Some Spiritual Thoughts

Teflonmind was a technique that allowed the pure survival of a number of traumatic events in this life. It was discovered because it made survival possible in times of great duress. "Necessity is the mother of invention.":) As contrasted with "structured" meditation, the state that leads to "Teflonmind" is a form of "pervasive" meditation.:)

To heal the rift between science and faith is our most fervent hope. We have just completed a book called Hope for our Poor Little Planet: and it is subtitled The Love-tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It shows from history that we do already have the foundation-matrix for peace among the three monotheisms, if only we have the good sense to apply it. It is not as if we have to create yet another "new religion" from scratch-- a terrible idea! (For too much religion is already the major problem.)

If the "scientific evidence" were convincing, a person should be ready and willing to alter her perspective, even if it is a "spiritual" one. After all, agreeing that spirituality is a kind of "science," it is all about Reality, as is science. The two should synergize, as the two wings of the same bird, to carry us aloft into higher vistas and adventures of discovery.

The absence of such open-ended research is a major complaint against those who rely too much on books. They do not believe that they have to "explore" anything, because all the "answers" are in their (often huge) book! This kills the spirit of adventure in spirituality.

In the final, technical analysis, every thought is "divinely inspired." But I hardly think that the phrase would mean anything if we took the thoughts of a four-year-old about yesterday's kindergarten class, or the class-free thoughts of some grunt poring over pornography, to be "divinely inspired.":)

All experience is educational, and so, "fated" to occur. Life has virtually forced me to discover this. I spent the first, nearly, twenty years of this life "committed" (as far as could be determined) to an extremist rightwing collection of logical fallacies, in a very mind-numbing and mind-damaging cult. I know that my soul had planned for this, as a part of my education. Now, as a result, I am so anti-cult that there is no possibility that a cult can develop from my teachings or discoveries.

That was not all, or at all, wasted time. Nor had I done the "wrong" thing, even though, objectively, it was only a "negative" education: It taught what not to do! But I am now convinced, after having reviewed the record, many times, and in great depth, that being in the wrong place was the right thing for me, at the time.

We mystics sometimes favor the Taoist writings over most Jewish and Christian spiritual documents. They are refreshingly simple and clear. Their absence of a complex theology or history is especially fresh, like cold water on a hot day. (The ttc has only 81 very short chapters.)

And that Chuang Tzu! I have heard him described as the "philosopher of the absurd"! His "ideal" was to be as practically "useless" as possible, so that you would not get "used up" by the plans of others!:) I just love his "Inner Chapters." He is definitely one of the all-time favorites here. Many of the Zen masters (Zen=Taoism+ Buddhism) are exactly like him. The Zen master who wanted to die in a headstand comes to mind!:) The ideal for Chuang Tzu is the gnarled old tree that lived to such a ripe old age because it was "useless" to the woodcutters.

We could all use a large serving of Zen in our everyday lives. We could all stand a little less seriousness, and a touch of zaniness, in our lives. But, like the answer to a good koan, it must be spontaneous. For if it is contrived, it is artificial.

On the old sitcom "Seinfeld," the character george believes that he has suffered a heart-attack, and vows to change his life. He's "going to do a whole Zen-thing-- take up yoga," etc. Right after he speaks of abandoning anger, he shouts angrily, "Is anybody listening?" and is immediately, once again, in the grip of inertia, back to his old self.

I have been a committed "interior Taoist" for many years. I grew up in what I now clearly recognize as a nightmarish Jehovic tradition, and it is a goal to move as far away from that nest of hornets as possible. Happily, good spirituality (and it comes in many grades) does lead away from Jehovism.

And Jehovah is, of course, nothing like the nonpersonal great Mind of the mystical tradition, pervaded by pure Love, and consisting of Love plus nothing. I have done a rendition of the ttc, and in it, I translate the nonpersonal concept of Tao as "great Mind," for It, too, is not personal in a way that a god usually is. That is one reason why It is perfect in justice or balance. Unlike the terribly selfconscious Jehovah, it has no ego to defend. "It is like water that settles into the places despised
by men." How sweet and humble is this primal Power. (I translate Tao Te Ching, for example, the "Book of the Great Mind and Its Expression.")

