fiction writer and didn't spend a whole lot of time honing his dialogue skills or anything and the book merely emphasizes what he says in his lectures about the fact that simply knowing about recurrence does not change anything. Without the intense self-work in an established "school," he says in his lectures, self-improvement is simply not possible. Well, he didn't live in the new age where many people aim to be on a path of enlightenment, possibly even self-remembering and so on, and today this theory of how reincarnation within this same lifetime might possibly be what is going on here in this life fits in with many of the positive thinking models that have become available as the age of Pisces passes and the age of Aquarius begins.

Anyhoo I am interested in just how many people might be thinking of their existence in these terms and will log onto to your site again and check out what responses you have had and what people might be up to as far as information sharing goes. Best, JB - Vancouver BC 01/02/04

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HIGHER AWARENESS

This morning I read in the New York Times about how the White House continues to withhold demands from the federal commission investigating the 9/11 incident. Chairman of the commission Thomas Kean states, "As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before September 11 than it has ever admitted." They are on the verge of issuing subpoenas and beginning a high profile courtroom showdown with executive branch agencies.

A little later I received a forwarded email message from my 75-year-old mother about Lisa Beamer, the widow of Todd Beamer, one of the heroic passengers who thwarted the mission of the hijacked plane headed for D.C. on 9/11. Her account of a lesson she was taught about the importance of the (seemingly) small things in life hit a cord. (See below.)

These two related info-bits gave me pause here on this global-warming-induced, unseasonably warm Sunday in San Francisco.

Here we are in late 2003: we are living in the "end times" that have been foreseen by sensitive and astute observers for many centuries. This is the turning point, the portal of transformation for the globalized, internet worked human species. Will the transformation be an "evolutionary bounce" (to use Duane Elgin's phrase), where we transcend the competitive, war-faring model of civilization into a new integrated global culture of distributed collaboration...or will it be a crash and burn scenario?

While attending one of the anti-war protests here in San Francisco with my daughter prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, I came across the comic-book format publication "Addicted to War." This highly accessible and fact-packed 69-page booklet brings home the reality of war and conquest as the foundation of our modern American empire. It struck me that for all the benevolent, evolutionary fruits of this empire -- the life-enhancing inventions, systems, schools of knowledge -- there remains a powerful life-threatening force at work in every aspect of our society. We are essentially a collective Luke Skywalker, discovering, to our horror, that the "Axis of Evil" itself -- Darth Vader -- is our own father. It's a paradox that lies deep within our collective psyche: the thrust of Western civilization to the Promised Land brought with it a philosophy and tactical strategy of deception and conquest.

The 7th generation of surviving Native Americans now looks with hope to the prophecy of transformation in this time. And now, in late 2003, the interdependent world community is finally exhausted with America's worship of war -- from the Trade Wars against the Third World, to the Drug War against the Human Rights of millions, to the World War of ecological devastation, to the War on Terrorism against ourselves. We are operating on a fatally flawed foundation: the codes of civil and corporate reality are obsolete and must be completely rewritten.

How?

We can move beyond the paradox. We have been, as a tribe, working through the karma. Now, awareness alone can transform us. Humans are connected by more than the telephone, the Internet, and the international banking system.

We are connected by the "innerenet" of DNA-antenna-genes and resonating memes: what we recognize as relevant, significant, or "cool" can be transformative on a vast scale. It is cool to be aware now. The leaders and institutions of the prevailing order have let us down. We have no choice now but to think for ourselves. To participate in a reinvention of human culture and civilization. And it is already happening, big time. The tools are in place. The knowledge is accessible. Awareness -- and the actions that follow -- will transform us and our world toward a new level of complexity. A new order IS emerging.

To enjoy each day, as Lisa Beamer's touching story conveys, is to be fully alive. Awareness of the little things, those simple but profound manifestations of divine creation that compose our everyday reality, is what really counts in life. Certainly, this is a deep truth, a core revelation of religious seeking: "chop wood, carry water." But thanks to our emergent noosphere -- the sphere of mind that Teilhard de Chardin predicted -- we are capable of, in fact compelled to, a higher awareness. Not only of our social reality, but of our planetary and cosmic realities. This is the awareness that will push evolution forward, take us up a turn on the spiral. Higher:" more encompassing, more complex, more transcendent. Awareness alone will transform the human species at this critical moment in history.

I hope the gross events of these days, the economic and ecological troubles, the political and corporate systemic breakdowns, the human misery...will inspire a broader vision in us, a view from above. We can see from the point of view of the Earth, which IS us, that all life herein is a delicately balanced dance moving up an ever-enfolding spiral; we can see from the point of view of the Sun, the one Sol which IS us, that our planetary system dances within the Galactic plane of subtle energetic exchanges; we can feel in this higher awareness realms of experience that call to us, call us to rise above our material grasping and virtual realities and dpower games...to the cosmic life that is our true foundation.

M. Gosney 10/26/3 San Francisco

(Forwarded email message) Lisa Beamer on Good Morning America - If you remember, she's the wife of Todd Beamer who said "Let's Roll!" and helped take down the plane that was heading for Washington D.C.

