Buried Pain

I suspect that many people hesitate to go within because they are afraid of what they will find. It is true that most of us have buried many painful memories and emotions. But even though we have placed them out of reach of our ordinary awareness, their negative influence remains. The only way to eliminate the adverse effects of buried pain is to uncover it and release it once and for all. Doing so removes one impediment to spiritual awareness. The process becomes progressively easier as you learn that you, not the pain, are in control of your life.

The Power of Patience

Another powerful quotation from the Dalai Lama shone like a jewel in the mud on my Facebook page today.  Here is the quotation:

"The most important benefit of patience consists in the way it acts as a powerful antidote to the affliction of anger - the greatest threat to our inner peace, and therefore our happiness. The mind, or spirit, is not physical, it cannot be touched or harmed directly. Only negative thoughts and emotions can harm it. Therefore, only the corresponding positive quality can protect it."

Facebook - or the little slice of it that is reflected on my page - seems to be increasingly devoted to the expression of individuals' social and political imperatives.  As such it mirrors our ever more polarized society.  Dialog seems to have largely vanished from the forum of opinion, to be replaced by strident voices shouting from soapboxes on every corner.  People are more devoted to their own ideas, prejudices and agendas than they are to other people.  In spiritual terms, this is another manifestation of the power of ego to dominate any situation in which it its influence is not tempered by love and the awareness of Oneness.  

There is no question that love and patience go hand in hand. Loving another person sometimes requires a patient understanding of that person's thoughts, emotions, and felt needs. Loving oneself requires the same patience. Loving a society, or the world, or the Universe requires patience and acceptance of the truth that regardless of the scope, events will not proceed according to our own personal values and priorities.

Ego is not patient.  Ego wants what it wants, and it wants it now.  Ego is angry. Spirit as manifested in the Universe has no need of patience because it exists outside of time; but as manifested in each of us, Spirit brings the patient ability to put today's emergencies into the context of eternity. A life spent in Oneness is a life of equanimity, knowing that every external tempest - including the tantrum of personal ego - is only a departure from Love and will be calmed by a return to stillness and the fundamental peace of Spirit.

Peace will not be found by out-shouting other egos.  Peace comes from the realization that Love is All There Is -- right "now", right "here", not in some imagined (but unattainable) future time when the mind's priorities have been fully realized. As we go through our human existence working as hard as we can to produce the good that we wish for all beings, we can stay on course by returning daily to the inner awareness that the peace of Oneness is ours for the asking at any time and in any place.

Who am "I"?

Sri Ramana Maharshi invites us to meditate on the question, "Who am I?" ... ultimately "I" discover that "I" am nothing apart from God. Still "we" cling to "our" illusion of individuality, twisting and jumping from one concept of "self" to another like a fish on a line. Each time mind presents another rationalization for the belief that "I" am separate and unique, "I" must struggle to overcome and release such thoughts. Yet it is impossible to release them completely while living a secular life. "My" family, "my" friends, "my" job, "my" possessions, all seem to have meaning. "My" senses testify that other people also are unique individuals. Only when "I" take sanctuary in meditation can "I" approach the understanding of Oneness. Then dualities fade and "I" passes from awareness for a time in the presence of I am.

How Should Disease Be Treated?

A discussion of an alternative or naturopathic cancer treatment led me to meditate on the choice between such therapies (which for want of a better term I will call "alternative" medicine) and conventional medicine (i.e., the medicine of Western science, doctors and hospitals).  The understanding that came to me is that physical illness -- by itself, clearly a phenomenon of the material universe -- may have many causes.  Some causes are themselves material (such as exposure to toxic substances, viruses and bacteria, or congenital physical defects). Other causes are energetic (arising in the aetheric boundary between the material and the spiritual), and still others are purely spiritual (such as karma).  Similarly, physical illness can be treated on a variety of levels, ranging from the purely material to the energetic to the purely spiritual.  In each case the treatment will not be considered "successful" unless the physical manifestation of the underlying cause is removed.  That is, the "cure" must manifest in the material universe, on the same plane as the condition being treated.  However, if the underlying cause is energetic or spiritual, it seems the physical condition (or another just as undesirable) is likely to recur unless the non-material cause is also dealt with in some fashion.  There appears to be a hierarchy of cause and effect in which events at the spiritual level have effects on the energetic and material universes; energetic practices affect the material plane, but not the spiritual; and material approaches affect only material manifestations. 

