LSP34: Signs and Wonders and Mummified Monks

"Mummified monk in Mongolia 'not dead', say Buddhists."  This is the headline on a short article that appeared this week on the BBC news.  Other news sites carried similar stories.

To recap, a very well preserved mummified Buddhist monk was discovered in Mongolia last week.  The body is seated in the lotus position (a position that assists in entering an intentional meditative state) and the monk appears to have died while in this position.  The body (the exact age of which isn't certain) was recovered by police just before it was about to be sold on the black market.

What's extraordinary about this story is not that a mummified body was found in a cold, dry climate (which preserves body tissues quite well), but that an expert, Dr. Barry Kerzin (a Buddhist monk and physician to the Dalai Lama) has gone on record to say it's possible the monk may not be dead at all.  He may, according to Dr. Kerzin, be in a rare meditative state called "tukdam."

Dr. Kerzin apparently told the Siberian Times this:

'If the person is able to remain in this state for more than three weeks - which rarely happens - his body gradually shrinks, and in the end all that remains from the person is his hair, nails, and clothes. Usually in this case, people who live next to the monk see a rainbow that glows in the sky for several days. This means that he has found a 'rainbow body'. This is the highest state close to the state of Buddha'.

He added: 'If the meditator can continue to stay in this meditative state, he can become a Buddha. Reaching such a high spiritual level the meditator will also help others, and all the people around will feel a deep sense of joy'.

The Siberian Times article also reports that "over the last 50 years there are said to have been 40 such cases in India involving meditating Tibetan monks.

You can read about a recent example of this on the website of the Benchen Monastery Community.  There, they offer notice of the death of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche, who "chose to end the state of Tukdam, which is the deep meditative composure that some realized masters enter into after the demise of their physical bodies, after three and half days."  The notice also describes the unusual weather conditions that took place on the day of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche's 2012 death.  The unseasonal thunderstorms, followed by rainbows, were not thought to be coincidental or irrelevant, the notice strongly implies.

The point I want to make is this: Although you might like to believe that Buddhism isn't a religion, but is instead an atheistic, secular, humanist spiritual practice, it is not.

Buddhism is, and always has been, a religion.  This is especially obvious in Mahayana Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism (of which the Dalai Lama's school of Tibetan Buddhism is a part).

Buddha, Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.

ROM text accompanying the Buddha sculpture.

I have to smile at the similarity between the description of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche's death and the description of Jesus' death (the whole 3-day-thing plus multiple signs and wonders).  But the similarities don't surprise me.  I've seen many signs and wonders, and I know they happen all the time.  They happen to all of us -- far more often than most people realize.

No one religious group has a right to claim a monopoly on signs and wonders -- neither Christianity nor Buddhism nor any other group.  Everyone who lives on Planet Earth is part of the same Creation.  There isn't one Creation for Christians and a different Creation for Buddhists.  We all come from the same place (God's Heart). We all live under the same roof here on Planet Earth.  We all live by the same "house rules" while we're here (which is why the need for morality is universal).  And we all return to the same place when we die (claims for apotheosis notwithstanding).

Do I think the mummified monk is still alive and in a deep state of tukdam?  No, I do not.  I think the poor man is dead.  I think he's been dead for a long, long time, and I think we should trust that and let him be instead of trying to force the mantle of Buddhahood onto his very shrivelled shoulders.  (Did you check out the photo on the BBC?)

Do I think it's possible his physical body -- what remained after his soul and his biology parted ways -- has been miraculously preserved?

I think it's theoretically possible.  I really do.  I've seen much stranger things than abnormally extended tissue preservation.  (And tissue preservation is, after all, simply a matter of knowing your chemistry, physics, and biology really, really well -- a particular talent of God.)

The real question is this: what does this news story tell you about you?  What does this story make you think about?  Do you want to laugh with contempt and call it all a hoax?  Or do you have a small itchy sense of curiosity in the very back of your head?

If you're just a little bit curious, it's a good sign.

