Enlightenment in the City

 Years ago, when I first began pondering the possibility of enlightenment, I pledged myself that, if there were such a state, I would find it in the city. The biblical notion of hearing God's voice in the desert seemed too easy for me way back then, as did the idea that one needed to seclude oneself in a cave high up in the Himalayas, His voice better to hear. “Any prophet or messiah could do that;” I told myself, but how many stories told of an awakened master who had gained enlightenment in the city midst the loud noises and sensual temptations it had to offer?

This then was my wish.

Well, that was eons ago, and enlightenment is still at bay. I am now ready to renounce my pledge and go wherever necessary to see the Light.

And the gods answered, “Enlightenment is dependent on time or place. It is a state of mind, a recognition of that which always is. It is not something you can become as you already are it.”

Which is to say, I am stuck in the city and the search continues as ever.

This is good because I really can’t afford to travel to the desert or the high peaks of the Himalayas.

 

Conversion Therapy?

 

Imagine, if you will, that you were born gay. (Which I was!) There was never a doubt in your mind as to your sexuality whether you ever had sex or not. In times of poverty or stress, you knew you were gay. Old or young, you knew. Alone or in a crowd, there was no doubt in your mind.

Stretch your imagination a bit further and pretend someone hooked you on conversion therapy. (I know it’s a ridiculous notion, but this is all just make-believe.)

If you made it this far, assume you passed the course with flying colors.

But suddenly a naked man appears on the horizon and you feel a tingle down in the vicinity of your scrotum. You are turned on and, at the same time, pissed off because you actually believed you’d been converted.

You close your eyes, ignore the response, and affirm your newfound heterosexuality.

Until the next naked man appears.

And then there is a crowd of naked men, all young, well hung, and smiling in your direction.

With gargantuan effort, it is very difficult to convince yourself you are heterosexual.  

And, so it goes with me and my spirituality. The ego has had me in its clutches since the day I was born. Spirituality came along and convinced me I am not a body, I am free for I am as God created me.

I’ve absolved numerous courses to convince me that this is so, but every time a naked man appears on the horizon, doubt rears its ugly head and I am left wondering: who am I really?

When my thoughts disperse and I find myself fully in the now moment, I am convinced that I am (straight?)

With the advent of thought, or the temptation to punch someone in the nose, I fall back into the hold of the ego.

When is the conversion therapy going to kick in long enough that I am convinced I am straight? My butt is getting sore from all the meditations.

In my breast, there is a bubbling of joy, a rush of pure knowing keeps me steady in the light of Perfection.

As my body ages, I have, like so many other older persons before me, become more selective with whom I hang out, and the circumstances in which I hang out.

As that inner kern of peace expands, like a tsunami, it swells to collect everything that’s not real and then washes the debris out to sea. And thus, after this spiritual tidal wave,  I look around both inwardly and outwardly, and I see fewer distractions, fewer obstacles between imagined me and the perfection of my true Self.

This past year, the era of Corona, has been like an extended spiritual retreat. Not a vacation, but an ever-present reminder of my true purpose in life: finding the obstacles to peace and allowing them to drop by the wayside. The situation has been so threatening at times, the alternative so apparent, that I turn within now with a willingness and longing I have seldom experienced when “the good times” were rolling. Who wants to remember they are not of this world when sitting on a Greek Island, sipping Ouzo, and watching an awesome sunset? When the good times get going, the aspirants stay planted in the beauty of the illusion.

These past months, the Corona Police have hindered the luxury of pretending the world of form is enough, so much so that the True Light was able to shine through and lead me through the valley of the shadow of death… death to most of what this world has to offer.

And now, I dread the return. As the lockdown eases up, I feel like an unborn baby that clings to the inner warmth and security of the womb; of an effortless existence. The thought of reappearing in this world of illusive well-being, getting caught up in its dramas and tragedies, has me clinging to my own four walls, my small alternative to a world gone mad, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

 “Who is the I who wants to stay separated, and what is it I want to stay separated from?”

As long as these questions remain, I realize I am still very much a part of this world of form and have much more to realize before I am fully aware of the Truth of the matter.

But I continue to sing the Psalms of praise to the glory of my true Self, continue more often than not to choose love over fear. What else can I do? The memory of eternity is too present to quit now and fall asleep.

