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Being Lost, Embedded in Love

blue dominant
Blue Dominant by Emil Schumacher 1958

Contemplating the sense of being lost, really lost in this world, this dimension, this life… contemplating feeling lost and how that feeling has tugged me along this Way and that Path… sometimes alternating with a sense of being found by Light, by what convincingly felt like Ultimate Truth, by energies of bubbling bliss encompassing me whole bodily, coursing through these very veins, at least for a while. And always returning to being lost…

Slow contemplation: not avoiding the silent desperation of being bodily anchored in the shallow waters of a backward planet pretending to be modern, even post-modern or post-post-modern, whose leading nations boast in being rational, level-headed, the heirs of the Age of Enlightenment centuries ago, but whose populations, however rich or poor they are, are haunted by the destinies they struggle so hard to deny and therefore avoid seeing clearly. Blind to the festering wound called capitalist economy: really a systemic way to rob those that cannot properly defend themselves, the whales in the oceans, the magnificent great apes and elephants, just as much as the overwhelming majorities of our own species so very populous. Blind to the continual bleeding of all that is kind, and humane, and collaborative, and symbiotic, the blood being sucked up by all the parasitic vested interest groups.

Contemplating slowly and without protection, without turning blind eyes but rather feeling the hurt, tears welling up, heart aching: this surely is a Lost Planet filled with lost tribes, lost people, lost souls. Empty of all true meaning, no substance anywhere, nothing that fills, or fulfills, rather full of emptiness, full of ritualistic forms no-one can believe in, full of priests, mendicant monks, potential saints, therapists, fixers, healers, change-agents, desperately struggling to turn the tide, to cause a sea-change, to stem the tides of unending ignorance glossed over with slick entertainments on all channels.

Original + Fälschung 17 by Sigmar Polke, 1973

Having utterly failed as a species, daily abusing our magic for destruction, fleeing towards transcendent potentials, aggrandizing people which lead our parade to a future full of shining promises never to be kept, promises dangling in front of the nose of the so very beloved self, the individual soul whose dignity is elevated in stories told a thousand times, yet a dignity trampled underfoot every single day…

I finally settle for the truth of actually and truly being lost. Refraining from healing, not even trying to change or transform this lostness; just sometimes going through the motions as to not unduly disconcert my contemporaries:

I walk through busy streets and see multitudes, see each uniquely individual, as if the wool gathered ’round the central void, the fabrics encircling the central hole of lostness, was what really mattered. And as long as it matters, it surely seems substantial, it surely looks like the thread  leading you out of the labyrinth… if you had the stamina, the power, the guts, the energies needed to follow the thread. Yet, upon exiting, you find yourself in an even greater labyrinth that is alive and well, the maze no human power, nor divine power, nor cosmic power can escape. You try transcendence, imagination, spirituality, fabrication, religion, philosophy, entertainment, dream, and all the myriad forms of making meaning.

Things may align for you, they may coincide. If you’re lucky, the Great Escape finally collapses, and you rediscover how all of your striving was to no avail, was nil and empty from the very beginning. You never escaped the void at the center of you. And now, finally, without any more hesitation you give in, you surrender to the inevitable.
Since now you stopped looking for the way out, and you see your friends, your acquaintances, your strangers, your anyone on the street, without the consolation of your compassion or any other soothing altruism, your eyes and all of you can really see. You see the Love that embeds it all.
The Love that cascades from the clouds, and the trees, and the stranger’s eyes. The Invisible Love that flavors the air. The Love that seasons the void from the very beginning of what naively is called time, which is really just the way you keep relating to it all. You wouldn’t possibly know what Love is, the Love that Embeds it all, and you surely couldn’t reduce it to a feeling or explain it even to your listening mind and self. Yet, you know this Love was there always, and you solemnly and irrevocably declare it to be prior to the void.

You state by Your Given Grace, as Prime Participator in this Ambiverse, “All, including everyone and everything, are embedded in love. This is how it is and always was.”

And you know this beyond even the Greatest of Doubts, that in the beginning you said, “Let there be Love.” And lo and behold, There Was Love.

 

PS: This is to be the core of the next Neuroplastic Experiment: All is embedded in Prior Love.

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Benevolent Space

Most mornings I sit for 10+ minutes and, for lack of a better, not so charged, word, meditate. It was a strong desire to regularly celebrate being present that started this originally.

During this time once in a while I ask myself, “What am I doing here?” A question that doesn’t call for an explanation, although it’s always nice to have one. Telling myself and others stories about the ‘why’ of matters and behaviors is a very civilized thing, isn’t it? Especially if these stories can be ‘liked’ by my spiritual friends all over the world. But when I’m asking this question in my celebrating-presence-time what I’m doing is inquiring into the very practise that I’m engaged in, synchronous to when I’m engaged in it.
So yesterday a two word metaphor appeared that somehow changed the basic outlook of my morning-celebration from ‘precencing=celebration’. In a way it ordinarily has a more shining aspect – as if being present is a doing; of course, it isn’t in many respects, a doing, but it’s still an outflow most of the time. I didn’t really get that before these two words changed the ‘meditation’ to Benevolent Space.

Other than space, which to me is a neutral, never-ending openness for all/everthing to be, benevolent space is more of an invitation to what is good, beautiful and true to thrive. Benevolence [Latin, bene – good, volentia – will) is not neutral at all, benevolent space isn’t open to everything, it does have a membrane  – what that is? I’ll be coming to that.

