6.
NO
ELITISM:
The
separation of people into spiritual and non-spiritual persons is a very foolish
and vain thing, because no such division can exist at any time or in any place.
There are only those who still sleep in the dream or nightmare of themselves in
the separate self and its insane world of slavery by materialism,
magical-thinking and
modern
convenience, and those who are at various stages of wakefulness and freedom. The
quickened, alive in their souls and energy bodies, see all other beings as
spiritual beings. Discernment develops and they become invulnerable to ordinary
deception and falsehood, and this, from the point of view of still-sleeping
people, is only one of the quickened individual’s
many disturbing characteristics.
The
capacity to “see” the deep and true spiritual condition of the Self or others
belongs to a very advanced stage of spiritual awakening with its
highly-developed clairvoyant abilities. How can someone who has just begun this
process, if begun at all, pretend to
see into the innermost heart and karmic destiny of another? There are no
shortcuts on the Spiritual Path, seeing as the “Bridge” is oneself, but only the
illusion of
the
same and the
accumulation of karmic responsibilities which must later be met and faced
in this or another “world” or lifetime.
An immature
understanding of “you are God and you create your own reality” would seem to
support “situational ethics” or moral relativism. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Some famous “self-improvement” brokers teach that action in pursuit
of known and desired goals is a definition of happiness and thus is its own
justification. Or, in society at large,
there are those who choose to believe that almost any experience shared by
consenting adults is automatically its own justification and free of all ethical
consequences, carrying no karmic responsibility into the future for anyone. Or
again, there are those who believe that clandestine acts will remain secret for
all time. There are no
secrets anywhere from the Law of Adjustment or Karma.
Spiritual Realism,
grounded as it is in philosophical and actual Wholism, represents a moral
absolutism to which even the Gods and Goddesses must answer in the fullness of
Cosmic time.
“We stand
bewildered before the mystery of our own making and the riddles of life that we
will not solve and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But
verily, there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day nor a
misfortune, which could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in
another life. If one breaks the laws of Harmony, the ‘Laws of Life’, one must be
prepared to fall into the chaos oneself has produced.”
Another way
of stating the aphorism would then be, “You are Spirit-Self, a spark of the
Universal Over-Soul, and within the dictates of this pre-existing reality – the
Cycle of Karmic Necessity – you unfold and manifest your own destiny.”
Thus, it is not that there is reincarnation and Karma, but rather,
reincarnation is Karma.
Here we have an outline, a description of
the known modes of Man’s humanness as it takes external, societal and
psychological form in the current culture. What, in fact, is happening to the
images and content of these modes and structures? They are being blown to
painful
shreds by the evolutionary winds and beings storming through the World.
What we have been in the past, we can no longer be in the future, and what we
will be in the future can only be creatively discovered as a spiritual reality
by each individual within him or herself and in the company of others wedded to
the same evolutionary urgency. Playing competitive solitaire is over.
The new
humanity now within us and upon us is not a creature of old images and
ideologies, reshaped and turned to
the efficient
agenda of techno-slavery or pious
self-delusion. Neither does it seek the God of guilty beggars. Humpty Dumpty has
indeed had a great fall. The hard shell of the un-hatched Self is cracking open
for millions of people. One of the ways you know that your shell is cracking is
that you begin to directly feel the vibrations, the Vibes of Life. These
vibrations are not mere sensations, be they intense or intensely subtle or
subtly intense. They are awareness's of actual realities of the inner states.
The subjective has become objective. The energy body is waking up and with it a
whole new consciousness and way of being human.
The meaning
of every kind of human encounter has begun to change. It is the inner motive of
the other that speaks more than their words or appearance, because
it can be felt directly,
you can feel
it directly. Motives
are energy. Life has become a complex, psychomagnetic event. Everything that you
used to be and now are, is in the crucible of a new Alchemy of Transformation.
You can get
lots of advice and directions on how to be psychological with it, control it,
exploit it, play retarded power games with it. I can only speak about how to
be it.
When the
energy body wakes up for real, and you are still able to function more or less
in the World, or should I say, get by, you find that you are no longer a
separate self. What the people around you are doing with their energy,
consciously or unconsciously, is causing spontaneous responses and reactions in
your being, which you have to deal with whether you like it or not. Of course,
from a traditional psychological point of view, this simply means that you are
borderline schizophrenic and possibly headed for a breakdown of some kind.
If you are
able to live with no attachment to past or future images of yourself, and there
is love in your heart, as opposed to paranoia, and you are capable of clarified
affinity with the actuality of others who confirm that you are real to them and
understand them, and you can think clearly when you want to about what you are
experiencing, then you are in all probability involved in a genuine spiritual
process.
If you are
also able to be clear-minded and ruthlessly honest with yourself about what is
causing your responses and reactions to the energy you are experiencing, in
those times when you withdraw into the peace and inner calm that has become so
central to your well-being, then you are most probably on a spiritual path.
It often happens that people in this process suspect themselves of lurking
insanity for years because they
have been
witnessing the insanity of the world.
