Ulises

mmmmmm...great Pharoah...

A genius http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGqPzrNypzw

What I'm missing is more people trying to speak about the experience of awe - the encounter with the "Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans" (Rudolf Otto), http://www.bodysoulandspirit.net/mystical_experiences/learn/experts_define/otto.shtml and that only can happen opening truly the heart to the terror and breathtaking wonder of being fully alive...: the ecstatic state is that, an vibratory oscillation between those two poles.. http://www.futureprimitive.org/2011/02/eliot-cowan-the-song-of-the-world/ perhaps it's time to expose ourselves to the contact with indigenous elders to awake our own ancestral roots through soul resonance... "What binds moderns together is usually a set of definitions; i.e. progress, the greater good, etc. What binds indigenous peoples together is direct intimacy with place, time and living being — trust, love, shared experience, intimacy, lineage, and mutual concern born of these and extensions of these — many of which cannot even be reasonably described within modern representational paradigms..." http://www.ancientwisdomrising.com/

Beautifully articulated, thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc5Jn1ktDB8

Bach is one of the heights of music...I thought we were talking about the little,modest, but soulful music of these times...

My keywords for manifesting: Playfulness, Awe, Congruency, Relationship... I feel that Spangler goes to the heart of the matter: "When we think about what we manifest, we usually think in terms of objects, persons, opportunities, or resources. However, once these things become parts of our lives, they become aspects of the pattern we call ourselves. They may be separate from us physically, but they are part of the total enviromental, physical, psychological, and spiritual pattern that define us. They are outer reflections of inner states and realities. In all our acts of manifestation, we are really only manifesting a new aspect of ourselves. We are giving our lives a new shape. We are the primary object of our manifestation" *** Manifestation can become a natural flow of your life, allowing you to be intuitively guided to be in the right place at the right time to bring a particular manifestation into being...You will be inhabiting your presence more and more fully, and the result will be a growing pattern of sinchronicity and blessing in your life. Paradoxically, you may then discover the need to manifest becoming less and less because the sense of wholeness in your life will be deeply satisfying in its own right and because you will find your needs and desires often being met without your having to set up specific manifestation projects to bring them about. Your whole life and its co-creative interaction with your world will become your manifestation project, and you will find yourself in a flow of giving and receiving that truly expresses the wholeness of your co-incarnational nature. That is when the inner art truly comes alive. That is when expends from simply being a technique to being a deep attunement to the creative force of life itself. Experiencing this attunement and being a contributor to the shape of reality we all experience, a co-creator of our collective cosmos, is the ultimate craft. To shape a reality that honors and reveals our full nature and that, in co-creative alignment with the sacred, empowers and nurtures all of life is the highest calling I can imagine. It is that calling that is the heart of manifestation. It is the essence of the inner art." Everyday Miracles: The inner art of manifestation, David Spangler

To become meditation is the goal of every genuine spiritual path. Neither mere faith nor belief can deliver an individual into the state of liberation or Self Awakening. After this cosmic awakening, there is no longer a journey of the individual soul. That means that one has retired permanently into one's inner dwelling place, and there is no longer desire to search and seek for more spiritual experiences. But, as it turns out, this apparent finality, too, is just a phase, and detachment opens the door of longing, which is the painful urge to love and be loved. One door closes and another door opens. The mind has reached its fullness on the path of meditation and subsequently the dormant heart begins to awaken. The process of desire then begins to take on cosmic proportions! Just as the mind went from being limited and finite to being unlimited and infinite, so too the heart travels a burning path within its own boundless hunger. In the togetherness that is generated during our meditation, one can feel the fire of awakening, this phenomenon of the mind having introverted into its source forever and the heart having extroverted its longing back toward matter. You can feel both of these movements. One can be defined as an ascending movement and the other a descending one. The completion and perfection of meditation are only half the fullness of Awakening. The depths of feeling must ultimately be stimulated, activated, in this most discomforting and aggravated condition of wanting without limit. The relative wants to have its grip on the Absolute. The heart desires irrationally and absolutely. Where are "you" left in all this? Was there ever a "you?" It is very difficult to answer these questions. Having passed into the ascending and descending forms of spiritual activation, one is mysteriously led back into some kind of seemingly ordinary existence. To the undiscerning eye, it appears to be a very normal kind of existence. To the awakened and discerning eye it is miraculous. It is an ecstatic movement of the infinite that has not and cannot be described adequately in any religious or spiritual text. Such an Awakened Being offers himself as a divine offering to those who wish to feed on bliss food, a living food to be digested by the wise. Truly, there is no other, no sense of otherness, in this finally felt and understood condition of limitless Consciousness and Feeling. It is more than merely being That or mere Consciousness. One has actually become the fullness of Total Reality, Bliss Consciousness Itself, immortal and shining, desiring and devastated. Don't get caught in the gilded trap of being That. That is also This. This is also That. You are everything. You are suffering, too. Come into the Divine now and feel the living fire of Pure Reality. David Spero

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YES!

