Spirits Calling

"My soul glowed from the fire of your fire. Your world was a whispering water At the river of my heart." --by the poet Rumi

While in love we often fear, often unconsciously fear, that another will subsume us, that we will drown in relationship, and to some extent this is true. The ego must move aside for the opening to the path to love. Love and the soul however will not be lost or drown in another. Rather these are our immutable essences; they cannot be lost or drowned, and yet ego strongly fears this fate. Our sense of self-protection that is ego rapidly assesses any situation in which we must potentially yield to be a threat.

There is a fundamental mystery to the soul, however, writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love. He writes further, "its integrity is not violated by merging with another person. The blending of two spirits brings more to the union than each partner started with. The process of soul-making that used to be [for me alone] "me" is now for "us." The poet Rumi expressed this thought with these words:

My soul glowed from the fire of your fire.

Your world was a whispering water.

At the river of my heart.

With the growth of spiritual realization is the awareness that two can be as one; that the multiple aspects of the Dharmakaya are are work; that the Christian idea of a triune relationship within the soul of a great spirit, communing with God are all infinite and possible. While in the state of ego, on the other hand, persons remain isolated and self-protected as if in a siege mentality. There then is no room for the other; often a feeling of isolation and a vague, undefined loneliness results. Yet spirit calls to us powerfully, first, in romantic love. 

We fall in love and for the first time as Rumi passionately writes, we have the opportunity to engage our self into self as an expansion of identity. The Spirit uses relationship as its vehicle. No man is an island; spirit calls to us to overcome our fears such that love may be its replacement.

Once in relationship, however we gain a foothold over ourselves despite the passion, despite the growing self awareness, and ego often returns to us with a vengeance. Falling in love is delightful; it is passion, and a glimpse of the spirit itself. Being in love, love itself entails commitment, and a certain struggle. Many who come to this place in their spiritual journeys feel a sense of loss, and fear what is to come next. 

Relationships have consequences. While they give to each person a sense of belonging, friendship, security and compassion, love also demands something from each partner. Things like patience, devotion, persistence are part of the work and struggle to be realized along the path. Sometimes relationship is hard and painful. Resolution brings joy, and it brings disappointment. "The only real difference between romance and relationship, spiritually speaking, has to do with surrender. Surrender comes naturally to two people when they first fall in love." Love's first flush gives us the courage to do that, to be fearless and act under its protective power. Spiritually, surrender is a solution to the paradox existing between ego and spirit. 

Yet persons who love, who are intimates, over time often find that the ego, now returned carries them on its own agenda. Lovers play games to test one another, they withhold themselves; they are unwilling to give to spirit, and they are unwilling to give to and serve one another. Surrender now must be conscious. It must be an act of free will, of choosing this as your path. Chopra writes, "this isn't to say that surrender isn't hard work; it is conscious work. As such it can bring the same joy and delights as falling in love, the same sense of play which relieves lovers of the ego burdens." 

The British writer and poet, D. H. Lawrence wrote, "That is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust, the sapphire of fidelity. The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love."

A free loving commitment of the will made to another is the realization over time of: peacefulness, a companionship and a trust made by the Spirit to another which is, and is not self. "When they are fully committed... they see God in each other." On that basis, they are able to surrender, not to one another so much, as to surrender themselves to the God in each other, and to the God, the Dharmakaya in all things. Dharma is an ancient idea. It means perhaps most fully, sacredness. In its Sanskrit origin, dharma means to sustain or uphold. 

Thus what upholds, honors, or respects another's life is in keeping with dharma. It is, for example in dharma not to tell lies, to deceive oneself or others. Dharma looks to the sacred, it is tied to and intimately guided by spirit. Dharmakaya, likewise, is Karuna, love; love then is a guiding force emanating from the great being, the Dharmakaya. Thus surrender in relationship is surrender to spirit, to dharma. In the Way of the Beloved, the dharma is "a vision of spiritual equality; when you perceive life through this vision, separation ends."

