Joseph Campbell's Labyrinth of Life

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There is a pattern in life that goes like this:  if we are confronted with a problem, want to know ourselves, or are looking for particular meaning in life – and we take this into the contemplative space, hold the question in our mind, dwell on it before sleep each night – however we ask and continue to ask in silence - the answers to our questions will eventually come to us.  This pattern is age old, found in ancient texts such as the bible “ask and ye shall receive, knock and the door shall be opened to you,” Luke 11:9

"We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us - the labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

I find these answers can come from anywhere, and often the most unexpected places: a spam email, a Facebook post, a passing remark from a stranger, and intimate disclosure from a loved one.  Whatever the source, the act of recognizing the answers we are given is recognition of enduring fulfillment.  We are recognizing spirit in action, energy in motion, Divine Action.  It can all occur in silence within us, or be expressed in creativity, but it is always the realization of the inner you.  And in this kind of heroic discovery you find that this inner you in fact is what governs your outer you.

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Cindy Hesse.  Many thanks.

The Rebel in YOU

"People are afraid, very much afraid of those who know themselves. They have a certain power, a certain aura and a certain magnetism, a charisma that can take out alive, young people from the traditional imprisonment....

The enlightened man cannot be enslaved - that is the difficulty - and he cannot be imprisoned.... Every genius who has known something of the inner is bound to be a little difficult to be absorbed; he is going to be an upsetting force. The masses don't want to be disturbed, even though they may be in misery; they are in misery, but they are accustomed to the misery. And anybody who is not miserable looks like a stranger.

The enlightened man is the greatest stranger in the world; he does not seem to belong to anybody. No organization confines him, no community, no society, no nation." -- Osho The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself Chapter 9

Have you known rebels that make you uncomfortable? Is there a rebel in you that makes others uncomfortable? Is the rebel in you able to break barriers (especially internal?) With what results?

What do YOU think?

What Unites Us is Greater than What Divides Us

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There is a phrase that I think is important, but is overused and well on its way to becoming a cliché and that is: “What unites us is greater than what divides us!”  President John F. Kennedy used it in his 1961 address to Canadian Parliament: “Geography has made us neighbors.  History has made us friends.  Economics has made us partners.  And necessity has made us allies.  Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.  What unites us is far greater than what divides us."

The current US President, Barack Obama also used the idea in his speech this past Martin Luther King Junior Day: “through times of great challenge and great change, we have remembered that fundamental American truth - that what unites us is always more powerful than what divides us.”

But the idea is not strictly American, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon has recently used it in two different speeches.  First, in April of 2009, in his address to the Alliance of Civilizations forum in Istanbul, “What unites is so powerful it could easily overcome what divides us.”  Next, in November of 2009 in his speech to the Summit of Religious and Secular Leaders on Climate Change in London, “We are united by the belief that what unites us as human beings is stronger than what divides us.”  

What is it that unites us all?  Is it greater than what divides us?  What do YOU think?

Artwork by Cindy Hesse.  Many thanks.

The Necessity of Doubt

Doubt is the subjective condition that belongs to mind which judges the facts, where the mind is suspended between two or more propositions and is not able to assent to any of them.  Is doubt necessary to our attainment of knowledge and aspiration to a higher consciousness?  Or is it a limitation to these, leaving us in mistrust, suspicion or uncertainty and without belief?  Is doubt necessary?  Does it exclude faith?

Aristotle believed doubt to be preliminary to philosophical inquiry and the only means by which the necessary removal of prejudice may be effected.  Bacon believed that the scholastic proof of a proposition or thesis begins by the statement of doubts or contrary arguments.

Thomas Huxley gave the name agnosticism to the state: “of being strictly doubtful towards all that lies beyond sense-experience.”  Pragmatism regards all reality as doubtful, and truth as perpetually changing with the progress of human thought.

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Jayne Edwards   Many Thanks

Morality as Harmonic Chord

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" or the golden rule, can be found with
slight variations throughout philosophy and religion, here are a few:

Judaism: “…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”, Leviticus 19:18

Islam: “None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” Number 13 of Imam “Al-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths.”