P.S. Thank you to the persons-of-soul who made this discussion possible.  Without you, we couldn't do this!  Amen.

Postscript February 26, 2015:  Please see "Eerie remains of 1,000-year-old mummified monk inside Buddhist statue unveiled by CAT scan," which was posted this week on Canada's National Post news site.  Please see also another helpful story story posted this week by the BBC about the elaborate and beautiful Ajanta caves built for the Buddhist community of India’s Maharashtra state until the complex was abandoned in the early 6th century CE.  Again, my point is that Buddhism is a religion, not just a simple philosophy or way of life that anyone can -- and should -- incorporate into their spiritual journey.  It's up to you to decide whether the religious doctrines of Buddhism are right for you.  But please don't pretend there are no doctrines!

LSP31: Some Thoughts on Stealth Buddhism

In response to a recent Psychology Today blog by Religious Studies professor Candy Gunther Brown, a member of an online discussion group posed this question: "Is Secular Mindfulness Meditation Really Stealth Buddhism?"

There were only two posted comments when I checked into the discussion, and one of the two posted comments started out by saying this:

"Buddhism's most basic precepts do not constitute a 'religion' per se. The aim is to reduce suffering."

A lot of people seem to believe this.  I wrote this in reply:

_________________________________________

It's interesting that you say Buddhism's most basic precepts don't constitute a religion. I've seen this said many times of Buddhism (using as my definition of Buddhism the core teachings of the Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, cosmogony of co-dependent origination, and related teachings). I feel it's always important to look at the whole picture of Buddhism's philosophy and way of life when deciding how to incorporate its core teachings into our daily lives (if at all).

It's often said that the aim of Buddhism is to reduce suffering. While this is certainly true, Buddhism in the form taught by the Buddha (if it's even possible to accurately reconstruct his original teachings) is a self-contained cosmogonical and cosmological philosophy founded on apophatic mysticism with a salvific goal. Its focus on salvation (what Buddhists refer to as liberation) definitely pushes it in the direction of a religion. As well, the Buddha's refusal to answer the question of whether there actually is a God makes Buddhism a non-theistic philosophy. It isn't, strictly speaking, an atheistic way of life. There's no room within Buddhism for a personal God, but there's plenty of room in it for assorted supernatural beings and saints (especially within Mahayana Buddhism).

Apophatic mystics, regardless of their original religious training, see the universe in a particular way. This way is filled with negation, lack of imagery, eradication of personal boundaries, and the elevation of the human mind to a cosmic power that can merge with (or even transcend) Source.
 

Few people in the West take the time to understand that the Buddha's claim of awakening under the Bodhi tree is a classic example of an apophatic mystical experience. Those in the West who turn to Buddhism as a way to escape the "nonsense" of Christian mysticism and miracles should be more honest with themselves about the mystical roots of Buddhism. Photo credit JAT 2018.

The goal of all apophatic mystics -- whether Buddhist, Christian, or any other faith tradition -- is to permanently escape the problems and suffering of the imperfect world we live in through the path of the perfect mind. There's no need within any apophatic philosophy to promote the ideals of the human heart or the reduction of suffering through alternate means or practices (one example of an alternate practice being forgiveness).

Having said this, I think there's great value in the practice of mindfulness if mindfulness is defined as something more akin to healthy awareness of self (interoception); healthy maintenance of boundaries (parieto-temporal lobe enhancement); triggering of the "placebo effect" through self-kindness, gratitude, humbleness (lack of status addiction), forgiveness, empathy, music, and community fellowship; and full use of the CNS's capacity to begin to heal itself (and the whole body) if we use our free will in healthy ways.

I'm a practising mystic, but I follow the cataphatic path. I don't engage in meditation because the kind of meditation endorsed within strict Buddhist circles will trigger (with sustained practice) neuroplastic effects that I have no interest in. I have no interest in changing my brain structure to suit the ideals of an apophatic belief system. I'm content to see the world as a positive place. I'm not trying to escape this world. And I don't believe I'm clever enough to use the power of my human mind to understand the entire universe and everything in it.