Please don't miss the point of this article,(forget about the theistic language,the concrete spiritual path, etc. It's the quality of sharing that I feel is the important thing here) The Redemption of Point Eight Footsteps on the Path to the Pearl Beyond Price I have lived most of my life under the delusion of point eight. I would like to share some of my experience and journey toward becoming a human being. I want to talk about the enneagram – how it’s been useful and how I see it being used to perpetuate the incarceration of the soul. I want to address compassion, humanness & vulnerability, integrity, and the Pearl Beyond Price (personal essence). I was raised in a military family, the son of an officer. What comes to mind in this moment is not the discipline, which was firm, but the chain-of-command. Dad was in charge and mom second in command. We four kids, as is usual, developed our own pecking order. My life, up until the last ten years, seems to have been a rebellion against the chain-of-command. Although my prior adult existence was also one of “might makes right”, I could not stand running up against this elsewhere in the world. Earn my trust; respect and cooperation don’t – demand it! It would take volumes to articulate all that I know (or don’t know) about me: the issues, the history, and the dynamics of living in this trap; this fixation; this survival strategy of point eight. Let me offer you one image that came to me years ago and speaks to something central in this defensive constellation: The world is an anvil and life is a hammer Between them I exist And I will survive I knew little to nothing about what it meant to be a real human being. How could I? My defensive structures were formidable. One of them was an absolute assertion into the world of: “I know what’s right for me.” In retrospect, it’s obvious the truth was more of: “I know what I need to do to stay imprisoned within all my pain and suffering.” In short, how to continue being “me”. Life is quite wonderful, isn’t it? A mystery of grace and beauty and quite often confused astonishment. My introduction to the enneagram did not come from a background, or even an interest, in psychology. I arrived via a crack in the cosmic egg called mysticism. One of the lessons that is blatantly clear in my life is that the ego can co-opt spiritual experiences using them for its means and incorporating them into its defensive strategies. The enneagram revealed this to me, as I will explain later, but first some more history. At nineteen, I had my first spiritual experience: A thick substance descends into my body. As it enters the top of my head, my whole body starts to tingle and the hairs go up on the back of my neck. It reaches my neck and shoulders. It is warm and a sense of “welcome home” suffuses me. It enters my chest and I experience a single point of exquisite pain, like a needle being stuck into the heart. Something awakens in me and begins a search for itself. My whole world turned upside down. I joined a spiritual path and spent the next fifteen years, or so, traveling to other dimensions and realities – mind blowing, earth shattering, light and sound of God. At thirty-six, my life was a mess. I was having spiritual experiences others would die for, but my marriage was a wreck; my relationships with my children were really sad affairs; and me – well, I think the ten thousandth person had just informed me that I was an asshole. I was cutting a rose when I realized that I was the greatest problem in my life. The “me” in my life was not changing in spite of all the experience it was having. That day, in that moment, something cracked in me. I realized that I wanted to be a real human being. I left the path to God Realization and went looking for a path to humanness. Friends before you is a madman listen, not to his words they are lies and he, a greater lie how arrogant his quest these many many years thinking to find himself and something greater far beyond thoughts and wild imaginings he thought it brave and bold to laugh at death and pain and sorrow the human condition while chasing elusiveness he strayed to far beyond listen, not to his words they are lies and he, a greater lie before you is a madman friends it was he who demanded and gave permission to be fooled he thought to find himself and something greater he said “anything - anything take me beyond all beyond” it was he who hung himself his madness his creation how was he to know that beyond light’s blush and the moaning wind lay the slayer of all sanity while chasing elusiveness he strayed too far beyond where stillness and silence steal you from yourself and being no where and no thing that Presence soft as finest down faint as a still breeze touches one so very very gently in a place so very very hidden all hope of sanity dies this touch remembers recognizes awakens to itself listen, not to his words they are lies and he, a greater lie before you is a madman friends returning to this world of idiots and imbeciles they say, “relax, you’re too intense surrender, God’s will be done” is insanity how, can one surrender when one is not who, can scratch an itch that is not where can one prepare for what is not can any formula mandate grace friends I am a madman living in insanity where the only road back is to expose all the lies and I is the greatest lie of all listen, not to these words they are all lies JH What good is spiritual experience if it does not transform us? Transformation is a caterpillar becoming a butterfly not a leopard changing its spots. Much of the “spiritual work” out there wants to help you acquire a more spiritual look while “you” remain “you”. Much of the enneagram work is oriented similarly. And, why not? It lends itself to the ego working on itself – trying to become better, more evolved, more appealing spots. Ah Life! My wife divorces me, takes the kids and moves out of state, and some local authorities think that a spiritual guy like me should be locked up. Three intrapsychic nuclear explosions bring my defenses down and I get reconnected to my feelings. I go on a roller-coaster ride I could never imagine – highs and lows of pain and anguish. It’s unimaginable to me that people live lives in touch with this. No wonder, I don’t understand people. It amazes me that I live through it. I pray that life will keep those walls down. One night, shortly thereafter, I am on the floor living my worst nightmare. I’m a fetal, blubbering ball of protoplasm. My personal anguish is so great I can’t even attack myself for being in this state of total weakness. An “inner guide” I had been working with for years appears. In his hand, a gray lifeless terracotta object. “Such is the human heart,” he says. More bad news, I recognize it as mine. His hand crushes it. The walls are old and brittle. They crumble to pieces revealing ashes within. “These are the experiences you have consumed in the service of your needs, fears and deficiencies,” he says. The news just keeps getting better. He blows the ashes away and a single spark is revealed. It’s like a piece of glitter. Hope springs forth in me. “Careful,” my mind cries out. He puts it in my right palm. It tingles – a delicate aliveness. His parting words, “Your job is to allow this to consume you.” For two months, I try every meditation and spiritual technique I can think of to turn this spark into a flame. I’m powerless – helpless – the situation is hopeless. I pray to life for assistance. (Do you notice, that I don’t pray to God? Too much of an