In my breast there is a bubbling of joy, a rush of pure knowing keeps me steady in the light of Perfection.

Daddy, what happens when we die?

 

One of the most comforting things I’ve read about death came from a Seth book I read back in the 1980s. (Seth is a discarnate being who dictated to Jane Roberts back in the 60s.) Someone asked him what happened after we die. His reply went something like this: “Why should the other side of death be any different from this side? You have created your reality as it appears to you while in the body, and so shall it be when you pretend to die.”

As I understand it: If I believe in Heaven with gold paved streets, white harps, and eternal summer, I will find myself in Heaven when I think I am dead. On the other side of the world: If I believe 87 odd virgins will be there to greet me in the Paradisial (is that a word??) Gardens, that too shall come to pass. If I believe everything ends when I kick the bucket, that is the reality I will wake up to when my time comes.

I just finished reading a book by a Neurosurgeon called, Proof of Heaven. The author comes from a long line of scientists who adhere to the maxim: seeing is believing. His explanation of near-death / seeing the Light at the end of the tunnel experiences was explained by the chemicals the brain shoots out at our time of passing. (Wasn’t that the longest sentence you ever read?) Then the neurosurgeon had an NDE. Clinically dead for seven days! After he regained consciousness, he told his story. You do not want to know what greeted him when his brain and body stopped functioning. 😉

But his story gives hope on another level. No matter where you end up when you die, the scenario soon gets boring enough (8,000 years of white robes and spherical music) to get you wondering: is this all there is? With that question, the reality of Heaven, Paradise, or worms begins to change, expand… just like the Universe does, just as Supreme consciousness (no matter what you call Her), just as it does when you are in the body.

(Thank God. Can you imagine what a gay person might have to put up with if he died a Muslim?) 😊

Life is change, and so is its brother death.

Or, so it seems to me, this humble servant who always thought Disneyland was where he was going when push came to shove. 😉

Coping with COVID, coping with life.

 

I discovered the majesty of the NOW moment over 50 years ago... and let it lay.

I discovered the strength and effectivity of the now moment with the advent of Covid 19 and am hanging on for dear life!

When I first read about and tried to put "the now moment" into practice, I found the practice daunting and tedious, to say the least. After all, I was 20 and everything was running pretty smoothly in my life. If any negativity was present, it was eaten up by the vitality and optimism of youth.

Later in life, "the now moment" became an integral part of the wake-up process because it appeared so practical.  This is not to say I put it into practice.  I recognized its value, but again, lacked the incentive. My past was too alluring: so varied, so magnificent, so stimulating,  and I had little cause to annihilate it with the practice of being in "the now moment."

The future was still rosy at that time of my life, the horizon of what could come was still as iinspiring as a winter sunset on Hawaii. Why trade magnificence for the simplicity of "the now moment"?

With the advent of the winter of my life, two factors entered my life that were so daunting, so terrifying, I was forced to pick up the action of calling up the now moment every second of my waking life.

Enter: our still current US president, (the one with the orange hair) The havoc he wreaked on his own land and the world was/is devastating.

Enter: COVID 19, the global pandemic that just doesn’t want to go away. With every ray of hope, another dark cloud covers the sky of a satisfying future.

Hand in hand, these two characters have made created an atmosphere that make me wish I were anywhere else but here.

But, thanks to them, I am now conviced "the now moment" is the most potent and healing place in which I can possibly be, 

COVID 19, for me, has become an unrelenting master constantly rerouting my mind back into "the now moment". To forget, even for a second, that this is the only place I can possible be, is catastrophic. The alternative, an unsure future filled with conspiracy theories and scenes of apocalyptic grandeur is too devastating. 

I know this for a fact. 

In those times I forget to retain "the now moment," the threat of insanity returns with the intensity of a wrecking ball.

If you’re looking for Peace, if you’re looking for solace, if you’re looking for the strength to continue in these trying times, there is no more potent place in this dimension  than "the now moment."

Believe me, I’ve been there many times and regained the strength to return and share with you the precious wisdom of the ages!

Do it NOW.

Maybe the coronavirus has a better purpose than we are giving it

Ever notice how the more you focus on something, the more real it becomes?