Plato also endorsed a version of the cloud of Oneness (similar to Buddhism's co-dependent origination) but Plato was an apophatic mystic. I'm not keen on Plato's Philosopher-Kings, either.

Monism always leads in the end to Dualism. Dualism creates a hell of a lot of suffering in the world. Tackling dualistic belief systems is a great way to help people reduce their suffering.

Jen 

LSP16: You Don't Have to Climb Mount Everest

"Healing and Hope for the Brain-Soul Nexus" is the tagline for one of my earlier books, and it's the central theme of all the work I've been researching on humans searching for God. It's actually a pretty simple idea, the idea that if you heal your own brain-soul nexus, you're on the "easy path" to knowing God in this lifetime. But since when do most of us want to do things the easy way?

While just about everybody else on the spiritual circuit is out there hammering away at the importance of ancient consciousness-altering tools such as prayer and meditation, me, I'm hammering away at the importance of consciousness-healing tools.

This goes back to the roots that are holding up your spiritual tree. The spiritual practices you choose to highlight in your life will depend on the starting assumptions -- the roots -- of your relationship with yourself and God. These choices matter because spiritual practices, no matter which tradition they stem from, all have a specific scientific purpose. They're all designed to do something specific to your brain chemistry.

And there you were thinkin' that spirituality is an escape from ordinary, everyday, scientific realities  . . .

Perhaps you already know that ancient spiritual practices are based on empirical observations about the science of brain function. But most people have been led to believe that spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, fasting, hallucinogenic drugs, trance states, and energy work are somehow separate from everyday science. They've been led to believe the divine rules are different when it comes to ancient spirituality.

They're not. The rules have never been different for these practices. These practices all create specific changes in your brain architecture whether you want them to or not. They're very powerful tools -- far more powerful than modern pharmaceuticals such as S.S.R.I.'s or mood stabilizers -- and as such, they need to be understood and respected for what they can do, as well as what they can't do.

In my view, it's irresponsible and reckless for religious leaders to recommend intensive use of spiritual practices in the naive belief that science doesn't apply. In God's Good Creation, science always applies. Nobody can escape the consequences that come from overuse of spiritual practices, just as nobody can escape the consequences that come from overuse of food or medication or alcohol or anything else that affects our brain chemistry.

As many wise people over time have pointed out, moderation is the key.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not smart to sign up at the spiritual smorgasbord and pile up your plate with all the ancient goodies you've never tried before. You need to remember that some of these old practices can hurt your brain -- not because the ancient teachers didn't understand how the brain works, but because they did.

I know this is a distressing thought, but there has to be a solid, scientific reason why so many people over so many centuries tried so hard to reconnect with God, yet never felt a dammed thing except frustration and despair. Do you really think God created your brain in such a way that you'd have to climb Mount Everest so you can feel God's love? Do you really think that only the people who set themselves apart to constantly pray and meditate have the potential to feel God's love?

There are ways of communicating clearly with God that can help you heal your brain-soul nexus and feel God's love. (And no -- I'm not about to suggest anything occult!)  There are ways of talking with God and sitting quietly with God that look on the surface like ancient prayer and meditation, but are, in fact, something quite different because they use different parts of the brain than ancient practices use.

What matters here is whether you use the parts of your brain that are hardwired into your soul's own needs.

Consciousness-healing techniques (as opposed to consciousness-altering techniques) always start with an unshakable belief in the good soul that you are.

Instead of trying to climb the spiritual Mount Everest proclaimed in many ancient religious texts, try hiking up a real hill and taking in the view with all your senses. If medical or financial limitations prevent you from visiting the countryside, try sitting in the sun by your favourite window or taking a short walk in your neighbourhood if you're able. Look at the trees. Listen to the birds. Be grateful for the gifts of Creation that surround you and support you. I know this sounds ridiculously simple and not very flashy. But that's the point. God loves all of us equally and wants everyone to have a chance to feel Divine Love. So why would God set up a system that allows only the rich or the full-time ascetics or the already-enlightened to heal the brain-soul nexus? God wouldn't. So start where you are and don't be ashamed if your current circumstances are modest and maybe even a bit ramshackle. God won't care as long as you're trying each day to be a loving person! This photo was taken outside Banff, Alberta. Photo credit JAT 2015.