authority figure for me.) The nightmares come – lucid awareness – they last for weeks. I’m in a room that shrinks or bound in chains that confine and smother me. All my frantic efforts increase the gravity of the situation. I finally realize that my efforts are tied to my sense of identity; to a position I am taking as part of myself. I relax and give up my position – I shrink in size. The room gets larger, the chains slip away, and the spark grows larger. I conclude that when I disappear, delicate aliveness will have consumed me. Now I have to discover how to disappear. The enneagram (I was not aware of it yet) can help us to disappear. It can help us to discover and articulate some of our positions, parts of our identity – the walls that confine, the chains that bind. Most of the energy we expend in our great efforts to get ahead, deal with problems, and get through the day – is nothing – compared to the energy the ego is using to maintain its defenses and identity. What’s amazing is that this huge drain of energy is happening all the time at an unconscious level because it’s part of who we think we are. Several years have now passed. I have reacquainted myself with Sufism because of the emphasis on the heart and their knowledge of “spiritual psychology”. I am reading Rumi to support the transformation of my heart. “Through strange coincidence”, I have come across the works of A.H. Almaas and am working with the Diamond Approach – learning how to disappear. Two significant allies enter my life: compassion and the enneagram. Compassion Compassion has been the greatest agent of change in my life. The Diamond Approach’s understanding of compassion as an essential quality of the soul and the psychodynamic issues associated with the “loss” of it allows me to work my way into a state of “radical allowing”. In this place, I am open to forces outside of myself (meaning outside of the ego’s defenses and outside of my identity) working upon me; challenging my sense of identity. The ego’s understanding of compassion is used to maintain the false. Like everything else it co- opts, it uses it to cover up the holes of deficiency inherent in itself or it moves away from them and walls them off. I should probably point out that the ego’s relationship to the soul is that the soul is constricted within the form created by ego defenses. This is considered a negative situation when viewed from the perspective of the essence of the soul, as it inhibits the dynamism of the soul. The soul becomes stuck in habituated, conditioned patterns. It is these patterns that the enneagram helps us to see. From another perspective, that of physical development and survival, these patterns can be seen as mostly positive adaptive survival patterns used by an organism whose mental, emotional, physical, and neurological capacities require years to reach a state of optimal functioning. In other words, we do the best we can with what we have and this creates conditions that need to be readdressed after we reach maturation, i.e., if we desire to know what it is we truly are and function from that place. Thus, the ego and its identity are actually created out of the soul substance by a reactive conditioned structure of tension and images within the mind, body and soul. Again, the enneagram helps to reveal some of these structures and the survival strategies underlying them. The ego’s take on compassion is that the best way to handle emotional/mental pain and suffering is to be rid of it – move on to other things, forget about what is going on, find something better, suppress it, repress it, forget it, have a beer! One way it accomplishes this is by contracting around the distress and walling it off from consciousness. The ego is always trying to come up with a better strategy. Notice the mind’s obsession with refining your experience in life. Real compassion, the essential quality of the soul, is a capacity that allows us to tolerate, to hold the pain and suffering so that other resources of our True Nature can arise and engage the situation with what is really needed for us to grow (human) or unfold (soul). One of the effects of compassion in the life of an eight is the movement of eight toward point two. While this sounds like a good thing, it is initially a journey into a morass of unconscious material that the eight has been avoiding for a lifetime. Issues of neediness, dependence, vulnerability, weakness, confusion and fear, among others start to arise. The capacity to look deep into one’s life and structure requires other resources of the soul: clarity, will, strength, and a love for the truth. It’s not a pretty sight for anyone including point eight whose blunt ways have left many bruised and battered including himself. COMPASSION My heart was sad, it cried and cried an ocean of tears that never dried They never dried Everyone said, “Look inside, the healing lies deep inside” So I looked and looked, and I pried and pried and when the answers came, I couldn’t hide Nowhere to run, I couldn’t hide The truth and the pain lay side by side and lit up the places I used to hide Nowhere to run, I couldn’t hide And those I had tried and all that I tried exposed the cancer we call pride It seduces the soul and wounds the heart and in all of our anguish plays a part And my heart was sad, it cried and cried an ocean of tears that never dried They never dried The root of life seemed to be pain that sent me rocking again and again And the sum of my life wasn’t fit for the drain In seeing it all the tears fell like rain Yes tears thick as rain When the wail of my soul, I could not restrain it tore from my throat in a hellish refrain that left behind all I knew to be sane My inner being, a wounded child was constantly flayed and driven wild As an adult, I was always beguiled and never admitted this hidden child Innocent child, always reviled And my heart was sad, it cried and cried an ocean of tears that never dried They never dried Into the heart of this rabid place moved the beauty of exquisite grace In compassionate green she was lovingly styled and when she looked at me, mercy smiled And the hand of God, the mother’s arm gathered me in from further harm To sacred ground, removed from harm as the mystery worked its wondrous charm and quieted down my demented alarm Until all I beheld was bathed in green and I found myself amazingly clean And my heart was glad, it cried and cried an ocean of tears that never dried They’ve never dried JH How I discovered my type Friends in my Diamond Approach group introduced me to the enneagram. A couple of them were teaching local classes on it. Helen Palmer’s book was recommended as a good place to start. (Did I mention that at this time in my life I was married to an eight police officer? What can I say? I love trouble!) In reading Helen’s book and then Don Riso’s, I quickly narrowed my possible type down to one, three, five, seven, or eight. I went round and round for weeks trying to figure it out. Remember, I was already aware that “I” was the biggest problem in my life, so I was not expecting any good news. Each fixation is a trap and perpetuates the separation of the soul from True Nature – this is the fundamental wound to the soul. I gave up trying to figure out my type by looking at aspects or qualities of the characters and started paying more attention to the dynamic movements each type manifests under stress. AND there it was as clear as day – 80% of my life seemed to be staring me in the face. Eight goes to five under stress. If