At the height of the gay plague, my boyfriend contracted the HIV virus. We were both stunned, horrified, terrified. Six months later, he landed in the intensive care unit with his first bought of Pneumocystis, an accelerated and often very deadly form of pneumonia. His war with death had begun. Often in that time, death stared out from his wasted face and chilled my soul. As he fought for every breath, I could read the terror he was wrestling with in his pained expression, feel his failing resources in an ongoing battle with the Grim Reaper. It was the worst time of my life, the second-worst time of his. Born in Konigsberg, Germany in 1936, he was old enough when the war ended to experience first hand the atrocities and ravages of retribution as the Russians killed, raped, and buried the city of his birth in soot and ash. What he must have witnessed and experienced, I have no doubt, would’ve killed me ten times over.


Surviving the atrocities of a lost war lends an inner strength that is able to sail through the mightiest storms.


Two years later, after an equally terrifying bought with the virus, a new treatment appeared that saved those remaining few from dying, and we were able to close this frightful chapter of our lives.

His battles won, he awakened to an entirely new level of consciousness. He was totally bereft of superficiality and false pretense, a level of being few of our brothers in the 1980s were able to achieve. Through my husband and my friend, I have come to see that this virus was necessary to bring about the opening of a new way of being in this world of form. Releasing the physical body leads to death, at best, to suffering and change at worst, he was able to move into a consciousness that embraced the eternal in him, the eternal self, the Truth.    


Since that time, in periods of extreme anxiety, I’ve asked him why he doesn’t seem particularly concerned about what was going on around us. His reply, “Eric, having been to Hell and back 3 or 4 times in my life, which has taught me not to allow myself the luxury of a negative thought. The results would be too devastating.”


In January I went through a very dark time both physically and mentally. With corona virus-like symptoms, I fell sick and confined myself to the apartment for three weeks. Not because I thought I’d contracted the coronavirus as that virus was still in China and I had no idea what it was at that time.  My ‘sick time’ became a period of intense and forced introspection, a self-encounter that brought up all my deepest fears and darkest imaginings, that left me fearing for my sanity. Relief came when I finally realized how important it was to monitor my thoughts, do as little mind-fucking as possible. Meditation helped, but was more a respite as an answer in itself. The all too excessive amount of negativity running around my head made it impossible to even consider doing yoga.


At the apex of my dark night, the words of my husband came to mind, his way of dealing with his own demons’ and the AIDS virus way back then. Namely, to remain awake to the inappropriate thoughts running uncontrolled through the mind. To watch the madness in my mind, but at the same time remember: I am not the misery come of these thoughts, I am not the fear that surfaces when I think of possible consequences, but the observer of that misery, that aspect of self that is capable of witnessing the darkness, not the darkness itself. That realization brought me slowly back to the truth of who and what I am; namely, the silent observer of what goes on in the mind, not the mind itself. I am the vast space of knowingness that arises when the thoughts are still, and also the consciousness that is present during those thoughts, not the madness that I think is happening.


Thoughts were telling me this is a dangerous world, filled with unfathomable misery and torment. When the thoughts were still, as if by magic, the anxiety was also gone. What a revelation. Something I had intellectually embraced years ago, but had not experienced on a deeper level until the darkness and anxiety-filled doubt gave enough contrast to actually experience it. Instead of trying to free myself from the negative thoughts and unimaginable outcomes of projection, I was learning to simply watch them and see them for what they are: nothing but thoughts, thoughts so real they had me believing I was something other than the profound peace that comes when I am silent and experience the peace that passes all understanding. And the best way to silence my thoughts is to simply watch them without becoming them.


How often I have preached this in my yoga class, for what is Hatha yoga other than the ability to achieve pure freedom by awakening to the inner witness, that aspect of self that observes the body without identifying itself with it; watching the sensations asana produces and observing the breath with the detachment of a scientist watching an experiment knowing he is not the experiment, not the observer


Oddly enough, when the physical illness passed, and the mental anguish dissipated, I found myself, missing those feelings of anxiety that constantly urged me to go within and dwell on thoughts God would have me have, and not those born of the fear itself. My bouts of anxiety had worked like policemen, warning me constantly not to go in that direction. Then, as the Light in me became stronger, the police force disbanded and I was left to my own devices, which were still pretty weak.


