There are many simultaneously valid, yet contradictory realities. Wisdom involves aligning with the one that is most life supporting for the moment.
This principle is illustrated in the two-boxes-or-three diagram.
Depending upon how you view the same structure, because there are simultaneously valid and contradictory realities, it can be viewed as being two or three boxes.
Often when we want to learn something, we feel we must start by being taught what to do. In the subtle areas of human behavior, that approach is usually upside-down.
It is best to begin with resting into our own self, into the depth of who we are: Being.
Then comes Merging – understanding, communing with, or “becoming one with” who (or what) we are dealing with.
Knowing naturally results from being and merging. We automatically begin to know the person (or thing) with whom we have merged.
Doing becomes the obvious next step. Once we know someone (or something), we automatically know what needs to be done.
At Mount Soma some people fast on Mondays, so we had our Memorial Day picnic yesterday. It was great! The spread was outstanding – everything from veggie dogs to coconut cream pie.
One of the highlights was The Great 2010 Egg Drop Science Project. My oldest daughter has a contest at school where the students build a cage of sorts out of glue and toothpicks around an egg and it is dropped from varying heights. The one that is dropped from the highest ground without breaking wins. Well, what started out as a fun little project turned into a fun BIG project! Glue guns and toothpicks covered the table and you could hear the wheels turning as everyone sat around trying to figure out the best way to construct this contraption. The project is still in production!
A croquet game was set up on the lawn and my daughter took her training wheels off and by the end of the day was riding her bike like a pro – almost. It was a beautiful start to the summer season.
I am doing a series of talks on taking care of the physical body. Topics include diet and exercise and relationship with your body. They are posted on the main Gallery page of the site.
I will be adding to them, so if you like them, keep checking in for new posts.
I’d love to hear any comments on this series or suggestions you may have for another topic.
I would like to be sure you are all aware of the opportunity to join the Ashram participants this summer. You can come for three days, a week, or three weeks. The time frame is July 27 – August 16.
This summer’s events begin with a Surya Meditation Retreat, July 17-24, and will be followed by our annual Guru Purnima Celebration, July 25-26.
After these events, you are encouraged to join the Ashram members in a special extended Personal Program, including meditation and preparation for the Somanath Temple Consecration, August 20-24.
I encourage everybody who can possibly make it to attend the Temple Consecration. You have a choice of attending all of the yagyas, meditating the entire time, or a highbred of the two. The choice is yours.
Whichever you choose, please do not underestimate the value and auspicious nature of being at Mount Soma during the Temple Consecration. This is an event that will live in history for generations to come. It marks a pivotal point in the evolution of our community, our country, and the world. The personal evolutionary boost you will receive from being a part of this event is absolutely fantastic.
To attain world peace, global consciousness must shift on a fundamental level. This will not come about through a modeling of love and light ideals. Shifting world consciousness is a matter much deeper and more abstract than your typical pacifist can even imagine. Promoting a philosophy of peace is like asking a fire to stop burning. It doesn’t work. Infusing the cool waters of coherence into group consciousness is a material phenomenon. It is not a conversation. A humanity aligned with enlightened philosophies is a highly desirable side effect resulting from psycho-physiological evolution. Philosophy is secondary to physiology.
To understand all of this intellectually is a good first step. However, until that understanding becomes known to you directly as a result of the evolution of your own psychophysiology, it, too, remains a mere philosophy. Moreover, until the mechanism of group consciousness becomes intuitively obvious to you, it is merely a philosophy to you. Once you know it from within your own being, your life is never the same. Dedication to that mechanism of evolution of global consciousness becomes your passion.
Our purpose at Mount Soma is clear: to facilitate the evolution of global consciousness. Doing so is a technology, not the promotion of a philosophy. Only after that evolution is attained do profound theories and philosophies cease to be notions, and become common sense truths.
I am here to transform global consciousness. I use concepts to free minds, not to indoctrinate them into a philosophy. I encourage you to join me. It will not only circumvent disaster, it will usher in a truly enlightened age.
There are only two types of obstacles: 1) Those that resist your evolution; and 2) Those that direct it. If only people could clearly see which are which…
I hear it over and over again: “There are so many obstacles to my doing so and so; it must be nature telling me it’s not the right direction for me.” This go-with-the-flow approach to life is terribly simplistic. Just take a look at Jesus’ life. It was strewn with obstacles. It was more like the Colorado rapids than the Suwannee River.
Envision the Earth. Imagine it covered by a cloud of conditioned group consciousness. Picture it as a three-dimensional web, a complex hierarchy of astral beings all holding hands to create an intricate, lattice-like crystalline structure. This structure permeates the awareness of humanity. It is the network through which people communicate, verbally and otherwise. It is characterized by emotional tones that underlie people’s psyches and determine the agreed-upon world views. Though it is an interconnected whole, this cloud of group consciousness is not homogenous. It’s composed of many, many cultural and sub-cultural mentalities. This cloud is born of conditioning, the very thing that limits humanity, yet the very thing that everyone clings to as truth. The cloud is alive.
