knowing as you are known

"Where individuality ends, there God begins. God wants nothing more of you than for you to go out of yourself and all individuality and let God be God within. The most insignificant individual structure that takes form in you is as big as God. How is that? It completely obstructs God. Once the structure appears, God and all his Godhead disappear. Once the structure is transcended, God enters. . . He reveals himself in the soul in boundless wisdom, which is himself. . . " -- Meister Eckhart

Consider yourself as consciousness, as awareness. Open to your being as consciousness in process, changeable, ever-changing.

Consider that you have choice and that you choose what fills your consciousness -- now this, now that, now the other. As your attention shifts from here to there, and there to here, the consciousness that is you is transformed.

When you both will and allow yourself to be still, when you allow your attention to rest on one thing and one thing only, one simple focus (a flower, a cloud, a tree, a word, a sound), the consciousness that is you becomes clear and still and open.

This quiet stillness, this quiescence is as far as many meditative practices go. Our detached and unlimited will to know allows going further. When we drop all identification, knowledge and wisdom are revealed. We know and we are known.

We disappear. Only God, only the Godhead remains. This is grace, the grace of the One who breathes us. Unlimited comprehension opens.

the synthronizing of spirit and matter (part 6)

God is a circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere. And each of us is that center. Our center is a center of the universe of existence. Our center and our Source's center are the same center. This is synthronicity.

london bridge

One of the old Zen practices was to meditate in a graveyard and to even meditate upon or near a decaying corpse. We are doing the same but just won't admit it. The world is decaying around us and beneath our butts all the time (and always has been). It is not proper to mention it.

The myth is if we exercise more, eat the right foods, think the right thoughts, live in the right town, use the right deodorant, invest in the right schemes, we and the world around us will stay forever young -- "those who decay and die just don't have the right attitude. Thank God I'm not one of them!"

And I'm not just referring to our personal corpses we keep dragging around, I'm talking about the entire organic world -- our everyday reality. Haven't you noticed? It keeps needing shoring up. We live in a rotting corpse theme park and pretend that it's just not so.

Yes, yes, I know. We are supposed to look on the bright side. Well, that IS the bright side. It is reality. This world is always falling down all around us. Have you not noticed the dust, the perpetual dust on your furniture? Even the most obsessive-compulsive of us can do no more than keep putting lipstick on the corpse.

Meantime, flowers grow out of the compost. And make more compost. For more flowers. Decaying ones. "And the painted ponies go up and down."

the synthronization of spirit and matter (part 5)

Pantheism says that the Source is in all thiings and forgets to add that all things are in the Source. Pantheism emphasizes the manifest and forgets the transcendent.

Panentheism says both the manifest and transcendent occur simultaneously. We are the Source manifesting in and as these formings, wave-ings of a Vast Ocean that knows no bounds. The Ocean is us but we are not the Ocean.

Panentheism points to the synthronization of spirit and matter.

maker

I used the term "Maker" in my last post. I know some of you don't believe in a Maker, but instead that all things arose out of some kind of spontaneous combustion of chaotic nothingness. Fine by me that you believe that. But it reminds me of that old joke where the scientific researchers scraped together a bunch of dirt and created a human. They told God they were as good as he was and they didn't need him around anymore. "Hmmm . . ." says God. "Not so fast, boys and girls. Nice try, but next time get your own dirt!"

The eye cannot see itself. A tooth cannot bite itself. A hand cannot grasp itself. Logic cannot logos itself.

no one dancing in the streets

The universe is embodying as us!

Jesus called it I-and-my-father-are-one!

Teilhard de Chardin, that wild-man Jesuit priest, paleontologist, chemist, physicist, botanist, zoologist, geologist, and theologian-philosopher called it a cosmic process of personalization.

Raimundo Panikkar calls it cosmotheandric.

I call it embodying Spirit.

Our part in this is to provide this I-Father-oneness, this cosmic process of personalization, his cosmotheandrism, this embodying of Spirit with room, ditching our self-made bounds.

Why this is not front-page news and on every blog and facebook and tweeting twitter I do not know. Nor is it taught in kindergarten or universities.

The universe is embodying as us!

We are the universe embodying!

The Source is embodying as us! We are the Source embodying!

We don't get it, do we?
Sighhhh....
Do you know why I know we don't get it?
I see no one dancing in the streets.

"Too many human beings are too well adjusted; they accept the world exactly as they find it and their act of living is an act of mimimum adjustment. They feel no interest in the possibilities of the universe." -- Colin Wilson, Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs

reflections on Christ-consciousness

Eternal birth takes place within us eternally. Christ-consciousness is the eternal birthing as well as the awareness of the eternal birthing. Christ-consciousness is not consciousness (awareness) of Christ out there somewhere, but is having the same consciousness as Christ. This has very little to do with being a christian. It is about being a Christ.