Native American Spirituality: “All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.” Black Elk

Shinto: “The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form”

Confucianism: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” Analects 15:23

Why is this important? Why is morality essential to the fabric of our lives? It prescribes consistency and allows our actions to be in harmony with our desires. It provides an internal compass that we can use to navigate society. How we apply the golden rule, or how we are able to treat others the way we ourselves would like to be treated, tests our moral coherence.

What do YOU think?

The Keyless Entry of Self Image

Self-image is the personal view we have of ourselves. It is our mental image or self portrait. Self-image is an internal dictionary that describes the characteristics of the self, including concepts like intelligence, beauty, kindness, selfishness or insensitivity. These characteristics form a collective representation of our assets and liabilities as we see them. Relationships reinforce what we think and feel about ourselves. Self-image is important because how we think about ourselves directly affects how we feel about ourselves and how we respond to life.

How we think and feel about ourselves influences the way we react or respond to life stressors. A hopeless self-image can lead to suicide. Self-image possessing body strength and health can lead to wellness. A loving self-image can lead to a life full of loving relationships. An angry self-image can lead to a life of isolation. A fearful self-image can lead to a life of suffering. In these ways, self-image can determine the quality of our relationships with others.

How we imagine ourselves to be can be different from how we witness ourselves to be, but ultimately the two will become the same if our desire to be as we imagine is unwavering. Depending on the beliefs we gather throughout our life, our self-image can bring us success and happiness, or, on the other hand, failure and misery. But this image can change, if we start questioning our beliefs about our selves and our lives. When our belief system falls apart, we are ready to receive a greater truth, and resurrect belief, born anew with possibility.

What do YOU think?

The Dance of Truth and Fact

Is there a difference between something factual and something true? If so, what? How do you decide whether or not something is true?

Artwork by Cindy Hesse. Many thanks.

Life Within the Paradox is Non Dual

"Not effort or
the absence of effort,
neither choice nor the impossibility of choice,
neither self nor not self,
neither nothing nor something,
neither emptiness nor form,
neither unborn nor born,
the third thing..." - John Astin

The embrace of third alternative does not blot out any part of reality, or substitute it with a new shiny version - it very simply completes the picture. Nothing seems wrong anymore. When we are presented by the two opposites in a story, no longer do either of them scare or titillate us quite as much, as we naturally choose the third alternative.

The third alternative has its own flavor - it tastes like wholeness, and smells of paradox. It is a dimension of being that holds all paradox snugly in its unicity. It is not the solution to all our problems, we find out, but the inclusion of all our problems into that greater wholeness. This third alternative, according to Dr. John Astin, is non dual reality.

It is nothing you can take hold of conceptually, and it's not any particular experience (as opposed to any other experience). It is the awaring presence, the beingness, the IS-ness of this moment -- this that is undeniably present beyond all doubt, requiring no proof or belief, impossible to deny -- before and after and even during all the grasping and searching and experience-mongering. The words (presence, beingness, awareness, IS-ness) are only pointers. What they point to is nothing you can get hold of as an object. What is, is thorough-going flux, and yet it is always right here, right now. This awaring presence (or emptiness, or no-thing-ness) is pure subjectivity, your true nature. This is all there really is.

From here, there is no inside/outside, you/me, right/wrong distinction, there is only unity and perfection of all there is. Everything that comes into our experience leads us here, and from here, the beginning is the end which is the flow. Is this possible? Can we live from here?

What do YOU think?

The Truth of the Matter IS

What is truth? How do we find truth? If we find it, can we communicate it?

According to Plato: When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence. (Plato, Republic)

To Spinoza, ultimate truth is the ultimate reality of a rationally ordered system that is God. To Hegel, truth is a rationally integrated system in which everything is contained. To Einstein, the truth of the Universe is human truth.

Modern day philosopher, Ken Wilber, believes that there is a nondual, absolute truth, that can only be accessed by Satori, and a relative or conventional truth, that is formed by our place in the nested hierarchy of being (each higher of which includes the ones beneath it, creating a series of nested holons.) Each holon has its own validity claim, its own relative partial, but still totally authentic truth. Because as a group, we are in different levels of awareness, or different holons in the great nest, we have different relative truths.

According to Wilber, the absolute is known only by a direct realization involving a transformation in consciousness (satori, sahaj, metanoia), and "what" is seen in satori cannot be stated in ordinary dualistic words, other than metaphors, poetry, and hints (if you want to know God, you must awaken, not merely theorize).

What do YOU think?