True Love From the False

"Love gives itself; it isn't bought." Henry W. Longfellow

As we move through our lives, one hears and learns by experience a simple truth as the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote. Love is free, it cannot be bought or coerced. Nor can it be captured or restrained, like a pet canary, adored in a golden cage.
Loving persons come together by desire, by free will, in giving. Lovers cannot be used, one blind to the motives of another. 'Love,' as the Bible tells us, 'sees all, knows all, tolerates, is patient and forgives'. In the book of Corinthians it is written:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

The conclusion of this passage is also simple enough:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now-- faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." --1Corinthians-NSB translation

For those whose life experience has been without the experience of love's purity, innocence, freedom, or patience, the foundation of relationship as adults may easily turn to an experience in which there is a transaction of "confusion between winners and losers in a game of competing needs," writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love.
 Instead of weaving together in friendship, in desire, in love, individuals concentrate on what will benefit me. "How many couples bond by forming a "we" that is just a stronger, tougher version of "me"? muses Chopra.

"Undoubtedly," he continues,  "mutual ego needs have a place in every relationship... however when they obliterate the tender growth and life of love in the Spirit," love is replaced with something that is false. He notes that "acquiring an ally to fulfill them [needs] isn't the same as getting free from them. 
Only love can free us."
"The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. Ego craves control, certainty, and power alone. As practitioners on the Way, looking carefully, we see this is false notion. By life experience, we have found that the world is not static, it is not every man an island. Rather the world is as the Buddha preached: a world of change, impermanence; a world that survives because of the inter-being of all. One depends upon another.

Think about your morning habits, for example. The dwelling you awoke in was quite possibly built by another, the electricity you used was wired and made safe for you by others. The food you eat was grown and delivered by others; the water you drink, and the road you travel-- all made safe by others. A truth of love versus ego, then, is that "Uncertainty is the basis of life," writes Chopra.
And inter-being is the way.
Allow yourself what you deeply desire.  In love, in spirit, there are no ulterior motives. While acknowledging another's needs or wants, "Spirit neither takes responsibility for that need nor opposes it." In this way, the person and their love is seen as real, because whatever your true need is, is your reality.

Discovering Your Unlived Life

"Wouldn't it be great to just let go of your ego? Just live in the now and be enlightened? Paradox, the contrary opposites, are not ever truly separated; paradoxes make room for grace and mystery." --Living Your Unlived Life by R.Johnson and J. Ruhl

Authors Johnson and Ruhl write of many of the currents in modern thought, and while many others may write on the same topics, dispense the same or similar notions, these two authors are openly and clearly operating within the bounds of their mentor, Carl Jung. Many self styled spiritualists and life "coaches" may also advance the knowledge presented in the book, Living Your Unlived Life, though with less integrity or honesty, implying it to be their own thought or devises; in reality they too are one of the choir canting Jung equally. Not to be fooled, a Simple Mind seeks to track down ideas and their attribution.

Many have preoccupied themselves with various 'busy-iness' for so long that as the second half of life approaches, there is the strong impulse to push back, to 'forget' the many longings in a lifetime; despite a modern appetite for amusements and all kinds of diversions, the impulse to examine a path less often chosen is ignored. Will it be before long that we turn to our own inner longings, recognizing the need for living life that makes sense now, that is creative and renders satisfaction? Will this occur before death or only in the moments attending ones' passing? Feeling the press of growing tedium or vague dissatisfaction, some will turn, attend to this task and realize the riches from doing so. Living Your Unlived Life may just be the best, most, creative thing you've done.

There are those who will simply say that one must get rid of the 'ego/ I /self' and all will be well. Au contraire! write authors Johnson and Ruhl. Instead they note that without an informed, conscious ego, one is "psychotic, not enlightened… [One] can move the ego into relationship, in service to something greater."
In the second life, as we age and mature, an ego may serve to divinize, making parts whole. It may be a partial answer for what serves the greater good. Indeed,the 'ego' is central to the Holy Grail myth of medieval Europe. In concert with consciousness, the ego holds the reins of daily life; ego strength is what actually distinguishes typical, daily imaginings and playfulness from psychosis and absurdity.

Without potentially destroying your earlier accomplishments, destroying your connections to friends and loved ones, ruining your finances, living your un-lived life may be one of the most engaging times of your life. For some it's tinkering and adjusting, for others it's a 'do over' featuring a second career, meaningful creative solutions to the same time worn problems. As each person is unique, there are unique responses to the issues of living the 'second life' in real time, real world ways.

