Your Best Thinking

Quote of the Day from Wayne Dyer.

“I once sat in on a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in which ten people who had been drinking most of their lives were gathered in a rehabilitation center where they had to live away from their families and loved ones. The words of a sign on the wall kept gnawing at me throughout that meeting. It read, “Your best thinking got you here.”"

The End, The Beginning: A Silent Post

A response to Lune’s challenge for Zen art.

Don’t Bring I

[Sorry for all the words, Lune, but I was thinking about posting this anyway.]

A few days ago I sat and looked intently at this picture of Adi Shankara. He lived around 800AD and is one of the most revered exponents of traditional Advaita Vedanta. He strongly advocated the Vedantic principle of maya, yet still spent his life walking around India establishing monasteries for the benefit of mankind.

While looking at the picture I imagined sitting next to him, trying to imagine the scene as if I were actually there – feeling the ground, the warm air, listening to sounds. I wondered what more I could do to transpose myself into the picture when I intuited a message, “Don’t bring I”.

Morality

Here is a nice little snippet from The Divine Imperative by Emil Brunner. You can find some of it at Google Books.

In other words, when you have found the Kingdom of Heaven within, then you have found unconditional love and that alone is moral. You have found that which is pure, whole, true and good. This gives you the right perspective to evaluate the world around you and determine what is appropriate action in any given circumstance.

When your heart is pure, then you spontaneously know the will of God and dharma prevails.

In determining morality, there is no substitute for a pure heart. Ethics and rules are subordinate. They are like a crutch that help us to find the truth within. But ultimately they have no substance or authority. Since they are inherently arbitrary, fragmented and conflicted, they must be discarded when they have outlived their usefulness in favour of the Real.

Even though everything is God, it is also possible to act wrongly. Putting you hand into fire will burn your flesh, eating low quality food will make you sick and fighting will bring you pain. As you become more and more harmonious within, then Nature can flow through you with less and less obstruction and bring you more in accordance with natural law.

Inner stillness is the ultimate method for attuning our personhood with the flow of Nature.

The other day I talked with a spiritual healer here in Auckland. He says that his clients get healed when he relaxes into his own consciousness and remains still. After thirty years of practice, healings come much quicker even though his technique of being still hasn’t changed. Even though he isn’t doing anything as an individual, IMHO, his physiology is becoming a purer channel for the divine to flow through.

Spiritual Healing

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how to heal the mind, body and emotions. There are so many approaches and many of them get results, but at the end of the day I have come to the same conclusion as Joan Harrigan: the best psychotherapist in the whole universe is Kundalini Shakti (a.k.a. The Holy Spirit).

Psalm 127:1 Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

There are so many layers and aspects to human beings that it is impossible to really understand how it all works together, but fortunately the underlying intelligence of the universe that created our imbalances can fix them too.

So how do you get the help of Kundalini Shakti? The simple answer: ask and listen. Asking for help invites the higher forces of nature into our lives – call it your Higher Self, angels, guides or whatever you like. Following this intuitive guidance will open your life to miraculous events.

You may be guided to spiritual practices like yoga, chi kung, meditation, singing and other methods that create harmony in your life. Or you may feel an impulse to change your diet or job or relationship. Or you may meet the right health practitioner just through happenstance.

Your own personal effort in these matters is essential, but so is collaboration with Spirit. Trying to heal yourself by mental or physical effort alone is always going to be limited in its power. The real power lies in the intelligence and organising power of nature and by asking, listening and trusting you can avail yourself to it.

IMHO, in your search for healing, the deeper you go into spirituality the more profound the healing. There is a cascade effect when we heal an imbalance at a spiritual level – its effect carries into your mind and body.

Trying to cure your body without looking to the mind and emotions underneath is likely to bring temporary benefit only. Trying to heal the mind without opening to spirituality will keep you disconnected and ensnared in the ego.

Turning to Spirit first will relieve you of the fear of mortality, give you confidence in the goodness and wholeness of Spirit and make your way through the mental and physical healing modalities that much easier.