For Further Reflection:

There's been a lot of talk lately, even among scientific circles, about the importance of gratitude in maintaining our physical and mental health. Gratitude for the good things that come our way is one of the few spiritual practices everyone can agree on. It offends no one. It's also an effective strategy for countering the negative thoughts we all struggle with. Gratitude helps us see the glass as half full rather than half empty. So I highly recommend the practice of positive gratitude to everyone.

How does the spiritual practice of gratitude differ from an ordinary, on-the-fly expression of thanks? It differs because it's a contemplative practice instead of a social practice. If you're like most people, your brain is adept at manoeuvring through complex social interactions (saying thank you automatically) but much less comfortable with contemplative norms (saying thank you when there's no direct social benefit for you). So it will probably take you some time to develop the habit of spiritual gratitude.

Set aside some quiet time each day to reflect on the small things you're grateful for. The place and time don't really matter. You can do your contemplative work wherever you feel comfortable, which may need to be the bathtub if it's the only place where you can find some time and space for yourself in your busy day. You can write down your observations about gratitude if you want to, but, again, the process isn't rigid, so you don't have to write anything down unless it helps you.

The core of the practice is to quietly thank all the people (including God and your angels!) who brought positive encounters and experiences and everyday needs into your life. That's it. Three honest daily observations about the people (especially God and your angels!) who helped you are usually enough (unless you had an especially eventful day). The key is to become conscious of the help you received. Don't take it for granted.

(1) Be aware. (2) Be appreciative. (3) Say thank you. These are the three essential steps of positive gratitude.

It's important not to cheat by making blanket statements about how lucky you are and how grateful you are for just, well, everything. In order for the practice of gratitude to make a difference in your life -- for gratitude to permanently alter your brain networks in helpful ways -- you need to spend quiet time each day untangling the great big ball of blessings you've received. You need to separate and sort your blessings (as best you can) into individual threads.

Why do you have to remember the individual people and individual acts that have made a difference in your life? The answer lies in the way your brain works.

Your brain is tasked with innumerable responsibilities each day, and each task uses up precious biological resources. So in any circumstance where your brain thinks it can save energy by using macros or stereotyping or quick algorithms -- in other words, "brain apps" -- your brain will use its built-in apps unless you tell it otherwise. Like it or not, your brain (unless you tell it otherwise) has an unfortunate tendency to see other people as faceless, nameless "worker ants" whose only job is to serve you. As far as your brain is concerned, this is both logical and efficient, especially in our harried, over-stressed culture.

Naturally, if your brain is invested in forgetting who people are and what people did for you, it becomes difficult for you to see other people as unique individuals and cherished children of God. It then becomes harder to know them, to know yourself, and to know God.

The goal of contemplative gratitude, therefore, is to insist that your brain smarten up and change its priorities. You're telling your own brain that one of your important new priorities is to see other people as individuals, to appreciate their talents, to understand how important they are to the overall happiness of the whole community.

With practice, you'll know them better and you'll know yourself better. Eventually, this will help you know God better.

A wonderful side benefit to this spiritual practice is the unintentional and unavoidable growth of your own sense of Humbleness. After you've spent a year thinking about all the ways in which your neighbours have helped you, and all the ways in which their talents differ from yours, and all the ways in which they're worthy of appreciation, it's pretty hard to maintain the illusion that you're better than other people and more deserving of God's love than other people.

After all, you ain't growing and picking and sorting and packing and shipping and marketing and grinding and brewing all those coffee beans by yourself. Are you?

LSP15: Why I Don't Use Traditional Meditation Techniques

There's a reason why I don't meditate.

