blog

On Love

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 23:41:51 +0100

In this world today I hear a great deal expressed around the notion that at the centre of everything is love. How do people know this. Are they on the phone to The Great Mystery and recording it's every thought and notion. I have always been under the impression, have come to an understanding, that at the centre of everything is everything, if it were not so it would not be here in the manifest world. It may be true that we are in world short of love and in a great need to learn the art of love. And through the course of this step we need to make it the centre of all life. That I can accept. However to call God, Spirit, The Mystery love, is a childish notion based on that lack.

Love is something that we must choose to live from, to have as way of existence, yet to say that love is all there is may lead one down a blind street. None of us can really know what is at the centre of it all, that is why it is named The Mystery, that is why it is spoken of as the eternal night, the ever being darkness. As it is something we can never fully comprehend. What we can do is align ourselves and make the relationship with The Mystery a primary state of being. We can let that life force touch us and influence us, be guided and shaped by that relationship, yet to attribute love to the basis of all life is a narrow blind obsession.

In Hermetic teachings the divine is called The All. That is because it is all that there is. The All has no separation between good and bad, hate and love, up and down, in and out. It is The All so contains all. What remains for us, what our task then becomes is to embrace that All and live life in the dark. Love then becomes a choice, an active force that we embrace to live our lives by.

Finding A Path

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 09:50:17 +0100

Whatever path you step on toward self awareness, make sure it is one where you can still be yourself. I do not ascribe to methodology and understanding being the end point, it is merely the way toward your own relationship with The Mystery. It is hopefully a path that will illuminate you to yourself and guide you toward a personal relationship with life. There are many formulas, many processes that assist in supporting this journey, however, a warning for young players, if the process becomes the end point, toss it out and find an environment where you get explore you.

Each of us need different things at each turn of our journey, what worked yesterday many not work today. We are the ones who need to be committed to self honesty, a rigorous spotlight on our own lives. It is easy to see the faults in others, to focus on what is not happening in other peoples lives. It takes courage and practice to view your own life with insight and deep reflection.

The path you choose. may it uplift you, inspire you, and keep you honest. May it be the foundation for your own personal journey, the one you walk alone, the one that has only your name upon each cobble stone. And may your mentors and teachers never take their hand away, even when it appears as though they have done exactly that.

Being There

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:44:29 +0100

You can be guided and indeed guide others to a meeting with the Mystery. You may find tools that assist you to experience yourself connected deeply with consciousness. You may practice a set of principles that keeps you in touch with that experience. Yet to express the experience is beyond words. We as humans have a need to establish finite conclusions. Yet The Mystery remains that, beyond definition, beyond meaning. I have of late had several experiences which I have wanted to relate to other people, and realise that it cannot be done. The experience is mine and beyond telling. Yet I can discus elements of what appear around the experience, how it impacts me, what my consciousness seeks out in order to make sense of it.

I have watched how an immediate response is to find definition, and in my case it was trying to prove the value of my experience, the enormity of it. It is when I am able to just let the experience be there that it begins to inform me. What I am required to do is observe and follow, sifting through all the matter to find the pith. Once seen engage the revelation and take action in the world. I may be slower than others, for what I have found is I need time for the experience to bubble through my consciousness and become tangible, seen, known.

There are times that I have worked with people where I have wanted them to come to the same experience of life that I have. This of course is not possible, yet I am able to help them walk a path to a deeper more full experience of their own lives and have a meeting point with them at the point of deeper, connecting truths that play us all.

Pole Dancing

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:28:47 +0100

It has been a long pause between drinks. I have not felt the urge to pen on these pages. The reason being is that I have not had anything that I have wanted to share besides my mad ramblings, and for me that is not enough. I want the words here to be more than just my experience, for them to unfold into ideas that will make pith and potency for others to drink upon. We all have experience, that is never in question, the matter of it, the idea contained within that experience is the gem.

One of the most extraordinary conditions that the human being faces is contradiction. What we tend to do is settle on one end of the opposing forces in order to orientate ourselves and feel that we have a grasp on reality, that we are firm in our convictions or master of our destiny. Even the choice to give ones life over is an expression of control. Yet always if one aspect in your life is so, then the other will be equally true as well. This experience we find difficult to deal with, as our brains function on one point at a time. We stand in a room and turn our heads toward one wall, and the opposite wall disappears from sight. The wall does not go away, yet it no longer plays a part for us, it is no longer in focus. To hold two points in ones mind at the same time, to see the two sides to an argument, to allow two opposing emotional states to exist in ones consciousness at the once, this for me is one of the most important understandings in life. It is something I am currently attempting to allow and practice in my life. To extend my awareness that I am able to bring attention to the wall in front of me as well as include the wall behind me. To allow myself to experience the range of emotions I am having at one given time and not determine my life by any one feeling, yet find the idea that is found in them all.

