The Present Moment

The present moment is all we need, and it is all we have. The clear and profound wonder of spiritual realization, achieved through meditative awareness, is that, by wasting away our lives in front of the television, drinking beer and generally not achieving anything or connecting to anyone, we have missed nothing. It is never too late because the openness that we touch in the present moment never dissipates and never ceases to be available. We never lose potential for ultimate awareness and cosmic consciousness - pure bliss is an integral part of our makeup and it is only found in the present moment. The fact that we never made a million dollars and never became famous doing what we love has no effect on our capacity for happiness. Of course we must begin to work with the conditions of our lives when we become aware of them in order to bring balance and synchronicity to our existence, but this is all relative in light of the simplicity and workability of the present moment.

 

The Pope

The recent Pope Benedict XVI statement regarding the Catholic Church as the only true path to salvation is a gift to those of us yearning for a conversation about developmental perspective and its impact on the evolution of our civilization.  His assertions are provoking strong reactions from those who disagree, but he is merely articulating the foundational world view of most of the people on the planet; my gal is red hot - your gal ain't doodley squat.

This conversation is so important because the future of our civilization depends largely on this developmental step from one of traditional, ethnocentric morality to one of modern, worldcentric morality.  This of course is not the end game, but a critical milestone in the ascending spiritual and moral ladder.  It will be a while before the majority of people are openly recognizing their nondual nature and walking up to each other saying, "You and I are not separate - I am you". 

So while we are a long way from abandoning military force as a control mechanism, we are a small half-step from considering the needs of all people on the planet when designing our foreign policy.  We can hear, in the voices of our so called enemies, rivals and neighbors, the universal cry for freedom and justice.  We can take responsibility for the state of the world and rise to the occasion, which demands a more mature perspective - one that we have all been taught or at least witnessed - one that does not blame or justify, but rather takes responsible action to repair the harm done and restore fundamental dignity to the human condition.

Death 

Contrary to popular belief, Death is not the bad guy that he has been made out to be.  The bad wrap that that has befallen the Sovereign of Snooze is directly related to the irrational fear that is associated with him (masculine pronoun used strictly for literary ease - no offense intended to those who believe that Death could just as easily be feminine).  Even though an overwhelming majority of people believe in heaven or some variation thereof, fear of ones own death and that of loved ones is equally strong.  Are we really so attached to our ego that we would choose a prolonged engagement with the pettiness and inherent suffering of daily living over the paradise of the Kingdom of God, or is it that we really just want there to be a heaven more than we truly believe there is one, or is it simply that we are attached to living? 

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is among us, which implies to me that, assuming the New Testament scriptures hold some insight into mystical wisdom, we do not need to die to experience or reside in heaven.  Heaven is not another far off place to go when we die so much as it is this place here now - implying that we have our cake and it is also capable of being eaten.  Heaven and cake too - that works for me, but we have forgotten about our friend - death and its inevitability - we ultimately must die to our egos and our bodies.  So, death becomes the ultimate test of our faith - it's a put up or shut up kind of deal - the ultimate strait-faced bluff.  Its inevitability is also a compelling invitation to discard the ego for a self that is a little more humble, a little more connected and a little more content.

Cats

This one is a stretch for me, but our cat, Rosie, recently bestowed on me a great lesson. To be honest, I am not a big fan of cats. I know that to many people, apparently of Egyptian decent, they represent a powerful spiritual presence, protective, loving and majestically independent. I recognize the truth of this, but my cat was put in my home, against my wishes, to test my patience and my ability to learn from a presence for which I have nothing but contempt. The trials are numerous. She unexpectedly runs under my feet as I walk, starts in on my dinner if I simply turn around, and jumps on my head while I am sleeping, and that’s just to start – there is no doubt that she is trying to tell me something, but I seldom listen.

Yet, when I least expected it, she exposed a profound truth to me. I can be indifferent, forget to feed her, squirt her in the face with water, and hide the human food in drawers, but minutes later, she shows up to my lap with the most forgiving unconditional love. A teacher of mine used to say that we can do this very thing with each other. We can recognize that we are not the same person we were yesterday, or five minutes ago for that matter, and regard others with fresh eyes, unencumbered by our own projections and bias, every time we encounter them. We can also do this with ourselves – we can allow ourselves to be free, awake and happy in this moment.

 

Soul Music

The thing about the soul is that it is not really a thing. It is more like a groove. If we look at soul music, we will start to derive a much more useful notion of soul than if we consider it to be some 21-gram flammable mist ball floating around in our bodies. To me, the soul is like a bullshit barometer; when it is influenced by expanded, authentic, unconditional love, it has a moving, enlightening, creative influence on everyone and everything around it, but when it is influenced by a contracted, grasping ego, it is flat and unimaginative. This explains why when I hear an old Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding song on the radio, I suddenly become infused with rhythm and a James Brown like ability to synchronize my body/mind with the creative life force that gave birth to this whole thing.

 

Psychological Trauma 

We enter this world through probably the greatest psycho-trauma of our lives. The most unwarranted violation of our personal rights occurs when we are snatched, one way or another, from the euphoric bliss of our mother's womb. What's so good about that you ask? Well, it is this trauma and all that follow that open potential doorways to the mystery of divine spirit manifest in human form. Always, just below our most painful core wounds, the holes of despair, and injuries to the heart and soul, lies the open space of our original face.  And we are in the unique position to see, with God's eyes, and know, with a bruised and tender heart, the precious, vulnerable nature of this life.

Babies 

Babies are awesome. If you see a baby and don't swoon over it than you have obviously had some terrible dark thing done to you in your childhood that you have completely repressed. Psychological trauma is there to be dealt with. If you see a baby and act indifferently, then get some help now.

Needs

His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said that compassion is the vehicle for enlightenment, or something to that effect.  He also said that one must develop empathy primarily in order to develop compassion.  This is starting to sound like six degrees of separation, and like I'm going to equate refried beans (which have great value by the way - lots of protein) to enlightened consciousness.  However tempted I am to attempt such a correlation, I am pointing to something much more ethereal and difficult to grasp. 

Empathy and compassion are generally thought of as tools for relating to others, but it is the degree to which we can develop empathy and compassion for ourselves that determines our ability to connect with others, and it is universal human needs that evoke the call for empathy and compassion.  Now I can say the thing that I have been pining to say - human needs are the doorway to enlightenment.  Siddhartha Gautama developed his awareness meditation around the deep seated need to end suffering for all beings.  The intention to end suffering might be interpreted, in a more positive expression, as a need for peace.  If, when in the midst of suffering, I close my eyes and concentrate on the living energy of the essential quality of peace (my need at the time) as it manifests in my body, the energy that originally appeared as suffering is soon transmuted into the light and joy that accompanies the need for peace being met.  And it happens in a matter of minutes without a vacation to Bermuda, where my plane would probably have been obliterated by fanatic aliens jealous of my fancy clothes and sophisticated communication techniques. 

The conclusion that arises from this pastiche is the one that occurs to me every time I assert the enlightened quality of beans - that the practice of connecting with the life force energy (prana, chi) of universal needs more than blurs the duality between us as a community of human beings, it reveals our true nature as a joyful, loving, dancing, quesadilla.

Inspired in part by NVC workshop presented by Robert Gonzalez & Susan Skye.