Mysticism to the Rescue

Essay 4

July 2, 2022

The fourth essay in the series begins the exploration of how we might find truly fulfilling answers to the question about how best to live.

“One conclusion was forced upon my mind, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is, that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence, but apply the right stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness.
“In the main these [extraordinary] experiences and those of the ordinary world keep discrete: yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.” — William James

Extraordinary experiences are often called mystical, and the word mysticismencompasses every moment any one of us experiences a deeper way of knowing, or feeling, or being. Mystical moments actually happen with great frequency, whenever a person opens into a dimension beyond normal, everyday consciousness. One of the greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century, Baruch Spinoza, talked about what it was like to touch this broader knowledge, saying that in the upper reaches of intuition we can gain “the highest stage of human knowledge, in which the whole of the universe is comprehended as a unified interconnected system.”

Although many people have mystical moments, most of us do not pay much attention to their meaning or know how to integrate what they have to say into our everyday lives. Mystics, however, are those who pay attention when “higher energies filter in,” and begin to organize their lives around the wisdom that comes from these experiences. Continue reading “Mysticism to the Rescue” →

Searching for Truth in an Unmoored World

Essay 3

June 16, 2022

The third essay in the series, Our Highest Possibilities, involves the difficulty of knowing what is true in a world that has come unmoored from the foundations that have been the basis for peoples’ lives and civilizations for centuries, even millennia:

Searching for Truth

What most of us take to be “true” is that which was generally agreed upon within our birth family, tribe, or community. No young person is able to create a set of foundational beliefs out of thin air, so our beliefs are constructed from the stories, images, feelings, thoughts, and prejudices of those with whom we grew up. Some of us, of course, rebel against the ideas we were enculturated to accept, but we quickly adopt beliefs from another group, otherwise our lives fall into chaos and confusion. To live a life in the world we need a set of ideas and beliefs upon which to stand. That is what cultures and civilizations have always provided, by way of stories, religions, philosophies, myths, and other methods of giving guidance for living.

The result is that almost everyone has one or more groups of people with whom they share assumptions and views, those with whom they check out what “truth” is. If most people in our circle believe something, we tend to take it to be objectively real. Of course, no two people have exactly the same views, but we are all members of one or more groups with whom we identify, from very small to very large, and our identity circles go a long way toward defining what is real and true for us. Continue reading “Searching for Truth in an Unmoored World” →

Stepping Outside

Essay 2

June 3, 2022

The second essay in the series, Our Highest Possibilities, involves a crucial step we must take if we are to get in touch with that which is truly important: Stepping Outside.

A poem by Jalaluddin Rumi:

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then, I walked outside.

One question this raises: What did he walk outside of?

When I am looking out at the world from within my individual point of view, it is usually the “me” that I was enculturated to identify with, an individual separate from other individuals and from the world. This is my normal identity, the person I seem to be to myself during most of my waking hours. The traditional way to describe this person I think I am is “ego self,” and the best short definition I can give of ego is “everything I think of when I think of myself.”

Most of us identify with this image of who we are a great deal of the time. When we do, the ego is the center of awareness as well as our identity. There are, however, times when we are outside this identity. Ralph Waldo Emerson explored this “outside” throughout his life:

“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.”

“The great nature in which we rest is that Unity, that Over-Soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other.”

“Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of Universal Being circulate through me.” Continue reading “Stepping Outside” →

Ego, Identity, and Beyond – Introduction

Introduction

Ask yourself: “Who am I?” Only by deeply exploring this question will you find the truth. — Ramana Maharshi

It is mid-afternoon. I am 12 years old, lying on my back on my bed, vaguely looking at the ceiling. My mother suddenly comes in and asks: “Are you sick?” When I say “No,” she says: “Then what are you doing?” My response, without any hesitation: “I am thinking.”

Looking back, I realize it was one of the first times I had begun to think about life in a deeply reflective way. But what exactly is this mysterious thing we call reflective thinking? What does it mean that we can reflect on our lives, our actions, our decisions? And what is the capacity for self-awareness that allows us to be conscious of ourselves as distinct entities, separate from others and our environment? In a sense, this book began when I started to notice that I could reflect. What follows is the culmination of more than fifty years of reflection and thought concerning what being aware of myself as a separate being suggests about who I am and what life is about. Continue reading “Ego, Identity, and Beyond – Introduction” →

Stepping Outside

The second essay in the series, Our Highest Possibilities, involves a crucial step we must take if we are to get in touch with that which is truly important: to step outside our everyday selves.

A poem by Jalaluddin Rumi:

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then, I walked outside.

One question this raises: What did he walk outside of?

Our Highest Possibilities – Introduction

Essay 1

May 19, 2022

Today begins a new series of essays considering the highest possibilities toward which a human life can aim. It will focus on the ways each of us can explore and perhaps find the fulfillment we seek. This is the ultimate journey, and through the ages the wisest among us have offered ways to find the wholeness, fulfillment, and meaning that is our birthright. They tell us it is possible to experience the love, peace, wisdom, and joy this journey can bring.