One of the most frequent questions that has entered this current era courtesy of New Age pop ideology, is whether we create our own reality or not. Some put all the resources they have into this idea and make mockery of any who do not grasp the subtle principles of this practice. And on the opposing spectrum others are handing it over like crazy to the idea that we are but expressions of a force that is determining all. Two ends of the same idea. Both extremes seem to be the height of human arrogance. On the one argument, to think that we are capable of shaping our lives entirely solo, through pure expression of our wills and mastery over our environment. This does not take into account all the givens, family history, genetic impulses, other people in your life, cultural background, and current worldly trends. It can lean toward separation from life, no inclusion of the broad spectrum of influences and actions from other people and nature itself. Even to the point where if something destructive occurs in ones life, it is their fault for not being the great creator. The other side is equally arrogant, as ones life becomes based upon the favour of nature’s force. My life is so blessed because I am such a good person in the eyes of the deity, or idea that one prescribes to, that is creating it all. I am taking this action because that deity wants me to, because it is the will of that being or idea. Be it a God or Goddess, nature or science.

It would seem to me that both ideas are true, that I am responsible for the world I inhabit and my actions and attention, the way I am and what I do with that is my creation. The way I wield all the human capacity that is mine and every other human beings, that brings about the experiences I care for. Yet also there is a force of nature, an intelligence in all things that is beyond me, that shifts and plays to its own rhythm, that I must learn to listen to and allow. A tempest is not my creation, yet the way I respond to it, the way I walk through it is.

This is a constant dance of observation and action, allowing oneself the eye that can recognise the difference, and taking the steps that you can take. Life will always have obscurity; there will always be a mysterious force working, one that will never be uncovered no matter what we learn to reconcile it. There will always be vagueness, a place for dreams and imagination to exist, a dimension just beyond our grasp. Just as there will always be conscious participation, entering the dance with eyes open and considering from ones heart and head, from ones soul, the true path in that very moment we stand in. Where that path leads, well there is the Mystery.

The Poem Of Your Life

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:30:23 +0100

A well-written poem uses words sparsely, paints an idea and invokes a feeling and mood often employing two words alone. Line after line the verse describes something that prose or dialogue is not able to capture. The relationship between words, not always obvious, imagines for us a world that transports the soul. Change the position of a single word and the poem takes on a different life. It is not only the arrangement that expresses meaning, the choice of one word over another, though they could mean the same thing, contributes to a precise course. Poetry does not complain about semantics, it embraces the nuance and subtlety.

If you are choosing to live your life as a creative act, as your work of art, the subtle choices you make, the arrangement of your life, consideration of detail are all contributing in ways that you may not comprehend until the final form is found. The language of soul is not brash or blatant, it speaks with imagination, it expresses with a fine shade of purpose. To place the realm of soul in the external alone will leave you wanting. Soul demands an awareness of tone, of colour, it asks for your attention outside of worldly demands.

Poetry takes time to pen, from the initial idea that springs from the deep, through listening, editing, shifting this line with that, until on the page, or from the mouth springs a delicate balance to express a complexity. This life we live is complex, filled with contradictions and paradox. No matter how well we define it, life itself will have a say for reasons that only consideration will reveal. And even then we may just miss the entire impact. Writing poetry is an active process; one has to apply oneself to the task. So too this life we are in, requires action, understanding, experimenting to find the true course for each and every moment.

There are many tools that have been discovered to live a full and rich life. This knowledge is passed on through generations in different forms. Stories, personal development technologies, religious books, scientific tomes, mystic teachings, yet without an appreciation of application, without experimenting for yourself, they will all remain words on a page. We must embrace each idea that rings for us, and act upon it, discovering for ourselves the subtlety in our own lives. We must write our own poem.