I don't meditate because traditional Buddhist meditation practices damage the health of the brain-soul nexus.* Since it's the brain-soul nexus that allows me to connect with God in the Core, I won't do anything to jeopardize the connection. This means (among other things) that I refuse to meditate.

I refuse to tell my brain to stop doing its job so I can have a rest from my own thoughts and emotions.  My brain comes pre-wired with a set of more effective tools I can use whenever I need a rest.

The most important of these tools is sleep. A solid 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is one of the most powerful spiritual tools available to you. It's free. It's available to everyone (barring circumstances such as parenthood or illness). It's highly effective. And the healing mechanisms that kick in while you're asleep come pre-loaded in your DNA.

I know of people who get up early or stay up late so they'll have time to meditate or pray each day.  They cut short their sleep-time -- sleep-time that's required for optimal brain-soul health -- so they can voluntarily put their brains into "low-emotion mode." The brain's "low-emotion mode" is a lot like your computer's sleep mode: the power's on, but nobody's home. The power's on, but you're choosing not to use your full emotional computing capacity to be the best human being you can be. The power's on, but you're choosing to ignore what it means to love.

"Jesus said: 'The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys to knowledge and have hidden them. They did not go in, and they did not permit those desiring to go in to enter. You should be clever as snakes and innocent as doves'" (Gospel of Thomas 39a-b). Emerald Tree Boa at the Metro Toronto Zoo. Photo credit JAT 2017.

Let's face it -- while you spend an hour focusing only on your breathwork, you're not reflecting on your relationships or working to forgive a harmful choice or learning something new that you didn't know yesterday. You're not choosing to love somebody. You're not choosing to engage in active contemplation of humbleness and love. You're not choosing love.

What . . . you thought love was an instinctive process that didn't require any effort on your part?

It's fine to begin the process of active contemplation by sitting quietly, slowing your breathing, and relaxing your brain. Sometimes this starting point is called "centering." Centering is helpful. But choosing to meditate so you can escape from your own emotional self -- not so helpful.

I understand how wonderful it can seem at first to be able to sit down and not have to listen to all the annoying, confusing, stressful thoughts going round and round in your head. This is the great appeal of intensive meditation practice. But there's a huge cost to this kind of practice, and you need to know about it. You need to know that if you place your spiritual eggs in the meditation basket, the long term cost will be a greater sense of distance between you and God, not a smaller sense of distance.

I'm not being cruel or judgmental here. I'm being rigorously scientific. Traditional Buddhist meditation practices are specifically designed to create an internal experience that matches the outward belief in "dependent origination." In this context, meditation is a highly effective practice for those who wish to focus solely on human will without regard for the needs of relationship with a personal God (Buddhism being a non-theistic philosophy). Meditation does exactly what it claims to do: it does a very good job of helping people shut down the painful emotional centres related to love, grief, trust, forgiveness, and humbleness.

However, since you need all these emotional centres in order to feel your connection with God's love, the one thing pure meditative practice cannot do is help you get closer to God. Even though it can be painful to deal with love, grief, trust, forgiveness, and humbleness, these emotions are part of the soul, and you can't deny these feelings or ignore them if you want to get closer to God. Instead, you have to learn to work with them in positive and mature and transformative ways. (Jesus called this "entering the kingdom of the heavens.")

Major world religions share one universal characteristic: each religion has thousands and thousands of theories and doctrines and traditions about who God is, how Creation came into being, and how human beings should correctly understand their relationship with Creation. It's so complicated that no human brain can make sense of it all.

It's no wonder, then, that it never occurs to us that building a relationship with God might actually mean using the ordinary tools we already have inside our bodies and brains -- the tools we're born with because God put them there through the process of evolution.

In other words, God, the great scientist, expects you not to waste the healing gift of sleep.


* Because Pure Land Buddhism focuses on love and empathy, I partially exclude this tradition from my general remarks on meditation -- though only partially.