As I have been contemplating benevolent space it became clearer in the following days that it is deeply connected to what we can call ‘seeing trust’. Most of my controlling tendencies stem from blind trust, and because of that I’ve been been hurt many times when I was a child and later in life as well. So to control ‘things’ in my case was vehemently developing the cognitive, some may call it the intellectual, functioning of my mind. Inquisitive –there is a resonance to inquisition here!– doubt and a tendency to question every assumption, idea, statement etc. and analyse it deeply, was born and sharpened out of that basic pain of a violated, blind trust.
Don’t misunderstand, please, I still love that ability of mine – listening to people I often, almost tacitly, feel/see the assumptions that their stories and explanations elaborate. But nowadays I do not feel the need to point out and criticize these assumptions anymore (well, most of the time, anyways); it’s just assumptions after all, the basic building blocks of any narrative. I also do not need to do any inquisition anymore, neither into others’ stories nor my own, as I’ve said goodbye to Universal Truth or the One Story or the Ultimate Assumption again, most of the time; sometimes, when I’m on auto-pilot it still happens. But then it’s easy to relax the automatic inquisitor, and lean back…

So in my further contemplation within the benevolent space I learnt that ‘seeing trust’ is the mature form of controlling. I actually trust that my and the collective unconscious is benevolent by nature, and moreover that not closing my eyes to whatever appears is simply fine, not compulsory but just okay — its often complex and/or paradoxical what appears, or dark, or …
Clearly, I cannot control anything in the immature sense of the world, but I can, of course, close my eyes to it and act if it isn’t happening or even numb myself to it more or less effectively. That is how immature control works, denial, obstruction, encapsuling, numbing, hiding in hazes; immature control not knowing it’s immature as long as it is immature…

Angela Lergo (Spain), I give you my heart, installation

And so I come back to the membrane around benevolent space: It’s ‘seeing trust’, guarding that space against malevolent influences and behaviors. It allows shadows in, though, as they are not malevolent but actually, once they enter benevolent space, they turn out to be a very peculiar kind of ‘being’, these hurting me’s. Maybe I’ll be writing about my dark friends at some other point.

For now I simply wanted to share the benevolent space with you and thereby expand it into the manifest realms of interpersonal flow.

 

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The Myth of the Given – or, is object & subject fiction?


(12:53 Min)

A general look at the inner monkey, myth-takes, … asking, “Can the eye see itself? Can a camera make a pic of itself? Do you like to be objective? What do you see on your screen? And where are objects anyway?”
So let’s condition one another, get unstuck and find no separation anywhere… and look at ???

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The Flow of the Present – A Contemplation

space is like air… is like water…
… and matter very much like dynamic, standing waves.

[audio:http://www.mushin.de/audio/Flow_of_the_present(blog.mushin.de).MP3](7:52 Min – 2,7 MB) Download.

We do not see air – we see the wind moving grass and branches and leaves, and we feel the wind on our skin. What is present everywhere being so important to our life that we cannot do without it for more than a minute or two – we don’t see it. Air is so invisible that we act as if it were nothing – empty space.
And we see something different: things, objects and beings, humans – limited, separate, singular forms and gestalts.

Yet, closing our eyes we do not feel limits, even if we touch whatever-it-is.
Touching we can explore where surfaces interface & touch; we feel textures, temperature and sometimes inexplicable pulls and pushes, yet their limit and shape as independent form is added in our imagination. We create an image, imagine: not wrong, not right – an image.
We cannot touch the air; it’s surrounding us entirely. Only when moving we feel it – the wind of our movement.
We have no image of the air. It, being transparent, only is experienced in movement, touching grass, branches and leaves and all manner of ‘things’, carrying some of it along in its breeze, wind or storm.
We have no image of the air.
No image, but a feeling.

Holding our hands still with eyes closed in a windless place, the feeling-touching field of our hands goes way beyond the skin we see, imagining it to be its limit. Holding still we don’t feel were the hand ends and the air begins, and also we don’t feel were exactly our hand ends and where the arm begins… except if we use our imagination.
We don’t feel limits.
Just close your eyes and feel, sense and experience for yourself if there are any limits there, any separation, or if not everything is flowing into everything else…

Expanding the field of awareness to the whole body, you don’t know where what is called the body begins and ends. All limbs, all so called parts of your body flow into, melt into each other. You can discern between arm and hand but in your feeling experience, in the immediate presence of your awareness – eyes closed – you cannot separate them.
Separation is an act of imagination, an artifact of our cultural heritage – not good, not bad, just the case we can put our experience in. You can’t feel the limit, the separation, even though its easy to discern or differentiate.

And, feeling what’s called your body when you close your eyes it’s easy to feel the living spaciousness expanding way beyond the limits your imagination habitually creates.
A living spaciousness, a presence gradually melting into an absence. And when you focus on where exactly the presence ends and the absence begins… can you find it?
What’s present flows into what’s absent.
You feel the presence of the absence – not as if it were something, but also not as if it were nothing: The absent is present to you.
Just close your eyes and feel, sense and experience what your feeling reveals to you.

It is as if you were feeling unlimited vastness – space.
A space that, even more than air, permeates everything.

