Esoteric essays on health and life

Below are a series of essays to browse through.  Enjoy!

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The teacher – Why A guru?

 

     When I was younger, in my early twenties, I read about the need in spiritual practice for a teacher, or guide.  They call them gurus in the Eastern world.  I scoffed at the idea of blindly following some “cult” leader.  I always trusted the “inner” wisdom.  Yet, 15 years into a meditation practice, 14 years removed from the choice where a voice told me if I took up yoga I would be opening Pandora’s box of sorts.  I was “told” a new world would open, and it may not seem easy at times.  I chose that wisdom because I had broken my neck and wanted to heal.  Unseen forces were pulling me into the unknown.

     I spent 12 years searching for something I would give my life for; something that was so compelling it would satisfy a lifelong yearning.  Nothing permanently filled this void.  Shamanic practices, mystical meditations, austere yogic practices of fasting, sweating, breath-work, musical rapture, sensual sex and eating could not secure bliss permanently.

     But one evening, I decided to attend something called a “satsang.”  I had been to a few already by a wonderful teacher called Mokshananda (Mokie for short).  The meeting, or “satsang,” was in his living room and very intimate, very open and honest.  We all sat for 45 minutes with no instruction, which I found strange and compelling.  The air in the room seemed thick with love and silence.  My mind became alternately drowsy, then very curious and active.

     Just as I was entering a trance state daydream, Mokshananda began talking about spirituality for 30 minutes, then answered questions.  Many people were referred to inquire into “who they really were.”  Some were invited to examine “who was having the problem.”  I found this line of ego dissection both intimidating and inspiring.  Maybe I had found the key to happiness I had so long felt was so close.  As the meeting ended, “Mokie,” announced his teacher, Adyashanti, would be at another place called the Pacific Cultural Center the following week.  I left with a feeling that I just had to go to this “teacher’s teacher.”

     The following week I entered a room filled with sunset light, striking the forehead of a shiny bald head.  My vision widened and the whole person was surrounded with beige light.  A very pleasing looking man, about my own age, in his late thirties or early forties.  He spoke with clarity, with cutting honesty, and a touch of morbid humor that struck me resonantly.  I saw myself out there, teaching.

     This man was both forcefully, powerfully honest, yet tender and compassionate.  Always the skeptic, my mind said to wait for him to slip up under pressure.  My mind could see the posers from the real thing.  During the question and answer, he never flinched under the toughest of conflicts from the questioners.  They all walked away pleased, with a glow to their eyes.  This man was the real thing in words, expression, honesty, and truth-telling.  I felt humbled and small.  It wasn’t a feeling of submission, but empowerment to an unseen part of me and a tearing down of another part.  Something unseen, yet felt, was coming alive.  And another had begun to die.

     Although it took me another two-and-half years to see him again, a part of me knew there was a “resonance” with him and Mokie.  I came to see Mokie a few times, then missed two years before returning.  I came to realize Mokie and Adya had become silent teachers, always present, a part of me.

     Many times over the next few years, I found strange paradoxes arising that could not be resolved or understood.  A blind rage would arise in traffic.  It would be followed with feelings of remorse and grief.  “How could I have been so angry?”

Another example was the lustful urges.  Wonderful fantasies would arise with every passing, beautiful woman.  Then shame for having “used” the woman’s image for my own enjoyment.  Oneness so profound would be followed the next hour or day with strong feelings of separation from others and life.

     But during all this, some silent part of me giggled at the roller coaster of my emotions and thoughts.  Recognition of this would bring immediate relief.  An inquiry I had begun many years before, without much success, began arising again because of Adya and Mokie.  It was, “Who am I?”  Various forms of this would also appear, like “What is actually feeling this?”  Another repeated stumper for my mind was, “I feel this witness of everything, but how does it move in the world?”

