Posts Tagged love

A Story of Love

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on April 29, 2013

TAT 2013 June Gathering

Friday through Sunday, June 14 – 16

A Story of Love

A Story of Love

To see myself in everybody and everybody

in myself most certainly is love.

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

What are we devoted to? Where does longing pull us? What is love and what is Love? What prevents opening? What prevents sinking deeper within?

 

A Story of Love: TAT’s 2013 June Gathering provides an opportunity for those interested in remembering our primary problem and finding love on the spiritual path.

 

A Story of Love

The registration deadline for the June Gathering is Friday, June 7th.

http://tatfoundation.org/june/tat_june_gathering_2013.htm

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Double Trouble

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on April 17, 2013

     The great difficulty in spiritual work is the ego. Whatever efforts or plans we devise to get beyond ourselves are started and carried out by that which we wish to transcend, and have the undesired effect of strengthening the very obstacle we seek to overcome. This is made even  more insidious by the ego’s natural ability to split itself in two, and thus ceaselessly chase its own tail while proclaiming its progress. Ego(ego1) as problem solver berates itself(ego2) as problem creator, and around and around we go. Any system or discipline is subject to the ego’s trickery, but struggle we must. The very tension we produce from the conflict, if stored and transmuted, may provide the catalyst for an unexpected change.

Double Trouble

Double Trouble

 

     Noticing two distinct camps in the field of spiritual endeavor over the years, I’ve come to see that a two pronged approach yields the quickest and best results. Let’s take a look at these two methods, their strengths and weaknesses, and why both are necessary.

 

     The first could be described as a passive listening, exemplified by systems such as Subud. When Bennett says,” There is one Source of Help that stands beside and abides within us. All that we have to do is to learn how to ask and to receive the help that is offered.“, this is what he refers to. Many teachers have expounded the merits of what might be called ‘direct looking at the Source’. Douglas Harding’s system of looking at the looker, of seeing what you are looking out of, is another example. It has been said that realization dawns in a quiescent mind, one that is not filled with ‘knowing’, but is empty and sees its own nothingness. Gurdjieff said that we must start from passive Do(first note of the scale), meaning we cannot begin by projecting our destination and then going about making that desire-concept manifest. We must look for what IS, not for what we think we want or desire. This works on the ego’s insistence that it ‘knows’ and is in charge as the doer, and undermines its authority.

 

     While the above illustrates the good side of direct seeing, it also shows the inevitable downside. Many use this passive looking as an excuse to keep spiritual work only in the head, and therefore not allow any real change. They can become addicted to such platitudes as ‘there is nothing to be done, for there is no doer, so just relax’ and thus take themselves out of the search too early. The ego will grab hold of such sayings and use them to keep its power, and the game is soon over. We must hold tension if we wish to transcend our present state, not give in to laziness or fear. If our ‘looking’ is only in the thoughts and memory, no change occurs. If what we see is not admitted, our seeing stays in the head, and ignores the heart.

 

     The second prong is the opposite of the above, being  a psychological analysis of the mind. One begins to observe oneself, one’s actions, thoughts, and motivations. Slowly, a picture of how one’s head is put together comes into focus. We begin to see we are not what we thought we were, but are mechanical, a machine, governed by unconscious factors that don’t always have our best interest at heart. We also see how our fellows are built the same, and see their flounderings as mirrors of our own. This also plays against our belief that we are an individual in charge of our actions, and distinct from all others. We see instead that we are just a bundle of reactions built up by life, and have no real being in a true sense. This too goes against the ego’s insistence on being the real “I”, capable and always right.

 

     Here again, the danger lies in two facets. First, we may not take the above personally, but keep it safely tucked away in the intellect. We may see how the personality in others is flawed, and talk about our own, but somehow always manage to rationalize it away as regards ourselves. The ego will not let it go too deep, but keep it in the realm of theory and the ‘other guy’. The saying ‘the truth shall set you free, but first will make you miserable’ applies here too, as well as to the path of direct looking. If we do not take what we see about ourselves to heart, if we cannot be self-honest, the ego will remain untouched. No pain, no gain.

 

     The other trouble is that if we do not bring honesty and direct looking into play with our observations of self, we may come to like the game, and thus engage in a different form of tail-chasing: that of endlessly analyzing ourselves. We can also fall into the trap of becoming negative and judgmental, thinking that the search is about labeling and building hierarchies, in which we are always above and beyond. This is ego at its best, is tiring, and without good end.

 

     The marriage of reason and intuition brings forth fruit. Any path that promises realization without loss of self, meaning difficulty and suffering, should be considered circumspect. And any system which promises to find Truth through the thinking mind only should dealt with just as warily. While some have made the trip using only one of these paths, most of us do not have the time and endless energy this may require. The ego’s traps of desire and fear, pride and self-pity, can take any method and use it to take us farther afield. We need all the help we can get, use what you have.
Bob Fergeson

 

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The Sad Child of Maddening Dreams

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on December 22, 2012

The Sad Child of Maddening Dreams

Caineville Church

he ran

and hid awhile.