From this process of discovery of our self, we find that much of what remains undeveloped, un-lived is what seems too grand to bear. "This may seem silly, but if you look honestly at your life, you will find it's true," writes Johnson. Some for example, look for spirit in a bottle rather than inside themself; some seek ecstasy from others or from exterior experiences. And true for many is a knee-jerk reaction against change. The 'ego' simply doesn't like it'; it upsets the settled balance. We struggle to get the balance right for our self.

Engaging in the timeless art of Being rather than Doing is the major focus of the second life; in our earlier years we expended energies upon career goals, establishing and maintaining relationships, building financial security; with those tasks now largely in hand, many will find their mind wandering. It meanders at times, like a daydream of what might be; it dreams of situations we find either highly attractive or repulsing.
All this imagining may be taken together as symbolic, realizing over time greater and deeper self awareness, the beginnings of a peaceful life without regrets. "Midlife is a time of reappraisal in part because as we age, the realm of Being must become more predominant."

Discovering our un-lived life and responding to its promptings is a process the authors write about. Setting time aside during ones' day for moments of reflection, to connect with our deepest self is "not mindless daydreaming, zoning out… it's from a state of energized being" that we learn to recognize our self.

Bringing the "calmness and focus of Being into doing activities is a supreme achievement." Trace what or whom you love; follow what matters to you into your Being. Not every concern is meant literally. Some desires and fantasies are best thought out rather than lived. Engage with your symbols. Learn their meaning.

Through the recognition of your own personal symbols and expressive (visual, lyrical, spoken, physical) language, one may pull back together in greater wholeness parts previously buried or torn from a life story.

No one else can live your life for you, nor will they die for you when that time comes.
Actively imagining your story and where it will go from here is a choice and a challenge for you to decide.

Fickleness and Indecision

Many of us experience episodes of fickleness; we have varying moods and opinions on any given subject, about any particular relationship or about a task. Often we feel mixed, divided or its near cousin, indecision. While not deciding, may be a decision--to sit on the fence and do nothing-- fickleness and indecision in the mind of some, like Thomas Merton, may be an indication of something else.
Merton, a man who has a lot to say about so much of the spiritual life, both east and west, is easily read and invites his reader into his world with simple clarity. He, as some may know, was a friend of the 14th Dalai Lama, who sometimes speaks of him still.

Writing in New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton says, "Fickleness and indecision are signs of self-love." The person who cannot make up their mind about what the Divine calls them to, often trailing from one opinion to the next, engaged in one practice then another, maybe then these are the indications that you shirk the will of the Divine, instead preferring and substituting it for your own, self-centered spinning. Possibly, you wish to go by your own will with a quiet conscience.
 As soon as you arrive at one spiritual center or monastery, you wish to go to another; as soon as you taste one form of prayer, you seek still others. Resolutions you do make, and resolutions you do break. Counter-resolutions abbreviate or eliminate prior thoughts; the spinning goes on. You spend much time in the religion or self help section in a bookstore, reading many things and settling on little. Soon Merton says, "you have no interior life at all. Your whole existence is a patchwork of confused desires and daydreams."

 You or your ego mean to resist the works of harmony or grace; it is an elaborate, subconscious method to play defeat in the face of the Divine, to not see what is in the way for you, to take up no method, nor any way at all.

To know all that you are, be still and allow the work to proceed!

Mandala or Mandorla?

"Happily...we have a solution. This is the mandorla... It is far too valuable a concept to have lost." Owning Your Own Shadow -- by R. Johnson

"Everyone knows what a mandala is, even though mandala is a Sanskrit idea borrowed from India and Tibet. A mandala is a holy circle or bounded place that is a representation of wholeness..... the Tibetan tanka [for example], a picture generally of the Buddha in his many attributes... Mandalas are devices that remind us of our unity with god and all living things."
Mandalas are found in places as diverse as a Tibetan monastery, an Indian ashram or a Christian cathedral. In the christian version, the mandala is most often represented as a rose flowering. It appears in Gothic architecture as a rose window,  frequently representing a healing symbol in christian mythology.