For example, a few years ago I broke my neck and escaped surgery through a series of miracles and serendipitous events. (It was a burst compression fracture of C7 with retropulsion). I strongly feel that I would not have made such a complete and fortunate recovery if I hadn’t trusted my intuition.

Here is another example of spiritual healing:

Last weekend a very kind-hearted friend of mine told me about a spiritual healing she’d had. For a long while she’d been deeply concerned about the social problems that are developing in New Zealand due to changes in immigration. What was once a British colony is now a melting-pot for people from Asia, India, Pacific Islands, Middle East, Africa, Russia, etc. She felt it has created a lot of marginalised people and worried about the future of the country.

She was sitting in a bus feeling sad about these problems when the thought popped into her mind, “Trust the land.” Instantly, she felt a weight leave her. She no longer felt the personal burden of trying to make NZ whole, but rather was inspired to trust nature and the divine order.

This kind of inspiration may not sound like much, but the effect on the individual is like a soothing balm that goes right to the core of the issue. The effect on her heart, mind and body is greater than anything that could come from a pill, a doctor or a contrived mindset.

One of my favourite quotes:

By Vernon Howard:

You have nothing to do. You have everything to be. People are so confused about what to do with their family affairs, love life, finances, health. And no matter what they do, nothing helps very much. Of course it doesn’t. Nothing can be truly different until the individual is different, really different internally. Doing without being is a dreadful way to spend the day, as millions know. But you can be different.

Vernon is a real character. Check him out:

Dr John Demartini

Last weekend I went to a seminar run by the very impressive Dr John Demartini. He has a method for collapsing our lop-sided perceptions so that we can see ‘what is’ rather than some infatuated or resentful view of the world.

Amongst many other things, he told us how bipolar, depression, schizophrenia and addiction come about and how to solve them. It would take me a long time to explain, but basically these states are caused by false perceptions and are resolved by changing those perceptions.

For example, John treated a young woman who had been addicted to heroin for six years. He found out that the addiction started when her parents divorced. This caused her deep grief. Let’s say this was a negative experience with a magnitude of -8. So in her attempt to to regain balance she sought a massively positive experience of +8, which she could only find with heroin.

John uncovered that she had a perception of how life should be. Deep down she clung to an image of a happy home with a white picket fence etc. When life challenged that ideal she felt a deep sense of loss resulting in grief. The feeling of loss continued as long as the perception was maintained.

She was infatuated with the ideal family home and could only see the positive attributes and no negatives. So John took her through a process of changing her perceptions. He asked to to come up with negatives/drawbacks about the family home. Of course, she was totally brainwashed into thinking it was all perfect and struggled to find any drawbacks, but eventually she comes up with a few: it would take a lot of time and effort and money to maintain, it would make other people jealous, the neighbours might be gang members, etc.

This process of examination caused her to link new associations in her brain to her fairy-tale image. She realized the real-world situation about her ideal family home – that it was not a purely positive scenario, but a balance of positive and negatives. Consequently, she no longer felt the same sense of loss and the magnitude -8 grief left her. She no longer had a need for a +8 high; so no more craving heroin, despite the suggestion that addiction is a physiological issue.

Schizophrenia would be +16 and -16. John told a story about a man who had a serious accident and got brain injury and subsequent schizophrenia. He found that the delusions of being Jesus, Atilla the Hun and Alexander the Great were in fact the only way he could deal with the overwhelming emotions that came with what he perceived he had lost from the accident.

His -16 shame was countered by the +16 compassion of Jesus, feeling trapped in a mental hospital was countered by the breakout-power of Atilla, weakness by the strength of Alexander. John worked with this man and balanced his perceptions and he was re-diagnosed with bipolar. After some more work he was re-diagnosed without bipolar disorder and was released from the institution and now has a regular job. So his schizophrenia was not a result of brain injury as shown on the MRI, but an inability to manage powerful emotions.

An other example, John pointed out how the Tibetan culture was infatuated with peacefulness etc and became disempowered and very yin. They attracted to themselves the very yang Chinese to restore balance and teach them about self-empowerment. I see this in a meteorological sense – a low pressure system draws into itself a high pressure system.