I had a nickel for every time I withdrew deep into my mind, cutting off all affect, and trying to figure things out – well, I could drink Starbucks forever. This secondary line of defense for point eight manifests as a schizoid withdrawal to point five. In this revelation it soon became very clear to me that my previous spiritual path was operating as a schizoid defense and that my spiritual experience had been subsumed into the ego for its continued existence. What better way to avoid the mess of being human and being inept at human interaction than to make one’s home in the cosmos or universal dimensions. No sticky or messy emotions here. Having spiritual experiences is a great support for grandiosity, arrogance and narcissism. A steady supply can keep the ego satisfied for a very long time. In my case for about fifteen years. Thank God for the gift of the human heart and the deep longing of the soul for True Nature. Integrity I have been fascinated with this word for years. in·te·ger: Etymology: Latin, adjective, whole, entire 1 : any of the natural numbers, the negatives of these numbers, or zero 2 : a complete entity in·teg·ri·ty 1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY 2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS 3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS in·te·grate: 1 : to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole : Unite Most of the books on the enneagram at some point address the fact that “everyone has all nine points within them” and we’re just stuck or predisposed, through habit, to one in particular. The soul freed from the constraints and influence of ego and grounded in True Nature, does not operate within the dynamics of the enneagram of personality types. What I have noticed in my own experience is that I have more freedom and less reactivity in my dominant tripoint dynamic (2 – 8 – 5). My movement is much less defensive now. Not that I am completely free of reactivity and issues, but my capacity to stay “present” and conscious in the reactivity and to investigate it and the underlying issues and their dynamics has increased. One of the downsides of the enneagram is that people do get “typed” and this becomes yet another constraint upon the soul. The reality is that you and I are part of a Mystery that the mind cannot grok. Most of our great beliefs, intellectual understanding and “knowing” are ego defenses against the unknown and disappearing. The import of integrity for me is the increasing capacity to know myself beyond classifications and defining traits. More meaningful is the freedom integrity affords me in resisting the temptation to “type” others. Contrary to much of the enneagram rhetoric, the greatest trap is using it to understand others. What you see is a lie, a bunch of reactivity, not the person. I am not saying the enneagram of personality types is not useful, that it does not have its place in personal exploration, but if what you learn does not break your heart, scare you, or lead you toward helplessness and hopelessness then, it’s not helping the soul – it’s being co-opted into the service of maintaining the status quo. There are times When my mind Would like to conveniently Avoid the knowing In my heart These are the moments That determine The fate of the soul And the world’s future These points of choice Often seem insignificant But the reality Is always life or death The depth Of your integrity Is the key To freedom JH Humanness & Vulnerability One of the great conundrums that needs resolving is the conflict created between our longing to be truly human and the deep belief that being human around other humans is the most dangerous situation on earth. And who can really disagree with this wisdom? People mostly come in nine types and one condition – unconscious. Take this point eight. My life is a history of unconscious aggression run amok in the service of higher ideals and aspirations. The sad fact is: ego by definition resists consciousness. Being stuck in a personality type or enneagram fixation means you are constantly hurting yourself and others. The depth of this truth needs to remain unconscious in the mind because when it surfaces into consciousness, the wounding and remorse within the soul undermine ego integrity and cohesiveness. Like many others, I feel a debt of gratitude to Claudio Naranjo for conveying the truth of the situation. Remorse Opens the soul In a particular way The soul weeps As His Mercy showers And cleanses her Separation from God Is the soul’s Deepest grief God knows And walks beside you At every step One moment of separation Creates an ocean of tears In the soul God knows And is already Blessing those tears With His Mercy Before the soul Discovers them God knows The sorrow of separation All his children will weep JH There is a great confusion around the soul, a widespread misunderstanding that the soul has a “real identity” that will feel familiar to me like the “me” I have always known. The soul is a medium of consciousness, a medium of experience, a substance of extreme sensitivity and resiliency. It can form or unform itself into becoming anything and everything, the particular and the universal. There is a real self, a true self, and when the soul is married with it, who we have been and our familiar known world disappear as everything and everywhere and everywhen arise as a majestic beguiling unfathomable Mystery. Any and all fascination with defining things within closed systems (like the enneagram) and making them known in a static way will give way to a knowing that ever continues to reveal Mystery as the depth and ground of Being. And yes, the enneagram can help us along the way. Instead of using it to define things and make them known, use it to reveal the unknown. Every revelation will expand the unknown. Let this engage the entirety of us in every moment. Allowing our self to be completely open, totally vulnerable to the moment, experiencing the exquisite sensitivity of what we really are. This is the door to and the ground of being truly human. Here we are the circle of the enneagram, but a circle which is not bounded, circumscribed, or delineated. A thousand times over My heart gives thanks To my friends For this wonder of wonders The gift of humanness At times, I ask myself Where are thanks due? Is it not Compassion That opened the Heart’s window? It is so, but my friends Are the agents of Her grace Is it not, the Beloved’s kisses That keep the Heart wide open? It is so, but my friends Are Her soft and supple lips Is it not the Absolute’s great story That is the telling of the Heart It is so, but my friends Are the pages in His book A thousand times over He has turned a phrase of thanks In this heart And with each turning More and more disappears Except these Friends JH The Pearl Beyond Price Yesterday at dawn, my Friend said, How long will this unconsciousness go on? You fill yourself with the sharp pain of Love, rather than its fulfillment. I said, “But I can’t get to You! You are the whole dark night, and I am a single candle. My life is upsidedown because of You!” The Friend replied, I am your deepest being. Quit talking about wanting Me! I said, “Then what is this restlessness?” The Friend, Does a drop stay still in the Ocean? Move with the Entirety, and with the tiniest particular. Be the moisture in an oyster that helps to form one pearl. Rumi Like This – versions by Coleman Barks Oyster = ego shell, personality Moisture = human vulnerability Pearl = real human being John Harper