They do not say it is easy, but the wise ones of many traditions tell us we are called to ascend the mountain of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful — and that each of us has the possibility of reaching the summit.

Few reach the top of the mountain, and even fewer are able to remain there permanently. The vast majority of us do not live our lives in the rarefied air of that high place. Some of us have breathed it for brief moments, then found ourselves back in the thicker atmosphere of our daily lives. Yet the saints and sages keep reminding us that the summit is always there, waiting for us, though hidden by clouds of ambition, anger, illusion, greed, desire, and despair.

Their guidance consistently says that life is about finding our way up the mountain as far as we can go. Right now, at this moment, it does not matter whether you are well on your way or just beginning. Wherever you are, the meaning of your life is about taking the journey seriously and climbing as best you can. Do you see? What matters is not how far you have traveled, nor even reaching the end of the trail. The crucial thing is simply to begin, to start from where you are now. Then, as the Sufi poet Rumi said: “If your leg is gimpy and you have to hop, what’s the difference? Going there, even by limping, the leg grows whole.” In his statement, it is the “going” that is the crucial factor.

Many have begun this journey, have felt the call to find “something more.” A significant number have had glimpses of the destination, have experienced an instant in which the veil was lifted and, in the words of poet William Blake, “the doors of perception were cleansed.” When this happens, everything appears as it truly is, “Infinite.” During such glimpses, you feel what Blake proclaimed, that you have the capacity to, “Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand; And Eternity in an hour.”

Continue reading “Our Highest Possibilities – Introduction” →

Everything Begins with What You Think You Know

May 9, 2022

Every project, discussion, investigation, or attempt at understanding begins with what you think and believe at the beginning. Every single thing you do from this point forward in your life begins with the assumptions you now hold. Each of us lives within a vast framework of assumptions, and even the most scientific of endeavors rests upon a scaffolding of assumptions that will have a dramatic effect on the outcome.

If this is true of science, it is even more true of inquiries that involve things that cannot be precisely measured, including all philosophical, psychological, and spiritual investigations. And it is especially true when dealing with questions about how to live one’s own life.

My earlier books and essays discus these key ideas at some depth. If you would like to explore these ideas and assumptions more fully, or discover how I came to them, you can do so there. Continue reading “Everything Begins with What You Think You Know” →

Tsong Khapa on Time and Timelessness

Three Core Issues on the Spiritual Journey

This is a deep dive into three issues I have been trying to understand for a long time in my spiritual journey. In recent years, two teachers have been especially helpful with these questions: Tsong Khapa (1357-1419), the Tibetan Buddhist monk and teacher, and Meister Eckhart (1260–1328), the Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic. This essay will focus on Tsong Khapa, and a later edition will deal with Meister Eckhart.

Since I do not read Tibetan, and have scant knowledge of their vast literature, the thoughts presented here will rely primarily on ideas shared by Robert Thurman. He was Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University until his retirement in 2019, held the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West, was the co-founder and president of the Tibet House in New York, and was the recipient of India’s highly prestigious Padma Shri award in 2020 for his work in the field of literature and education. Thurman started his personal Tibetan Buddhist practice in 1962 and was ordained as a monk by the Dalai Lama in 1965, thus probably becoming the first American Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition. Through the years, Thurman and the Dalai Lama have remained close friends. Continue reading “Tsong Khapa on Time and Timelessness” →

The Quest for Meaning: The Inner Journey of Odysseus

This book was written in 1989-90 and used in my first workshops for many years. It deals with the Hero’s and Heroine’s journey, focusing especially on the psychological insights of Carl Jung, as well as the ideas of Joseph Campbell and Helen Luke. In the tradition of these three authors, I take the ancient story of Odysseus as a symbol for the journey we all must make if we are to find meaning and fulfillment for ourselves.

This document is the whole book. To retain all the forrmating, footnotes, spacing – which is hard to duplicate on line, you can download the book in PDF format. Quest Manuscript PDF

Compassion and Service

December 19, 2021

For several years our country—and the world—have been going through ever-increasing difficulties: political turmoil, Covid, economic disruptions, mounting climate problems—all increasing the level of polarization, resentment, blame, anger, frustration, loneliness, and despair. It is hard to see what will come of all this.

In the face of these difficulties, these things I know:

1. If there is a way through to a better place in our relations with each other, it will be through an increase in understanding, respect, and consideration for others.

2. If there is any chance to create a better world, the path will be through kindness, compassion, and love.

3. No matter the state of the world around us, each of us has the capacity to increase kindness, compassion, and love within ourselves, and to share those energies with others.

4. Each of us can find a place of peace inside ourselves to organize around, no matter the state of the world. The greatest souls have been forged on the anvil of difficulties, and the great exemplars of humanity have been shaped and molded in the fires of trial and tribulation.

5. As long as we seek only to make our own lives better, we will fail. We are inextricably connected with others and to the greater whole. Without a connection to something larger than our personal ego concerns, life’s trajectory is inevitably downward toward meaninglessness and death.

Continue reading “Compassion and Service” →