Now enters you. You were born in a sector of that cloud. The nature of that sector has colored your heart and mind since childhood. It has been the primary determinant of your relationship with, and view of, the world. Go deeply enough into the sub-sub-sub-subsector of that cloud that dominates you and you have defined you, or more accurately, who and what you believe yourself to be.
In Vedic language, we are talking about the sum total of all your samskaras, the impressions upon your being, the very substance your mind is made of. You look out at your world through glasses tinted with the color of that conditioning and see truth in terms of that tint. It colors and permeates your heart and mind. It limits you. It confines you. It denies and defies the real you that lies deeper.
Deeper than this matrix of conditioned consciousness is another matrix, infinitely more profound and sublime, the field of Divine perfection, the Veda. It is the source of infinite intelligence, harmony, and wisdom that birthed and sustains our entire universe.
Now picture this Vedic matrix as another cloud, a field that permeates the entire world. To live in harmony with it is to live in harmony with your true nature and all of nature. It is fine and sublime. To perceive it clearly requires a refined physiology, a physiology and resulting awareness that is not overshadowed by the cloud of conditioned consciousness that has overtaken the globe. To awaken to the Vedic level is to become free of the samskaras and conditioning that have colored the glasses you wear, that you are wearing right now.
In this light, we can discuss the two kinds of obstacles in life: 1) Obstacles that attempt to hold the conditioned global consciousness intact, even if it means obstructing your evolution; and 2) Those that support your evolution by signaling the path of your true nature (your dharma). The conditioned web of global consciousness strives to survive. Though born of mistaken notions and limited thinking (pragyaa aparaadha, in Vedic terms), it is living and breathing, with all survival mechanisms intact. It convinces you that it is your truth and your divinity.
So, when you experience an obstacle in your life, ask if it is opposing your conditioning or your Divinity. Conditioning resists its own dissolution. Viewing evolution as a threat, it puts up many roadblocks. For you to evolve, it must dissolve. For the world to evolve, it must melt away. Its only power is the spell it casts over humanity. Know that whichever level you align with, you will incur obstacles along the way. Through discernment, you gain enlightenment for yourself and the world.
Happiness is, for most people, more about one’s internal dynamic than a set of external circumstances. Happiness boils down to the principle of “relationship with….” If you want to be happy, spend time looking at your relationship with whatever is on your mind. Start fixing a problem first by attending to your relationship with problems. That is not just the key to happiness, but is also the key to fixing life’s problems. Similarly, manifesting your dreams starts with having a healthy relationship with your dreams.
Please remember that having a healthy ‘relationship with….’ does not mean talking yourself into looking at things a certain way. That’s just denial of what you are really feeling, trying to sweep it under the rug or bury your head in the sand. That doesn’t really work.
A “healthy relationship with…” is an exploration. There are an infinite number of simultaneously valid though contradictory realities. Explore them! That exploration will free you. Your biggest obstacle to happiness is the addiction to “mental loops.” Mental loops are habitual mind sets. They are habitual ways you tend to view your world and yourself. Don’t try to override them, push them out, or talk yourself out of them. If you do that, they will just stick with you longer and be driven deeper inside you.
I am a firm believer in exploring the reality that we are all nuts and finding the humor in it! Don’t always strive for perfection in yourself, your life situation, or in others! Take time to laugh at the reality that perfection is a mirage. I also enjoy the reality that life is a series of failures! Nothing is perfect. I think it is absurdly funny that we all somehow inherently strive to attain the unattainable. Life is a paradox. That is called the cosmic joke. If you want to be happy, start by getting the cosmic joke. Then see how it applies to everything! It is simultaneously profound and funny! It comes in many forms for each and every life situation. When you get that, your heart becomes light. You enjoy life. Things become simultaneously exquisite and hilarious if for no other reason than you see the silliness of clinging to a habitual world view that only makes you unhappy. After all, that is the sort of stuff comedy is made of. Isn’t it?
Happiness is joy is humor is delight. It is a physiological state cultivated through the exploration of the profound yet absurdly unfathomable nature of life’s unlimited facets and the preposterous futility of clinging to any one. Such exploration frees your heart, mind and spirit. That freedom is called happiness. The cosmic joke is everywhere and in everything. Start by seeing it in yourself. Enjoy the exploration! Funny is the flip side of profound. Explore within until you awaken to the place where funny and profound merge….., the place where all paradox finds resolution Then you get the cosmic joke and are eternally happy.
Deep within your psyche lies your ideal notion of life. People spend lifetimes pursuing it. While that pursuit is futile, it is the thing dreams are made of.
Runway models try to attain it with their looks. Businessmen pursue it through wealth and power. Some seek it as the ideal relationship, the perfect
home, or the ultimate lifestyle.
Yet, all of these things are unattainable. Their pursuit leaves one wanting, lifetime after lifetime. They are but mere echoes of a higher journey, the inner journey leading to perfection that does not dwell within the world at all. Instead, it dwells within you. It is the Transcendent.
You would do well to review the past five years of your life in this context. What have you been striving for? Could those five years have been better spent? I encourage you to pursue that which is lasting… eternal. All else is fleeting. The door is now open wide for all of you.
The Truth about Religion and Flatlining
