Meet Soul, Karma & Ego

Unless we are meant to die within the next second, both the moment we are looking forward to –  as well as the moment we fear – inevitably happen with our next breath to become the present moment – the only moment that is truly ours to shape from the inside/out by the manner in which we will respond to it.

Put simply, if we are willing to practice being present in the moment through an *active* acceptance of the *crap* that is in our present reality – if we learn to accept it as the current karmic test of our spiritual commitment to OUR selves, then we are on our way to actively practice a genuine form of spirituality- the only form that IS karma amending.

“People like to be in a crowded herd and follow the tail in front of them,” said today a good friend of mine.

True/False?

Whaddaya think?

In spite of many entries explaining what it really means to BE in the moment, I forgot to mention the obvious – the main reason why  learning to BE Awake and Aware and of our own energy in any given moment is essential for the one interested in genuine spirituality.

We do not see for looking.

We do not SEE the many flags waved at us and, sure enough, we soon get another

opportunity to say, “What the …” for it is only by looking through our soul’s eyes –

from an elevated position – that we can create meaning out of our life’s landscape.

Messages – in the form of signs and symbols, names and thousands of words and

images – swirl around each and every one of us, all of the time, in our wakeful

moments and in our sleep.

Because these signs are not dramatic signs such as apparitions or strange

manifestations; because we, as a civilization, have lost the ability to recognize them,

they remain unnoticed.

And the first things to do in order to begin noticing such *soulful* messages in to stop multitasking and to stop the monkey chatter that creates static in our thoughts and, of course to be Awake and Aware enough to actually NOTICE that’s AROUND us – instead of only noticing what’s a few inches or meters ahead in our line of vision.

As a way to introduce the simple but pervasive nature of symbols in our day-to-day

lives, I will recount a moment shared by Jayne, a cyber friend of mine.

Weeks and weeks earlier, I had recommended to this young woman that she find a

copy of Elizabeth Haich’s book, “Initiation”. Unable to find a copy locally, she spotted

the book’s listing on Amazon.com and, as she said, she could have ordered the book

there and then. Because she was in the process of moving and could not be sure of

the delivery date, she didn’t.

Then, many weeks later while out to meet with a real estate agent to view what

would soon become her new house, Jayne arrived early and whiled the time away in

a café. Opposite this café, she spotted an old second-hand bookstore, so she

wandered across to have a look with, she said, “Elizabeth Haich’s book specifically

in mind”.

As Jayne walked through the door, she found herself in a small room divided down

the middle by a bookshelf. She looked at the books nearest her.

“Lo and behold, it was the spiritual section,” she said, “and I scanned the shelves for

the white spine of the cover I had seen on Amazon and BAM – literally in under one

minute after I had entered the shop, I was pulling a copy of “Initiation” from the

shelves.” Perhaps tongue in cheek, Jayne added, “I took that as a sign that we had

indeed found the right house in the right area etc.”

This lovely story indicates how Karma works: nothing *timely* can move forward or

be cracked open until we are ready to make a time and space for it. We can only do

that by being aware of the small and deceptively innocuous moments that present themselves under our feet.

If we blink or blank out a second too long, we’ve missed out.

Here is a little ditty loosely inspired by the legend of Pandora’s Box.

Deepwater Pandora Cracked Open 5, 000 ft below sea level

The modern-day Curse of Pandora's box

The admonishment “Work with the heat of the sun, harness the energy of the wind, but what is below must stay below or a curse shall be put on your head and on that of all who come from you” could well have been spoken by Zeus if Hermes, back in 2001, had brought him news of the completion of the oil drilling platform, Deepwater Horizon. “For should you crack open Deepwater Pandora, a fire storm shall chase after gasses. Your generation’s greed shall be reflected in the sea and in the river. Orange under the light of the sun and orange under the mirror of the moon, they shall be. Chaos shall follow. Rain of oil will water your crops. Your birds and all that flies shall lose their wings. All that crawls shall suffocate. Alliances shall be broken. Brother shall come against brother. Harvesters of the sea shall fight and die to fill their nets. Clans shall know hunger and pain. Your most powerful leaders shall scurry like ants in a tormented nest. Mud shall be your only weapon for how dare you plunder what is below!”