"Put on the whole armor of God" is superseded by "become Christ consciousness." David threw away Saul's armor and wore his everyday clothes in dealing with the exigencies of life. When in Christ-consciousness, we wear no armor. We are clothed in and are radiant awareness, awareness radiating in all directions, nothing excluded, open to continuous transformation. Eternal birth is taking place within us and as us eternally.

Dualistic consciousness is consciousness in and of opposition. This is opposed to that, thus each is defined, defined by opposition. Dualistic consciousness is an oppositional world. This is the normal everyday consciousness of many, if not most folk on earth today.

Nondualistic consciousness transcends opposition. The sage walks undisturbed because neither the horn of the wild ox nor the claw of the tiger can find an entry point. Jesus wore a seamless robe.

Nondualistic consciousness is Christ consciousness: nondualistic consciousness incarnate (embodying as meat). As meat, we open to nondualistic awareness. To that extent, we are in-carne-ations of God.

"God completely gives himself to all with all that he is. For it would be foolish to rely on and expect only half a communication from God." -- Meister Eckhart

the unfolding of the cosmos

Each of us plays a part in the unfolding of the Cosmos. Each of us is a radiant sphere of energy, a vibrational field extending outward in all directions.

The quality of the energetic field, the vibrational sphere that we are, depends upon whether, at any given moment, we are centering or off-center. When off-center, we radiate influences of despair and confusion. When centering, we vibrate coherently with the Cosmos and the process of its evolutionary unfolding.

Just as a cell in the body cannot quite grasp the enormity of the consequences of its resonance or dissonance in its functioning, nor quite grasp a vision of the body it is helping produce, neither can we grasp the enormity and the magnificence of the cosmic unfolding in which we are blessed to play a part.

As we go, so goes the Cosmos. Our Source is mysterious in the birthing of Itself and we are both midwives and that which is being born.

what if

What if we proceeded from the point of view that the Origin, the Source did not deliberately and magically assume the form of Jesus and walk around looking at Judea and Samaria and saying hello? What if we proceeded from the point of view that Jesus was of more advanced consciousness, of greater awareness than other humans of his time, a harbinger of forthcoming states of consciousness that would someday be considered the norm? What if Jesus is a trailblazer of what Panikkar has called the cosmotheandric (and what I call coherent) consciousness state? What if the consciousness state of Jesus is being replicated on earth today? What if some humans on earth today feel and know they are direct manifestings of the Source? What if some humans feel and know they are in direct energetic relationship with all life? What if this energetic relationship, this infinite interwhirling is called Love?

heaven rollers

Why are we humans so screwed up? Various religions, philosophies, and psychologies have cumulatively provided us with generic answers: (1) the absence of love, (2) the presence of greed, stupor, and hostility. I add a third: blind spot. Just as we have a blind spot in our physical vision, so we are a blind spot in our cosmic vision.

Does the sun see itself? I think not. If it did, it would have to wear shades. And if it wore shades, it still would not see itself as it is, in all its glory.

We are like suns. We radiate energy outward in all directions. At odd intervals, we have flashes and inhibitions of energy (solar flares conjoined with sun spots) which affect and disrupt all communication channels around us and within us.

Often when we are so disruptive, we perceive ourselves as being brilliant. We consume ourselves with ourselves. The flash of brilliance that we are is a blind spot. We see only what is illuminated by our flashing.

There is an inverse flashing too. Just as a nerve fires and then moves into a corresponding inhibition, so do we have both extra (outer) and intra (inner) flashes. What flashes outward has its shadow flash deep inside. We experience both, ranging in all the gradations from manic brilliance to despairing darkness. Both types of flashes render us blind. Consumed by our own brilliance. Consumed by our own despair.

Like "that lucky old sun who has nothing to do but roll around heaven all day," so do we roll around our heaven. But also, like the sun, we flash brilliance and despair. Blind spots.

"the full power that I exert"

"Everywhere else in the universe the hosts of being-times in water and on earth are now immediately manifesting themselves in the full power that I exert." (Dogen)

My interpretation of this sentence from Dogen is that when I am immediately and fully present and alive (exerting full power) that all life in and of the universe comes pouring through me and as me. In other words (Panikkar's), we are "cosmotheandric" (cosmos-theos-andros: universe-divine-human), or in my term for it, coherent.

All healers know that personal energy might radiate for a while (at costs to the radiator), but it eventually fizzles out, while universal energy sustains itself with lively calm. This is why some masseuses, nurses, counselors, psychologists, and other healers of various disciplines can see many folk back-to-back daily and come out singing.

"All the universe is one bright pearl." (Hsuan-sha)

condensationing

We are condensations of a living universe. More accurately, condensationings, since the process is ongoing. This is not a belief. This is an experience, an experiencing.

As such, we are not separate from that which births us and is birthing us. We are ongoing condensings of a living universe. We are citizens of the cosmos.

