LSP18: Teeth-Gnashing and Gnosticism: The Question of Evil Entities

Okay. There's simply no way of getting around these three big questions: (1) Do evil supernatural entities exist? (2) Is there an ongoing battle in Creation between good and evil? and (3) If there is such a battle, do human beings play a significant role in restoring balance to the universe?

My short answers are (1) No; (2) No; and (3) No.

Although I'm generally supportive of Dr. Alexander's first book, there's one chapter I disagree with from beginning to end. It's Chapter 15 ("The Gift of Forgetting"), in which Dr. Alexander attempts to answer the question of why God allows evil and suffering in the world (i.e. the theodicy question).  I really wish he'd given more thought to this chapter before he decided to include it in his book. It's chockablock full of the damaging, dualistic, overly simplistic Gnostic ideas that have plagued the human-Divine relationship for centuries.

From the core assumptions of Gnosticism many different religious movements have sprouted (including the Qumran sect of Second Temple Judaism, the Persian religion known as Manichaeism, and assorted Christian heresies). At its root, Gnosticism assumes there's something seriously wrong with the world we live in, but if we have the right secret knowledge ("gnosis" in Greek) we can escape this worldly evil and return to the love that's characteristic of our true home in Heaven. Central to Gnosticism's claims is a belief in a Christ-like Saviour figure who will risk -- or who has risked -- everything to reveal this secret knowledge to human beings.

Jesus was a man, mystic, and healer who knew God so well and trusted God so much that he rejected all the ancient religious ideas about good versus evil and taught something very different. His teachings started with the idea that God gives us full latitude to explore what free will means. Some people choose to follow the path of power and abuse, but there is always the possibility they'll use their free will to choose the other path -- the path of goodness and love and trust in God. If they don't, however, God will forgive them, bring them Home, heal them, and help them understand the free will lessons they experienced. There's no room in Jesus' paradigm for the Devil or Judgment Day or Hell or salvation of the elect. So Jesus' paradigm has never been a very popular idea, even among Christians (strange as that may seem). If you want to get to know God, and feel Divine Love in "the Core," you can't go wrong by following Jesus' teachings on courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion. This figure of the crucified Christ was made in the first half of the 12th century in Germany, and is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

Dr. Alexander reveals his sympathy for the Gnostic position throughout Chapter 15. He says, for instance (and I quote), "Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was as a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe was literally awash" (page 83).

Let's stop the bus right there. "Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe"!!??  Really? God is so stupid that God took a watering can and sprinkled evil around the garden of Creation? God is so stupid that God couldn't figure out any way to give us free will as human beings except to introduce seeds of evil into the world we live in (Proof of Heaven, page 83-84)?

Oh, come on!

This particular species of religious tree has been nurtured wherever people have been trying to reconcile the experience of deeply felt Divine Love with the realities of suffering and abuse in the world.  Gnostics are the first to loudly trumpet the preeminence of Divine Love and the first to fall back on the myth of "good versus evil" as soon as they're challenged to explain why suffering exists in the world.  In my view, the Gnostic answer to the three questions posed here is sloppy, lazy, and not the least bit courageous.

It takes courage and trust to hold fast to God's hand, to look beyond the simple black and white myths of Gnosticism, to open your whole heart, mind, body, and soul to another explanation for suffering besides evil and evil entities. It takes courage to completely let go of all belief systems that preach the existence of supernatural evil as a force in opposition to God. It takes courage to let go of the idea that "we can't truly know good unless we know its polar opposite, evil, so God must allow some evil to exist." This is the old idea, the Materialist idea of cause and effect, the New Age idea that makes no room for the wonder and mystery of Divine Love.

I should say, in closing, that I understand the position Dr. Alexander found himself in when he was writing his book. He was trying to find a logical explanation for suffering that would be accepted by an audience steeped in myths of good versus evil, light versus darkness. I once swallowed this logic myself (to my utter and mortified chagrin). However, if Dr. Alexander has to go through what I went through, his angels are gonna kick his ass around the block until he takes what he wrote in Chapter 15 and dumps it in the garbage can.