The Mad Child of Saddened Dreams

he fought

’til he went wild.

 

The Naive Child, moody dreams,

The trap to spring

is set.

The Serious Child, dangerous dreams,

The trap awaits

its guest.

 

Kodachrome Dream

Nostalgia lights

the path ahead,

as the way leads up and up,

From his burning bed

the child then flees

to Love’s deep comforting cup.

 

Mercy, Faith

reveal themselves

from beyond the blood-stained scene,

And Grace in Light

returns to the Child

Cathedral Valley

the Peace he had foreseen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Conscious.tv Interviews, London, April 2012

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on April 18, 2012

Art Ticknor and I were interviewed by conscious.tv this month in London. The staff there, Renate, Ian, and Eleanora, were awesome, great people with genuine interest:

 

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Zen Leadership

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on March 22, 2012

Zen Leadership: The Toughest Best Business Decision I Ever Made

by August Turak

http://www.forbes.com/sites/augustturak/2012/03/15/zen-leadership-the-toughest-best-business-decision-i-ever-made/

Richard Rose

Richard Rose

He cared deeply, lived carelessly, and couldn’t care less, and he died in the same obscurity into which he was born.Yet he remains the greatest leader and most remarkable man I have ever met. Everything that is best in me I owe largely to him.

 

For more information on Richard Rose go to : www.tatfoundation.org

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The Eternal Child Within – The Puer

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on March 8, 2012

” The Child and the Presence are the same one Presence and It is right here where we are, transcending this world’s time and space.” – Willam Samuel

Samuel was a man who learned his lessons through fire and suffering, and later put them to the test in everyday life, and found them true. He speaks directly to the Heart of the listener in a forceful and simple manner, leading them to recognize that their own intuition is the surest path to the Inner Child.

Holocene by Bon Iver from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

“The Child of Light and Love is the pathfinder, the guide, the wayshower up the mighty mountain in Kwangse Province. Science, religion and philosophy can take us a great distance, but the Child takes us to Dominion. It is absolutely essential that we actually get in touch with the eternal Child.” – William Samuel


For more on Samuel’s work, visit http://www.mysticmissal.org/william_samuel.htm

For ordering his books and tapes, visit http://www.williamsamuel.com/

 

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Love, and Reason

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on January 10, 2012

Once we’ve had profound realizations on love and intuition, we have to watch for the ego taking these over and saying, “look how special I am, I can now do whatever I want”. You’re not special. This feeling just leads you into another trap that can be seen in the following two different ways: One, is we can think we’re special, and can do whatever we want without consequences. We treat other people however we feel with impunity, because we’re special, “I’m me” and me knows all about love.

Heart of Little Wild Horse

Heart of Little Wild Horse

The other one is, we think we are special and know about love, so we have to save everybody. The ego now has to fix, correct, and save everyone we meet. We forget about taking care of ourselves because we’re too busy rushing around doing everything to everyone, for ‘love’.

These two reactions basically come about from a lack of reason, brought on by base infatuation with ourselves. We have to allow reason to come into our decision-making process to double-check what the emotions, and our ego’s love, are up to. We don’t have to have reason as the final arbiter, the final decision-maker, but we should allow it into the process. It’s very easy to get tricked if we lose our heads, but not our egos, and start running around in love, thinking we’re infallible.

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The Validity of Love

Posted by mysticmi in Zenpoint on December 13, 2011

Heart of Little Wild Horse

Heart of Little Wild Horse

I can not count the times I scoffed at such statements as, “the universe is Love,” or that, “all there is, is Love.” Yet, tonight, I find myself writing, “There is only Love.” The difficulty lies in the word “love.” It is as full of pre-conceptions as the word “God.” However, some ears may respond to “love,” but not to “allness,” so it is helpful to explore further. Love is not something we do. To be kind, thoughtful, positive, happy, or caring has nothing to do with Love. It is a feeling which is with us always, but only surfaces when we crack a little at the seams — meaning when we relax our continual guard against the perceived threats of the world. Sometimes it is another person who allows us to feel the love that is always within us. Are we loved by another person, or does that feeling originate within us, available to us at any time, if we let down our guard (ego)? Love is not between two people, because there are not really two people there. There is only Love — an ever-present oneness that has nothing to do with bodies. Search for the essential feeling behind your experience of love — beyond romantic tingles, beyond your concern for other human beings. What is love telling you of your importance and the importance of others? “That the other is more important than me,” you say. Think though, if the other person experiences the same feeling of love as you, then love is saying no one is important. Yet the majority of lovers and poets of all mediums use love to exalt the human condition and glorify our misery. A misery caused by claiming for the transient body a feeling that is eternal and all pervading. “I am in love,” means not that you possess a feeling. It means that you rest in a sea of Love and are like Ramana Maharshi’s salt doll dissolving in the water. Love is the light shining through the spaces between your atoms. Love is the impersonal reality of your Self.

- Shawn Nevins

 

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