Lifting off into Spirituality

“The various religions are but different languages thru which God speaks to the human heart… Only he who realizes that the Sacred Lord is within, and beyond all formulated entities of this vast universe, knows the whole truth.” the Holy Vedas

“The human spirit has its source in the divine fountain, which must be permitted to flow freely through man. Anyone who flows as life flows has solved the enigmas of human existence.” Lao-Tse

“I looked in temples, churches and mosques. But I found the Divine in my heart.” Rumi

“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. I laugh when I hear that people go on pilgrimage to find God... The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed; put false pride away and seek the Lord within.” Kabir

“The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.” – Henri Nouwen

I find Gary Zukav to be a most insightful and authentic Spiritual teacher, one whose truths seem to flow untethered from his soul to ours. Zukav gets right to the heart of our lives, pouring out an unbounded understanding of the nature of eternal life through the relationship of the sensory, material human with the luminous, spiritual being, the soul, that shares its body, guiding it until it’s time to slough it off and return to its celestial home.

In his book ‘Spiritual Partnerships’, the limited personality evolves into the limitless spiritual soul that is its true self:

“The new type of relationship separates religiosity and spirituality. Spirituality is not a matter of conforming to tradition, complying with commandments, implementing instructions or accepting the authority of others. It also does not have to do with buildings, ways of dressing, scriptures and holy writings.

“It does have to do with appreciating the holiness in everything, visible and invisible, and striving to live in this appreciation, forging a true, personal relationship with Spirit, while seeking the support of Spirit’s heavenly host, kindred spirits and the sages of the ages.

“We are evolving from 5-sensory humans into multisensory humans…

5 sensory individuals think I will believe it when I see it, while multisensory individuals think I will see it when I believe it.”

‘Doubting’ Thomas earned his nickname when he was told by other disciples that they had seen Jesus in the flesh after his crucifixion:

He replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”

“My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.

Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.” Jn. 20:26-29

“A 5-sensory human sees their life as a book with a beginning, middle and end. A multisensory human sees their life as a chapter in a book of many chapters. She knows that some of her experiences result from what happened in earlier chapters and that her decisions determine some of the things that will happen in later chapters.

“Aligning personality with soul – with harmony, cooperation, sharing and reverence for life – is becoming the new polestar by which we navigate thru our lives.”

We begin to see the soul as an immense, timeless being that each of has truncated many times to fit into incarnated personalities on Earth.

For me, Zukav’s masterpiece is ‘The Seat of the Soul’. Every page seems to sparkle with insights about the cosmos and the nature of the beings that inhabit it. His remarkable understanding of the eternal cycle of life and the inner workings of the soul and the afterlife leave the reader enrapt:

“The power to control the environment, and those within it, is power over what can be felt, smelled, tasted, heard or seen… external power. One person’s gain of external power is perceived as another’s loss. The result… is violence and destruction. All of our institutions – social economic political – reflect our understanding of power as external.

“The multisensory mode includes all the non-physical perceptions from our higher selves – intention, intuition, hunches, thoughts, dreams, imagination, Spiritual teachers and guides, and more.”

Once again, Einstein sensed it many decades ago, and described it like this: ‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.’

“Multisensory perception brings with it a new potential… the potential of authentic power. Authentic power is the alignment of the personality with the soul… it has its roots in the deepest source of our being… and is so strong, so empowered, that the idea of using force against another is not part of their consciousness.”

“The incarnation of a soul is a massive reduction of the power of the soul to

a scale that is appropriate to a physical form… a reduction of an immortal

life system into the framework of time and the span of a few years… the reduction of a perceptual system that partakes simultaneously, thru direct experience, of countless lifetimes, some of them physical and some non-physical, to the five senses.

“All of the energy of the soul does not incarnate. To incarnate, the soul creates a personality from those parts of itself that it wants to heal in the physical environment… So powerful is the energy of the soul that it could not advance into a physical form without, literally, exploding that form.”

“When the deepest part of you becomes engaged in what you are doing… when what you do serves both you and others… you are doing what you were meant to be doing. The personality that is engaged in the work of its soul is buoyant… It experiences purposefulness and meaning… It is fulfilled and fulfilling.”