Good luck to you, Eben!  Call me if you need some help!

Best wishes,
Jen


For Further Reflection:

There's no question that human beings can spin webs of evil unimaginable to the heart of an angel, webs of evil so all-consuming that sometimes the shock waves last for decades, centuries, even millennia. It's natural and normal for us to wonder where such evil comes from. We all want explanations we can understand, because when we have explanations, we can begin the search for solutions.

Newton's third law states that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Most of us assume that Newton's third law applies in metaphysical physics as much as in classical physics. We believe that if we understand the cause of evil, the countervailing reactive force will become clear to us. We also assume the corollary: if pure love exists in the world, it must exist as a response -- an equal and opposite reaction -- to pure evil.

Our Minds find this Materialist approach appealing. After all, it seems eminently logical. It seems highly consistent with the laws of classical physics we've deduced through observation and experience. It suits our human preference for cause-and-effect justice.

Every major world religion is a response to our Mind-based desire for explanations and solutions about evil. We turn to our religious leaders to explain the cause of evil so we can choose appropriate actions to heal and prevent evil.

While many of the healing actions appear similar from religion to religion (e.g. be kind, be merciful, be hospitable), the explanations for the causes of evil appear on the surface to differ widely. Christianity, Islam, and some branches of Judaism rely heavily on theories about evil entities. Buddhism, and the older traditions from which it sprang, preach the inescapable laws of karma. Dig deeper, though, to the tap roots of these religions, and you'll find a common link: the assumption that the true cause of evil exists as a vast, metaphysical force you can do battle with but never control (unless you're a bona fide saint, Bodhisattva, or Messiah).

Nobody wants to hear the actual cause of evil lies in the scientific wiring of the human brain. Who's going to put money in the collection plate just to hear the bad news that we, as persons-of-soul, incarnated on purpose to see what it feels like to struggle with free will and seek redemption? That kind of teaching puts all the onus on us as human beings. It means we have to learn to take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. There's no supernatural force to blame when we screw up and harm our relationships, including our relationship with God. There's no get-out-of-jail free card. There's only ourselves, our families and communities, and our relationship with God.

So yes, your human brain allows you the possibility to choose some very evil, scary paths. But keep in mind that your human brain isn't supernatural. It's 100% temporary biological matter. It isn't going with you when you die. It's staying right here, with the rest of your biological body, to be recycled into the planet as organic and inorganic matter. So whatever evil your brain manages to create during your human lifetime, you can trust that God knows how fix it even if you don't.

God is much smarter about all these questions than we can ever be. Although it's okay for us to be upset and confused about evil on Planet Earth, it's not okay for us to believe that God and God's angels have been negligent in their care of us or the universe.

Don't EVER tell God or your angels that you need protection from evil entities. Asking for protection is a clear indication that you're not ready or willing to trust God.

Instead, ask God for help in understanding how you can wind up using your own free will to shoot yourself in the foot. Then ask for help in learning how to take control of your own free will.

It's kind of like learning to right a small boat in big waves. It's challenging, but God knows that, with help, you can do it.

LSP17: "Why Didn't God Just Show Up in Front of Me?"

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a man I'll call Joe. Joe was very angry about the question of God and suffering (the theodicy question). Some of Joe's anger came from his experience as a gay man who was forced to deal with emotional and spiritual abuse from homophobic Christians who believe God rejects homosexuality.

Joe asked questions that many other people are asking about God. He demanded to know where God had been while he was suffering. He asked why God hadn't just shown up in front of him to give him clear answers about his sexuality and faith. He asked why he had to figure everything out on his own without any help from anyone at all.

This is what I wrote in reply:

What I'm hearing is a lot of anger that God didn't just show up in front of you to tell you it was ok to be gay.

So I'm wondering . . . have you thought about what it would have been like at a practical, realistic level if God actually had shown up to talk to you? Have you thought about the fact that such a miraculous occurrence would have made your life much worse, not much better?