Gratitude for what *we* have is great, absolutely, but isn’t it true that, even on a good day, most of what we do and think is about Me and Mine vs Them and Theirs?

Though we are but souls disguised as humans, the notion of our separateness from others permeates most of what we do and think. It is visceral.

Not only do we separate ourselves from the other, a stranger, but we often separate ourselves from our *loved* ones, too, when they go on pushing the wrong buttons for too long.

It’s not our fault – really it’s not.

This way of thinking has been passed on to us through the millennia and, tragically, it would appear that this patterned thinking is perpetual. And the more I read, the more I think and the more I believe that it is this way of thinking above all other that keeps true happiness on the threshold of our homes and of our hearts.

Unlike the caterpillar, we don’t metamorphose. Not unless we commit to an active path towards personal evolution – one that dictates a change, not through chants, crystals and visualization, but from rethinking thinking, rethinking what love is and doing our darnedest to generate it from the inside/out.

Here’s me thinking that all religions look after the ritual part in Spiritual very nicely but – question: what  looks after the spirit part of …Spiritual?

Dalai Lama in NY– why pay some US$400 to hear him speak when what he says is no diff from what any spiritual/religious person would say?

Don’t our *genuine* local parish priest, our local rabbi, or our local iman talk about tolerance, forgiveness and acceptance – and humility?

Surely, he does not need them for reassurance, so why does the DL need to be surrounded on stage by 200 monks?

I imagine that maintaining such a retinue on the road would eat in a few 1000s of donated dollars.

Would it be fitting for Obama or any other *luminary* to come on stage accompanied by such a cohort of their own people? I wasn’t there myself, so were these monks the entertainment factor? Did they chant and dance? Uh … do monks dance?

Why are we, in the West, so mesmerized by the DL?

In spite of a lifetime of hand shaking with a myriad of presidents and CEOs and crisscrossing the globe to fundraise for the Tibetan cause, what has he achieved besides inspire a few thousands of devoted converts in the West and 100s fo honorary conferments and major awards?

If charity starts and home, as the saying goes, I believe so does *enlightenment*.

Are the run-of-the-mill monks and Tibetans in the Kangra valley, around Dharamshala, more genuinely deep down caring, deep down accepting of their karma and enjoying inner peace, deep down in the moment, deep down forgiving of the Chinese, deep down more altruistic than any other people?

If not, then shouldn’t the Dalai lama stay home and enlighten his people first?

Dear Reader, all these are honest questions and I would love to hear back from you – in peace – deep down

Leverkühnm, the syphilis-crazed, artist character in Thomas Mann’s novel, Doctor Faustus, ends up being visited by a very clever devil who, in effect, says something to the fact that though Leverkühnm can only see *him/it* because he is mad, does not mean that he/it does not really exist.

Cool, and that made me think of Soul.

It made me think that, though only some rare individuals do see or feel their soul because they are enlightened and realized, the fact that our most eminent scientists have not yet succeeded in grabbing a snapshot of her energy does not mean that Soul doesn’t exist in a very real energetic way – right smack in the middle of each of our chests.

Now, THAT’s a cool thought, no?

Here is a nice tale related to wooden statues of Buddha.

It’s about a Zen master who arrived, one stormy night, to a deserted temple.

The rain had been coming down heavily all day long and it was very cold as well.

The Zen master walked up to a wooden statue of the Buddha, paced in front of it for a few seconds. Then, he suddenly hefted it in a great bear hug and rolled it into the fire.

While warming his hand by the flames, he grinned: “Finally some concrete usefulness has come out of you!”

Great teachers have always known that objects, even objects of worship, are purely symbolic and have no spiritual value in their own right.

So bottom line: if you really must buy yourself a Buddha, do pick a wooden one. It might prove more useful than a cement or clay statue.