on heaven and hell

Early thought was that hell existed below (beneath the earth) and heaven existed above (in the sky). That gave way to a belief that both heaven and hell are inside of us. Now we open to the understanding that we are embodyings of the cosmos. We are the universe universing. Where does that put heaven and hell? Hell is when we continue to encapsulate ourselves in our seed husks while being pulled to open and flower. Heaven is when we open to the flowering of the universe that we are and move beyond the shuffling zombie existence of a  seed refusing to die and be born.

night words

These words came this night: "If you wish to be a Christ-ian, you must achieve the point of view of Christ. Your soul is your point of view."

science and awareness

I am amused that science is proud of its hard-headedness in relying upon data, then engages a mooshy-headedness in explaining that data.

Take a step back from science and you will see that it is so: there is data and there is story.

And furthermore, he said, rolling back his sleeves, only certain kinds and types of data are admitted. Bias is already built into the system.

When certain kinds of data are not admitted, the story is stunted, the bed we lie in short-sheeted.

But ha! some of you may say, rushing to extol the virtues of science and all its benefits. Never mind that. I know, I know. I simply point to its shortcomings.

thy grace

I struggle to rise
from the mud I am,

making a cup for
receiving thy grace.

The cup becomes a chalice,
thy wine inpouring.

Chalice, wine merge
cup and spirit as one.

We laugh
arms around shoulders
and walk together drunk.

the first and second birth

The first birth is into the world of matter, where one is a 25 to 28 foot worm coiled in an encasing whose main concerns are incorporation and defecation while “making a living” and recreating with other worm-coiled encasings. The second birth is the opening of the eye of the soul and an increasing “aptitude for theophanic vision” (Henry Corbin’s phrase). The first is the surface or prosaic world. The second is the world of mythopoetry, where the Invisible reveals Itself to the soul’s vision.

the banana school of zen

I belong to the B.A.N.A.N.A. school of Zen: Bare Ass Naked Awareness Now Awarenessing.

in-dense-ification

We are light indensifying. This in-dense-ification is our wounding and our challenge.

legs on the angel

When I first awaken, I am in the diaphanous, transparent, or celestial mode. I have not yet formed into and as this physicality. In this mode of light and open consciousness, I comprehend more deeply and more fully the nature and origin of this universe and life. It is a gnosis, a knowing. The soul that I am smiles in loving appreciation.

It is at this time that I can read the writings of the true philosophers, the mystics of intellect and comprehensive awareness, with their meanings reverberating through my soul. I listen with a deep ear. I hear. I see. I join in.

As the earth night moves toward dawn, I am born more fully into my body, this body, the one typing. I settle into, center in. I smile with its familiarity, its weight, its aches, its promise as a sturdy embodying for active practice of the gnosis, the knowing. Legs on the angel, so to speak.

As the body gets more tired toward mid-afternoon, the celestial mode tends to fade yet not disappear. Physical fatigue and cosmic consciousness seem to have an inverse correlation. It is at this time I practice patience with myself. I smile as I remember that it is hard embodying as a human. I breathe and ask for help and move on.

standing on a plank in infinite space

Engaging in polemics in politics, religion, and philosophy is akin to standing on a plank in infinite space and proclaiming the virtues of that plank as the righteous and only true place to stand. All other folk standing on planks are seen as raving fools while you, on your plank, embody Truth.

my theology

My theology:
1. "I saw him as I was able to receive him." (Acts of Peter)
2. "The look by which I know him is the very look by which He knows me." (Meister Eckhart)

going to ashes

Decades ago I found that arising at 4 a.m., sitting quietly and going to ashes, all agenda and personification extinguished, allowed an arising anew, a flaming of energy moving into the day.

cosmic citi-zen-ry

The transformation of the human species to cosmic citizenry comes with a price. The hard-won independent egoic self must be surrendered to that-which-breathes-us. Surrender is not a word we wish to hear. Not to worry. What is surrendered is returned ten thousand fold. Without surrender, we are shoveling shit against the tide. With cosmic citizenry we have hope, we have grace, we have the full energies of our Source in our favor. We become Source-erors

ride with your essence

Death is not the cold body on the ground.
Those are the remains.
Something has escaped.
Be that which escapes.
Before the escape.
Ride with your essence.
Die before you die and truly live.
When already here, there is no place to go.
Live and love and laugh with the Cosmos.

on walking with God

There are those of us who experience a close relationship with our Source, the Wellspring, God -- an intimate friendship which has nothing to do with fundamentalism, literalism, or any other schism. Should we apologize for this, for not "advancing" into the post-post-modern consciousness state of regarding Godfulness as superstition? I think not.

theosis

It is not that theology is obsolete, then, but that it still is, and for an unpredictable length of time, in the embryonic stage.” Emile Cailliet, “The Literary Mind and Religious Responsibility” (his emphasis). In Stanley Romaine Hopper (Ed.), Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature. New York: Harper, 1957.