What more do you want? Life insurance?

harakido

In Japan, the arts are called do, the Japanese version of tao, or way. An art that one follows is not just a class that one takes, but is regarded as a way, a path, an opening to the mysteries of life. (Do is pronounced "dough.")

Each do is not something you do, as if it is somewhat removed from the "real" you, but is a way of life. What one learns in the dojo (training hall), one applies in all realms of life, in daily existence.

Though I have trained in some of the martial do's (primarily karatedo and judo) and follow the way of the warrior (budo), my primary practice has been and is harakido. Hara (centering). Ki (universal energy). Do (way or path).

Hara-ki-do: the way of centering while opening to universal energy. Condensing while expanding. At all times. Everywhere. No matter where. No matter what. Centering while opening. All of life is one's training hall.

This practice automatically makes one a cosmic citizen. Sensitive and aware while unmoved. Moving while immovable. Highly energized while calm. The inner infinity and the outer infinity are one.

This is the art I practice. This is my do, my path, my way. Harakido.

when just here

When just here, you are everywhere. There is no place outside of here. Infinity has no meaning, yet is real. When just here.

No 360 degree awareness, some say. Pah! I refute. When I refute, they are right. When I neither refute nor not refute, no right exists. Awareness blazes. 360 degrees.

When just here, I am everywhere. Here is no I. This is the prime reality on which all reflective realities are based. We reflect on prime reality and create entire worlds. We take these reflections as real and live out their melodrama. Masked charades.

When just here, all that disappears. Poof! But we love it, are addicted to it. Narcissistic obsessive-compulsive reflectionists. But don't take that label too seriously. I was merely reflecting.

radiant universes

What is my theme? What theme has me?

We are birthing a change in consciousness. We are awakening to our place in the Cosmos, no longer living in the consciousness state of Hell below and Heaven above, moving beyond the newly acquired consciousness state of ourselves as planetary beings, into the awareness that we are citizens of the Cosmos, denizens of the Deep, radiant universes amongst all other Cosmic life.

No longer living in the future or the past, or as societal members scrabbling for a living, or as penitent beings of abject shame before a Mighty Judgment, or as fretful worriers seeking security and control, or as any of the other 10,000 ways we have found in our alienated separation, we claim our birthright: radiant universes in a multiplicity of universes, firmly centered and centering in our living core, while opening without barrier or hesitation to all other life. Cosmic citizens.

shaping existence

Why is what we think so important? Because we think who we are, we think ourselves into existence. "Into" because existence is already here, primary, a given. Our thinking shapes existence into the patterns our thinking demands.

You are who you are because you think you are that way. All sensations and experiences are shaped by your thought patterns, your thought system, into you. You stay the same because you keep thinking the same.

To be different requires thinking differently. For ourselves and our world situation to be different, we must think differently about the world and who we are.

radiant openness

Long ago we separated ourselves from all that is and became individuals. Fine. Not to be tossed away even if we could. And yet, that separation has brought us to here, to our current situation.

We need a change of consciousness. Somewhere in between "I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul" and "Jesus loves me, this I know."

Not ecological consciousness, which is necessary, but is simply a reaction to predatory consciousness. Nor a "new age" consciousness where we sing and sway in harmony. Nor a teleological consciousness where we know that someday in the future, we will reach the Omega Point and all will be resolved.

All of those consciousnesses (and others) are dualistic in nature, where we are looking to save our butts and the butts of our children's children by doing some thing to all this or hoping that some thing will happen to resolve all this.

Not enough. We need a radical shift in consciousness, a shift out of dualistic mode. Our womb of interwoven beliefs has become a tomb.

We need a coming out party, a birthing into a consciousness where we are not looking for solutions, but where we are solutions. Radiant openness. Cosmic citizens with feet planted firmly on earth.

subservations

In our cogno-spiritual domain, until we observe something, it does not exist. As soon as we observe it, we are in interaction with it. It is "contaminated" by our presence and thus changes any state of its original purity.

We are in relationship with everything we observe. All our object-ive observations are highly subject-ive. We are in a perpetual dance. We are that dance.

As in-divide-uals, we are faced with paradox. We know we did not create ourselves. Yet we are creators. We did not create our Origin and yet we create our Origin. As soon as we focus on our Origin, through observation, we begin creating our Origin in our own image and imagery. We are in relationship (dance) with our Origin, but we cannot observe our Origin.

Varying individuals and clusters of individuals have varying conceptions of our Origin and all are inaccurate approximations; approximations based upon each cluster's observations or, should we say, subservations. The Origin can be danced with but not observed. All observations are subservations, subserving our own cogno-spiritual realms.

We co-create our Origin in our own imagery and our imagery has sprung, is springing, from the Origin. A vital circle. This is why I laugh so much. Pure joy at the irony and the humor of it all. But then again, that is just my subservation.

"I object, your Honor!"

"No, you don't. You subject! You just think you object."