The more often you enjoy this spaciousness the more often you sense what flows within it – as if it were a soft breeze maybe or a current in water.
And you might feel a tingling in what, with your eyes open, looks like your body – the dynamic standing wave whose continual flow forms your whereabouts.
Sometimes the tingling feels like the fine bubbles in champagne, a freshness that bubbles through and through, coursing through the streamings in the whereabouts our imagination calls body.
Sometimes the tingling becomes stronger and stronger in certain areas of the dynamic standing wave that forms the flow of your whereabouts – maybe as if it were flowing into a whirl. (In New Age folklore these areas are called “chakras” using an ancient Indian, Sanskrit term: ???? “wheel”, vortex of aliveness.)

All of this appears where we are, at the place of our presence; not a separate place, not an object at all. Like a village is not separate from the landscape it’s embedded in, although easily discernable fom its surrounding, so we are never separate from the spaciousness that we feelingly so easily experience.

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The myth of Cause and Effect – Or, is it really the slap that hurts?

Most of us think linear when it comes to what happens in life: “My cheek hurts, because someone slapped me”; “And now I am angry, because I did not deserve it.”

Scientists, at least the overwhelming majority, are certain that consciousness is caused by the grey matter residing in our head. So in this view having a revelation, for instance, is just a matter of some neurons firing and sending chemicals to other neurons – they even have a word for the discipline studying divine, mystical or other spiritual states of consciousness; neurotheology.

I have just read a scientific article which again states this theory in connection to free will – in this view the free will is an illusion as conscious states which lead to ‘free decisions’ are all caused by the brain. In this view “free will” cannot exist because everything is determined; in this case by firing neurons interchanging chemical substances as well. (Not once in all this scientific literature there is a deeper consideration of what most of us actually mean by free will, but I’ll let that go this time).

So cause (neuronal activity) –> effect (conscious state).

It cannot be denied, without uttering nonsense, that to actually be angry and feel this anger one needs adrenalin, for instance. As it is quite impossible to make love to your beloved without the appropriate hormones moving in your blood. So there certainly is a deep connection between our state of mind and our neuronal-chemical state. And whoever had a friend or acquaintance who suffered a brain-stroke will know the shock that comes when the person has a very different character from before or doesn’t even remember one’s name or face.

So we do think: cause (stroke) –> effect (change of character).

But if we do actually believe this I do not see how we can truly believe that our conscious states – let’s say a satori or divine vision – are actually what they themselves ‘say’ they are: revealing our true nature or the divinity of being, for instance. We cannot have it both ways. The scientists saying that consciousness is an epiphenomenon are then just more honest than the rest of us still wanting to believe in free will, angels, spirits etc., and/or a consciousness that is uncaused.

Surely this is not my view. The setting or finding of causes and effects happens in accord with a great myth, the myth of cause & effect. Even though the cause&effect-myth is really helpful and practical in many ways, especially when it comes to actions and their consequences or our technically advanced society (click ‘publish’ and this post appears on my blog, for instance). But what we usually do not see is that we create the story, we often divine the causes working backwards from the effect that we have differentiated from the whole situation/context.

What I do not like about this myth of cause & effect is that it fosters determinism – and in the case of the brain and consciousness a very impoverished story that robs its believers of a depth and richness another story might provide. So I’m reinterpreting the ‘facts of life’ that my culture is continually shoving onto me, reinterpreting the stale story of determinism.

In the case of brain and consciousness it seems to me that the states of consciousness and the physical states of the brain are synchronically coincident. Actually only in the materialistic myth it makes sense to say that brain and consciousness are separate phenomena and one is caused by the other. Everything is unfolding in concert, it is ‘resounding’ with everything else. The kinds of differentiations that we have used so far fosters the kind of culture we have in this day and age: an ecological, economic and political disaster-prone time. When we look with the eyes of the deterministic myth at the mystery called reality, for instance, trees are ‘things’ and not living beings with – yes! – a consciousness.

So beings move in concert – sometimes cacaphonically, sometimes polyphonically and sometimes symphonically, to differentiate a few of the many ways of relating between entities, beings and the whole. And when one looks in the cause&effect-way one takes a slice out of this resounding story to, maybe, know what to do. But looking at it as if the kosmos (signifying ‘harmonious whole’) were a concert one rather asks, how to be, how to sound right now.

In the cause & effect world there are laws. In the world of kosmic concert there are repeating melodies, rhythms and rhymes… which is why I’ve come to prefer that myth over the deterministic one.

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The Open Secret

14 billion years of evolution since the Big Bang.

This planet, the solar system, the Milky Way – our galaxy… an endlessly large universe.

This moment, this experience now, you and me… all time and space in a conspiracy to awaken in you and me right now.

And so immensely rich is this cosmos that it gives itself away every moment again – it cannot keep anything for itself. All change is a witness to the unending richness of the mystery called reality – so rich that every moment it has to give itself away.

All that we can have, you and me, is this moment – the experience, the consciousness, the surrender to this moment.

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Beirut

Two Pictures taken by sattelite of Beirut on July 12th & July 31st 2006 (published here first)

Need I say more?

Beirut

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Acts of Helplessness – by Rumi

Here are the miracle-signs you want: that
you cry through the night and get up at dawn, asking,
that in the absence of what you ask for your day gets dark,
your neck thin as a spindle, that what you give away
is all you won, that you sacrifice belongings,
sleep, health, your head, that you often
sit down in a fire like aloes wood, and often go out
to meet a blade like a battered helmet.