While only half a century has gone by since Cailliet wrote those words, I sense the embryo stirring into birth. Theology is being born anew. The former “study of the theos” was just that: an objective study of, with the theos (God) as object under scrutiny. We fell into the fallacy of separation, that we are somehow standing outside the universe and “objectively” observing “it.” We somehow forgot or never understood that we ourselves are a wave in this mighty ocean with no circumference or measurable depth.

The new theology is not “theology” at all, but theosis, the deep knowing that we are identical with that which we continue opening to understand. When the “religions” begin to model and teach this, a new era of spirituality will blaze the land.

religious

Despite protestations to the contrary, everyone of us is religious, swears allegiance over and over to an object of worship. Whatever you attend to the most is your object of worship, what you idolize.

radiance

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26: 41) While I understand and see the validity of this statement, it is not the final word. What is flesh but the spirit embodying, flooding it with radiance and light so that the two are one? The flesh is as willing as the spirit is strong. Synthronicity is at play here: flesh and spirit "sit on each other's seat" simultaneously. Synthronous and synchronous, they move as one.

emergence

What is Christ if not a symbol of our own mythos, our own story, our own birth, trials, crucifixion, death, and rebirth, our own ascension to cosmic awareness and responsibility? We are Christs in the making, emerging from our chrysalis to meet all crisis.

our kin beyond all ken

Of all stories my heart has heard and sung I most cherish one. The one creating heavens and earth, the one hiding in plain view, the one within, our kin beyond all ken, born as a human, borning even now. This one floods our hearts with joy, even in our sadness. For what is sadness but the weight of the world, a weight released when opening to the radiance of the birthing of the one. The unborn has become the born. The light dispels the dark. Once again. And forever.

the Ertia of the Maker

Caught in the battle between the Maker and the Unmaker, I cast my lot with the Maker, with Ertia rather than Inertia. (Yes, yes, I know the need for both. No need to lecture me on that. I speak of wider realms.)

The Inertia of the Unmaker leads to the great harmonic hum, the background noise in which souls blend into forgetfulness, the tinnitus of the Cosmic Ear, where nerve has become nirvana. Spare me that! I choose the Maker, the one of creative endeavor, the one always advancing out of inert mud into fiery spirit.

The Maker and I are partners in this endeavor, this rising up beyond both mind and heart into unknown realms. If battle cry we have, it is but one: Beyond!

since both

Since both "external" objectivity and "internal" subjectivity rest upon fabrication, speak who the fabricator is without fabrication.

tossing God

God is no object, to be tossed aside like a spurned toy from one's childhood. God is a living breathing dynamic force, the pulsing of your heart, the fires of creative ecstasy, the surging power of your being. God cannot be tossed aside. The God that can be tossed is not the eternal God.

exile

God is not dead. We have exiled ourselves.

trinity

The Origin and Maintenance of this Universe? The Dark (Great Mystery) births the Light. The Light rejoices and the Light and Dark mutually Embrace. The Embrace gives birth to Love. The Dark, the Light, and Love: Holy Trinity.

depth

Just as there is a depth to the Bible which a literalist reading does not begin to comprehend, so it is with the Qur'an. The eye that sees the surface of the water does not begin to comprehend the denizens of its depths.

Wrestling with the Angel (Genesis 32: 24-32)

What does it mean to wrestle with the Angel? For certain, it means to not retreat into one’s secluded room of favored icons nailed to the walls. It means to risk one’s soul in standing firm, toe-to-toe, mirror image of the Angel, countering every move. Hopefully this grappling where one’s hip is put out of joint will turn into a tango of smooth embrace, where leading and following merge into strong content. No dead relaxation here though. The music and the dance can change at any time.

what jesus might have said

What Jesus might have said:
Sink or swim on your own, you buzzard vampires,
drinking my blood and eating my flesh!
Quit wearing my hand-me-downs,
weave your own no-seamed robe!
Stop snacking on your everlasting supper,
jump up on your own cross!
Claim your own sunship in the cosmos,
hope no one builds a religion around your ass!
Walk around the walls you’ve built
and horn blow those suckers down!
Let’s go! Get with it! If you want to follow me,
I went that ‘away!