I love this... "With It" Magic "A few years back I was a presenter at a conference on the Western Magical Tradition held at the Findhorn Foundation Community in northern Scotland. Both practitioners and scholars of various forms of magic came from all over Europe and North America to attend. Like so many conferences in which there are more speakers than anyone knows quite what to do with, the afternoons were taken up with panels in which five or six presenters are jammed together and given a few nanoseconds each to present the breadth and depth of their knowledge before being exposed to questions. As you can tell, though I've both been on and seen some very good panels, I'm not fond of the form. At this conference, one afternoon panel provided a bit of unexpected drama, though I imagine not in a way the organizers appreciated. It was a panel for which the theme was "What is magic?" As I recall, there were four or five panelists, and the first speaker was a man who had written a beginner's book on magic and spirituality. His definition was that magic was very simple, a kind of "playing with energies" that everyone could do. This went uncontested until the last panelist had his turn to speak. He was a well-known and respected author of many books on magic, as well as a competent practitioner. He had been quite visibly restraining himself from saying something until his turn came, but then he practically leaped out of his chair in agitation and said, "Magic most certainly is NOT playing with energies!" Then, shaking his finger at the first panelist, he proceeded to verbally demolish him, stating that magic was anything but simple, and that it was a deep and profound discipline that was not for everyone. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that his fellow panelist had no business speaking in this conference if he was going to spout drivel. This in turn led to a shouting match between the two which eventually led to the organizers' coming on stage and shutting the whole thing down. I hadn't realized till then how much fun a conference of magicians could be! I have to admit, though, that even after that, the definition of magic remains elusive to me. The word magic is used loosely in a number of different ways and contexts, from the excitement and wonder of a romantic evening to stage illusions to the profound spiritual disciplines of alchemy and hermeticism. If I say I'm a magician, then just exactly how am I describing myself? What really is magic? Perhaps behind the disciplines and the rituals, the techniques and procedures, it does come down to a play of energies innate in all of us, though now I might think twice before saying so on a panel! I once had a conversation with a non-physical being to whom I asked this question of the nature of magic. He seemed puzzled and asked me what I was talking about. So I explained to him what I had in mind and he said, "Oh, you mean life!" Another being was more helpful, but only just. "When you pick up a glass of water," he said, "for you it's simply an act of will. You wish the water and your body responds by picking up the glass. It seems instantaneous to you. But at the level of your cells, a great deal more goes on in the form of energy exchanges and molecular alterations, all of which you don't experience. What you call magic, with your rituals and correspondences, is to us equivalent to these molecular activities at a cellular level whereas what we call magic--the magic of the soul, if you wish--is like the direct experience of will and its consequences. We will and it is done." Nice trick when you can do it. At the heart of what this being was saying was relationship between two states for which will was a bridge. In his case, the bridge was direct, but in our case, the relationship or connections needed to be built up between ourselves and the object of the magic, hence the use of ritual or correspondences. The image was like the difference between teleporting directly between San Francisco and New York on the one hand and traveling from one city to the other through a series of connecting railway links. His point was that as we were able to form deeper and better connections or relationships, our magic would change. It was a matter of the wholeness in us matching the wholeness of the cosmos. Thinking of magic as relationship and connection has been helpful to me, more helpful than thinking of it as ritual or alchemical processes on the one hand or playing with energies on the other. More precisely, it gives me a starting point in thinking about magic and the making of magic. I can think of it, for instance, not simply as the use of the will to produce effects in the world but as the forming of relationships or connections co-creatively with the world that have consequences, hopefully desired ones. Why is this important? Because I believe as human beings we need to move to a partnership model of our relationship with the rest of creation, not simply for moral or spiritual reasons but because it works better. It is closer to the truth of things. If I think of magic as the projection and imposition of my will upon the world, whether through the astral light or the etheric plane or some other intermediate dimension, I am acting as a separate agent. I am not really engaging the world. I am acting upon it but not with it. I am making links through correspondences and rituals, but I am not making wholeness. I am not participating. In the end, whatever the success of my magical operation, the world and I remain separate. We remain strangers to each other. Whatever magic is or can become, I believe it calls us to be not just in the world, or even less to have power over the world, but to be with the world in spirit and in wholeness. It is a "with-it" magic." David Spangler