When acts of helplessness become habitual,
those are the signs.

But you run back and forth listening for unusual events,
peering into faces of travelers.
“Why are you looking at me like a madman?”
I have lost a friend. Please forgive me.

Searching like that does not fail.
There will come a rider who holds you close.
You faint and gibber. The uninitiated say, “He’s faking.”
How could they know?
Water washes over a beached fish, the water
of those signs I just mentioned.

Excuse my wandering.
How can one be orderly with this?
It’s like counting leaves in the garden,
along with the song-notes of partridges,
and crows.

Sometimes organization
and computation become absurd.

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Climbing knowledge mountain

Climbing knowledge mountain
to its trancendental understanding summit
insightful vistas brightly abound

The green unfathomable dragon shape
Its rythmic curves and jewel sparks
meanders deeply and alive
through the valley

The climber shouts,
“Join me up here in the clear air of light.”
The dragon grumbeling,
“Where would you be with out me?”

Wherever I go
I revere the local godheads.

***

I don’t really know what this poetry means but it came to me – in English! – two days ago and I wanted to let you partake in my wonder…

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The Divine in us…

In my dream I sit across an enlightened teacher teaching ‘vertical spirituality’. He says that many great things have happened because of this teaching and education. In the course of history, he says, there have been many enlightened beings and this way has managed to carry the essence of spirituality to this very day.

I agree. Human kind has much to thank this Way and I gladly appreciate and honor that. Nevertheless, I say, in cooperative spirituality we come from seeing that the Divine – or what the enlightened have realized – is in everyone and everything. And we act accordingly. We don’t have to – like in vertical spirituality – have the enlightened experience to ‘move on’. We don’t have to feel, see or perceive the Divine to come from It being immanently present in him or her. Yes, I say, the Divine can actually be in hiding in him or her. What is important is to live with and from the acknowledgement that It is in him and her. That makes it much easier and more effective as in vertical spirituality to tease the Divine out, if one wishes to do so.
After our conversation we decide to create a huge oasis in the desert.

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Moving away from spirituality ‘old style’

The seminar in Olomouc was very nice, indeed – though we started a bit late due to ‘Czech timing’ as I’ve come to call the rather loose view of schedules here, and because my lap-top (home of all my musicfiles which are pretty important in most of my seminars) spontaneously forgot an important systems file… it did remember it when I used it the last time. So I was happy to have brought my back-up system (a iRiver 20 GB player, also playing the great OGG format). I’m writing this post on the Community computer which usually is always occupied…

In the group it was clear that more and more I am moving away from spirituality as it is regarded by many of my contemporaries. As I’ve said a few days ago (on the MP3s in the post “Awakening to Mutuality”) the traditional or “old style” spiritual ways adhere to the viewpoint that there are superior perspectives (for instance, the enlightened) and inferior ones (the endarkened or the ignorant, unenlightend). Yet it seems to me that cherishing one perspective over another takes away much from what can unfold between us… and also it incapacitates persons taking “superior” perspectives from what can transpire in an open meeting where no such preferences are setting the stage. For, a meeting in which we put each other in a box might be informative and even give us good feelings but it is never an open meeting, and I don’t think it deserves to be called spiritual. An open meeting where we can explore together whatever might be real between us is much richer and more revealing than one in which I have a higher (more informed, superior, more enlightened, wiser etc.) position than the other person.

Spirituality “old style” has a map of reality – which I do not have an opinion about other than to say that I myself have been using it for a very long time – in which there is a progression towards ever higher and superior states or levels which the aspirant or seeker realizes; from egotistic to altruistic to cosmic centered, from disconnected to connected; or as in Ken Wilbers beautiful integral map, from preconventional to conventional to post-conventional to ultimatly “One Taste” – a beautiful map, I say, based on the “perennial philosophy” that has a great value as far as placing states, levels, types, etc. on a hierarchically useful map goes. This doesn’t mean, though, that I’m opposed to maps and hierarchical structures as I feel that these play a major role in intelligent communication and in interpreting experience well. And the more embracing and detailed these maps are the better – an ‘integral map’, for instance, allows for much more helpful interpretations of an experience and life in general than, say, a christian fundamentalist one. But from what I gather from the practise of Ken Wilber fans it is quite clear what’s the trouble as well: these beautiful people (and others using this and similar maps) often are very much concerned about “Where am I on the map, and what do I have to do to sufficiently transform so that I can move to the next rung on this ladder… to finally get there, and realize THAT. (Whatever THAT stands for in the terms of that map.).)”

Spirituality “new style” – if I may be so bold as to claim that label – is based on an altogether different realisation or understanding. One is, as best I can put it right now, “Reality – as accessible to human beings – is composed of perspectives.” The other is, “All perspectives are equally real (or “right”).”

It seems important here to clarify what I mean, because you might think that I believe that the child-molester’s perspective is of equal value as that of Mother Theresa. But I mean this a different way: Reality as seen with the eyes of a murderer is equally real as the one that a righteous judge sees. So the reality of a murderer is appropriate to him and his view, and thus it is right. And by that I do not make a moral or ethical statement (as in: It is wrong to kill someone.)

