4 posts tagged “great path”

There is a quiet place, within yourself, away from the storm. In the center of the whipping winds and stinging rain, there is sunlight, peace and tranquility.

This world, and often this blog, is often full of the terrible side of life – the things people should know about, don’t really want to know about, might want to think about and could benefit from being aware of…but also could suffer from, might be anguished by, become fearful of, or worry about.

In the center of all that, I want to remind myself and others, is a place of serenity. Of Knowing. Of a warm, all-encompassing and comforting love. It is there. At the center of all our atoms is the vacuum, that which binds and connects all things. But we must all participate in the act of finding it. At the very least we must recognize it is there and still the mind, to prepare our awareness. To create a place within ourselves for that quiet feather to land.

This can be very difficult, or it can be amazingly simple. We alone control our bodies, and our reactions towards the outer world. If we don’t – well, go back and read some of the things from my second paragraph. Yes, there are agendas, energies and devices being set against our peace of mind. But they are not our god. Our spirits have much, much greater powers than these.

Awareness is the first step. Then there are things we can do to foil them, to fight that battle. The armor is there. Find it and put it on. Go back and read the old masters. They knew this enemy. This type of struggle is exactly what they were referring to.

Enlightenment can come in a day; even in a minute, a second. Or it can come long and painfully, after much suffering. Just ask Buddha.

The Way can be lined with annoyances and unscrupulous people. But it is always there, ready to receive, ready to heal, ready to teach. Just ask Lao Tzu.

Love is our ultimate weapon. The energy we radiate back out into the world, even as we are bombarded with unimaginable atrocities and negativity, is what will change our reality. Just ask Jesus.

It’s only as hard as we think it is. We only have as much power as we allow ourselves to have. For that matter, the dark side only has as much power as we allow it to have.  Just ask Yoda.

We are all bubbles of energy that radiate far outside our physical bodies, and interact with our reality; a feedback loop of information going in and out. Which information will we choose to receive, which shall influence us? And which shall we choose to release back out into the world?

Follow your heart, not the programmed knee-jerk reactions of your world gone mad. Take back what is rightfully yours. Peace of mind. Harmony. Start with yourself. Many will follow; meanwhile, just stay strong. Stay fiercely focused. We are poised for the most incredible journey we can imagine. Yes, – amidst the chaos of these days, is a bright and wonderful future, hiding there in the center of it all. Waiting for us to see it.

These are not pipe dreams. It can and indeed will happen. The question only remains, who will join me on this Great Journey? Who will be there to guide me when I fall down?

“I believe that the World Wide Web is, as a matter of fact, the noogenesis of the noosphere.” - Ralph Abraham, The Evolutionary Mind (1988)

Lawrence Hagerty wrote in The Spirit of the Internet,“…the Internet is not the noosphere. It is merely an infrastructure that is now available for the noosphere to use.” Hagerty goes on to profess, “I believe that the Internet is serving as just such an attractor, or basin of attraction, drawing the Earth’s most creative minds into a synergistic union out of which a new form of human consciousness can arise from the wells of chaos.“

The noosphere is a term created by Jesuit priest/radical thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose ideas were frankly force-fed to me in college in the eighties (I happened to attend a Jesuit university where he was practically worshiped as a god). For that reason perhaps I wrongly assumed his teachings were more widespread than they actually were at the time. But I find no uncertain irony that his ideas continue to haunt my own delightfully synchronous journey towards Singularity.

Not the technological singularity of Ray Kurzweil; I’m talking more about what’s happening over at Reality Sandwich, and other important, alternative think tanks of our time. “New science” is termed thusly because, reminiscent of Capra’s intuitions of decades past, scientific discoveries are merged with new (and perhaps very old) interpretations of consciousness. This is how it should be; the Newtonian universe must ultimately be discarded in favor of the quantum discoveries that tickle our brains, easing us into new frontiers of existence, consciousness and human evolution. The homo cyber I find mentioned here and there, if left alone in the wilderness of pure artificial or mechanistic intelligence, would be the unfortunate result of not taking the final step of this process. Like refusing to take the red pill, our psyches would be left to rot inside the prison Matrix of third dimensional space-time. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” reminds Shakespeare.