I'm into this for some time now...IMO David Spangler's is the most interesting approach. A review from his book on manifestation,"Everyday Miracles", strongly recommended: Co-incarnational Manifestation Manifestation is the act of bringing something into existence or the fact of its emergence into the world. Manifestation can occur through ordinary or extraordinary ("miraculous") means. Co-incarnation is the mutually evocative and co-creative dynamic of reality -- the way things evoke and shape each other, providing contexts, motivators, resources, history and meaning to each other. David Spangler suggests that our universe is essentially co-incarnational. He notes that quantum physicists speak of matter and energy in terms of fields of probability. What we see as reality is a manifestation of fields of probability drawing each other towards 100% probability, at which point they co-incarnate as "real" phenomena. Co-incarnational manifestation, then, is the way the universe unfolds, the generative dynamic that brings everything into being. It is a vital process underlying universal intelligence. It provides a way for us to consciously join The Universal Dance, and evoke the things we need even as the world evokes what it needs from us. That's the best I can do right now to summarize this highly intuitive field. Here is a more detailed writeup I did in January 1998 immediately after reading David Spangler's book Everyday Miracles. * * * * I have always responded negatively to the popular New Age idea that the universe and Spirit exist to give us prosperity. The fact that the world is in such a state of suffering -- generated in no small part by such alienated, privileged attitudes -- makes those ideas almost repugnant to me. But the work of David Spangler is different. I found Spangler saying things that have been cornerstones of my own work on co-intelligence for years, that I've heard no one else address. One of my hottest inquiries has been into what sort of co-intelligent spiritual practice could help us actually experience the co-creativity involved in every situation and moment. This concern is so central to Spangler's own spiritual practice that his rituals and reflections constitute a very coherent answer to my inquiry. The fact that I will have to rework it considerably to fit my own sensibilities does not contradict Spangler's approach: He encourages readers to do exactly that. His sensitivity to human diversity -- and the ramifications of that diversity -- are refreshing. While most people would call his overall approach New Age, I see him tapping the best of the New Age while deftly avoiding the pitfalls that have most troubled me about many New Age proponents. For example: -- Spangler advocates looking at how whatever we're doing impacts the ecological and human systems in which we're involved. -- He fully acknowledges the dark side of life and our humanity; he has none of that saccharine "sweetness and light." -- He validates individuality and rationality even as he validates unity and intuition. -- He doesn't say "you create your own reality" so much as "we all co-create our shared reality." Among the most delightful surprises for me was to find him describing in detail five of the six components of wholeness I articulated several years ago -- a model I considered revolutionary. He explicitly includes in his approach unity, diversity, relationship, uniqueness and interiority. He implicitly includes context and, of course, I think it would strengthen his model to make it explicit. But I have come to see my own model as seriously incomplete in the face of his. Lately I've been wondering if I should add to my model "possibility" and "manifestation" as dynamic dimensions of wholeness. "Possibility," in this sense, includes fields of probability and what quantum physicist David Bohm calls "the implicate order" out of which phenomena arise. The word "manifestation" here refers to all emergent particularity (the specific forms of which are always emergent) -- what Bohm called "the explicate order" -- i.e., the observable reality which "unfolds" from the invisible implicate order. Adding these two elements to the model will ultimately help me explain why combining unity and diversity (or uniqueness and relationship, or interiority and context) generates new possibilities without deteriorating the health of the systems involved. But the personal point I want to make here is that I am quite captivated by the implications and potential of David Spangler's approach. I recommend his book Everyday Miracles very highly. It has not only given me a promising tool to address thorny problems in my own life (by manifesting improved conditions), it has finally pointed me in directions that clarify the sort of spirituality and metaphysics that have long been implicit in everything I do. As well as providing more grist for the mill of my co-intelligence work. One thing I hope to manifest with David Spangler is some insight into how the insights he's outlined could be applied at the level of social systems -- communities and societies. I already see some great potential synergies with things like open space and future search conferences. But here's some more of his ideas that so excite me. David Spangler defines manifestation as "the art of fashioning a co-creative, synchronistic, and mutually supportive relationship between the inner creative energies of a person's own mind and spirit and their counterpart within the larger world in order to bring a new and desirable situation into being." His approach recognizes and facilitates manifestation as acquisition and creation and invocation -- by both ordinary and extraordinary (seemingly miraculous) means. He finds visualization, affirmation and positive thinking useful in some situations, but often problematic. For example: -- Creating a clear, precise image of what we want can narrow our options, focusing our attention on what is familiar and causing us to overlook manifestations which show up in unexpected forms. -- Attempting to "program the unconscious" through the repeating of affirmations can become mindless instead of mindful, passive instead of passionate. It can blind us to unexpected manifestations and channel our intention into verbalization when images or narratives might be more appropriate for us or our project. -- The assertion of positive thinking to dispel doubts and fears can deprive us of important information, suppressing aspects of our individual or collective wholeness (our "shadow") or aspects of reality we need to understand and deal with. For Spangler, manifestation is more than using such tools as visualization, affirmation and positive thinking to focus the mind. There is "a deeper force at work as well, and it was attunement to that force that constituted the core of my approach to this inner art." "What I set out to find was something like an 'aikido of desire.' I wanted a way to use the energy of my desires to take me to a deeper part of my own being that was in touch with the holistic or spiritual side of the world's being.... I have opted for a technique in which our desires become potential points of reflection and invocation.... Manifestation is a way of using any desire as a starting point for a spiritual journey." "Of course, there is much more to a spiritual practice than manifestation.... However, it can be an opportunity, no matter how trivial the desire, to explore connections, patterns, alignments, and the flow of both material and spiritual energy through your life. When you make manifestation a spiritual practice, then the perspectives it brings overflow into other aspects of your life. You begin naturally seeing yourself and your world in terms of interconnected and co-incarnational [mutually evocative and co-creative] patterns. The reality of the community in which we all live becomes more apparent. The vision of your incarnation becomes broader, more ecological, more compassionate. Your attitudes and actions reflect a larger, more complete humanity." Ultimately, "the inner art of manifestation" is about being a fully-conscious "co-creator of our collective cosmos,... [shaping] a reality that honors and reveals our full nature and that, in co-creative alignment with the sacred, empowers and nurtures all of life." This practice involves realizing that we are not only "particular" bodies or personalities. We are also extended selves -- fields, systems or patterns that extend out into space and time through infinite webs of interrelationship that are continually evolving in complex, chaotic ways. Whatever we want to manifest is already part of this infinite extended self, or part of its potential evolution. Chaos and "living system" theories suggest that small initiatives and powerful visions can shift the evolution of such systems in desirable ways. Manifestation applies that insight. But the whole approach is "co-incarnational" (or, alternatively, co-intelligent). The object of our manifestation -- what we are trying to manifest -- is not only part of our extended self; we are part of its extended self. Whether it is a relationship, an object, a job, or anything else, when it manifests in our lives, we manifest in its life -- and we will change each other. Manifestation is a two-way street; together, we and the object of our manifestation will co-incarnate each other's next stage of being. This is something to prepare for -- both for our own sake, and to deepen our understanding of what we're doing here -- and because that preparation increases the probability that the manifestation will be successful. One further insight I'd like to share, which is mostly Spangler's and partially mine, inspired by him. We are all part of the universe's endless manifestation of evolving wholeness -- which shows up as healing, learning, realization, love, etc. In a very real sense, everything that exists is participating in that universal manifestation project. Our own healing and spiritual growth, it seems to me now, involve primarily our intentionally serving and consciously participating in that project. To the extent we undertake our personal manifestation projects as part of that larger will and welfare, our intention is aligned with the larger benign flow of the universe, and thus increases both the probability and desirability of the success of those undertakings." ***