Spirituality “new style” goes beyond such value hierarchies however important they may be in a conventional world. It doesn’t deny spiritual value-hierarchies (from egotism to non-dual consciousness, for instance) but presupposes it as part of the person practicing this ‘new style spirituality’. This person comes from the insight that, “if I position myself above another’s perspective, regarding mine as superior to it, I cannot truly meet with the other nor exlore reality with him or her. So I have to concede this person’s perspective equal reality to truly meet. Only if I meet on eye to eye level, honoring him and her perspective, a meeting and inquiry into reality is possible.”

Let’s say, that I am in a state of “heightened awareness”, feeling compassion for the persons in my vicinity, feeling very much at home in my self, having a sense of utter equanimity etc. Now here is a person in another state, let’s say she is worried about being a good mother, asking me to help her. Now in spirituality “old style” I would in the best possible way communicate that it is quite normal to sometimes hate the little tyrant as all mothers I’ve ever met do have such feelings. In spirituality “new style” I ask her what she thinks herself – never for positioning myself to be in a higher or other state to her. We explore together what she feels “being a good mother” means, and if what she is feeling and doing runs counter to her belief of how she should be. We will maybe also want to look at how what she wants and how she goes about getting it fit together, and so on.

Or let’s take a spiritual seeker – like the person in the Olomouc seminar asking me, “What is the meaning of life?” A very serious, and time-honored question; which is, what I actually said. Then we went on – after a little sideline in which I told him about my realisation many years ago that life (in my eyes) doesn’t have a meaning – to look at what he believes, “Does life need a meaning?” And, “How would you feel if life had no meaning; what would change?” Exploring these questions together we found that there was another matter that bothered him much more than what the meaning of life might or might not be: “I’m afraid of the unknown,” he said. And now I asked him if wanted to explore that, “not verbally, but in action?” And he wanted, so I created an unknown situation for all of us – including me (in which, by the way, some participants did have some extraordinary insights into the meaning of their life).

Spirituality “old style” has a map of Reality in which there is a way “up” – and sometimes, if these maps are more encompassing there is also a way “down”, an ascending and decending current. Body, matter, the world are seen as lower order, spirit, soul, nirvana/heaven/One Taste are of a higher order; there is the Relative and the Absolute, and only the latter is to be aspired (even in Tantra, which is a way to ‘sanctify’ ordinary pleasures like eating, sex etc.). This is, of course, a dualistic view. Yet, even when we take Advaita whose “ultimate realisation” is the non-dual, then still in practise it is a dualistic teaching as it shows that, “you haven’t got it but through enlighhtenment can get it.” Or if they see the difficulty of this statement they say, “You’ve got it – as everyone has already got it – but you’re simply not yet conscious of it,” or some such. Whatever is the teaching, it is a teaching of an ascending order towards a greater, better, superior state. (No wonder that 99 percent of it’s main proponents/teachers are male…)

Spirituality “new style” has no quarrel with these maps of Reality. It simply chooses to explore a very different way in which “Reality is just as it appears to be this very moment… and this moment as well – as it appears within the framework of my perspective. And I can never disentangle what appears from my perspective (even if truthfully it isn’t even my perspective). What appears might be a function of my perspective, or my perspective might be a function of what appears, or both or neither or all kinds of mixtures of these. There is no way to know, as I cannot not come from a perspective. And as much as I have a perspective so does everybody else, and possibly even every thing else. So the best I can do is meet it and explore Reality as it appears between us (in conjunction, communion, communication, even opposition, struggle and trial for annihilation). And the richest way I can do this – at present – is by being open, equal and true to any other I meet.”

______________

All of this is still quite sketchy, so I do appreciate all comments you have…

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Awakening to Mutuality (Audio)

A few days ago in our daily evening contemplation it seemed important to me to state what I feel my present position is on spiritual matters.

It turned out to be a quite critical appraisal of traditional spirituality and it’s view that the sprit or “the world beyond” is radically different from the world we all inhabit, deeming “spirit” to be superior to “matter”, turning away from the world to gain spiritual merit, etc..

I also give an explanation why there is so much (sexiual and other) abuse by teachers of students, and why basically the ‘heros’ are mostly male (giving also an answer to Ken Wilber’s question, why there is so few women in the ‘integral movement’ he’s mentoring.

I’m still groping for what’s to come instead of this basically feudalistic – or top-down – spirituality, and go for ‘mutuality’ where we treat the perspective of toilet-cleaners, morons and wise men with equal respect.

The talk comes in four installements due to the slowness of our Internet-connection here in this Czech village. I hope, you enjoy it, and would be delighted to read or hear your comments.

[audio:http://www.mushin.eu/audio/AwakeningToMutuality01.mp3]

Download the MP3 file (32 kps; 2,6 MB; duration 10:42): right click this link Awakening to Mutuality and “save as…”

[audio:http://www.mushin.eu/audio/AwakeningToMutuality02.mp3]

Download the MP3 file (32 kps; 2 MB; duration 8:39): right click this link Awakening to Mutuality and “save as…”

[audio:http://www.mushin.eu/audio/AwakeningToMutuality03.mp3]

Download the MP3 file (32 kps; 4,8 MB; duration 20:20): right click this link Awakening to Mutuality and “save as…”

[audio:http://www.mushin.eu/audio/AwakeningToMutuality04.mp3]

Download the MP3 file (32 kps; 1,7 MB; duration 7:17): right click this link Awakening to Mutuality and “save as…”

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Words of High Authority

From my post of May 4th you know I did a seminar in Prague last weekend. And even though the show was great – those in the studio thought so – and I had a lot of fun, it didn’t have much consequences for visitors to my seminar. And it was just a couple of clicks on my website according to the log. So not much happened out of that so far. But a few people who knew me from the Prague Esoteric Fair “esoterica” participated.