One of the difficult challenges of a faith such as Christianity is that almost no one, in the formal tradition, is ever taught spiritual independence. A good and true spiritual teacher should always teach that your heartmind is the final arbiter of truth for you and your life. No one should ever try to control another adult in these spiritual matters. Psychology well and truly teaches that it is unhealthy to live out of the "inner parent," as unhealthy as the "inner child."

In spirituality, we do not have a trimorphic pattern of the mind, as in transactional analysis. Instead, we have a "pentamorphic" structure to the Mind. That is, you can choose to live and react out of one of five interior modes: You have, of course, the inner child, parent, and adult; but added to these three are the options of responding from soul, and Spirit. Any pure response of unsullied Love arises from the Spirit. A response that contains a bias from a past life, for example, could be a
soul-response.

There is a good reason for the presentation of the Lord Krishna as perfect. Krishna is Mind completed. Mystics teach two apparently fundamental polarities: That Mind is perfect, to Which nothing can ever be added; and that Mind is creating continuous experience; and, as various souls, it is in continuous evolution, "learning and growing" Its Way back into Itself. Is there a contradiction here? I do not believe so.

It is like that old hack about , "God can do anything. So, can He create a stone too large for Him to move?" This is very analogous to, "Can God, being and knowing everything, create a condition in which He needs to grow and learn?" (Excuse, please, the masculine pronoun. It is for convenience.)

It all depends on the mode, expression, or manifestation of Mind. In some modes, such as the human, It still needs to grow and learn. In others, such as the Christ, the Buddha, or Krishna, growth is no longer necessary. For that which is full-grown, no growth is necessary, and to that which is not only infinite, but Infinity, you cannot add anything.

These are the apparent "two lives" or "two worlds"of the nondualistic (monistic) mystic. At Core, no growth or learning is necessary. But the entire point of her life is the growth of Mind at the soul-level.

Exactly like the Christ, the Buddha has two sides to his nature: the human and the spiritual. Ultimately the human is definitely the epiphenomenon of the larger and more real Spirit. As the Buddha himself said, the purpose of this life is to work our way back to awareness of the higher, then, the highest, Self (Atman is Brahman, in Hindu mysticism.)

The fallible source of religion in the cognitive mind is a problem with religion. It does not occur with true spirituality, for spirituality is open to any interpretation of the world that can be understood or interpreted as Love-based. Even if we take the always-divisive religious approach, and ask for a detailed definition of "Love," or "Love-based," spirituality allows you a wide latitude of definitions.

Spirituality is simply not concerned with doctrine or dogma. It has such wide and wise perimeters that it allows each human being to choose her own path. Of course, although spirituality rejects no honest attempt to understand meaning, there are a number of faiths, denominations, or cults that reject spirituality. And they are well within their spiritual rights to do even this. In fact, people are free to be, to remain, as ignorant and even antispiritual as they want or choose. For, wherever you end up, there are you supposed to be. The karma of a person can take her into some very strange environments indeed, as mine took me into the cult at age four. But, in the overview, it was precisely where I was supposed to be!:)

It is fairly easy to proclaim any idea, even that of universal or cosmic Love; but it is in the living that the practical reality of an idea is put to the test. This is why spirituality, unlike much in religion, is
the way that you live, not simply the way that you believe. As Christ said, "A tree is known by its fruits."

It is both our tragedy and ecstasy that we are capable of so many varieties of error. We do use a lot of time learning, often by doing the wrong things. In mystical psychology, we defuse guilt by proclaiming that mistakes are good; errors are beneficial. For they are the only methods that we have for learning our lessons; they are the very essence of good, effective, unforgettable education. That is why forgiveness was so natural and easy for someone like Jesus. He knew not only that errors were inevitable; he also knew that, to the deep Lovemind, they did not matter. they did not "matter," that is, in the sense that they usually are so important in religion.

Love was so great that all human error was like a thimble-full of matter in the vastness of space, like an ant in a tsunami, like a single hair on the back of a planet-sized elephant. It was not only negligibly insignificant; in the end, it served the "will of God"; that is, it educated us.

According to some theories, we do spend lives as "angels," or higher forms of life; we are they, and they are we. So, reincarnation goes back and forth. If we must be continually learning through various lives, why would not the same be true for higher, or "angelic" forms as well? Many reincarnationists, at any rate, believe that this must be true. It is not a dogma, but it makes perfect sense to me.:)
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