As a mystic, I live on a daily basis with phenomena that seem normal and very practical and scientific to me, but even for me some things would be too much. Too much for my very human, very 3D brain to process. The brain has limits. The brain expects a certain measure of consistency and predictability from the world around it. This is how the healthy brain copes with all the emotions and perceptions and memories and learning processes we cram into it.

Okay. So think about this for a minute. You're sitting in your bedroom and you're praying to God about the painful situation you're in vis-a-vis your family and your sexuality, and suddenly you look up to see an angel of God standing beside the door. You can see the angel's face and hands and wings and glowing robes. Next you hear the angel speak. The angel says, "Fear not, for you are gay. I have come to tell you that God loves you because you are gay. Now go into the world and preach what I have taught you."

So you go downstairs and you tell your family what you saw and heard, and they call a psychiatrist friend of theirs and have you involuntarily assessed, and the psychiatrist gives you a tentative diagnosis of schizophrenia.

So far, you're not better off.

This isn't the worst part, though. The worst part is the self-doubt generated within your own brain about your experience. You start ruminating on it. You go over and over the experience. Did you really see an angel? Who was he? Or was "he" a "she"? Why didn't the angel stay longer? Why didn't he say more? What did he mean when he said you should go out and preach what he taught you? What did he actually teach you?

Did you really just imagine it? Did you have an hallucination? A psychotic break? (Maybe you did!!! -- omigosh, you've gone crazy, and now you'll never have a life or a partner or a job ever again!!!) Can you trust yourself now? Can you trust anyone now?

The loving God who is with you always is not going to set you up for a tragedy like this. A tragedy that would make your life much worse.

Joe, you ask, "Why did I have to figure out everything on my own?" (Though I confess I'm surprised you show no gratitude towards the on-line friends and the non-Christians and the books you referred to, who helped you on your journey according to your own testimony).

You had to figure it out for yourself so the knowledge would be yours. So the insight would be yours. So nobody could take it away from you ever again.

This is an honest, truthful, fair path to understanding and transformation. It requires that you "raise the bar" for yourself by taking personal responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and self-knowledge rather than relying exclusively on the authority of others. It requires that you use the resources of your own 3-pound universe (that is, your brain). It requires that you look at Creation in new ways you never thought possible.

And it doesn't ask you to learn within a framework of occult magic, as Pauline Christianity and its predecessors have long expected you to do.

So maybe you might want to consider cutting God some slack.

(I know you say you don't believe in a theistic God, but methinks thou dost protest too much.)

Love Jen

Just for the record . . . I personally believe that a person's core sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is hardwired into his/her DNA as a permanent, natural, and healthy aspect of his/her core identity. It's a non-negotiable part of who we are. To treat another person badly on the basis of DNA-based sex or core sexual orientation is about as far from loving as it's possible to get. I reject all religious teachings that claim "divine justification" for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The path of knowing yourself (including knowing and trusting your heart-based sexuality) is a commitment to opening your eyes and your heart to the many everyday clues that surround you all the time. Part of this commitment is a willingness to ask what your fellow human beings can teach you about yourself and about God. Books can teach you. Art can teach you. Scientists can teach you. Families can teach you. Your task is to be part of Creation -- to immerse yourself in all its many narratives -- so you can begin to recognize the colours and shapes and movements and sounds that resonate deep within your heart. A painting that resonates with you is important because you're responding to images your soul finds familiar and comforting. A painting that speaks to you is doing just that -- speaking to you about who you really are. And listening to a painting is a lot less stressful for you and your family than listening to an angel who suddenly pops into your room. This room at the Art Gallery of Ontario features late nineteenth and early twentieth century Canadian artwork. Photo credit JAT 2018.

 

For Further Reflection:

After you begin to master the practice of spiritual gratitude (contemplation and thanks for the positive experiences in life) comes the difficult part of your journey: learning to how to wrestle with the question of suffering and then, after a lot of mistakes, come out smelling like roses.