With the onslaught of The coronavirus, the police force is back in action. As I look out into the work, I am reminded, minute for minute how necessary it is not to drop into fear, but affirm that which I know to be true. If I don’t, if I allow my fear thoughts to win out, salvation is impossible.  

These are scary times, but only if you give in to the temptation to believe you are only a body, born of fear in a world that supports the idea of death, separation, and loss.

Keep telling yourself, over and over again, that you are a thought of God, not a thought of your ego. And do that with the focus of someone in a handstand on the edge of the Grand Canyon.   

Forgiving your enemy doesn't mean you have to sleep with him.

Countless times since I've started the journey back to absolute Peace, sages have advised: forgiveness is the only way. After duly considering their advice, I drop into total futility. Forgiving my enemies, whether it's the loud neighbors having sex at 3 in the morning, or Hitler and his troupe of villain, seems an impossible task.


God knows I've tired. Really. More than twice. But it always fails. (Case in fact: I have been trying to forgive the man with whom I spent nine years in a relationship. We broke up forty years ago. Just when I think I've halfway succeeded, I see his face in my meditations my stomach grips, and I realize I've failed yet again. The odd thing is: This man never did anything wrong to me! Consciously, anyway. All those misdeeds and malevolences were only in my head!



For a long time, I thought maybe I was going about it in the wrong way. Obviously, relying on my own resources/strengths, was not enough. So, I gave it over to a Higher Power, repeatedly, and the ball always came rolling right back into my court. Nothing was achieved.


What did I do wrong?


Because forgiving-your-enemy has gotten such good press from the New Age circuit, I kept it up, tried my best to let go of grievances, gave the task over to the Holy Spirit, erased it from my mind, ignored it. To no avail. What now? I mean, if I can't even forgive something someone never did to me, (except in my mind), imagine me trying to forgive something that really did happen, like the holocaust, Hannibal Lektor, the guy chewing gum in the back row of my yoga class.


And, so it seems, I'm back to square one.


Well, not quite ground zero, thanks to the encounter with 25% of my 7,896,346,257,153  demons back in the cold dark month of January.


Going through a 'dark fortnight of the soul' has a way of blasting you off the trusted path and onto another, more appropriate one. (Funny how extreme fear forces you to find new ways of dealing with things). Although the new road appeared a bit drab next to the path paved with glitter and gold I normally travel, I started the journey. My first discovery was if I wanted to get rid of my inner turmoil and anxiety, I had to face the above mentioned 25% one by one.


 No. Not face them; embrace them!


Up until the month of sickness, I did everything I could to avoid my demons, (except, of course, the smaller ones like illicit sex, or pigging out on potato chips and popcorn). For example, an evil demon would pop up in my mind: I would either sit down and meditate, space out in front of the TV, or read a beach blanket novel. These failing, I'd pop a Prozac. Although these techniques worked well when the sun was shining and my heart as open, in the throes of anxiety, they were as useless Methamphetamine in Heaven. Worse yet, while the demons had me by the throat, My Higher Self was forcing me to face them, these deep dark shadows that had been begging my attention ever since I turned sixty – ten years hence.


I breathed, mantraed, recited the 108 Names of God, even promised to take up the cloth should my prayers for release be answered.  But the demons had their claws in, clutching at my soul with all their might.


A  well-reputed Facebook guru I was following on Instagram advised me to befriend them. "Don't see your demons as enemies, but as advisers who are working together with your Higher Self to unclog the drain between you and God. The Heavenly Host clapped there hands and flapped their wings, and told me to heed the wise words.


"Say, what?" I responded. Obviously, neither the Internet Guru nor the Heavenly Host was that well acquainted with my particular brand of demons, who were are about as attractive as Jabba the Hut.

"Find something positive about them!" he advised. "After all, you created them, so there must be something worthwhile waiting for your discovery."


Odd as it sounded, a payoff surfaced immediately. In the space of a thought, one of my major demons attained a voice. It said, "Without me, you will never gain enlightenment."


???


"You need me the way the day needs the night, the moon needs the sun, peace needs war, the donkey needs a kick in the ass."


It didn't take a genius to understand what he meant.  


God's Presence waits for my permission to enter my consciousness. in order to be felt, God, Peace, Love, and Light, must be remembered. Not once a week, not once a day, but every minute of every waking hour for the rest of my earthly life. True awakening was only possible when the desire becomes as desperate as a drowning man yearning for air.