     My next teacher became my new girlfriend, whom I met because of bizarre and painful series of events.  Before we met, some part of me knew with absolute certainty that my ego development (or spiritual maturity) would depend on developing a relationship.  As we got to know each other, an inner voice would say, “This is your final exam.”  What did that mean?  These lines of inquiry led to a knowing that all my relationships up to her were like training.  All my mistakes would not have been acceptable for this person.  My actions seemed much more transparent and less reactive.  There was greater assessment of passing events, then a response, as opposed to blind reaction.  Was this because of her, or because of my own inner awareness?  Maybe it was both?  Maybe Adya and Mokie were helping also?

          As our relationship deepened, parts of me felt like they were “coming home.”  We both began an intense four-year process of emptying out “the garbage can” through silent retreats with Mokie and Adya, and daily meditation practice.  The strange thing was as the conditioning I had previously never questioned became more transparent, more difficulties kept arising.  Though I had times of feeling home, there were still more moments of pain, confusion, dark trance states, and reactivity.  I began to doubt the path I was on.

 

 

“The bright path seems dim,

The straight path seems narrow.”

Tao Te Ching

 

A defining time came about the end of the second year of intense process work and silent sitting.  Carolyn and I were attending a three day silent retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains with Mokie and his wife, Marlies.

          During the second day of the retreat, while sitting quietly during a 40 minute meditation, a very subtle inner feeling was noticed.  I can only describe it as, “Oh no, must squelch this uncomfortable sensation arising.”  It was as if a thought or emotional uprising was sensed by a subtle aspect of mind or awareness.  It felt like an inner judgment tightened around the fledgling feeling, and then pushed it back down to wherever it came from.  Part of me knew I needed to ask about this.  There was only one time talking was allowed, during a period known as dokusan.  This was a personal meeting with the teacher where one could ask questions about their personal process.

          I felt a little nervous before the meeting.  I had chosen to meet with both Mokie and Marlies, because my guts said so.  Now, my guts were full of butterflies and semi-nausea.  The process involved waiting for a bell to ring, announcing one’s turn had come.  We had to wait outside the meeting room on a long wooden bench.  The minutes felt like glaciers of ice melting in a refrigerator.  My mind was making up stories about the value of this meeting, and my heart was full of anticipation and hope.

          The bell rang suddenly, bringing me out of a short reverie.  I was glad to be away from those trance induced states.  Clarity was appearing more frequently, yet the pitfalls of trance seemed devastating, and the doubts about being on a
”spiritual path” were strong.

          As I opened the door and looked at the small room, the first thing I noticed was the warm welcoming feeling, the subdued light through the translucent drapes, and the faces of mokie and Marlies smiling genuinely at me.  They warmly offered me a cushion on the floor, and I sat facing them.

          Now, my mind seemed to become confused and empty.  The questions seemed to have very little importance, yet I knew and remembered the squelched sensation.  I also knew that was an important realization, and I needed to ask about it.  Mokie asked me about my concerns and questions.  I told them both that I did not need a guru or teacher.  I needed guidelines and pointers.  They both looked at me knowingly.

          And I told them the story of how the hand squeezed around the sensation, metaphorically.  I told them of my doubts of this path.  I told them about my background and what I wanted in this life: to live the Truth (big T).

          Mokie responded with a surprising discourse on letting go of vigilance.  He and I had talked a few years earlier about maintaining aware and clear sight of trance states and how they start.  We had talked about the need to meet all the things that take one out of presence and let the love shine on those dark and hidden parts.  Now, he was telling me to move on.  He told me about Master Eikhart and his saying, “God help me to forget myself, so that I can find myself.”  Marlies told me about natural faith and to rest in that.  “Relax the vigilance.  Can’t you see that you do not remain unconscious for long?”

          I did know that.  My own experience backed up what they were saying, but without their guidance, I do not know how long I would have stumbled along, suppressing natural arisings.  The fallings into unconscious patterns were my concern though.  I knew very well the anger, the lust, and the urges to scream were at times very unhealthy to those around me.  Now, I was being asked to let go and let these things take their course.  I was learning to take my hands off the steering column of the boat called life.