Prague from the Park We had our lunches in the park across the street, by the way, and here is a picture taken from the meadow on which we were always lying.

Saturday evening I asked the participants of my Prague-seminar to remember their dreams this night and tell us about them the next morning (Sunday, yesterday).

There were quite some interesting dreams told, one in which it actually rained sofas from the sky… but what I’d like to tell you here is the words M. had for us.

He said that as he was waking up he heard a voice from some higher source. Saying this he looked up, and all his body language told that these were words received, and not made up by some liberal minded guy 😉 . And these were the words:

“Everybody is entitled to be just the way they are.”

All throughout this day in one context or another these words played a role, for instance when I asked during an exercise in which we were to express what we felt like right this moment in front of Love, Truth and Beauty, “Are you only entitled to be just the way you are when you feel good, enlightened, true, etc. Or does that go for all ways of being?”

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What it’s about

If you want to know what life is about – honour the differences, and find the openness that embraces them passionatly.

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What is consciousness?

If ever you ask yourself such ‘crazy’ questions 😉 than you’re on an interesting trail. So far I’ve found that indeed, consciousness – when it’s pure and clearly present – is very blissful. Not the extatic kind, but more the soft and sweet kind.

So that when we bring consciousness to any situation we are putting the occasion on a potentially blissful trail. Well, that’s how it looks today.

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The Magic of the Timeless Witness (audio)

I was in an interesting mood today and opened up to a rather timeless dimension. In this meditation with the members of the Serenity-Community here the following talk ensued. And I wanted to share it with all of you…

The basics of this contemplation comes from the work of the “Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research” Institute and I probably got some numbers wrong, and maybe some of the data were a bit mixed up – but that really is of no consequence for what I wished to express: the influence we have on what is usually and quite naive called ‘reality’ that is supposed to somehow exist ‘out there’.

But when you listen you might also think that – oops! – reality is much stranger than we ever supposed, and you will understand how pliable it is… and how you can use that pliability to lead a much happier life in the present, the future and – really? – also the past… and if that is not a strange thought…

[audio:http://www.mushin.eu/audio/TheMagicConsciousness.mp3]

You can download the MP3 file (32 kps; 7 MB; duration 29:04) by right clicking on this LINK and “save asr…”

(32 kps; 9 MB; duration 37:40)

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The True Witness (audio)

This is an enquiry as much as a contemplation. This has been recorded during a contemplative enquiry in a seminar here at the Serenity-Community – that gives it a life character which might help the German or Czech speaking audience on their journey towards the essence of what it means to be here.

German with Czech translation by Pranama.

[audio:http://www.mushin.eu/audio/DerWahreZeuge.mp3]

You can download the MP3 file (32 kps; 9 MB; duration 37:40) by right clicking on this link Der Wahre Zeuge and then “save as…”

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The True Embrace & The Integral Village

August last year I sat on the mountainside on the Cotes d’ Azur 800 meter above Nice and meditated. It was a star spangled night and I could see the city lights glittering. The day before I had read that U2 would arrive the next day in their private jet, so I knew that there would be quite a party down there.
In my meditation – my eyes were open – the world was present to me as was my knowing about that party. Then the field of my inner perception expanded and I also saw the suffering that people caused each other at the same time, the sex that was surely going on down there and everywhere, the passers by and the television viewers, and the entire busy and difficult goings-on of the world. By and by my meditation deepened and the world disappeared. The phenomena were still present, the lights of the city shimmering, the darkness of the night, the soft warm wind of August, the chirping of the insects and much more. But it wasn’t the world anymore, neither outside nor inside… it had become transparent. And then there was only emptiness, the non-being of all form, the formless.
But I didn’t abide in this state, and something surprising happened. Words are not quite adequate to express what happened then, so the only way to express it is to say that now something beyond the world and nothingness revealed itself: pure compassion. Compassion for everything, for the world and nothingness, for form and the formless. It was as if this compassion was a being, a presence, a living heart, a source. And from this source waves of compassion were streaming through the dimensions of form and the formless, like a heartbeat pumping the light of compassion through nothingness into everything: Boom, boom, boom!
I don’t know how long this revelation lasted but it changed me as it transformed all phenomena. And I also don’t know what really happened there. I just know: Whatever is calling forth the unending universe and emptiness, the I and the other, being and non-being and enlivening it, shows itself to a human being like me as all encompassing compassion. Compassion for all beings, for everyone and even no-one and nothing. No exceptions.