Knowledge Vs Action

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:29:54 +0100

I have listened to many speak of what it would take to live this life well, to transform oneself, to become more conscious and authentic. Some propagate the idea that learning is the path, some say action is the way, others to be, listen, and on and on. What amuses me is that all of these mentioned above are aspects of life that will assist you to come to yourself and live in harmony with all life. If it is action alone that leads you to transformation, who was it that told you that, who passed on that knowledge, and if you learned it your self, then that in itself becomes knowledge. If you consider knowledge to be your path, all good and well, though without taking action upon what you know, you are left sitting on your lounge room floor staring at the walls.

Wisdom does not separate one aspect of human nature and resource from the other. To be wise is being in touch with all of you and choosing when to use your natural abilities in a given situation. Action is a fine thing, and provides you with deeds in the world. One learns from what one creates. Being immersed in creating brings about a state of mind and being that is contained within the moment and reflective of your creation. This is powerful and transformative in itself. Yet this is something one learns, and often in it’s subtly a piece of knowledge that is passed down.

Being is also a great skill, and something that one learns from those who know this. To be with oneself, to be with life as it accompanies, provides and challenges you, is a beautiful art form. We learn this from those who know it, and if we don’t learn it from the wisest amongst us, we will be directed to such knowledge from those who read it from some other and hands it on to us. What we do with that knowledge, how we live with it is our choice. To integrate it takes practice. To fully comprehend knowledge demands you act. Both hand in hand.

Why must we pit this thing against that, why must we continue to divide the human experience in to little parcels of understanding and create platforms to launch ourselves from. Every great truth is a half-truth; what we polarize against is equally part of what we promote. Cold does not exist without hot. Courage is non-existent without fear. Death is very much part of life.

Knowledge and action go hand in hand. They are companions on the path to transformation. What you do with them, the choices you make with what you know makes you wise. Wisdom comes from being with what you are doing, with who you are being with, and behaving accordingly to that occasion.

Division of what is obvious and human is like taking oneself to the abattoirs and making an offering. We are whole as we are. The task is to use yourself wisely. Be with yourself and the people and events around you and you will know what action to take.

Within The Pause

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:22:12 +0100

I noticed in an interaction with a friend last night that it is difficult for most people to sit in a pause. We tend to rush in and fill it, with anything. With chatter or activity. In those moments where there seems to be nothing going on, where the silence, or non-action is prevalent, we feel a great desire to make a noise or do something.

Consider music for a moment, the rest, the pause, belongs to the music as much as the notes. The rest insists on a contribution to the melody, to the rhythm of the piece. It is as much a contribution as the sound itself. It is the music and the shape where tension gets created that seeks a resolution by the next note or phrase. The same applies to the dramatic arts, where a pause can speak louder than the words that shape it.

Within those moments in our lives when a pause appears, where a rest or moment leaps out of the dialogue or activity, there is a greater voice than we give credence to. A tension grows, and for most, that tension is experienced as something unnerving, a feeling of being unsettled that requires attention. In some ways this is true, it does. Yet the quality of attention that is needed is not one of ridding the tension, rather it is paying attention. When we are able to sit with these instances, rest in them, we will hear the voice of the occasion telling us what is required. Instead of filling the gap with our compulsions we find true action, a real voice that speaks from and toward the specific event we find ourselves in. Tension in this regard is useful. Often the stress in our lives is created from the inability to sit in these rests, to shape the music of our lives well.

There is a beauty in the pause, in the rests. So often we miss it as we clamber to escape that feeling of uncertainty that arises. This is the moment where we place our personal meaning on the events and remove ourselves from an organic experience. For an instance it feels reassuring, even powerful, yet often we find ourselves in the same place a few beats down the phrase. It is in the pauses and the way we relate to them that places us in the dance of life, the ebb and flow that is as natural as the tides. These are the opportunities to play our music, to find a deeper rhythm to our lives and to connect with life around us. The pause is the music.

What You Are Is Enough

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:48:51 +0100

I have been spending many years exploring one idea. Which is quite simply, what we are, is already what we need, all of it. What is required is to shift our relationship with it, rather than shift it. This life is not about becoming a different person from who we already are it is about inhabiting who you are completely. I am far from being masterful with this principle, I slosh around the planet loosing my way, falling over my own heals time and time again. Yet regardless of that, for this is my point, each fall, each moment contributes to my life. Those experiences add to my awareness rather than detract from it. The fact that I fall so and stumble is something that I do; it is a gift, an attribute that serves me when I let it.

The people who I regard as successful do not change themselves, they may shift their ideas about, bring to the front aspects of their natures that contribute to their lives in a more satisfying way. Yet they are fundamentally who they are throughout all the experiences and deeds they participate in.