“Think of what you are doing as entering into partnership with Divine Intelligence, in which you begin to share your concerns with the understanding that there is an intelligence receptive to what you are saying that helps you create within your own environment of matter and energy the most effective dynamics to bring you into wholeness. You do not need to think that you create alone, but rather that you are guided strongly in ways to help co-create in the most effective way for your healing and for the fulfillment of your contract.”

We are rooted to the earth by our senses but drawn to our Essence by the non-physical elements of our being, which lead us to the presence of our soul, aglow in the true essence of the Universe. As long as the five senses can keep us attached to the world of matter, the ego latches on like a bloodsucker, trying to bolster its hold on us by ‘staying the course,’ avoiding change and ‘new thought.’

Moving thru life in a haze, with all the rightly-labeled ‘baggage’ that we are born with or soak in from our early cultural milieu (read a well-grounded and compelling book entitled ‘Tattooed in the Cradle, by Lamont Satterly), on cruise control, convinced it’s a dog-eat-dog world, mostly just trying to get ahead, but afraid of the brevity of life and the illusion of both failure and success, we forget the reverence for life that Spirit breathed into us at birth.

Deepak’s take on this:

“Right now, you accept a fixed set of labels that define you: name, age, occupation etc… however, none of these labels is the true you... Now if you open yourself, you will be amazed at how thoroughly you have been defined by rigid beliefs and outdated conditioning… Everything new that comes your way ends up passing through a filtering process until it fits your likes and dislikes, social status, income, education level, etc. Spiritual experience is unfiltered; it comes directly and spontaneously.

“The five senses require you to pay attention to what is outside of you. Intuition requires the opposite - that you pay attention to what is happening inside of you... It is also using the higher form of reasoning. When you see that everyone you meet and everything that happens to you brings you lessons that are important for you to learn, you become grateful for everyone and everything.”

When we seek the truths of Spirit and Souls, we forge a new path, surrounded by kindred spirits, healers and overarching Divine love and support, by transcendent authors and teachers, by meditation, music and laughter, by contemplation and interaction with the awesomeness of nature herself, by the wondrous sights and sensations all around us.

A reverent person (from any religion or background) believes that all life is sacred, all souls divine. All currently earthbound for learning, expressing our talents, seeking our goals, loving, giving, healing. All divine. The true definition of a human being is simply… a physical personality joined by the current incarnation of a soul on Earth.

Zukav: “Reverence is a perception of the soul… Approaching life with reverence not only protects the soul from the karmic obligations that are created by personalities that do not honor life, but it is also a step toward moving the personality into alignment with the soul, because it brings an aspect of the soul directly into the physical environment.”

“Only thru responsible choice can you choose consciously to cultivate and nourish the needs of your soul, and to challenge and release the wants of your personality… It is the choice to follow the voice of your higher self, your soul. It is the decision to open yourself to the guidance and assistance of your guides and teachers. It is the path that leads consciously to authentic power.’

IMO, between any two people that have developed a warm relationship, a well-deserved hug is just sooo right, it overshadows even the best intentions of a thousands-year-old cultural pattern that no longer applies. Just saying.

I know, for instance, that many orthodox Jewish and Muslim women are forbidden from shaking hands with or touching unrelated men, let alone hugging. I get it. And I grok it and support it if they live and truly resonate with such traditions. I wish never to forget that each of us is the author and title character of a unique soul journey of many lifetimes, as so eloquently described by Gary Z, Deepak and many of the sages of the ages.

Still, this is 2021, and the world has shrunken to the size of a computer screen, so everyone has more, or less, access to how the world lives, even if their country or religion tries to stifle it.

We are all bombarded constantly by technology, by articles and videos from ‘experts’ and amateurs asserting their observations, opinions, ‘truths.’ They cycle through our internal databases, which are filled with our histories, our upbringings, preferences, our familial, cultural, religious imprints; sometimes, they influence or re-direct our mindset, sometimes not.

Every single day, we stay the same or make changes at every crossroad, new or familiar, and we look at new experiences and make decisions based on our most updated feelings for our ‘beingness’ and our paths.