aaaahhhhh...the great Brian Eno...

I'm still waiting for another Van Morrison to appear... ...but it's true, Sigur Ros music has heart...like other contemporary music: Dhafer Youseff Ross Daly is more than a virtuoso... and William PArker has something to say through his music... and the latest by John Hopkins is beautiful ...and this a fascinating recent finding: James Carson http://jamescarson.com/#

THE GREAT PROCESS Yet the process, the Great Process, is here, just as it began as long ago as the Pleistocene era -- that idle little second, that introspection of the second kind -- but the movement revealed to the monkey and the movement revealed to the spiritualist of ages past (and surpassed) are in no way an indication of the next direction it is to take. There is no continuity -- that is a delusion! There is no refinement of the same movement, no improving upon the ape or man, no perfecting of the stone tool or the mental tool, no climbing higher peaks, no thinking loftier thoughts, no deeper meditations or discoveries that would be a glorification of the existing state, a sublimation of the old flesh, a sublime halo around the old beast -- there is SOMETHING ELSE, something radically different, a new threshold to cross, as different from ours as the threshold of plant life was from the animal, another discovery of the already-here, which will change our world as drastically as the human look changed the world of the caterpillar -- yet it is the same world, but seen with two different looks -- another Spirit, we might say, as different from the religious or intellectual spirit or the great naked Spirit on the heights of the Absolute, as man's thought is different from the first quivering of a wild rose under a ray of sunlight -- yet it is the same eternal Spirit but in a greater concretization of itself, for, in fact, the Spirit's true direction is not from the bottom up, but from the top down, and it becomes ever more in matter, because it is the world's very Matter, wrested bit by bit from our false caterpillar look and false human look and false spiritual look -- or, let us say, recognized little by little by our growing true look. This new threshold of vision depends first on a pause in our regular mental and visual routine -- and that is the Great Process, the movement of introspection of the second kind -- but the path is entirely new: this is a new life on earth, another discovery to make; and the less weighed down we are by past wisdom, past ascents, past illuminations, all the disciplines and virtues and old gilded frills of the "Spirit," the freer we are and more open to the new, the more the path shall spring up under our feet, as if by magic, as if it sprang from that total desecration. This superman, whom we have said is the next goal of evolution, will therefore in no way be a paroxysm of man, a gilded hypertrophy of the mental capacity, nor will he be a spiritual paroxysm, a sort of demigod appearing in a halo of light and outfitted with an oversized consciousness (cosmic, of course) streaked with bolts of lightning, marvelous phenomena and "Experiences" that would make the poor laggards of evolution pale with envy. It is true that both things are possible, both exist. There are marvelous Experiences; there are superhuman capacities that would make the man in the street turn pale. It is not a myth; it is a fact. But Truth, as always, is simple. The difficulty does not lie in discovering the new path; it lies in clearing away what blocks the view. The path is new, completely new; it has never been seen before by human eyes, never been trodden before by the athletes of the Spirit, yet it is walked every day by millions of ordinary men unaware of the treasure at hand. We will not theorize about what this superman is. We do not wish to think him; we wish to become him, if possible, keeping away from the old walls and old lights, remaining as completely open as possible, as alert to the great process of Nature as possible -- just walking, for that is the only way to do it, "solvitur ambulando". Even if we don't get very far, who knows, we may still emerge in a first clearing that will fill our hearts, souls and bodies with sunlight, for everything is one and everything is saved together or nothing is. Then others will come who will move on to a second clearing. Satprem