The Internet may be Noosphere 1.0, a precursor to an enlightened state of consciousness; or perhaps, Noosphere for Beginners, or Noosphere for Dummies. Though arguably a creation of Big Brother’s sinister and eavesdropping omnipresence, the Internet is also being used, perfectly a la Tao, as a vehicle to transmit thoughts and ideas in preparation for a purely telepathic noosphere. The next several years its role will be vastly influential in terms of the global progression of consciousness, and I urge all to participate as they can until then (or until the government curtails this freedom, much as it has done with suppressing entheogens); but at some point, perhaps soon, the circuits and transistors will go the way of the covered wagon. Many of us will leave our electronic devices abandoned on the beach as we eventually look up and realize the great sea of enlightenment and oneness is before us, and go in for a dip – never to return. The key to ridding ourselves of the shackles of this reality is love, pure and simple. Love is the thing no machine can transmit; love is the unique trait, or ability, that will catapult our transformation from homo sapiens not to homo cyber, but to homo luminus.

The minds at work on the great consciousness project at this moment are alive during this time not by accident. They are all Surfing the Tao though they may not be aware of it. We are all giving what we have, and taking what we need, in some kind of post-modern, spirit-driven, psychedelic communistic mind trip, hastened by our collective visions of 2012 and beyond. Hagerty calles it entheospace; I might describe the sensation as a sort of dreamstate, finding oneself floating down a river of consciousness, gently colliding with others riding down the same stream in a kind of synchronistic, fractal pattern of atunement, as we all slip closer to the great sea.

Daniel Pinchbeck’s first book was entitled, Breaking Open the Head – which I mention here not for its particular content, which is a mind-expanding examination of the entheogenic experience, but because it so aptly illustrates my own particular state of being.

My own head cracked in college, during several misguided entheogenic experiences. I discovered Terence McKenna, but as far as spirituality goes, I was definitely a seeker who didn’t really want to spend any time looking.

This all changed in 1999. The previous fracture, which had begun to scar over, was rent asunder, and a torrent of new knowledge and higher frequencies began to stream in. I will only say: the true masters are truly hidden. And it is meant to stay that way, for now, perhaps because actual participants can often teach each other more in the beginning. But I was urged to continue meditating, and before long I had what Neil Kramer over at The Cleaver might call a fourth dimensional experience.

Without any entheogenic aid, I crossed over into the void. Suddenly, I Knew.

There are no further words for what I experienced. The language simply doesn’t exist. But it changed everything I knew, all that I was. What followed was years of reading, researching, listening, loving, meditating and change. Many of the books that appeared as if by magic I have listed here. My intellectual side was frustrated, but my spirit was at peace for the first time I can remember in my adult life. The end result of that was, I wrote a book, which was really just a cathartic expression of my overwhelmed psyche.

My own path is still guided by amazing synchronicity and coincidence. I find it startling how often I find articles written about the very subject I had been ruminating about. How I discover brilliant minds have already found answers to the questions I have been asking. How so many of our paths are beginning to converge on the Great Path. Spirituality, Taoism, 2012, eschatology, Planet X, the Matrix, conspiracy, sinister agendas, alien technology, symbology, synchromysticism, mind control, electromagnetism, alternative energy, quantum physics, plasma physics, torsion physics, entheogenic-inspired thought and conscious enlightenment, ecocentric living, — the puzzle pieces are coming together rapidly. I cannot explain how I know what I Know, yet I will say; the quickening is upon us. The noosphere is coalescing. The Puzzle of Being, and the question of consciousness, is in the process of being realized by a vast cadre of psycho-cryptographers.

The great irony is, I sense, that this enlightened, super-charged, noospheric state of being is and has always has been, here and now. This ancient Way that has been lost during our fall, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, is now being quickly rediscovered, picked up and dusted off as some kind of primordial reflex to protect ourselves from what we subconsciously know is coming. We are remembering, so that we will survive.

I remember Y2K. Regarding expectations for 2012, the intensity of thought, intellect, spirit, and energy now in 2008 is somewhat on par with what happened the months previous to Y2K. And we have nearly five years left. What incredible postulations, theories, discoveries, transitions, realizations, opportunities, manifestations, creations and expectations will surface between now and then?

And what will happen on December 21, 2012 at 11:11 universal time? That remains to be seen; but to prepare for either global catastrophe, psychedelic wormholes or simply more life as we know it – the only answer is, and always will be: love, peace and harmony.

Sometimes I wonder how I find what I do here online – and when I do, I wonder what else I’m missing. I’m only one person. Only one computer. Only so many hours in the day.

If you’ve made it this far, please consider leaving a comment here regarding what author, what religion, what spiritual path, what thinker, what scientist, what discovery, what issue, what website, what experience – what ANYTHING that has made a difference for you on your journey.