And
as it now is,
that insanity is
the
subjective
form that they have
internalized as their cultural identity. There are also all of the internal
impressions flowing in from the inner planes of your own being and from other
people. It takes awhile to realize just how sensitive and vulnerable you have
become to the inner content of people to whom you are attached. They are now
living within you, as you are within them, even if they are not conscious of
this new fact of life.
These
different modes of thought and awareness are the natural result of an awakening
which is progressively overtaking and replacing your own reality. In the “world
out there”, you feel like “a stranger in a strange land”. Sometimes you feel
like a stranger to yourself. This difficulty is compounded by the absolutely
awful, negative, emotional atmosphere of the World in its current condition. You
must swim everyday in a psychic sea of cruelty, selfishness, lies, paranoia,
fear, depression, etc. and, at the same time, retain your own positive
warmth and clarity of awareness.
You look
back at how you used to be and realize that you used to be dead, and now you are
a Spirit Awake in the body in the World, and you have joined “the Living Ones”.
In the street, on the subway, at work, in the movie theatre, at the party, you
look around at all those people asleep with their eyes open. The sheer inertial
weight of them in their overwhelming numbers, sleeping inside their cocoons of
closed-consciousness, makes you want to wake them up. But
for the most part
they do not want to
be woken up or disturbed from their
slumbering
separate selves in any way. You can talk to them, of course,
just so long as you do not try to be real with them. It is hard dealing with
beings whose words and feeble attention are a form of carefully-guarded trade
and barter, who are ready to machine-gun you down with vibrations of hostile,
negative emotions if you so much as look at them. Talk about money-changers in
the temple! It is enough to get you angry. There are days when it is a heartache
the size of humanity itself.
In the
background, nearly all the time when you are amongst them, are the thoughts,
“How can I help? Can anything be done about this dreadful situation? They are
all spiritual beings, human, but not very humane,” and they are a very real part
of your experience as a being in the World.
The mystery
in all this is the fact that, at the same time, the world is so very beautiful
and new. You look up at the sky with the soaring bird high overhead, and you
become it. The trees are alive. Now the poetics of life find you everywhere and
anywhere. The face of a friend is a living face, moving, shimmering, alive with
a thousand subtle changes in the course of soul light changing all afternoon.
And there is the subtlety and scope of Awareness, the complexity and richness of
thought and perception, all the extraordinary things which are being understood,
unsayable, truly
wondrous, inexpressible depths and heights. And there is the Presence, the
Living Presence of the Beloved. And when you do meet someone with true, living
beauty in him/ her, what joy
there is in the
meeting
within
a miracle of spiritual life!
| rabbithowl |
authentic spirituality
12/25/2002 3:32:57 PM |
|
When I first found spiritual realism (or rather, it found me), I was at a very difficult point in my life. My desired music career was in serious jeopardy, I was stumbling over a smoldering pyre of dysfunctional relationships, but more importantly, my physical and mental health was deteriorating fast, a process that had begun several years before. Through the power of love and my Higher Self I was pulled back from the brink. But now, looking back, I see how my separate self tried to reassert itself, even in the face of this miraculous gift of love and rebirth. I saw spiritual work as a way to "get better" physically and mentally, so that I could, essentially, go right back to what I was doing before, which was obsessively strive for material success in music in order to prove my self-worth to myself, my family and the world. Every spiritual act, from meditation to participating in spiritual meetings, held the promise for me of my physical restoration and a return to my ambitious goals. I was bartering with the universe: if I meditate and try not to hate people, you'll make me well so that I can be happy and successful, okay? Such selfishness, such self-absorption, such unclean motives have no place anywhere, but especially not in spiritual work. |
|
| rabbithowl |
authentic spirituality, cont.
12/25/2002 3:34:43 PM |
|
One day, in a moment of clarity and objectivity, I saw my separate self - this pathetic, weak, boring, paltry, miserly thing, and, in disgust and shame, rejected its corrupt motives and its limited, reductive view of people and the world and at the same time was filled with gratitude for all the gifts given to me, the patience, forgiveness and selfless love of the great spirit, my soulmate, my teacher. Spiritual Realism calls on its disciples to love selflessly, to be free of personal agenda, to consider the feelings and needs of the other before one's own. As Spiritual Realists, we don't do this in order to "get something", whether its material things, salvation or enlightenment. We do this because it is the true, essential nature of the human being, the spirited aware-awake individual, to do so. |
|
| Margena |
The Way of the Spiritual Realist
1/19/2003 10:29:43 PM |
|
This is an excellent overview of the spiritual path, outlining some of the pitfalls and processes which we are heir to. It is written with humour, compassion and insight. I enjoyed it very much. |
|
| Deepmoon |
The Way of the Spiritual Realist
1/20/2003 6:44:11 PM |
|
Since coming into this warm circle, I have found myself going back to this article many times. Each time, I have found a little more light being shed on what I have been experiencing this past year. There have been other times where I thought I was on a true spiritual path, but having been dragged backwards down a gravel road (or so it feels like!) this past year or so, I now know the difference. What I have found most helpful about this article is that there is an affirmation for me that this is a true spiritual path in every sense of the word that I am on; an acknowledgement of karmic debt and issues that are very real; and that I'm not really just a little nuts! (or a lot so!) |
|
|
Only
Spiritual Realists can comment:
Read