          This boat often felt like it was gonna crash and my sanity with it.  I spoke of this.  Both of them smiled knowingly and said I was too grounded to lose myself that much.  I felt slightly scolded, like an ignorant child.  Being “called on my stuff” meant humility, and I knew that feeling very well through surfing with large crowds for 20 years.

          Our talk ended with my statement, “I just want to be functional in the world.”  I needed validation that my path was going to lead me to freedom.  What I got was two hugs, a ton of presence, and two sets of eyes, peering through the veils of illusion towards me, and a sense of that same knowing peering back at them through my own eyes.

 

After that retreat, I had finally answered the question of why a spiritual teacher/s was so important.  I had stumbled along for ten “extra” years because of my doubts and hard-headedness about cults, guru worship, and religious dogma.  I could see clearly now that religion, cults, and dogma had no place in the shining presence of what we actually are.  I cannot describe it because words only limit the totality of the experience.  But, like road signs, this one says, “Clear seeing ahead, no end in sight, and speeding not a problem.”

This is a story from a long awaited book, about spirituality and daily life, called No Resolution in Paradox.  Would love feedback.

IDIOT’S RULE!


9/12/92
SLO Oceanaire bedroom
Unleashing Primal Forces

     During my teens and early adulthood, something needed to be heard.  I didn’t know what.  There was just this burning urge to scream half the time.  I look back now and see I wasn’t really listening, wasn’t really available.  Nor was I brave enough to really scream and hear myself.  Instead, I would turn on punk-rock music, and a voice inside would say, “turn it up louder!”  Another voice, more gentle, would sort of laugh at this compulsive need to “vent” frustrations.
     The band’s lyrics printed following this narrative, Alice in Chains, was not punk rock labeled, but their music satisfied the rebel archetype in me.  The band spoke to a part of me that was angry at how the world was.  The music offered a place to unleash primal forces.  After I had bought their album “Facelift,” I was living temporarily in Eugene Oregon.  I was walking around downtown and spotted a small flyer that said Alice in Chains would be playing in a small auditorium nearby.  I could not believe my luck.  Having a chance to see them personally, to experience the music, and to dance wildly, opened up unexplained joy.  I spent the next hour marveling at the synchronicity.  I was only in Eugene for a few months, yet here was a band playing live that I really identified with.  My mother used to believe this rebellious stuff was just a phase in my young life.  At the time I went to see Alice in Chains, my age was 27.  It had already been 11 years of devotion to this “cause.”  Some part of me knew better than that.  Some part of me knew that this anger, this primal energy, was to be channeled into helping others wake up from the nightmare of a controlling government, a conformist, non-questioning society, and an ignorance of the ways of the universe.  I knew American society was on a collision course with collapse.  I felt like the ancient Indian shamans thousands of years ago.  I know some of them saw the white man coming from their visions of the future.  They tried to prepare their people hundreds, perhaps thousands of years in advance, but destiny had its way.  Their beautiful sustainable ways of living with the land were changing as part of a mysterious cycle.  I began to see my struggle as necessary, but might not cause any radical change.  Something remained hidden like a seed under soil.  The true root of change lay waiting, after the turbulence settled.
     The turbulence settled for a few weeks while I counted the days.  I was living with my mother and her husband, while recovering from a semi-nervous breakdown.  I was also writing a cookbook and needed a lot of time to write and explore my feelings.  During my relaxation time, the thoughts, the expectations of the upcoming concert were so sweet.  I did not realize until many years after that the best part of any event for me was the sweet anticipation.  Nothing ever lived up to those expectations.  No person.  No event.  No image.  For example, I would often imagine myself surfing great on a wave, then when it was my time to ride one, more often than not, my mind would get noisy and I would fall.
      The mental chatter about this concert was very entertaining.  I imagined a cute punk chick to slam dance with.  I imagined smoking pot in the auditorium.  I imagined meeting the band.  And I also imagined getting in for free somehow.  My teenage friends and myself used to love to try and sneak into concerts and movies.  We were successful about half the time.  I decided I would roll a joint in advance.  I really wanted to be altered during the concert.
     When the evening came, I felt very enthused.  Eugene seemed to be cloudy a lot, so the weather did not help.  It was a cool, crisp night.  The show was in a residential area.  I loved how Eugene had so many trees, even downtown.  I sat in my car until the show was going to start.  I sent out an intention to meet a cute girl to smoke with.  As I got out of the car, I knew I was going to meet someone.  I walked mindfully to the building.  It was around a corner.  As the area came into view, I saw how small the auditorium was.  This was better than I had expected!  I thought this band was already very big.  The building looked like an old YMCA.  I handed the bouncer my ticket and entered.  There was no lobby.  The box type room could hold 200 people I guessed.  I took a standing position directly in front of the stage.  I leaned back against the wall.  It struck me how close I was to the stage.  People milled about.  I felt like I was watching a Charlie Brown cartoon.  All the noises were blending together like the teacher’s voice in the cartoon.  The sounds went, “blah, blah, chatter, chatter, Wah, wah, wah, vjnfjvbhfubhfubh.”
     As the crowd thickened, I heard someone saying that Alice in chains liked Eugene and maybe were even from there.  Now it made sense why they agreed to such a small venue.  A cute girl with another female friend took up position to my right just as the band started.  They had set up quickly.  They had not done a full sound check.  But I didn’t care.  I was only fifty feet away, had a great view, had a joint in my pocket, two cute girls next to me, and the music was starting!
     I reached into my pants to grab my joint.  I had purposely calculated to leave my lighter behind.  That would make me seek someone out to light my joint.  So I made my move.  Just as I was turning to ask the two girls, they had already turned to me.  The three of us looked at each other, sizing up whether to talk.  They both smiled curiously, then meekly asked if I wanted a hit off their pipe.  Hallelujah!  These were my types of girls.  We passed around the pipe, then I offered my joint.  All the while the band had started with the song below:

Alice in Chains
“It Ain’t Like That”

There I was laid out on a table
Screamin’ sweat and bare foot to the floor.
In my life, I’d not soften
Things that cut, and burn so often,
But I sit think of something
Scared to face the dying nothing.

See the cycle I’ve waited for;
It Ain’t like that anymore…

Each inhalation brought more joy, more lightheaded air.  My body became a forgotten afterthought.  There was only the music, the sight of the girls wiggling, and a perception that I belonged here.  There was something spiritual about the words.  The dying nothing?  See the cycle I’ve waited for?  It felt a lot like the band had the same brain as me!  I was drawn out of reverie because the room was so crowded; there was no space to slam dance.  I just wiggled my sides next to the girls, with breasts and soft skin rubbing against my arm.  Joyous lust!  The next song started.

Man In the Box

I’m the man in the box,
Buried in my shit.
Won’t you come and save me, save me.

Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut?
Jesus Christ, deny your maker.
He who tries, will be wasted.
Feed my eyes, now you’ve sewn them shut.

I’m the dog who gets beat.
Shove my nose in shit.
Won’t you come and save me?

I liked how the songs repeated a few times then ended quickly.  They didn’t go on and on and on like some groups.  The singer looked intense.  He had contrasting features, which I found disturbing, yet curious and intriguing.  He had short dirty brown hair, unkempt and wild, like their music.  He was speaking with someone in the front row of the audience.  I could not hear what they were saying, but he had bent over to listen.  The stage was only two to three feet above the concrete floor.  I peered above the crowd to get a better look.  An ocean of hair sat at my eye level.  Smoke of all sorts was billowing and undulating around the ceiling.  Suddenly, the singer was standing again, and a joint came flying up from the audience into his hand.  He smiled and toked it up!  I had never seen a concert where the band actually smoked in front of everyone.  It was very affirming of my own smoking.  As he inhaled, he coughed, gagged, then bellowed, “this stuff is shit!”  He threw the joint into oblivion while someone in the audience shouted expletives at him.  The whole thing did not seem staged.  I discerned that the yelling was coming from the person who gave the joint.  “Don’t waste it!”  The next song began suddenly, and it seemed fitting based on my life circumstances.  It felt like I was in the perfect place at the perfect time to get a spiritual affirmation and lesson.  The weather around Eugene during the past few weeks had mirrored my inner state, cloudy, cool, breezy, and some small windows of clear skies.  I felt lost, in the unknown and very vulnerable.  The song brought me back to my senses:

Sea of Sorrow

Mind, of destructive taste.
I choose…to stroll amongst the waste
That was your heart,
Lost in the dark.
Call off the chase!