Addendum October 19, 2017: In a Scientific American post on October 11, 2017, writer Bret Stetka reviews some of the recent research into meditation and mindfulness-based interventions: "Where's the proof that mindfulness meditation works?" 

Addendum November 6, 2017: In a Scientific American post on October 31, 2017, psychology professor Cindi May writes about a large mindfulness study involving adolescents: "Mindfulness Training for Teens Fails Important Test"

Addendum December 1, 2019: It's generally supposed that meditation practitioners experience only positive effects from the practice. Here are two articles that remind us the reality is more nuanced. One is a 2019 essay called "The Problem of Mindfulness" by Sahanika Ratnayake. The other piece, "There's a dark side to meditation that nobody talks about" by Lila MacLellan from 2017, briefly reviews some of the challenging issues of meditation.

Addendum February 7, 2021: Here's another article that presents a balanced picture about the practice of mindfulness: "How too much mindfulness can spike anxiety" by David Robson, posted February 4, 2021 on the BBC.

Addendum November 29, 2021: A recent study suggests that independent-minded individuals can become less altruistic and more selfish when using certain mindfulness techniques. The study is reviewed in "How mindfulness could make you selfish" by David Robson, posted August 16, 2021 on BBC Worklife.

 

For Further Reflection:

Have you ever asked yourself why meditation places such an important role in the life of a devout Buddhist? Is it a simple tool, a spiritual practice to help you advance toward the goalless goal of happiness and compassion? Or is it something more, an internal path of immanence that may guide you eventually to the bliss of Oneness (i.e. dependent origination) if your faith is strong enough? Is meditation less a practice and more a sacrament? If so, can this sacrament be detached from its Buddhist roots and applied neutrally to other faith traditions without any consequences?

People who have grown up in the Christian tradition are familiar with the power of sacraments to change how we choose to relate to each other and to Creation. Sometimes, during great crises, it's only our connection to the power of sacraments that keeps us from falling apart.

In most mainline Protestant churches, there are only two sacraments: Baptism and the Eucharist. In the Roman Catholic church, seven sacraments are recognized: Baptism, Penance, Confirmation, Marriage, Eucharist, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the concept of sacraments is broader and more fluid. And in various aboriginal religions, the concept is broader still.

Regardless of religious tradition, however, human beings are drawn to the mystery of sacraments, to the places, symbols, and experiences that help us feel connected to God and all Creation. We crave such sacraments and we feel quite lost when they're stripped away from us. The history of iconoclasm shows us that whenever our leaders try to eradicate our heart-based connection to the sacred, we rebel. Even Buddhism has rebelled through its imagery, its architecture, its mandalas and prayer wheels, and its other sacred symbols of the teachings.

Because Christian sacraments typically involve external rituals and symbols, we tend to think of them as, well, external. It doesn't occur to us to think of Buddhist meditation -- an internal experience, if ever there was one -- as a sacrament. But it fulfills every need of a sacrament because it embodies in a biological way the cosmogonical doctrines of the religion. Every time you engage in meditation as a Buddhist, you're reminded of the cosmogonical doctrine of dependent origination, and you're striving to match every aspect of your life to that doctrine. This is no different than what Pauline Christians do when they take the Eucharist and remind themselves they must try harder to match their lives to the pattern of Jesus Christ, whom they believe was with God at the beginning of time.

Sacraments link theoretical doctrine to daily life, but sacraments differ from religion to religion because the theories of God differ from religion to religion. The sacraments are like the outer branches of the spiritual tree; they can only grow from the specific roots that nourish them.

There's no doubt from a scientific perspective that traditional Buddhist meditation techniques affect the wiring of the human brain in distinctive ways. All religious practices, regardless of origin, have some sort of effect on the brain if they're repeated often enough. So the question you need to ask yourself is this: do you want to enthusiastically embrace a practice -- a sacrament -- that's specifically designed to help you overcome the idea that you need a personal God in your life?

Or would it be more helpful for you to graciously accept the right of all people to choose their own path, and then humbly go your own way without fear that you're messing up your own quest?