We are inhabited by many characters within our personalities, within our depths, each a representation of something that is valuable to us. If we disregard any one of them, if we discard them on the heap, we are tossing away ourselves, and more than often it would seem for a lofty idea that separates us from a real and unique experience, which belongs to us, alone. To live in harmony and at peace requires an understanding and acceptance of each of these characters, for every single voice has something to express. We are in conflict with ourselves when we pit aspects of our nature up against other aspects. We describe the conflict in our lives, we separate ourselves from ourselves, compartmentalising like a supermarket.

All humanity is basically the same, the subtleties and nuances of a culture or people are expressions still bound by the same needs and desires as the person next door. To come to an understanding, or at the least ask the question, as to what we are as beings, what makes us so, will provide a platform in understanding your self. As you allow an appreciation of your particular qualities both obvious and hidden, you begin to place in your hands the qualities, natural skills and values that bring you out of yourself and into the world.

Kiss The Dragon

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:49:33 +0100

If you do not take the time to stop and really consider what you care about, you will be at the command of your compulsions. The will is the natural capacity to organise ones self toward outcomes. The way you wish to be in life as well as what you want in your life. The will is interested in what you care about as its source of inspiration. Whether we are consciously caring about something or unconsciously being driven, the will engages and begins its task of organising you and life about you to achieve the outcome it recognises. If you are unable to be with yourself, unable to accept who and what you are as you are, you will always be driven by your compulsive self. The push from the past is subtle and evasive. These compulsions are set up in early development and form a structural mechanism that is designed to get you where and what you want. The consideration here is not so much the compulsions themselves, rather the buried beliefs that form the structure that maintains our lives. Unless we are willing to take that journey down amongst the cave, to uncover this structure of beliefs, to face our wounds that we based the beliefs on, we will continue to function in a manner that belies our deep nature.

It is like taking on the dragon in the cave. There are many myths and tales of dragons springing from many cultures around the world. These are but ideas designed to inform us of hidden truths about humanity. It is why so many cultures share similar myths, even though they are not aware of each other’s existence. As we encounter a story and grasp its hidden meaning, we are able to draw on its wisdom in order to free ourselves from the grip of our own certainties.

The particular interpretation of the dragon myth I like to draw upon goes like this. I shall not recount the story itself; rather relate the insight I have had. The dragon lives in a cave. Firstly we must ask what is the dragon. My understanding is that the dragon represents the aspects of our nature that we are most afraid of. These are both personal and collective. We cannot entirely escape the culture we are born to. It has as much hold on us as the conditions of our family. It is our broader context. For even our little family is defined by our culture. At fist glance the dragon symbolizes all the factors in our lives that we do not wish to face. The hidden laws that tell us we cannot, the personal conditioning that tells us that life is this way and not that. It holds the staff of thou shalt not, as well as thou shalt. This is right this is wrong. However if we investigate further we will see that what the dragon really embodies is our deep true natures. How can this be, how can this beast of burden be a recognition of our greatness when it seems to represent so much distraction from our soaring souls. How else will it get out attention if it does not throw up our greatest fears and most fixed rules?

Let us to the cave for a moment before we move the dragon’s tale forward. Simply what the cave symbolises is our deep unconscious self. So what is the unconscious self? It is exactly what it states, the part of our consciousness that we cannot see. It is here in this cave that we burry what we do not want to behold, what we consider to be unviable, that which will not support our life. Yet there is a trick here. As the name states, it is unconscious, therefore it will always remain so, or it will be named something else. The cave is more importantly the home of The Mystery, and shall always be so. That which we will never unravel, never be able to put our fingers on and name. It is the source of imagination; it is the home of soul.

What is in the cave with the dragon? Often what you will find is a damsel and a cash of gold. Two more symbols to be unravelled on our quest. First let us look at what the damsel represents, and why she needs rescuing. The damsel is the voice of our feminine natures. She is our intuitive self, our imagination, the creative part of our natures. She is the connection to The Mystery, to the wild and wonderful aspects of inner life. The feminine helps us to embrace the flesh and earth as expressions of the divine. Without such qualities our lives are bound by reason and superstition alone. There is no release from our compulsions or the social structures and norms that bind us. Without the feminine we will remain slaves to conformity.

The gold is self-explanatory; it is our most precious self. The substance of alchemy as we transform our leaden weights into the lightness of being. The gold is our natural gifts and abilities that we have lost in our conditioning of self to survive and search for meaning as we develop into adulthood.