wellspring

I bought this Bible in June, 1957 just prior to leaving for Parris Island boot camp. It went with me all through the Marines and is still with me. Well read, it speaks to me ever more deeply even now.

as souls of this world

As we consider the infinite number of worlds in the cosmos, each world governed by its inhabiting souls, we might wonder how we are doing here, with our world. As souls of this world, we are faced with darkness and division, confusion and hostility, with forces of annihilation. We are a relatively new world and the outcome remains uncertain. As souls of this world, we embody the Light. It is our true nature and is not only our means of protection but of transformative projection. As souls of this world, we radiate Light into this world. Light is not oofy-doofy fluffy-puffy. Light sends darkness scurrying.

And lest you neo-Taoists disapprove with insistence that the light and dark interflow, I speak of the Light which illuminates all disapproval: the Light beyond both light and dark. This is not a philosophical issue. This is Life.

As souls of this world, we are called into action. The action is simple and powerful. We continue our action every moment with every breath. We embody Light.

lab coat fetus

The spiritual world surrounds and gives birth to the material world. Trying to prove or disprove the existence of the spiritual from the realm of the material is like a fetus trying to prove or disprove the existence of its mother.

in tune

Prayer is getting ourselves in tune. Becoming attuned requires some degree of dropping off or letting go, how much depending on the amount of barnacles we have accumulated on our soul's core intimacy.

cups of water

Any thought form claiming to be the exclusive truth has not opened to the awareness that the cup does not change the nature of the water.

freaking jesus

What's the big hangup about our Source assuming human form? We ourselves are continuously making the external internal and the internal external. If we can do it, surely the universe can do the same.

the tail wagging the dog

If we allow 0 to represent quality and 6 to represent quantity, we have 0 with a tail on it, and in this quantitative time, where quantity rules over quality, of 666, we live in the time of the unholy trinity of the tail wagging the dog.

666 is not only the sign of the ascendance of the tail (quantity) but of uniformity. And as that seer and visionary, Rene' Guenon, points out: uniformity is not unity. Uniformity is the ruthless advance of "the reign of quantity" which leads ever onward to greater separation. Replaceable parts is the order of the day and humans are nothing but parts.

This quantitative world is accelerating and making the earth over into its own image as it goes. This juggernaut will destroy itself as it gets so far from Quality it can only implode. Thus the end of this Kali Yuga, a brief pause, and the cosmic cycle begins again but newly.

opening to the powers of our Origin

If we hold together as a species, where are we headed? Some say safe in the arms of Jesus, but I don’t think Jesus wants any babies to hold nor to be Entertainer on an eternal ship cruise. I think we are headed toward ongoing expanded awareness of ourselves as our Origin embodying. In God language, that is God godding. In other words, we open to and act from Christ Consciousness. We may prove ourselves worthy yet of earthly and cosmic stewardship by opening to the powers of our Origin.

no more than one can bear

"God will not give us more than we can bear." While that is generally taken to mean that God will not load this donkey down with more burdens than can be borne, it means much more than that.

As fedele d'amore of our Source, we are not donkeys, but open conduits of spiritual energy. We will not conduct more spiritual energy than we can withstand. "God will not give us more than we can bear."

When our lives are little and small, our aperture for conductance constricted, we will not be given much spiritual juice. And at a time when it feels as if we need it the most! For ourselves.

It doesn't work that way. We are in partnership with our Maker. This is a two-way street. We make our Maker as our Maker makes us. Our Maker looks to be borne and cannot be born without womb room.

The lover, one in love, is capacious, wide open, roomy, free while remarkably attentive to the one loved. The open-hearted lover can bear much. Radiant energy flows through. No more than one can bear.

upper room

They slammed me up beside the head with the Bible and its underlined bookmarked step-by-step guide to salvation and I thought, "No, this is not it. They don't know what 'believing in Jesus' means." Or if they did, it certainly wasn't coming across in their hard drive to put this sinner over the salvation goal line for yet another Jesus touchdown.

For me, “believing in Jesus” means opening to that portal between the dualistic world and the realm of the nondual. Within that portal, that antechamber, that “upper room,” or more accurately, through that portal move the energies of Christ. A confluence of energies occurs, his and mine, so that there is no mine and his. No theological hair splitting. No affirmation of creed. No denominational diatribes. Confluence. Flow. To the horror of some, I also meet Buddha, Lao Tzu, and others there. We converse, commune, share.

the underlying transcendent

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55: 8-9)

If you wish to open to God and you have a pre-ordained understanding of God, you are opening to your pre-ordained understanding and not to God.