Nobody wants to do this part. It's just so hard. It's so darned hard that all major world religions have shied away from the question by offering you various escape mechanisms (e.g. salvation; Judgment Day and hell; nirvana; energy balancing; scientism) that sound really good -- and really easy -- by comparison. In Christianity, the apostle Paul thought Jesus' teachings on the theodicy question were so ridiculous and so impossible for regular people to invest in that he (Paul) grafted a Saviour religion onto the roots of Jesus' teachings. Paul thought this was a good idea because he didn't share Jesus' faith in the power of individuals to venture into the heart of suffering to seek the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life, so different from the Tree of Moral Knowledge, is a tree that's covered in all sorts of unwieldy branches and painful sticky patches and bunches of ugly-looking fruits that ripen at puzzling times. It's unpredictable. It can't be harnessed or controlled. It leans away from you when you try to capture it; then, when you've given up in frustration and stop focusing on it, it suddenly drops sweet seeds straight into your heart. Few human beings volunteer to climb it.

Despite our unwillingness to voluntarily approach this tree, God and God's angels regularly drop us onto its branches so we'll have the chance to figure out the mystery of Divine Love and Forgiveness for ourselves. This is what happened to Dr. Alexander when God plucked him from his orderly life and showed him the Tree of Life, which is to say the family of loving angels he was introduced to during his near death experience.

The Tree of Life, like the trees we know on Planet Earth, holds within its gnarly structure rings upon rings of memory -- memories of transformation, memories of healing, and memories of love.

At the very core of the Tree of Life lie the memories from our Mother and Father's earliest times together. Here rest the memories of redemption.

It's redemption that we, as human beings, experience each time we choose to face our experiences of suffering and learn from them. We don't escape our suffering; we transform our suffering by using our whole selves -- our hearts, minds, bodies, and courage -- to take what we've learned and help others.

Redemption doesn't happen automatically. You have to want it. You have to choose it. You have to dredge up every ounce of courage you can muster to face the pain. You have to be willing to be changed by a past -- a set of memories -- you can't change. You have to learn to bend, like the Tree of Life -- to bend away from those who want you to forget who you really are. You have to learn to forgive.

None of this is easy, but regular people do it every day in every part of the world despite the lack of encouragement they get from their spiritual and religious leaders.

Redemption (unlike the promise of religious salvation) is a universal practice unbound by gender or race or sexual orientation or clan or religion or culture or history. Anyone can choose it.

Jesus knew this. It's what made him so unpopular among his religious peers.

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?

LSP14: To Be God Is to Give Up the Power and the Glory

I must have watched Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy at least ten times before it dawned on me that I was watching the story of our Divine Mother and Father.

So a pop quiz for you today: in The Lord of the Rings films, who do you think represents God the Mother and who do you think represents God the Father?

How many people said Arwen and Aragorn? Or Eowyn and Aragorn? Or Galadriel and Gandalf? Or (since there are so few female characters) maybe Gandalf and Aragorn?

In our culture, we've been heavily conditioned to assume that Creation exists as a hierarchy. The lowly, unworthy people are at the bottom. The chosen people with the special powers and the special bloodlines are all at the top. We just take it for granted that if we could see Heaven as it was in the beginning, long, long ago and far, far away, it would look like a scene from a magnificent royal court. Or an ancient cathedral with shining stained glass windows. Or a magical realm like Lothlorien. Or a great city like Minas Tirith.

What if I were to tell you it's the story of two humble hobbits on a quest to destroy a ring of power that most resembles the early story of our divine Mother and Father?

"Stromboli Eruption" by Wolfgangbeyer at the German language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stromboli_Eruption.jpg#/media/File:Stromboli_Eruption.jpg

The Lord of the Rings is a story about the only two people in Middle Earth who have the willpower to overcome the ring's terrible temptations and still remain themselves when all others would fail and fall into shadow.

At its heart, it's a story about the "twoness" of the struggle. Galadriel tells Frodo that to be a ringbearer is to be alone, but, in truth, Frodo is never alone in his quest. Frodo and Sam carry the ring together. They depend on each other every step of the way. They're two very different people -- alike in some ways, very unalike in others. Like carbon and iron hammered together to make steel, they become each other's strength. And because of the enduring strength of their "twoness" -- their "two-as-one" trust in each other -- they accomplish together what no one on Middle Earth could have accomplished alone.