How easy it is to forget one's divinity when the sun is shining and everything is going hunky-dory. Who's thinking about God when they're twenty and hormones are raging, and the men are standing in line to sign your dance card?


I'm learning; it's not so much a matter of giving up the world of form as it is to see the world of form through the eyes of absolute consciousness, or peace, or perfect love. It's not about relinquishing the senses so much as to feel and experience sensations while being anchored in the knowledge that I am That which witnesses all that happens. I am not the physical body, but the consciousness that is aware of the physical body.  


Ever since I hit puberty, one of my greatest desires was to achieve enlightenment while still in the body. When I ask myself now, what is the greatest obstacle to enlightenment? the answer returns: All that stands between you and enlightenment is: you don't believe you are, now and forever more: enlightened. How can I incorporate this great truth into my everyday life? By affirming my true nature, and negating the illusion you are a body, a concept, a thought. Here this: it's not enough to affirm this truth once, but over and over again.


Ever notice how friendly and helpful your neighbors are during a crisis or war?


This is the subject of my next blog post!

Journey without distance

Journey without distance to a place I never left

Confounding, but true: Time heals all wounds. The terrors and darkness of last month are now nothing more than memories, to ponder or not. I am basking in the sunshine of my true self, no longer held captive by the shadows of fear and doubt.   


One of my greatest revelations from last month was the realization that fear thoughts, horrible imaginings that go ‘boo’ in the night, are not my enemies, but friends. Friends who are goading me to wake up from the false ideas: I am my thoughts or, I am that which my thoughts are telling me I am. (Cogito, ergo sum).(The truth is, I am only when I am not thinking. I am the consciousness that brings thoughts into my awareness. I am the silent observer, not the observed.)

That knowledge has been the best piece of news since I found out that gaining enlightenment is but a game of pure consciousness. When I pretend the Truth has to be found, I am pretending to forget I am already enlightened so I can experience the indescribable joy of finding it again.

Leaving separation

Leaving Separation

I had now attained enough peace to toggle between the calm that came from conscious breathing and the stability the mantra, ‘Here and Now,’ brought back into the light. After one week of practice, I was able to summon up Peace and reside in its truth for ten to twenty percent of the day. The moment I let my thoughts wander, the pits of hell flamed up within my consciousness filled my mind with unbearable anxiety, and I fell back into the fiery domain of the ego.  


In moments of sanity, I began to share my internal experiences with my husband of forty years. This was a luxury I was denied in that first week. A severe bought of laryngitis had forced me into silence and forced me to bear my fears alone.

Although I felt no relief in sharing my agonies and insights, I did experience enough respite to reach out into my dwindling circle of friends, hoping they would share if they had gone through something similar and how they had mastered it. My first realization was, the circlet had not dwindled as much as I’d thought it had over the years. The new-found knowledge that I was not alone in my fears, that most of my friends had gone through similar bouts of anxiety, lent me even more strength. To feel alone in your fears, isolated, without any line to the outside, is a barren and heartless place to reside.


Never was I more thankful for my partner’s waning memory. A fit mind with impeccable memory periods would have gone insane after listening to my rants for more than two days. Although I had to remind him daily that I was on the verge of suicide, I was filled with relief that he remained relatively untouched by my vivid descriptions of the inner workings of my mind.


With conscious breathing, the mantra, the opportunity to talk things out, I was able to create enough space to take the next step.

Here and Now

Here and now.

After repeated attempts to anchor myself with my breath, I attained enough calm to realize I could also incorporate this technique into dealing with the bubbling thoughts in my mind: watch them, follow them, and let them flow; and all this without getting attached.

At first, the sticky tentacles of fear attached themselves to my attention, attempting to pull me down into their dark domain. I riveted my focus on my breath. With patience, I eventually noticed that the smaller fear-thoughts were losing their hold. But the darker, anxiety-ridden thoughts still had the power to keep me from gaining a foothold on peace, causing me to fall again, like Icarus, from the light. My saving grace was to keep pulling myself back into the present moment. Even a second was enough to elevate my despairing soul enough to glimpse, once more the light within. Soon, I was able to glimpse a space of silence between those perilous thoughts and, with great forbearance, the silent spaces became more profound. In the presence of silent peace, the chit chat of the mind grew fainter, and within minutes, I felt again the sporadic echos of serenity.