If you equate God with love, then you are opening to love. If awareness, then awareness. If energetic power, then energetic power. You are opening to your own equation and not to God.

Opening to love, awareness, and energetic power is mighty fine. Just don't think you are opening to God. You are opening to you.

Note: For those of you who get all shook up at God language, "God" equals that which both underlies and transcends existence. Call it what you will. By whatever name you give it, the underlying transcendent is the underlying transcendent.

bear with me

"Bear ye one another's burdens" -- Galatians 6:2

What the heck does that mean? On the physical plane it's simple enough. I help carry that stuff you are lugging around. What does it mean in the mental, interpersonal, and energetic realms? It means I lay aside my blabber and listen to your words, a trail of small packets conveying your anxiety, your fear, your anger. I for a short while become you. I take on your burden, your existential trembling under the weight of whatever oppresses you. I truly under stand, stand under the burden that we share.

this whole sectarian thing

Each religious group, political group, and religious-political group is firmly embedded in a set of images it holds as THE TRUTH. Each set of images is different from the other sets of images. Each individual within each of those groups holds a slightly or largely different set of images from the other individuals within the group. Each one has THE TRUTH.

This can lead to hilarity (a cosmic sense of humor is needed) and to tragedy (war and hatred and conflict).

When we let go of these images we so heartily defend, we follow the example of Jesus who emptied himself and became as nothing (Philippians 2:7). This has been called opening to Christ Consciousness. When we open to Christ Consciousness, we are in right and good relationship with all that exists.

We become as nothing. Zero. The circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere. We are born out of imagery into the boundless immediacy of Now.

radiance of being

We have crucified and have been crucified enough. We put the cross away with our other holy relics. We put nothing on the wall for there are no walls. We are out here now, infinity in all directions. If you need a symbol, make it an empty tomb, then leave that behind. Forget insurrection and its recognition of hierarchy. Open to resurrection: the continuous arising of life in all its newness. Blossoming outward in all directions and all directions home. We are out here now and nothing can contain us.

the story of the debt repayment plan

By violating their rules of mortgage, Adam and Eve went into deep and unpayable debt. Thrown out of their home, neither they nor their landlord were happy. The landlord worked out a debt payment plan. It was a little peculiar, but not entirely unheard of. He said I will become homeless too, suffer as you suffer, and then get killed. Not to worry, I will die but I will not die. What is our part in this? asked Adam and Eve's descendants who had inherited the massive debt. Believe that I did this and all is forgiven, slate wiped clean, said the landlord. That's all? they asked. Well, you might try to be loving to everybody, said the landlord.

felt experience

I am hesitant in writing this because it touches on the sacredness at the core of my being. It can be so easily misunderstood, ridiculed, reviled. Yet I feel the need to speak it. Do with it as you will.

Each of us has a felt experience of life. We may not even be able to articulate it, but we operate from this felt experience at our core. Yes, there are many cognitive and emotional overlays, perhaps more easily identifiable and accessible, but it is the felt experience of our very being that determines, that is, our stance toward life. One could call it our core experience.

My felt experience is direct and personal contact with the cosmos, particularly in the person of Jesus. This has little or nothing to do with christianity. Nor am I referring to the Jesus of "doyouknowjesusasyourpersonallordandsavior."

I am referring to a cosmic being I met long ago who has shown me much and still has much to teach, depending on my capacity and openness of heart.

My felt experience is as a cosmic citizen which goes far beyond yet is inclusive of the physical, emotional, mental, and interpersonal realms. I experience all as energetic being, no separation. I have no fear of death because death-and-life are part of a larger process. That may be more information than you want, yet I felt the urge to speak it and here it is.

a global spirituality

No matter how much some may respond with denunciation, anger, and fear, humans will continue to be religious, will continue opening to spiritual realms. We need a global spirituality that is inclusive of all religions. The common denominator here is lovingkindness. The so-called "mystics" of each religion have never had a problem with this, recognizing each other's hearts immediately.

the path of no path

Put your shoes off your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. -- Exodus 3: 5

At some point on our spiritual path, we must go barefoot.

Whatever art one practices, one starts out with form. One con-forms to the methods of others. At some point, however, the form becomes a con. One is caught within the form and advances no further.

In the martial arts, going beyond the form one has practiced all these years is sometimes called becoming a white belt again. As T.S. Eliot put it: "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." One now opens with true beginner's mind.