Give what you have. Take what you need.

As it acts in the world, the Tao

is like the bending of a bow.

The top if bent downward;

the bottom is bent up.

It adjusts excess and deficiency

so that there is perfect balance.

It takes from what is too much

and gives to what isn’t enough.

– Tao Te Ching #77

On any journey of self-discovery and seeking the unknowable, one cannot help but notice the inextricable and inevitable influence of place upon progress-to-date – until, of course, one reaches the place of no-place.

Though my own metaphysical journey started in Los Angeles, it quickly became clear that at least for me, further advancement wasn’t going to be easy there; I had to get out. Not to mention that I had, during this initiatory period, stepped foot on this island for the first time and was simply changed forever. Frankly I couldn’t get back here fast enough.

Certain places on the globe seem to resonate with different people for whatever reason; one friend is currently finding solace in the Southwest, another longs for home in Switzerland while away on business, while yet another perhaps more gypsy soul is currently in debate with this particular crazy rock. The ancients knew certain locations resonated with specific planetary energies, and built their monuments/observatories accordingly to harness or intensify the power – for what uses, I might suppose were many.

In terms of spiritual development, paying attention is the key. A place can teach, if we allow it to. I can speak from experience about the Big Island; its energy is palpable, electric, shocking, penetrating and alive. It’s like the Great Pyramid of the Pacific. If tuned to its particular radiance, it tends to force a certain coming-to-terms with elements of oneself in clear and often disturbing reflection, far more rapidly than might normally occur in life somewhere else. Perhaps it’s the seemingly concentrated mega-supernaturality of the place, all confined here on a relatively small patch of land out in the middle of thousands of miles of ocean; I don’t really know what makes this place so magical and transformative. But you can either face yourself, and perhaps some difficult challenges, or you can run away. Trust me; plenty of people choose the latter.

This place isn’t for everyone, and I image it’s the same for all the islands. It’s not a little ironic that “Lost” is filmed in Hawaii – because it’s easy to get lost here, trapped in a kind of psychical warfare with Self in which intriguing clues to endless puzzles dot the landscape of existence, with no escape. This is a unique place which at first seems to be a refuge, where a calm, slow-paced way of life accented by warm weather, beaches and aloha beckons; but a violent and molten core suggests a more turbulent spiritual undercurrent. After about two years, more or less, newcomers are either fully absorbed in the trials by fire and subsequent honing of their character, or are in the process of being expelled. Residents know, the island seems to pick and choose who stays here, simply spitting out the rest. One either resonates with this place, or not – and the ‘nots’ often get a solid kick in the rear on the way out.

In the six years I’ve been here, I can attest to the transformation that has occurred within me – and is still taking place. It hasn’t all been plumeria blossoms and coconuts. I’m stronger, calmer, wiser, but not before some difficult experiences; I exorcised not a few demons, walked the coals, and witnessed the same in loved ones around me who came here. This island, as I’m sure other places too, will heal you, strengthen you and teach you – if you pay attention and let go of your expectations. If you force your own ego upon it and refuse to listen, this island will shake you, rattle you, and even burn you or swallow you whole.

It’s as if this haunted isle is a microcosm of the Tao; within it - for some - are all the tools necessary for transformation of spirit and character, in loudly resonating abundance. Wrong choices exist glaringly alongside the right ones; not necessarily good or bad, as all things become part of one’s conscious development. But certainly they depend on one’s level of awareness and participation; there are plenty of lost souls wandering around out here too, as in any place. Personally I feel blessed to have been led somewhere I could move through my own journey at what seems to be an accelerated pace – where every step rings clearly, announcing itself, sometimes painful, sometimes joyous – and the in-between, no-man’s time can be an intense paradox of aware not-knowing. In another place, perhaps these signposts might have gone unnoticed under the thundering din of a materialistic, overcrowded, overbuilt and neon-lit now. In another place, perhaps my own tuning fork might have been out of phase.

Certainly Surfing the Tao is a Way of many diverse paths, and the point of it all is to find the essence of one’s own experience – discovering Self, discovering the Tao, and the links therein; discovering the Way of Life and love as it unfolds in an increasingly chaotic world. Every place and person will be its own, and these paths will all someday converge on the Great Path, within the spirits and hearts of those willing few. I can only suggest that place can play a far more important role in our journey than we may realize. Pay attention and the Tao will lead.