The material world continually tries to pull us into its mesmerizing trap, shading us from the upward spiral of Spiritual seeking. I believe that when we release ourselves from this illusion, we join the upward spiral, and others will watch our arc and begin their own release.

I just want to see a world where every person, every day, is free to reflect on their traditions to see if they all still resonate and be allowed to make changes if they don’t. And (be able to) hug if that’s what they feel like doing. And if hugs aren’t available to some who crave them, it is clearly time to resist the authorities that ban them.

Deepak, speaking of growing up in India: “What was most magical in my childhood was transformation. Death itself was seen as a brief stopping point on an endless soul journey that could turn a peasant into a king and vice versa. With the possibility of infinite lifetimes extending forward and backward, the soul could experience hundreds of Heavens and Hells…

Hell, like every other location in consciousness, ultimately reflects the state of our own awareness, and freedom from hell is one, like every other achievement, coming closer to the reality of the soul.”

AN UPDATED TEN FROM SPIRIT

1. Love life, love God/Spirit in your own way, and let everyone else do it, if and as they choose, in their own way.

2. Love yourself. Forgive yourself and everyone who has ever wronged you. With earnest feeling. Every day. Pray for the forgiveness of all who you may ever have harmed. And the door opens to reverence for all life.

3. Affirm that we are all God’s children. With every person we meet, affirm it with ‘NAMASTE’… the divine in me honors the divine in you.

4. Know that there is always enough supply for all to prosper. Share your abundance. Be generous with your time, energy, money, resources, humor and Spirit.

5. Use your free will wisely. ‘Choose ye this day.’ Engage spirit, your angels, your teachers, in everything you do, or you will be buffeted by the winds of random persons and outside events.

6. Affirm and pray. Humbly. Leave behind ego and attachments. Ask life questions. Meditate. Go deep inside and listen. Spirit has much to reveal.

7. No characteristic – not nationality, religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, wealth, social position - defines us. We are defined by the depth of our Being and by our relationships together. Let us celebrate our differences, not fight over them.

8. Don’t steal covet kill hate hold a grudge or conspire to do evil. You know the drill. Just live it.

9. Choose to be a beacon of Spirit’s light and an instrument of Spirit’s peace.

10. Let love, ethics, truth and Spirit rule your heart. Make the laws of state worthy to rule your nation. Never confuse the two, nor impose one on the other.

The Dalai Lama, interviewed by Victor Chan in ‘The Wisdom of Forgiveness,’ gives us insights into the crucial matter of forgiveness. Despite the fact that the Chinese overran Tibet in 1959, brutalizing Monks and thousands of civilians, destroying temples and sending him into a lifelong exile, his forgiveness of them is total, and his demeanor towards everyone he meets is one of equanimity, joy and altruism. His mantra appears to be ‘forgiveness and emptiness’ (which really translates as interdependence.)

“In my own case, in Tibet, all the destruction, death, all happened. Painful experiences. But revenge… this creates more unhappiness. So, think wider perspective: revenge no good, so forgive.” When Victor asked him how he fostered forgiveness, the Dalai Lama continued, “First, according to my own experience, I think of others, including my so-called enemies. These people also human beings. They also have the same right to achieve happiness and avoid suffering… second, my future related with them, my interest related with their interest. For example: my country, my people, very much related with the Chinese. Our future very much depends on them. Taking care of them is ultimately taking care of ourselves.”

“Emptiness is just another way of saying that things are devoid of individual, inherent existence… nothing – people, thoughts, cars – can exist independently… interdependence, rather than independence, defines our lives and everything around us. None of us is an island. The world is a vast web of intertwined events, people and things.”

Victor mirrors succinctly: “Because everything is intertwined, there is no independence, therefore nothing exists in and of itself.”

(Paraphrasing) You must meditate on emptiness and experience it directly, or it is very difficult to eliminate one’s attachment to destructive emotions, like anger. With this experience comes more forgiveness, which frees up the meditator to experience the truths that Spirit wants to reveal. One develops greater wisdom. One cultivates compassion for all of life.

NAMASTE