Though I regained fleeting moments of sanity those first days, I soon realized I would need something more concrete to keep my attention focused on the space of silence and knowing. The breath, as powerful a tool as it was, was too porous, allowing too many of the treasonous thoughts to seep through its walls, causing my inner observer to pixelate and fade.

I needed a mantra. Words were more tangible than feelings at this point, better suited to block out the ravage of negative thoughts for more extended periods.

With that realization, the simple phrase, ‘Here and Now’ surfaced. (The wisdom of the saints in two simple words.)

Inhaling slowly, I chanted the word ‘here.’ Exhaling, equally as controlled and focused, I whispered the word ‘now.’ With each repetition, I forced myself to feel was happening in the present moment: the feeling in my feet, the sensation in my hands, the tightness between my shoulders, the temperature outside and inside my body, the breath, the thoughts, etc.

‘Here and now.’ How often I’d heard or read about the magic of the present moment; how often I summoned it up on the sunny days of my journey back to my true self. Yet, how easily I forgot the principle when my ego was screaming its truths in my ear, ‘You’re an aged, old man, nothing but a relique of your young self. No one can see your inner beauty, they only see your increasing frailty. Friends and family are gone from your life. Your body is destined to suffer loneliness, frailty, rejection, abandonment. And then, you die!’

The words were so loud that first week, so constant and real, they left no room to notice the real truth about my Self: my eternal, expanding consciousness, a Thought in the Mind of Almighty Being. My ego had gained too much strength, bombarding my mind with arguments to the contrary.  (The physical illness I’d also contracted at this time, the bacterial infection in my throat, sapped what little will I had to affirm what I knew was true.)

But I persevered. One breath at a time; ‘Here,’ ‘Now.’

The mantra returned my mind to spaces of bliss-filled silence that increased with dedicated practice. ‘Here and now’ was my lifeguard, leading me ever nearest to moments of sanity where I could build upon that which I knew to be the Truth: that I was the observer, not the observed.   Though the Truth still remained elusive, as fleeting as a snow-flake on the gust of chilled winter-wind, I persevered. I was walking a razor’s edge with the Eternal Truth on one side, and the dismal truth of the ego on the other.
 I prayed for the day when my humor would return and I would be able to look back and laugh at everything I had been imagining. But that still as far away as a full head of hair. ;-)

Finding the breath.

Looking back into the darkness, I remember my first objective was to still the mind. Alas, even on the sunniest of days, this is a formidable task. When the sky clouds over and the light becomes dim, seemingly impossible.


How then to still the agitated mind?


In yoga, I often tell my students that the breath mirrors the mind’s state. And, vice versa: when the mind begins to still, the breath becomes ever gentler.  If the advice was good enough for a room full of students, why not for me?


With what little control I could muster, I began to regulate my agitated breathing pattern: long breath out, slow breath in. I felt an immediate change; until the ego/mind discovered what I was up to, after which, the dark fantasies became even more abhorrent. But I persevered. One step at a time. Breathe. watch the breath.


With effort, I soon achieved enough peace to notice there were two forces at work here: Peace and fear. Such an easy concept to decern in phases of sanity, but when fear’s raging, almost impossible to get a grip on the concept of two minds working at the same time.


That was my first clue that my fears were caused by thoughts in my mind, in the dark thoughts that were keeping me from seeing the truth of the situation. Immediate relief; if I could discern the workings of the brain, it proved I wasn’t my fear. I was that which was observing the mind.  The relief was fragile for, I realized long ago, the ego is a formidable challenger able to know and bring up my worst possible case scenarios, land me in a reality of dismal thoughts with devastating outcomes, make it so real I continuously revert to the belief I am my ego, my fears, my mind.


My next objective: to get my sane Self, the silent observer, back in control.


But how?


By focusing my entire attention on the breathing. In the midst of fear and darkness, keeping my focus on the breath.


One day ended and I was still alive. I thought about throwing in my cards and ending it a couple of times, but also realized I had now found a way out. Ridiculously simple and difficult to keep in action, but once there’s a way, there’s hope.