Whatever philosophy, whatever theology, whatever guides for living, whatever rules of order one has been following must be thrown aside. These shoes must be taken from our feet. The training wheels are removed.

We no longer follow a path. We are the path.

Why do many of us not do this? Why do we keep our shoes, our training wheels on?

Meister Eckhart explains: "No one is so foolish as not to desire wisdom. Why then do we not become wise? Much is necessary for this. The most important thing is that one go beyond and transcend all things and the cause of all things, and one begins to find this irksome."

The Meister makes me laugh. We find it irksome. It is our irkiness that keeps us bound to form.

We find it much easier to keep bouncing on our same old pogo stick. And everyone says, isn't s/he a good __________? (secular humanist, christian, jew, buddhist, taoist, new ager, atheist, agnostic, muslim, hindu . . .)

As we keep following our path, we will eventually be required to take off our shoes. For the place on which we stand is holy ground.

The paradox of this is that we first have to wear shoes to take them off. One conforms to form then becomes formless. The natural course of events is that the shoes will drop off by themselves, unless you bind them to your feet with your favorite form of duct tape.

mister zen and mister baptist

As a zen baptist, the zen part of me likes the mythos of no mythos, which is an expression of open relationship with all that is, and the baptist part of me likes the jesus mythos inviting opening to the consciousness of jesus, which is an expression of open relationship with all that is. Mister zen and mister baptist laugh and dance around.

is two! isn't either!

theism and a-theism
are two peas in a pod
dreaming dreams of disputation
with exultant confirmation

while the pod and mother plant
swaying in the cosmic wind
root more deeply
in the ground of being

what women will do for their men

At a night encampment on the way, the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his legs with it saying, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!" And when He had let him alone, she added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision." -- Exodus 4: 24-26

Let's get this out of the way first. Was Zipporah and her flint responsible for the naming of the Zippo lighter? I leave that an open question to be debated at zenbaptist training camps.

Though I was hurled by the universe into a Baptist family and my head held under the fountain of blood until I came up sputtering, attended church four times on Sunday, once on Wednesday, and every night of the summer revival meetings, I never heard a preacher preach on this section of the Book.

God, for no reason given, sought to murder Moses. While I'm not up for murder, I like that old testament god, Yahweh. He reminds me of us. Which among us has not had murder in our eyes?

Moses, as far as I can tell, had not done anything more than whine and complain to God about being sent to talk with people because he was so shy, but for heaven's sake! he was on the way to do what God said.

So here is God roaming through the night looking to kill Moses. And I guess he would have done so, being God and all, except that Moses' wife, Zipporah, said no way!

She knew that Yahweh had a thing about blood and blood sacrifices. So she sacrificed her son (sound familiar?) or at least the foreskin of his penis and daubed Moses' legs with its fresh blood. In other words, she claimed Moses. She put the sign of the blood on him and said, Back off, Yahweh, he's mine!

If I were a Baptist preacher, I could use this as a segue to the Passover and to the blood of Jesus and salvation, expound vigorously upon the theme, and then we would stand and sing "Are you washed in the blood?" And that would be fine. Then we would go home and eat fried chicken and drink sweet iced tea.

But I'm not a Baptist preacher. So I stick with admiration of Zipporah, her quick thinking, her ruthless yet skillful action, and her willingness to claim her own even to the point of standing up against God.

veil

And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom -- Matthew 27:51

We continue to open on Earth today to a new mythos. All doors of all religions have opened wide and the secrets of the inner sanctums shared. We peer into each other's sacredness. We try each other's holy garments on for size and comfort of fit. We smile at the similarities expressing in different form.

The veil of the temple is rent, torn in two from top to bottom. The old way is gone. Something new is being born.

Since I am a Zen Baptist, I am looking at the transformation of Christianity. Many want to ditch it for reasons I comprehend (which is why I am no Christ-ian, but a Jesus-ian), but I see it as undergoing transformation.

I foresee that we will continue to develop our sense of individuality, of self (which hasn't existed all that long). Christianity will change, and is changing, from a dualistic stance with Jesus "up there" or "out there" to a nondual stance.

We are born of the cosmos. We are embodyings of the cosmos. We are the cosmos walking around. We can join or not join any religious group, but we do not have to make a church of this nor dress folk up in costumes and pretend they are holier. Nor not wear a costume and pretend we are holier.

We can just be ourselves. Citizens of the cosmos. Embodyings of a great mystery which cannot be fathomed.

No need to yip and yowl at each other. The veil of the temple is rent. We stand naked and open once again.