Every evening before I go to sleep I read a bit. Last night I was reading a few lines from the Jewish-Christian tradition saying that in prayer one should stand totally naked and alone before Gods face. And I asked myself, “Am I willing to do so?”
Those who know me know that I’m not perfect in the least – hanging out with myself 24 hours per day I am quite sure about this. So the question was really, “With these characteristics, with this imperfection, these stupidities, mistakes, with all my habits good and bad, am I ready to stand naked and alone facing the Godhead knowing and seeing my totality?”
If God were righteous as many people in our culture believe, if He were to judge me, if justice would be His essential quality I could never stand before His face. I would be turned into a pile of ashes or a pillar of salt because of my failings. If God were like the Judaeo-Christian tradition depicts Him I could stand before Him at most in sackcloth und ashes but never naked.
But the Godhead is not interested in righteousness; at most this is a human endeavour. God is beyond all and nothing, beyond all form and formlessness. And from my own anschauung I have absolute certainty that She is compassion – God is beginningless and endless love and therefore I can stand there alone and absolutely naked. It is Her Grace that allows me to.
So last night it was given me to stand there in Her lovelight enlightening all with compassion – God sees me, totally naked and with all my imperfections, overflowing me with pure unending compassion. But, being imperfect, after a while thoughts and pictures appeared that took me away from Her face. I thought of tomorrow and the people here that I serve and want to serve better every day, so that they too might taste of Her undying beauty… and with these thoughts I disappeared from Her presence. I drifted back again into the darker regions… the presence of this unending light of compassion disappeared from my awareness.
That is what darkness means. It is paradoxical: I am aware when I come before Her face, and I am also aware of being totally encompassed by divine love, but when I lose this presence I am not aware of it… the clouds of unconsciousness spread their mist wholly unaware.
But after a while I awoke to this and noticed. This is not new to me, by the way. I have experienced many mystical ecstasies in which I stepped out of my darkness into a greater light – only to then lose it again. And in the past there was always a sense of loss and the question, “How do I go back there? What can I do or not do to bathe again in this light?” Yesterday it was given to me to pose a different question, though, “Am I ready to be compassionate towards those inner aspects and forces that have taken me out of Gods presence? Can I be as compassionate towards these as God is towards me?” And I know I can, and I do. And so in the midst of my darkness I felt light-hearted because I saw that I can be just as full of compassion for the endarkening aspects of my self as God is full of compassion towards me… and not only me.

What is of most value in this world that is a place of suffering for most people – for even the greatest pleasures and joys of the world are bleak and dark if we remember whose light’s child we are? It is compassion. And if I speak of me and my work, if I speak of my vision that I wish to realize with everyone who wants to commit to it in the midst of this world – what is it about? It is about bringing this lovelight down to earth, bringing it into daily life, into relationships, projects, buildings, businesses, in short: to turn it into a manifest way of life. That is the vision that is alive in the Serenity-Community, and I hope this vision will lead eventually to an integral village. But this is not just a vision of a future reality; it is also a metaphor for a present process in which every step mirrors what the goal will manifest in a larger way and with more depth and power.
The world in which most people live is not a manifestation of compassion and love but rather a manifestation of greed and media-spawned bright sparkling lies, it is a world of not so beautiful pretences and mediocracy, a world of ignorance. That is the darkness we have to face, and much more than that it is the darkness inside us that comes into being through our failings to be lead by intelligent love and compassion, living our light; it comes from giving space to greed, pretence, mediocracy and ignorance in our behaviour and communication and relationships That is the shadow we have to face – and that is what we have to be compassionate about.
Where will we manifest the vision of an intelligently loving and compassionately intelligent society? Amidst the darkness, amidst the world of ignorance, misunderstanding and a crazed individualism in which we live. So if you are asking yourself in which way you can become part of that vision you could ask, “In which way can I best reflect this compassion?” And if you’ve found the answer to that you have defined your comfort-zone. That realm is very important. Foster and strengthen that realm, keep it alive, this realm where it is not such a big challenge to manifest compassion.
It is easy to be compassionate with people that are somewhat similar to us or who move in the same direction. And it is good and helpful – maybe even indispensable – to surround ourselves with such people or live in a community with them. The Serenity-Community is such a place. And the integral village – if it will manifest at some time and become a reality in which we all live together with many others – will also be such a place. Here at Serenity it is already much easier to love people that you don’t particularly like or with whom you are having problems. Here you are supported continually, day by day and hour by hour, to accept your own shadow and that of others lovingly, just as the Godhead compassionately accepts us when we stand naked in front of Her. And then it is much easier to face the challenges and handle the shadows where being and acting compassionate is not so easy because it simply not fostered or supported. So surround yourself with such people or even better, become part of such a community.