While mandalas are perhaps more familiar to many persons, the mandorla is an important symbol as well; during the Medieval age it was prevalent in many places. It has a healing effect, "but, as Johnson writes in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow,' it's somewhat different.
A mandorla is an almond shaped segment formed when two circles partly overlap."  This symbol is "nothing less than the overlap of opposites." It is often seen in spiritual terms as the overlap between heaven and earth, dark and light.
Each of us, at different moments in our every day existence, have the experience of the worldly demands which collide or conflict with our spiritual longings and desires.

It is within the ancient symbol of mandorla that we may be instructed so as to reconcile these demands and needs. In our lives, mandorla may act to remind us of our life as both earthly and heavenly.
The Christ depicted with his mother, Mary at his side, clearly makes the point (mandorla) how wonderfully true the affirmation of the feminine energy is in life, by assigning her in a place next to the majesty (masculine) which is the Christ.
Some of the most beautiful mandorlas in European monuments feature this particular subject. "The mandorla is so important in our torn world" that re-examining it is of great significance.
There is a tendency to divide the self, to banish elements of self and let them live unobserved alongside the "known" self.
However in doing so, considerable energy is sidelined into what is sometimes called the "shadow." But they will not stay hidden forever and have the habit of returning; asserting their energy, like it or not.

When that day of reckoning comes, and there may be many over a period of time, the mandorla is a wonderfully healing help. It begins to focus one upon the self and the re-emerging split. Mandorla starts first as something very tiny, a sliver really, and as it grows, greater overlap occurs; the self is re-made more whole, stronger and more complete.
Binding together, making holy the unholy; mandorla is a profound religious and spiritual experience. It is the place of poetry, where the fire becomes the rose, where this is that, where transformation is great synthesis.
The biblical story of the bush which burns, yet is not consumed is poetry leading to a new sense of wholeness, unity completed. The bush and its burning overlap. Healing begins in the space between. And mandorla is peacemaking.

"If your eye be seen, your whole body will be filled with light." Matthew 6:22

Jung and the West, Regarding Kundalini*

"If some great idea takes hold of us from outside, we must understand that it takes hold of us only because something in us responds to it, and goes out to meet it." --C.S. Jung
In 1932 renowned psychologist Carl Jung, former student of Sigmund Freud, delivered a scholarly paper, now collected into a book, Visions, at a psychoanalysis conference in which he discussed the practice and symbolism of Kundalini Yoga. He also revealed to his listeners a startling correlation in the West between the practice of this type of Yoga, and the experience of a sudden, and perhaps not easily reversible sudden break with the realized world in some individuals. He describes this break as a psychosis, in which the individual believes himself unable to contact with, or function in the everyday world. He is then, psychotic by Western standards, Jung states.

On 16 November 1932 at the same conference, from the transcripts which survive, C.S. Jung says, " the child has grown into a peculiar sort of tree which is human above and snake below... the Kundalini. And below the diaphragm it is all snake... And what is worm below is divine above..." "In the Chakras, the Kundalini was always separate...We must never forget that the Kundalini system is a specifically Indian production, and we have to deal here with Western material... You know that Kundalini changes on her way up to Ajna, the lower part, the part of darkness where the Purusha does not appear, is the black snake; there one is absolutely swallowed up in nature, in emotion, and everything beyond emotion is not perceived because it is not perceptible....Jung continues, "So, to a primitive, a man who thinks is most uncanny, a very bad man, a sorcerer full of hatred who will surely poison you... When you have that point of view, you are inside of the monster. When you come through the diaphragm, you are outside of the monster, and then you can see what really held you was that divine being which appeared to you, when looked at from the inside, as a big snake.