Walls of thought, strong and high
As my castle crumbles with time…
I think of you,
Oh, yes, I do.
Such a crime.

Name your God and bleed the freak!

Part of me cheered when the song was done.  It felt so good to be around people who felt the way I did.  The loud music was full of a tough love.  The kind of tough love that parents must use with children at times.  This tough love was truth-telling type.  I intuitively knew God was just a concept.  I had already had my first awakening, and knew there was a universal intelligence, but “GOD” was way too limiting.  I knew that when we name the unnamable, that is no longer “it.”  Yet I had no lasting knowing, no embodied knowing.  I knew a piece was missing in my life, and I had no clue where to find it.
     The show only lasted a little over an hour.  The played one encore song, which reminded me of the song below, by another band I liked to listen to at the time.

Danzig

Unnamed

…Do you know the name
Of the one you seek.
If you want the answer,
If you want the truth,
Look inside your empty soul.
There…
You’ll find the noose.

Would you let it go?

I wanted so bad to let go.  As I left the show, the girls I was wiggling with had gotten separated from me.  Many times in my life up to this point, I had felt opportunities to “let go” and just float in awareness.  But every time the opportunity blew in, so to speak, something in my mind would not let go.  It felt like a magnet was pulling me out of my body upwards, yet anxiety and a racing mind would keep “me” in my body, feeling just the mundane pull of gravity.  This would continue to be a theme in my life for many years.

The Great Royal Lee (go to www.standardprocess.com for more info)
Quotes and Teachings

Jan 12, 1951

“One of the biggest tragedies of human civilization is the precedence of chemical therapy over nutrition.  It’s a substitution of artificial therapy over natural, of poisons over food, in which we are feeding people poison in trying to correct the reactions of starvation.”

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June 1943

“We have drifted into this deplorable position of national malnutrition quite inadvertently.  It is the result of scientific research with the objective of finding the best ways to create foods that are non-perishable, that can be made by mass production methods in central factories and distributed so cheaply that they can sweep all local competition from the market.  Then, after there develops a suspicion that these “foods” are inadequate to support life, modern advertising steps in to propagandize the people into believing that there is nothing wrong with them, that they are the products of scientific research…intended to afford a food that is the last word in nutritive value…and the confused public is totally unable to arrive at any conclusion of fact,…and continues to blindly buy the rubbish that is killing them years ahead of their time.”

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This poem by Meister Eikhart (1260-1328), a well known Catholic, mystic, and scholar., shows us the value of what Royal Lee accomplished: bring awareness to those unaware about how bad the state of the food supply is in the U.S.  Better fed people are typically clearer and more energetic.  This can bring a search for deeper aspects of health, and the curiousity to see life’s deepest truths.  Then the idols and images become seen through.

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Insidious Idols

Commerce is supported by keeping the individual at odds

With himself and others, by making us want more than we need, and offering credit to buy what refined senses do not want.

 

The masses become shackled; I see how their eyes weep

And are desperate-of course they feel desperate-for something,

For some remedy

 

That a poor soul then feels needs

To be bought.

 

I find nothing more offensive than a god

Who would condemn human instincts in us that time in all its wonder

Have made perfect.

 

I find nothing more destructive to the well-being of life

Than to support a god that makes you feel unworthy and in debt to it.

I imagine erecting churches to such a strange god will assure

Endless wars that commerce loves.

 

A god that could frighten is not a god-but an insidious idol

And weapon in the hands of

The insane.

 

I was once spiritually ill-we all pass through that-

But one day the intelligence

in our soul

cures

us