If you feel, like I do, that a spark of the Godhead is present in every soul then you certainly see that this spark wants to kindle a fire – your soul wants to be on fire. The light in you wants to engulf all of your soul and enlighten it. It wants to burn in your sex-life, it wants to shine in the bathroom, it wants to set your meditations ablaze as it does your work or your business; it wants to shine brightly in every aspect of your life. The Godhead doesn’t only want to be transcendentally present everywhere, which is the case already, but it wants to be manifest in all of creation – and that isn’t the case. And as much as God wants to set your soul on fire it wants to enlighten the whole world and everyone in it. For that She needs your willing and feeling cooperation. And She is very patient. She loves us all the way, as we are slowly opening up to what we truly are.
I have a vision of a society, starting maybe with a small village that is ruled by intelligent love and compassionate intelligence. (I use the terms intelligent love and compassionate intelligence to free love & compassion from its romantic, naive, Hollywood-like associations and intelligence from its often construed coldness.) This vision can only become manifest, though, if the people committed to this are prepared to let the lovelight enlighten all aspects of their lives. What I can contribute are all kinds of seminars, trainings and learning occasions which empower people to embrace the shadows and, of course, to experience and explore the deep dimensions of their spirituality and humanity. And just as I am serving the Serenity-Community and many other people who are connected with me I am an instrument and servant to an integral lifestyle and hopefully an integral village; a village in which the cooks and the toilet-cleaners, the accountants and the seminar facilitators, the farmers and shopkeepers, and whoever else is going to live there, can do their work in the spirit of compassion.
This vision has countless dimensions. That’s why everyone who wants to connect with it can contribute to it on the level they choose. I cannot and will not decide which level that can be. Because I know this is not only my vision or the vision of a few people. I know this is the vision of all of humanity. For thousands of years people have been touched by compassion and manifest it in their way. So it isn’t just my vision. And to transform this vision in flesh and blood, pathways and streets, houses and shops and businesses, gardens and flowers many more people have to turn it into their vision and realize it in their daily life now. The vision is either reflecting in every step of its realization or it will lead at best to a nice little village full of good-doing people – and honestly, I wouldn’t want to live there.
The vision is simple. On the way upwards from below, where we are selfishly seeking our own profit and that of our clan to where we really care for the well-being of all mankind and beyond, this vision depicts an individual and collective way of development. On the way downwards from above it is the gesture of true embrace, as the Godhead embraces us with compassion so we take all lower levels and realms – including even the selfishly governed spaces – in the arms of our love and compassion. The very same power that moves us to develop our highest potential makes us lovingly embrace that which may not have developed so far yet, including ourselves.
We are asked as human beings to do the next step in our evolution. And I will cooperate no matter how this adventure will turn out in the end. And every step, everything you do out of love and compassion is already a contribution to this development. If you want to do more, if you want to contribute so that in due time this way of life turns into an integral village – welcome!

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“Solange der Mensch keine Verantwortung übernimmt, hegt er Zweifel, hat die Möglichkeit, sich zurückzuziehen und handelt wenig effektiv. Für jedes schöpferische Handeln gilt eine elementare Wahrheit: sowie der Mensch sich endgültig verpflichtet, bewegt sich die Vorsehung. Alles Mögliche, das sonst nicht geschehen wäre, steht ihm hilfreich bei. Ein ganzer Strom der Ereignisse folgt der Entscheidung und begünstigt sie durch allerlei Vorfälle, Begegnungen und materielle Förderung, von denen keiner zuvor geglaubt hätte, sie könnten ihm auf diesem Wege beistehen. Was immer du meinst oder glaubst, tun zu können, beginne es. Denn dein Tun enthält Magie, Anmut und Kraft.”

“As long as a man does not take his responsibility he has doubts and the possibility to withdraw, and his acting is not effective. For all creativity there is an elementary truth: as soon as a man definitely commits himself destiny moves as well. All manner of things that wouldn’t have happened otherwise come to his aid. A veritable stream of happenings follow his decision and further it by all kinds of happenstances, meetings and material blessings of which no-one could have thought beforehand that they could have helped him on his way.
Whatever you believe or think you can do, begin with it. Because your doing works magic, beauty and strength.”
– I saw this quote first in the Internet where it was accredited to Goethe. Fred Kofman in his book „Metamanagement“ accredits to Sir Edmund Hillary who was the first human to climb Mount Everest (and survive) –

How can you take part?

Just pick & choose what you’d love to do

  • Connect every morning
  • remember that Compassion is already engulfing you with its Lovelight shining from the Heart
  • decide to regard yourself and others, including your and their shadows, with compassion today
  • bless this day with intelligent love and loving intelligence
  • let your Heart shine
  • any day
  • when confronted with difficult behaviour, stop, listen to your Heart and respond from there
  • regard your failings and shadows with compassion
  • make a stranger smile
  • Commit
  • to a lifestyle of compassion
  • to support people trying to realize a lifestyle of the True Embrace
  • Involve
  • rather then speaking about love and compassion live it on a daily basis
  • as much as is appropriate turn your working place and/or business into an example of the power and beauty of the compassionate way of life
  • create a community (or join one) that is dedicated to the True Embrace
  • Learn
  • to meditate, communicate, relate, make love, make money in such a way that you can forever expand your and other peoples ability to live a compassionate life.
  • Communicate
  • tell us how you are doing – in private or in a comment to this article
  • tell us how we can support and serve you
  • tell us if and how you want to support us
  • Participate
  • Visit us (and maybe be so kind to announce your visit)
  • and you might even want to live with us…
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The 7 Secret Sayings of God

7-secret-sayings-of-god
Drawing by Mushin 1978
  1. Before the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep, God said, ‘I AM THAT’ and it is so.
  2. Also, being in eternity which is neither linear or sequential, where all is NOWEVER, God said, ‘YOU MUST DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE’ and it was drawn.
  3. BUT! it was no dreary straight line or flat wall for God then said, ‘HAVE A BALL’ and there was a ball in the image whereof all stars and planets come to be formed.
  4. Thereupon God said, ‘THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERYTHING’ and there are; the ‘inside and the outside,’ the ‘dense and the spacious,’ the ‘right and the wrong,’ the ‘left and the taken,’ for as it is written, one shall be taken and the other left.
  5. And God said, ‘IT MUST BE IN TIME’ and thereafter it was, is and will be, for as it is written again, ‘As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, through all ages of ages.
  6. And forthwith God said, ‘SPACE IT OUT,’ whereupon it came to pass that beside ‘this and that,’ ‘now and then,’ there is also ‘here and there.’
  7. And God beheld how firm a foundation this was and said unto himself, ‘GET LOST!’

And there YOU ARE.