That is the reason why this being is monstrous...."There is an intuitive philosophy taken over from Proclus, the Neo-Platonist, who extolled, "Where there is time, there is creation. Thus time and creation are the same... " Jung further discusses in this same lecture the evolution of Gnosis in the Greek world and the development of Christianity. He notes that Saint Paul first was a gnostic before his conversion; the prevailing ideas of both gnosis and the phrenes of Homer. "In those days Christ ranked with Bacchus or Dionysus. In the case of the phrenes, when the hero is killed, the phrenes leave him by the mouth, or by above, but that which goes to the lower regions is the psyche... It is exactly the same in Chinese philosophy where the shen is the masculine soul that goes [rises] up to the gods; the kuei soul is female; It sinks down to the darkness... you see, the Chinese understood man as consisting of two parts...Now this kuei soul according to Eastern and Greek tradition is not immortal...it slowly loses its form and vanishes into the lights of the Heavens... The little flame from my breast rushed forth and sought to merge with this figure.

What has happened here? Well, a sort of mystic union. The ego attempts to merge, or unite with the universal Self. The ego-self shows vivid desire; flame is always vivid desire to merge-- and where would that lead? To a seeming death--or to something new. Jung concludes, to the Western mind, the overly close parallels of opposite, of black and white, of hot and cold, of far and near, etc. creates a complete state of unconsciousness, a collapse of clarity. In its place, complete confusion, a state much like insanity comes to reign. Opposing factors coming too close together would render many people in a state of complete disorientation. They lose their values, their sense of rightness and have no idea what is wrong with themselves. They just feel that they simply don't care. In the mind of Kundalini, is the snake darkness? Is it light? Is it male or female? Perhaps it is both. How so? With new consciousness, what then am I? Is my 'self' enlightened, or a self, dis-integrated? However, the self may be righted again, says Jung, by dropping deeper into the Chakras system, into the water to quench the fire.

* This article, a reader favorite appeared her previously April 9, 2009

The Dharma, The Tao, The Way

The terms Dharma, Tao and the Way are familiar spiritual descriptions, often tossed around which come from several spiritual traditions, both East and West. Yet as the well known Indian physician and author, Deepak Chopra writes in his book The Path To Love, what may seem as separate is really not so, through interbeing. He discusses these traditions as long living in the human world, that they are in his view, rather more unified, that they inter-be as one.

"Dharma" is also translated as "law" or "righteousness." In India, today someone who follows the family tradition of work, worship, and social behavior is said to be in his "dharma." Modern Western society is not dharmic in any of these ways, since our children feel free to choose very different occupations from their parents', along with new codes of behavior and new places to live. In both East and West the rootedness of a dharmic society has been undermined in this century.

However, Dharma is more than social convention; it is a living force that can bring you through the many threats and challenges of life. Your ego [western term, from the Latin meaning self or I] does not believe this for it cannot find dharma; ego is not guided by love, and dharma is intimately tied to love. In the West, the closest concept to dharma is grace [one, whole, universal], the loving presence of God that keeps humanity under divine protection. When Jesus spoke of God seeing the fall of a sparrow, he was referring to dharma. In China, the same concept emerged as Tao, the middle way, which was seen as an invisible but real power that organizes all life. Being in tune with the way is the same as living within dharma. The Christian term the Way is likewise. Jesus exhorted his disciples to "come follow me."

"Every spiritual tradition has taught that success in life depends upon finding the Way and ignoring the distractions of external things. Your Ego, however, insists that your survival depends upon paying total attention to the outer world. Its primary tactics--vigilance and defensiveness--are the very antithesis of surrender in the way. Your ego, a perception of which, causes you to believe that separation is necessary..." In reality separation is not ever necessary; it is something chosen or not.

Being in dharma however, "heals separation by making us [inter-being] a reality," not as a 'unit of two,' but as a whole, oneness, a universal spirit. Chopra explains further, "You are acting in dharma whenever you allow rather than oppose. Allowing results in statements such as these:

* Is there something you need?
* How can I help?
* I see what's going on with you.
* Go ahead.
* I understand what you mean.
* You're right.

"Unity makes another person's viewpoint completely clear; you understand someone who is outside yourself." What makes this possible is the realization of inter-being, that what you value, esteem, follow isn't something outside yourself, it may be only outside of your ego. Thus "following your dharma in the deepest sense means not only obeying the laws set down by society or adhering to rules of religious conduct--there is no fixed formula for finding the Way..." Set spiritual guideposts for yourself, thus making this newer, broader meaning of dharma essential.