So, for example, some may treat cancer by seeking to modify or release its karmic causes on the spiritual plane.  Some may apply pranic healing, qi gong, or other energetic methods.  And of course, some may treat the condition purely on the material plane, by removing tumors, administering chemotherapy, or applying one of the available alternative remedies. 

An important fact, and one that needs to be stressed repeatedly until everyone understands it, is that none of these methods should be considered to exclude the others.  Far from detracting from the efficacy of conventional medicine, for example, energetic and spiritual treatments have been found to complement conventional approaches to the treatment of disease.  And the application of conventional methods should not be considered inconsistent with energetic and spiritual treatments, or with some alternative methods.  It has been said many times that sometimes God sends help in the form of a doctor.

Now, conventional and alternative medical treatments, in general, both operate solely on the material plane.  There may be some situations in which they are in fact mutually exclusive -- e.g., if a skin cancer lesion is removed by one method, it cannot also be removed by another.  What is not helpful to the patient is that practitioners of either kind often denigrate the practices of the other for non-scientific reasons, such as ego identification with their own specialty or the superstitious belief that only their chosen approach (be it conventional or alternative science) can be efficacious.  Medical science must forsake the illusion of its own infallibility, and acknowledge that some alternative treatments can be effective. Alternative practitioners must similarly respect the methods of conventional science.

Insofar as purely material approaches to the treatment of disease are concerned, I prefer the methods of conventional medicine.  The material universe is truly the domain of Western science, which is constantly expanding its understanding of the physical causes of physical events.  If conventional medicine rejects an alternative treatment on scientific grounds (rather than superstition or prejudice), I am prone to respect that position.  At the same time, I will not fall into the fallacy of supposing that physical disease can have only physical causes. If the cause is energetic or spiritual, then material procedures must be accompanied by an appropriate non-material treatment. I will continue to respect energetic and spiritual treatments in conjunction with the material approaches of conventional and alternative medicine, as the situation dictates.

New Challenges

Meet every new challenge with respect by giving it your full creative attention.  Treating new challenges as if they are old ones leads you to apply old methods and solutions, which may or may not fit the current situation.  This is especially important to remember if you are an "expert".  Expertise is more than experience. It requires the ability to discern what is unique in the present circumstances and to modify old solutions accordingly.  Knowledge must be tempered with the wisdom to realize that you don't know everything, and that the present moment is different from any moment in the past.  Relying on knowledge alone leaves you frozen in the past.  The present is fluid and constantly new, but welcoming if you are willing to plunge in, swim with the tide, and learn new lessons.

Universal Mind

The things you write that you believe are thoughts newly coming to you from Universal Mind are really memories, or rather impressions penetrating the illusion of separation. You are dimly aware of the state of Oneness with Source and these writings are imperfect descriptions of that imperfect awareness. Others who read and appreciate what you have written do so because their own awareness, albeit as imperfect as yours, is stimulated. Thus the process of writing and reading is itself part of the reawakening for both.

IMPERMANENCE

This flower is already withered,
this moment now is past.

This cup already broken,
this breath will be my last.

Each thing I could not live without
is just a memory.

Each precious trinket that I owned
has gone and left me free.

This body has been dust long since,
this town a sterile plain.

This land has sunk beneath the sea,
and I am home again.

I've watched the planet Earth dissolve
in her Sun's nova flame.

I've seen the galaxies burn out,
yet I am still the same.

I am the One I've always been,
unbound by time or space.

I am unborn and never die.
I am eternal Grace.

I am the planets and the suns,
the flower and the breath.

I am the Spirit that transcends
my birth, my life, my death.

I am the truth within my lie,
the solace in your pain.

I am the Voice that softly calls
you back to me again.