LSP2: Journeying to the Core

In Dr. Alexander's book, we read about his frightening medical journey, a journey involving great pain and fear for himself, his family, his friends, and the medical staff who are desperately trying to reverse his coma. It's only while Dr. Alexander is deep in a rare form of coma that he's free enough to journey to the Core and find the wholeness and peace that come with reconnection with God.

Dr. Alexander did it the hard way.

I'm not in any way trying to deny or minimize what happened to Dr. Alexander and those who care about him. I've been a mystic long enough to know that everyone's journey on Planet Earth is unique, and no two situations are identical. God the Mother and God the Father always know what's best for each person and each family.

Having said that, I also know there's the easy way and the hard way. Dr. Alexander was conscripted into the hard way. It worked for him. It worked for many of those around him. And I've no doubt it has worked and will continue to work for many others.

But it isn't the only way.

Dr. Alexander makes this point himself near the end of his book. In Chapter 33 ("The Enigma of Consciousness"), he says, "Another aspect of the good news is that you don't have to almost die to glimpse behind the veil -- but you must do the work. Learning about that realm from books and presentations is a start -- but at the end of the day, we each have to go deep into our own consciousness, through prayer or meditation, to access these truths (pg. 157--158)."

It's right here, in this paragraph from Dr. Alexander's book, where I see (as I've often seen) the great plague that so often infects the spiritual journey. In one breath, there's the excitement and anticipation of truth and new healing possibilities. In the next breath, there's the depressing reality that people on a spiritual journey are repeatedly instructed to use only the "old toolkit" of ancient religions and to disregard at all cost any methods that might call into question the wisdom of teachers long dead.

What's with this idea that "old" is always "better" when it comes to the spiritual journey? If I were to say to you, "you're having a seizure because you're possessed by demons, and the only cure is for me to repeat this ancient incantation after you pay me a thousand dollars"  . . . would you accept that?

Getting to know God doesn't have to be like St. George fighting the dragon to the death. But you do need to work hard to know yourself as God truly knows you. There are many ways to "do the work" of healing your own brain-soul nexus so you can feel the life-changing touch of God's unconditional love in your Heart. This beautiful carved ivory is from the Kenneth Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

My own connection was built slowly and in the way that was right for me. Today my connection is so strong and sure that I can request the "channel" be opened up between God and myself at any time and in any place. I've had conversations with God while I'm sitting at a red light in traffic, and while I'm trying to troubleshoot a difficult issue at work. God is so kind and generous that no issue is too small for them to share with me. I feel constantly humbled and blessed to know them and to know their love for all their children.

Journeying to the Core isn't about escaping your human self through consciousness-altering techniques. It's about healing your own brain-soul nexus. The tools for this journey are already present inside your biological body AND inside all your RELATIONSHIPS.

As Dr. Alexander discovered, this a journey no one can -- or should -- embark on alone. It's the Heart, not the Mind, that shows us the way to the Core.


For Further Reflection:

The key to reconnecting with God is to remember at all times that you`re trying to build a relationship with God -- with God the Mother and God the Father. This may sound ridiculously obvious, but you`d be surprised how many people on the spiritual path lose sight of this crucial truth.

It`s very easy to get lost in all the excitement of ancient secrets and modern insights and exciting new techniques that may (or may not) help you expand your consciousness. What`s the end result of forgetting that relationships are the key? You usually find yourself trapped more than ever before in pure Mind where the lessons of the Heart can`t be heard and God can`t be felt.

Prayer and meditation won`t help you much unless you`re willing to start with the choice that relationship with God is the path you really, really want to know more about.

If you start with the idea that God the Mother and God the Father are phenomenally brilliant -- way smarter than you or any human being now or ever, in fact -- you`ll quickly realize there`s nothing they don`t already know about you and nothing that will stop them from doing what needs to be done. So if you want to reconnect with God, it has to be on their terms, not your terms.

Fortunately, God`s terms are founded on Divine Love and Divine Forgiveness.