Frodo and Sam are humble. Deeply, deeply humble. They have no desire to be worshipped. The power and glory offered by the ring hold no allure for either of them (well, most of the time, except for a couple of rough moments). What Frodo and Sam care about is protecting their friends and doing what's right. Unlike Gollum, who is obedient to the ring, Frodo and Sam struggle up the mountain to try to undo the ring's near-absolute control over other people's minds, talents, and free will. The hobbits' choice to put humble love ahead of limitless power -- even at the cost of their own lives -- becomes the turning point for a whole world.

Our beloved Mother and Father once faced this choice long, long ago, and they chose the path of humble love. They also chose to abolish the hierarchy represented by the One Ring and replace it with a paradigm based on Courage. Because of this, the entire universe changed forever.

Our Mother and Father remain the steel that is hammered from carbon and iron. They remain the two who are one, the softness and hardness, the life force and holding force, the fire and ice, and all things in between. They have made a great place within their hearts that we can call home, and they are the greatest among us because they think of themselves as the least -- just simple hobbits, one female, one male, going about their business of making life comfortable for those they love with all their hearts.

They are our inspiration and blessing. Through their example, we, their children, know what it is to love.

They are truly beyond amazing.

LSP13: How I Met Your Mother: A Divine Love Story

When you're very, very big and very, very smart, it's not easy to be humble.

This is a truth we can see during our lives as human beings. All around us, we lament what happens to our lives when certain individuals and groups decide they're better than other people.

We see what happens when individuals and groups who have more money, more education, more ideas, and more influence refuse to help other people with these gifts, but instead use these gifts to abuse. We see how the fruits of "chosenness" destroy peace in our world. We see how peace isn't possible when it's more important for us to be "better" and "chosen" than "egalitarian" and "humble" toward our neighbours. And we see how hard it is for individuals of great privilege to consider themselves no more important than anybody else on Planet Earth.

This is obvious to us as human beings, but it's not obvious to us at all during our lives as angels, as persons-of-soul, as children of God on the Other Side. So when our beloved Mother and Father tell us their ancient love story -- "How I Met Your Mother" -- there are parts of the story that just don't make any sense to us. Many angels are shocked and baffled by the early part of the story, the part where two "big and smart" people meet in the jungle of pre-Big-Bang energy fields and try very hard to outsmart and outdo each other because neither one knows anything about humbleness or love.

The details of their story are personal and private, of course, as you'd expect when we're talking about our divine parents, but suffice it to say that these two very different consciousnesses found redemption in the joy that comes from being humble.

I call this photo Divine Love. It's another one of the photos I took with a fogged over lens at the Etobicoke conservatory. Divine Love is soft, kind, mysterious, puzzling, a bit hard to put labels on, and much easier to see with your peripheral vision than with the focused vision in the centre of your eye. It's almost as if you're using your eyes to hear God's quiet voice. Photo credit JAT.

Over the years, I've come across a small number of people who understand that God the Mother and God the Father -- far from being aloof, transcendent, and unemotional -- are, in fact, truly humble. They're both very, very big and very, very smart, but they don't think they're "better" than any of their children. Their immense love -- the love that so many humans have felt over the centuries -- is only possible because of their humbleness.

As our human lives teach us, humbleness is not inevitable. It's a choice. It's an exercise of free will -- an exercise of free will that's so brave it's almost beyond comprehension (which is why some of us come here to figure it out). It's a choice to be totally honest about who you are and what you can do (thereby not denying your talents) while at the same time you're deeply grateful for somebody's else's talents. There's no jealousy, no envy, no competition. No power games, no worship, no glory. There's just tons and tons of gratitude.