The point I wish to make here is that if we interpret the dragon as the usher, the beast that is calling us into battle with ourselves, then in fact it is a friend. We see the dragon as a threat, because we do not want to look at ourselves, do not want to face the fears and thinking that we are so attached to. We believe that if we confront ourselves at such depth we will loose our sense of self and disintegrate. Yet what the dragon has is the very keys to our wholeness. The very things we are afraid of are the gold we yearn for. If we constantly view life at face value, we will miss this for what we seek is something other than what we are. Our history tells us that there must be something other than what we have, that will bring fulfilment and meaning. We seek our gold outside of ourselves; we seek to find it in some place other than ourselves.

Dragon myths are quests because we must undertake them; there is a task inherent within the journey. Our greatest challenge is to look at who we are with different eyes and discover the path down into the cave and rediscover, redefine ourselves. The aspects of our nature we abhor are the gold we seek. Learn to kiss the dragon and it will walk alongside you throughout your life as a companion not a foe.

Ego As Companion

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:07:23 +0100

There is a wave through the world toward a new spiritual awareness. Many questions are being asked about living this life well; becoming whole, empowered, finding one’s passion, living from greatness. I think it would be true to say that one of the most prominent ideas that has been around for thousands of years is that we have a soul and an ego. That if we are living our lives from ego we will tend toward dysfunctional behaviour, and if we are living from our souls we will be living free of ego conditions. I am have been asking for some time whether or not this really serves us, or whether this idea when approached simplistically will in fact recreate a state of duality, of separation. Contained within this idea of ego versus soul is the view that we are whole already, and that when we land in the world of soul, step out of the ego’s grip, we will discover this wholeness.

What concerns me is this. If the ego is so terribly useless, why do we have one? What is the point of it? Where did it come from? Why do we walk around with this appendage of dysfunction?

After many years of consideration and experiment with my own life I have come to the conclusion that it is not useless. That it has a very important role in our existence. Not only is it the vehicle, the space suit as Gurdjieff coined, it is also the barometer, the talisman of the soul. I have not found anyone as yet who can point to the soul and tell me exactly where it is. So to a certain degree we are left with an idea, the principle of soul. We know where the heart is, the brain, the body, we can even comprehend the impact of our thinking in deep psychological terms. The soul remains a mystery, yet with correct attention one gets a sense of it, that being deep within looking out at us looking out, the intelligence of our being, our presence. Yet the soul needs the body to smell that meal cooking as we enter someone’s home, to be nourished by that majestic vista that takes our breath away, to be touched by the smoothness of a fine piece of pottery.

Well that is the body and five senses. What does the ego do? If we discard the world of the ego out of hand we are throwing away something that we built, something we created. Don’t believe the hype that the ego created itself; it could not have done so as it was not around until it was created. There must have been something present first to create it. Nothing comes from nothing. If we follow the argument it is obvious to me that the soul was here first, and that it’s first masterful creation was the ego. Now this does not discard the idea that the ego was constructed through the avoidance of pain, that we made decisions, invented meaning for our lives, based on seeking the good experiences and avoiding the destructive. What it does point to however is the idea that it was soul that made those decisions, Soul that appointed the meanings and definitions that we come to live by in our private worlds.

Surely if soul was here first, and if soul is the place to aim for in life, this powerful aspect of our consciousness would have made a vehicle that would serve it in the long run. It is certain that if we stay fixed and identified with the world in which the ego was formed we will remain lost, confined to a narrow existence. Yet if we continue to view the ego as a bundle of mistakes waiting to happen, we miss the very nub of its purpose. We must journey down through our beings, not to discard the ego, rather to discover what it is telling us, what it is pointing toward in our inner terrain. We need to climb down into the dark caverns of our own existence and retrieve the gold that rests there waiting to be found. The ego is the trail of breadcrumbs to lead us there. Once we discover the world of soul, we are able to shift the relationship we have with ego, and use it constructively, rather than being compelled, pushed forward from our past, we are free to choose when to use the various skills and talents now found in its dimension. The ego becomes a friend. If wholeness means tossing the ego aside, surely we are no longer whole. Each and every aspect of our humanness is beautiful, useful and integral to our existence. It is a matter of having the courage to face one’s self, to discover the gifts inherent within us. In some ways it is easier to simply fall into the soul’s world and constantly disregard the ego. Wholeness is not optional.