; ) Now seriously: Reading Aldous Huxley ("Moksha": a fascinating compilation of his letters to theologian, psychitriatists,etc) I took with me as a medicine - no different of a Dzogchen pith instruction - what he said about William Blake's phrase after him having taken mescaline a few times: "Now I understand completely the meaning of "Gratitude is Heaven itself"... Gregory Bateson's experiences with LSD were fundamental in the development of his influential "Ecology of Mind": "We never see in consciousness that the mind is like an ecosystem - a self-corrective network of circuits. We only see arcs of these circuits. And the instinctive vulgarity of scientists consists precisely in mistaking these arcs for the larger truth, i.e., thinking that because what is seen by consciousness has one character, the total mind must have the same character. Freud’s personified ‘ego’, ‘id’, ‘super-ego’ are, in fact not, truly personified at all. Each of his components is constructed in the image of only consciousness (even though the component may be unconscious) and the ‘consciousness’ does not resemble a total person. The isolated consciousness is necessarily depersonified. The whole iceberg does not have those characteristics which could be guessed at from looking only at what is above water. I mean: the iceberg does - mind does not. Mind is not like an iceberg. But the vulgar scientist talks and plans as if mind resembled iceberg. He plans and acts upon his plans. Invents atom bombs and feels hurt when a beneficient deity screws up international relations and sends fall-out. Now you are ready to think about religion and magic. The instinctive, innate barrier between consciousness and the rest of mind is very old (though its effects have recently become disastrous through the technological implementation of consciousness). Even before man chipped flint, it must have been necessary to correct for the murderous destructiveness which necessarily goes with conscious, calculating and common-sense policies. If bacteria, or Jews, or rats offend you - import mongooses to exterminate them. Of course. This is Nazism and the bacterial theory of disease. As they say of Skinner’s operant conditioning, ‘It works’. But this theory, even in the Stone Age, would not work between people. Love is contrary to conscious common sense because love involves the total systemic mind. Cain was, appropriately enough, an inventor. He invented agriculture. God (Cain’s total systemic mind or the systemic human ecosystem in which Cain lived) refused the cabbages, which Cain sacrificed. God then told Cain that Abel loved him (Cain). ‘His desire shall be unto thee and thou shalt rule over him.’(cf. the curse on Eve in previous chapter - ‘Thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he shall rule over thee.’) This was the last straw because love is precisely that to which the pragmatic, headstrong, purposive consciousness must always be allergic. So Cain picked up a big stone and smashed Abel’s skull. So Cain won. As usual. A more modern deity would have thrown a bucket of fall-out over the both of them. But that’s only a parable. Of course! The point is that, even before modern technology, something had to be done about the innate split between consciousness and the rest of the mind, because the unaided consciousness would always wreck human relations. Because the unaided consciousness must always combine the wisdom of the dove with the harmlessness of the serpent. And I will tell you what they did in the old Stone Age to deal with that split. Religion is what they did. It’s that simple, and religion is whatever they could devise to beat into man the fact that most of him (and, analogously, most of his society and the ecosystem around him) was systemic in nature and imperceptible to his consciousness. This included dreams and trances, intoxication, castration, rituals, human sacrifices, myths of all sorts, invocations of death, art, poetry, music and so on. And of course, they did not and could not really say or know clearly what it was they were doing or why. And, often, it did not work. Darwin says somewhere in the autobiography that as he got more famous (or old or something), he became less and less able to read poetry. Perhaps the attempt to achieve grace by identification with the animals was the most sensible thing which was tried in the whole bloody history of religion. Australian totemism makes a lot of sense. And the cave paintings of Altamira, and Konrad Lorenz drawing live animals on the blackboard.1 See also God’s rebuke to Job’s arrogance: ‘Dost thou know when the wild goats of the rock do calve? Or knowest thou when the hinds bring forth?’ And so on. I was delighted by what you said about the morality of animals! But magic is something else again. You describe magic as the voluntary parent of religion, but this is surely wrong. Magic is what the vulgar and purposive consciousness snipped out of religion. (Just as the viruses are DNA that came unstuck.) The use of quasi-Religion to bolster priesthood is, of course, an another vulgarity. So, you see, my objections to the vulgar scientific theories of instinct and my view of the nature of magic both spring from the same philosophic roots. (...) "The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..." Gregory Bateson" http://www.oikos.org/batesleten.htm

"Haiti," a Vodoun priest once told me, "will teach you that good and evil are one. We never confuse them. Nor do we keep them apart." Wade Davis

: )

The ancient tradition that the world will be con- sumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell. For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life; and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite & corrupt. This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment. But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite that was hid. If the doors of perception were cleansed every- thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors. 1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul. 2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul. 3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies. But the following Contraries to these are True 1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age 2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. 3 Energy is Eternal Delight "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" William Blake