This is what it's like to live on the Other Side as a person-of-soul. This is what it's like to be a child of God who's loved for who you really are. The feeling of being safe in Divine Love is the feeling of being safe in yourself. No one will judge you or demand that you change because your favourite colour is pink instead of black. There's no fear involved in simply being you. Humbleness is one of the anchoring points of this safety.

Just as we're called to open our hearts to our human neighbours and honour them with the gift of humbleness (thereby participating in the experience of divine redemption), so are we called to offer the same safety and dignity to our blessed Mother and Father. Go ahead and be awed and amazed by the wonder of who they really are -- I'm amazed by them all the time! -- but don't diminish your relationship with them by insisting you're unworthy of their love and trust. They don't see it that way (despite what you've been told by religious leaders). They see you as one of their children, no matter what you did yesterday that wasn't so nice.

Instead of getting on your knees to pray, stand up, hold onto your neighbour's hand, look God right in the eye, and be honest about how much your heart is hurting and how much help you need during your time as a human being on Planet Earth. Be humble. Admit you don't know everything and can't do everything. Ask for help in being the best "frail mortal human being" you can be. Ask for help in being who you really are.

It's all anyone can do.


For Further Reflection:

Have you ever had the feeling that no matter how hard you try to move forward on your spiritual path, you're constantly blocked?

You're not alone. Most people have this feeling. I had it during the early years of my own journey, and I still remember how discouraged and frustrated I felt.

I was sure I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing (that is, what spiritual and religious leaders had told me to do). I logically concluded that the practices themselves were fine -- because so many spiritual leaders agreed on the merits of intercessory prayer, fasting, meditation, self-dissolution, and the like -- so if the practices weren't working . . . the problem must be me!

It didn't occur to me for the longest time that I wasn't the problem. It was the ancient and very popular spiritual practices that were the problem.

Even after my guardian angel told me countless times that I was worthy of God's love and forgiveness, I didn't want to believe him. I assumed I just wasn't trying hard enough to master those ancient spiritual practices, so I redoubled my efforts. Then tripled them.

What I got for all my trouble was a sense of being further away from God.

Divine Love, as it turns out, is not about Oneness. It's about Humbleness. It's about feeling wonder and gratitude for our differences. It's about rejoicing in our unique talents and using them to benefit others. It's about encouraging our loved ones to see themselves as beautiful. It's about having a shared morality based on boundaries -- respectful, mature, courteous boundaries. Without a proper understanding of boundaries, it's too easy for the really big, really smart people to take advantage of those who have different gifts.

A morality of boundaries (Divine Love) is the complete opposite of a morality of Oneness.

Many of the spiritual practices endorsed today evolve directly from a morality of Oneness. The practices make perfect sense if your goal is to achieve a sense of Oneness, a sense of blurred boundaries, a sense of transcending yourself.

But getting closer to God actually means building "new and improved" boundaries, not dissolving your boundaries. To feel Divine Love, to feel God's presence in your life, you need to start from scratch by asking God to help you learn about the spiritual practice of Humbleness.

Just so you know . . . in doing so, you'll be giving up any pretense of chosenness or election or spiritual enlightenment or Ascension. You'll simply be asking to know yourself better and to know your Divine Parents better.

From the tree trunk of Humbleness spring the fruits of deep connection with a humble God.

It's through finding your own Humbleness that you'll share in the Divine Love story of a Mother and Father who love you very much.

LSP12: Not Your Usual Valentine Song: Why We're Here on Planet Earth

Okay.  o if God is so loving and we, as souls, are so loving, and everything in the universe is so galldarned loving, then why the heck are any of us here?

Why not just jump to the good part -- Heaven, that is -- and skip all this crazy, frustrating, painful, human stuff?

Every major world religion (past and present) has tried to answer this question. In fact, there wouldn't be any religions without this question. Faith* asks the question with an open heart. Religion's job has always been not to answer the question but to control the answer, to control the theory which decides what other people can observe.

This is not to say that religious people don't have faith or can't have faith. Many have great faith in a loving God. But many more have no faith in themselves or each other because they've been taught by their religious leaders to believe in their own inherent sinfulness or karmic imperfection. (Take your pick -- both boil down to a belief in Materialist laws of cause and effect.)