She said it's the little things that she misses most about Todd, such as hearing the garage door open as he came home, and her children running to meet him. She's now the Mom of a beautiful little girl, Mary.

Lisa recalled this story: I had a very special teacher in high school many years ago whose husband died suddenly of a heart attack. About a week after his death, she shared some of her insight with a classroom of students. As the late afternoon sunlight came streaming in through the classroom windows and the class was nearly over, she moved a few things aside on the edge of her desk and sat down there. With a gentle look of reflection on her face, she paused and said, "Class is over. I would like to share with all of you a thought that is unrelated to class, but which I feel is very important.

"Each of us is put here on earth to learn, share, love, appreciate and give of ourselves. None of us knows when this fantastic experience will end. It can be taken away at any moment. Perhaps this is the Power's way of telling us that we must make the most out of every single day."

Her eyes beginning to water, she went on, "So I would like you all to make me a promise. From now on, on your way to school, or on your way home, find something beautiful to notice. It doesn't have to be something you see, it could be a scent, perhaps of freshly baked bread wafting out of someone's house, or it could be the sound of the breeze slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, or the way the morning light catches one autumn leaf as it falls gently to the ground.

"Please look for these things, and cherish them. For, although it may sound trite to some, these things are the 'stuff' of life. The little things we are put here on earth to enjoy. The things we often take for granted. We must make it important to notice them, for at any time it can all be taken away."

The class was completely quiet. We all picked up our books and filed out of the room silently. That afternoon, I noticed more things on my way home from school than I had that whole semester. Every once in a while, I think of that teacher and remember what an impression she made on all of us, and I try to appreciate all of those things that sometimes we overlook.

Take notice of something special you see on your lunch hour today. Go barefoot, or walk on the beach at sunset. Stop off on the way home tonight to get a double dip ice cream cone. For as we get older, it is not the things we did that we often regret, but the things we didn't do.

If you like this, please pass it on to a friend. If not just delete it and go on with your life! Remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

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"I enjoyed perusing your web site. For what it's worth, I think Gurdjieff would have been an avid computer user once the Internet came along; I see the web as it is today as the exponential growth of interlocking neural pathways mirroring the same type of pre-natal development which takes place in a fetus' brain as it grows towards human consciousness and awareness of 'I'.

"It is my belief that the development of the Net signifies one of the last stages of growth of the gaia fetus, soon to be born in an unprecedented phase transition as a unified world consciousness in which all of us (seeming) individual humans become aware of and are moved by the superconsciousness which has been growing as the boundaries of time and space have shrunk with this modern age.

"I feel the act of tapping into the Net's growing akashic-record-like storehouse of knowledge, expression and communication to be a fundamentally spiritual act. When the day comes when we are all wired and connected on the physical plane, the same will be manifested on the parallel planes of mind and spirit.

"As above, so below; as without, so within."

-J.S., Sebastapol, CA.

"I am amazed at the utter insufficiency of most everything spiritual around me. It is painfully obvious that a very large part of what is masquerading as spiritual realization is simply modified ego and does not represent vibrantly alive transformation in any way. Yet in a mysterious manner, this then turns into a form of service for me, as it unleashes a discontent of tremendous proportions, the kind of discontent that makes me want to lie down and not get up until there is nothing but the complete and unceasing presence of the Divine.

"The mind is a formidable trickster. It goes along with everything as long as it is allowed to continue to exist. It says, 'You want to be spiritual? No problem. Here it is. Now, I am spiritual. Now I am a seeker of mystical knowledge. Now I am an advanced initiate.'

"As long as the mind is allowed to continue to emit notions of who we are, everything is okay. What happens is that the materially oriented ego has modified and turned into the spiritually oriented ego. And in that manner, survival is guaranteed and illusion, in the name of clarity -- is maintained. And this glamorous comedy can go on forever.

"I can think of only two things that seem potent enough to break the vicious circle of ongoing self-delusion: radical and ruthless observation and witnessing of one's thought processes, a continuous stream of bringing oneself back into the moment and -- Grace.

"What is Grace? Grace can come with lightning speed. One moment we are standing in the kitchen, the mind chattering away, the next moment -- it strikes. All of a sudden, there is a tremendous spaciousness. There is complete stillness. There is no thought. There is complete absence of any sense of 'I.' The insight is pure and undiluted and there exists nobody to have the insight. The perception of reality just is, without a perceiving agent. There is a tremendous relief.

"A glimpse occurred. And the path of realization is filled with these glimpses, moments where the Eternal Here and Now truly opens up and reveals its profound emptiness and stillness. Mile stones. Gifts. Grace. And when the soul is not anchored in this manner (please note the duality-supporting quality of the English language), when separation and duality have returned, there exists a silent kind of torture, the memory of what is one's true state and the knowledge that nothing else will do. Everything, one knows, is just a smoke screen, mysteriously preventing insight into the true nature of one's reality. And at this point the experience of longing becomes profound."

-Andreas Mamet, Mount Shasta, CA. http://amamet1000.tripod.com/thereflectionsofandreasmamet/ _______________

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