So when John’s method is understood and applied correctly, then the Tibetans will be deeply grateful to the Chinese for coming to them and restoring balance. When we reject some part within ourselves, like the Tibetans rejected aggressiveness, then the universe will bring it into our experience for us to love it and integrate it and be whole again.

The examples go on and on. And they’re really inspiring and they make a whole lot of sense to me. Not only that, but I saw it in action and had my own experience of it too. At the end of the process you’re left feeling a deep sense of gratitude and love for whatever happened, to those that did it and its consequences.

John says that when you recognize the perfection of whatever ‘bad’ thing happened to you and are so grateful for it and all the benefits it brought you, then you’d wish it upon your children. If you don’t feel this way, then you still resent it and you’re perceptions are still lop-sided.

For more information about this process read any of John Demartini’s books, particularly The Breakthrough Experience.

Higher States of Consciousness

About two weeks ago I was inspired to write about how individual will develops and becomes more and more aligned with the divine will. Two things occurred to me that caused me to pause.

Firstly, there is a lot to say about this and it would take a long time to write. To properly express what I wanted to say would take a lot of effort and a lot of time choosing the right words because it is a topic that is so easily misunderstood.

Secondly, I felt that it would fall upon deaf-ears. Any talk about development of consciousness and the greater expression of God’s will is easily shot down by the casual observer.

So I decided that instead of trying to express it in my own words I would find some words from someone more articulate. These kind of words can’t be found by looking for them, but I knew they’d pop up sooner or later – and they have.

Here is a clip of Adyashanti talking about the development of consciousness even when people think there is no-one for this to apply to. This kind of knowledge is thoroughly rejected by neo-advaitins, but is a core part of traditional advaita.

I’m in awe of how well Adyashanti expresses this point. I’d like to meet him one day.

Quote from Sri Ramana

Effortless & choiceless awareness is our real nature. If we can attain that state and abide in it, that is all right. But one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate meditation. All the age old vasanas (inherent tendencies) turn the mind outward to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inwards and that, for most people, requires effort.

Ramana Maharshi – Teachings of Bhagavan pg 78

Beliefnet.com Quiz

Beliefnet.com has a very interesting multi-choice test that I just completed. It asks twenty questions about your beliefs and then matches these with major religions.

You can take the test here. My results are below.

I definitely identify with Hinduism the most – particularly Adi Shankara’s branch of Advaita Vedanta.

Next I identify with New Thought – especially the teaching of Joel Goldsmith, Emma Curtis Hopkins and the like. Many New Thought practitioners started with Christian Science but got sick of its unnecessary rules and dogma.

My Hindu viewpoint accepts all the schools and religions mentioned below as valid paths for deepening spirituality – especially Buddhism and Taosim. However, below the divided surfaces of Christianity, Islam and Judaism there are very powerful esoteric schools. One very wise yogi once told me that a mystic established in the Jewish tradition can be extremely powerful.

I don’t know much about Scientology but if it is anything like what is portrayed on the South Park episode about Tom Cruise, then it shouldn’t even be on this list. However, I have heard bits here and there that make me think that perhaps there might be some esoteric knowledge under their cultish exterior.

And if you are interested in knowing you political orientation beyond just left/right, then go to Political Compass.

1. Hinduism (100%)
2. Mahayana Buddhism (91%)
3. Neo-Pagan (87%)
4. Sikhism (78%)
5. Unitarian Universalism (77%)
6. New Age (68%)
7. New Thought (67%)
8. Jainism (64%)
9. Reform Judaism (63%)
10. Scientology (62%)
11. Liberal Quakers (59%)
12. Orthodox Judaism (59%)
13. Theravada Buddhism (57%)
14. Baha’i Faith (47%)
15. Taoism (47%)
16. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (46%)
17. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (44%)
18. Islam (42%)
19. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (32%)
20. Secular Humanism (31%)
21. Orthodox Quaker (29%)
22. Eastern Orthodox (27%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (27%)
24. Roman Catholic (27%)
25. Nontheist (19%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (17%)
27. Jehovah’s Witness (14%)