What if all these religions are wrong? What if there is no inherent sinfulness and no karmic imperfection? What if the goal is not to escape our sinfulness through grace or to escape the cycle of rebirth through sheer willpower? What if the goal for human beings has nothing whatsoever to do with saving ourselves so we can get to Heaven or to a state of Nirvana?**

What if we're here on Planet Earth for an entirely different reason? A simple reason. A loving reason. Say . . . so we can experience a number of complicated things about God's Heart that some of us just can't seem to understand without "walking a mile in God's shoes."

Maybe we're here as human beings because, as souls, we're so determined and so loving and so trusting and so courageous that nothing -- not even the sure knowledge of our temporary suffering and anguish and loneliness -- can stop us from wanting (as souls) to know more about who God the Mother and God the Father really are as people.

This clock, made of ivory, gilded copper, brass, and enamel, is called "The Twelve States of the Soul," and was made by German clockmaker  Johan Georg Gusderman of Kaemten in about 1680. It's part of the Kenneth Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

From what I've just said, you'd have to conclude that if we want to know (as souls) what it feels like to walk a mile in suffering and anguish and loneliness, then this must mean . . . hmmm, now here's a thought you won't be hearing in church anytime soon . . . this must mean that once upon a time (long, long ago and far, far away) there was no Divine Love and existence was a real bitch until God the Mother and God the Father found redemption in each other.

As the song says, it takes two.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.


*(I define faith as a relationship with God that endures in the absence of sacred texts.)

**(Please bear in mind that I'm simplifying on purpose.)


For Further Reflection:

People love to know about their human ancestry. For reasons we can't describe, we're endlessly fascinated by our family trees and family histories. These days, it's popular to add a DNA analysis to the confusing piles of unnamed photos and undated letters we find in old trunks in the basement. Sharing historical information has recently become a way of bringing people closer, but it hasn't always been this way.

It used to be, in centuries past, that families lived in the same small region for many generations, so you didn't have to go much further than the local graveyard or the local parish register to learn more about your ancestors. You could also go to the pub or the sewing circle, where you could hear every nasty rumour about everybody's ancestors right back to the time of Adam. Heaven help you if you came from the clan or caste despised by your community for some ancient crime. There was no escaping the power of genealogy to build lives and also ruin them, depending on who your ancestors were. Forgiveness for bloodlines was almost unheard of.

Human culture has taught us to think about family history in some pretty strange ways that have nothing to do with learning how to love your God or yourself or your neighbour. We don't like to acknowledge it, but, over time, all of our most dysfunctional beliefs about families and family history have mutated into religious doctrines. We do this -- we drag our flawed theories about family into the history of our relationship with God -- because so many of us like the idea of having power over the people closest to us.

In order to get the family power we want, we take our understanding of God the Mother and God the Father and we beat the crap out of it. We take God's image and cut out all the parts that might interfere with our own authority. We then take the parts that are left (such as God's immeasurably vast talents) and rearrange them into a new portrait of the Divine that "proves" such religious theories as the human right to be right; human exceptionalism; human hierarchies of salvation; and monism (the quest to dissolve all humans into a single soup of Oneness).

We then use these theories to justify our treatment of God, our families, our communities, and our planet.

Your angels, however, are having none of it.

The story you've been told about God is in all likelihood one of the many cut-and-paste jobs that exist in today's religious and spiritual circles. (In some circles, God's image has been cut into such tiny pieces that nothing meaningful is left.) It's up to you, then, (with the help of your angels) to find the courage to open your eyes and ears and heart to God so you can rebuild a healthy, mature, loving image of your Divine Parents.

Deep within your core self, in the places of yearning you so rarely listen to except when your dreams overtake you, you're absolutely desperate to know more about your angelic history and more about your Mother and Father's personal journey of redemption, hope, healing, and faith.

Don't be surprised if your journey forward on the Spiral Path sometimes feels like a journey backwards.

There's an important angelic reason for this.