If you spend time investigating any of the strange and even disturbing elements of our present global reality, it’s easy to become disheartened or even anxious or desperate.  It’s not uncommon to feel this way and if you have, you’re not alone.  I spend a lot of time sifting through quite a bit of difficult material every day, and I still have moments when the potential future hits me so hard I lose my breath.  As I gather information for a post, sometimes I have to close my laptop and go do something else for awhile.  It can be overwhelming, no matter how many years one has been awake.  Who hasn’t thought about going back and taking the blue pill?  The red one can be bitter and acrid indeed.

I was listening to one of the alternative radio talk show hosts the other day, and he and his guest were discussing how some young people, though fully aware of the coming ‘new order’ and all its controversial agendas and organizations, agree to join the powers-that-be rather than be on what they think will be the ‘losing side.’  I’m not sure which is more difficult to assimilate:  that there are people out there that Know,  yet consciously choose to join the bad guys, and that they actually believe it will be the ‘winning side’; or that the ones who decide to remain and fight against the machine will have a very, very difficult time indeed. 

Yes, our future will be full of misery and chaos.  But we are already living in the future.  From microchipping to prophetic warnings; from droughts to floods, earthquakes and fires; from secret cabals and wars to chemicals in our food and air, our world is very quickly becoming a difficult place to live purely, simply and at peace – and it will surely become progressively worse in the next few years.  I have no illusions about that, and I spend quite a bit of time meditating on remaining in a place of serenity despite the chaos.  There are still pockets of truth and warmth, we just have to find and then protect them.

When we got married, my husband and I had this short phrase inscribed inside our wedding bands, a phrase that meant a lot to us spiritually then, and still means a great deal to us today.  It’s one of the ways we’ve gotten through some hard times.  Trust me, I know the arguments; many say, it can’t be ‘all good’ – there has to be bad to be good.  Or, then that would mean evil is good, and so forth.  Philosophically, yes, one can go around in circles on this one.  But the phrase has taught me some very simple yet sturdy spiritual lessons that have aided me in my daily life.  First, I have had to learn to trust that God, the Tao, has got it all worked out.  He’s perfectly aware of what’s going on, and there is a Plan – even if most of it is beyond me.  I can’t prove this; I just know it from my own personal experiences of synchronicity and spontaneous knowledge.  It’s not my job to worry about anything: not about money or health, not even about global catastrophic destruction or a global police state.  Worry is the opposite of faith and will get me nowhere.

Another lesson for me is that whatever seems ‘bad’ now can often turn into something good; the silver lining philosophy.  This is very much a tenet of Taoism, and even Christianity; “turn your scars into stars” is a favorite teaching I heard from a minister awhile back; the thought can give you hope even if it seems impossible at the time.  And lastly, that we all have a choice every moment to act either with love or with evil intent – this is how the wheat is separated from the chaff.  God, the Tao, wants us to choose love, to choose Him; without that choice, we wouldn’t be able to love so strongly, or Know Him as completely, because we wouldn’t know the difference.  So in the end, even evil has its purpose.  I know, it’s a difficult notion to absorb and certainly I don’t claim to be an authority on this; I’m just sharing how I get through the day.  I imagine we all have a way to explain the evils of the world so we can make it though.  Those who don’t are likely having a very hard time indeed.  Whatever works for you, I like to say.

Surfing the Tao is about how you live your life even though all this crazy stuff is going on.  It’s about being nice to your neighbor even though you just got fired.  It’s about raising your children with wisdom and respect, even though you suspect the future could be bleak.   It’s about recycling even if the End is Near.  It’s about lending a hand, teaching the truth and spreading love and awareness, lest Hosea ring true, “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”.  Though there are sure to be many truly bloody battles ahead of us, the most important battle is in our hearts, in our spirits; that part of us which is connected to the eternal.  Be a spiritual warrior: stay strong, stay wise, stay grounded.  Be aware but not afraid.  Know, but be at peace.  Teach, yet be gentle.  Remember, the future has already happened: it is done, and the good have won.  A better world is already waiting for us.  We just need to keep walking towards it.  As Lao Tzu wisely suggested, “accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.”  We all have a role to play in this final act; deep in your heart, you probably already know what yours is.

Love is the answer; love is the why, the how and the what.  In the end, love really will be all we need.  In the end, love will be all that is left.  Practice it now, today, and every moment.  Spread the word and have no fear, for love is not just soft and tender, but also ferocious and determined, like a lioness defending her cubs.  God is with us and He has not left us in the wilderness to perish.