Become a Follower of the Big Dude!

Meet the divine Dude in this blog. This Dude has had and seen his share of sacred shit. He's not afraid of it or of its language. I can't relate to a god that's been crucified, but I can relate to one whom my government has imprisoned and humiliated. I can relate to one who's been raped by his own holy men. I can relate to one who grew up playing baseball or soccer and who dated the Prom Queen. I can relate to the god who knows the working of corporate conglomerates, pimps, and teen-age girls who are pregnant. I can relate to the god who loves alcoholics and drug addicts just a tad more than wall street hotshots or so-called holy men who abuse little boys. This Dude thinks all of us are mortal particles in an ocean of sacred shit. This Dude recycles.

Monday, May 27, 2013

When You're Weary, Feeling Small

Enlightened people tend to scare us off sometimes.  They seem too good.  They've reached a place that seems unattainable at times.  That's why I like the writings of Pema Chodron who has books with titles like When Things Fall Apart.  She's my kind of enlightened.  Enlightened means to bring light to the human condition.  That's why in meditation, you put your feet on the ground or you sit in such a way that the power of the earth and the power of the universe can both flow through you.

Anyhow, back to the human condition.  I used to post only when I was inspired and that meant long periods would go by between postings sometimes. There's another way to look at spiritual writing, though; you could think of it as an awareness of today's human dilemmas in the light of universal truths.  That's where I'm going in this blog so aptly titled "sacred shit."  Some days it may be mostly sacred with a little bit of shit and some days it may be mostly shit with a little bit of sacred.

In spiritual practice of any kind, it doesn't do to soar above the immediate.  You start with the immediate and become increasingly aware of yourself contained by that.  Eventually, universal forces join you and you experience a harmony or vibration from the union of today's dilemmas with the eternal good.

So, I'm sitting in Maine by the ocean.  I'm feeling particularly lonely and guilty.  I'm feeling guilty of not being "good enough."  Not good enough as a daughter, mother, sister, writer.  This is where true spirituality begins.  As the Simon and Garfunkel song says, "When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them all.  I'm on your side."  And, voila, the God joins the human.  The universal good is on our side!

When you think of it that way, it's amazing.  When you cherish the human condition as the starting point of co-creation, when you realize that the divine word, any divine word, becomes real in you, you're on the path.  I can feel that integration as I sit here.  However small I may be feeling, I contain the universe.  Namaste, Roxie.


7 comments:

  1. Read your blog with great interest. This is a CPA-turned-yogi. While the no-nonsense dimension of your views is appreciated and shared, I have realized a few inconvenient facts of spiritual life.

    God may not exist as a person, as that's only a conditioned human need. And sure, wherever there is life, there has to be god. Such 'down-to-earth' god results from inference, but we seem to overlook the fact that inference is a mind's activity. Mind is material, real and of consequence. The physical world exists because of it; but it is subtle.

    So, there seems to be a gross-subtle hierarchy and gross seems to be a progressive manifestation/ actualization of the subtle. This takes us to another inference that there has to be something that is the subtlest of all, a primary source of all that is manifest and for want of a suitable label, god.

    To disregard any construct like the above and to assume the real and tangible material world having its parenthood among the same material world will sound very rational, but will remain deceptive. It will give a false impression that the intelligent human beings that we are, have to repair unfair human situations only by working with the equally defective solutions.

    I have realized that the situation is not a hopeless catch 22. While one need not at all be vaguely esoteric, one need not remain naïve about the subtle world. Any spiritual path that shows the 'behind-the-scene' drivers of the material world is showing the right way. A huge burden and an impossible obstacle for many is understanding this, accepting on one's own terms and walking the path.

    If we limit our search for truth to easy means because of reluctance to face the unknown, the learning, growth and the truth itself will be the casualties.

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    1. Wow! Thanks for your thoughtful words. I'm interested in your concept of the "subtle world." Could you say more about that?

      I'm also not sure how some of your comments connect with my posting (and that's ok). I'm thinking something tweaked your own thought and you shared that. If your are responding to specific things in my posting, I'd love to hear how you linked those up. Thanks for reading my blog!

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  2. If it is not said explicitly, I did enjoy your blog. And yes, my comments connect with what I think is your 'position' on god. The part I like is your god incarnating in anything and everything that has "life". But when we call ourselves sinful, living in sacred shit or essentially mortal, our perception of life appears to be charitable.

    So, do the enlightened people scare us? if they really do they are not really enlightened. But it is more likely that we insist on getting scared or we want to blame our scare of the rigors of god-realization on them somehow.

    The all-pervading, intelligent and infinite life can be seen as the subtle driving force behind all objects. Then, god-realization becomes a worthwhile mission needing passion and hard work.

    Or one may remain perpetually pessimistic and take god-realization a futile effort. God need not be put on any pedestal - high or low. God need not be he or she, or even a person, or anybody's personal possession. Simply put, god even need not be.

    But the principle remains. Subtle are forces, drivers and behind-the-seen operators; they may be invisible to our physical eyes; but do exist and run the show. Yoga amongst the world's many spiritual paths is a theory and practice of raising oneself to deeper, subtler awareness where weak, shallow and listless becomes strength, depth and vitality. I issue this from personal experience.

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  3. Hi again,
    Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my questions! I actually didn't mean to imply that humans are essentially mortal but I do mean to say that we are essentially both mortal and sacred. Core to my sense of things is co-creation, the sense that I am an expression of but also and agent of something bigger than myself.

    I probably shouldn't speak of enlightened people as scaring me; rather, I should say that some of them don't resonate with me. The Dalai Lama, for example, seems like a wise person but his more recent writings are too detached from any lived experience for me to relate. Likewise, Thich Naht Hahn is clearly a beautiful, loving being but I can't read him too often because he doesn't share enough of his doubts and worries; he writes of love and sometimes I don't experience love or am struggling to love myself. I really appreciate, as I said, writers like Chodron who starts with her own weaknesses and hence leads me from MY weaknesses to a different understanding or experience.

    I totally love your statement: "The all-pervading, intelligent and infinite life can be seen as the subtle driving force behind all objects." That's kind of how I experience it--an an energy field or force of which I'm a part.

    I don't know if "God" exists as such and you seem to see it that way as well. The god of our mind's creation (as Marx sort of said) is anybody's guess; it's a human construct. That does nothing to enhance or detract from whatever IS. In other words, no matter what my opinion or ideas are, if there's a sacred/divine or universal energy field, it just IS irrespective of my efforts to define or understand it. So, it's my BELIEF that it works through the creation and possibly is, in turn, becoming based on the creation (hence, co-creation--de-Chardin in mind here).

    Your statement that "weak, shallow and listless becomes strength, depth and vitality" rings a bell with me. I seek that for myself.

    Again, thank you for engaging with my blog so deeply. I'm grateful. Roxie

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  4. It has been joy reading your words. Very rarely one finds a blog like yours - where there are thoughts needing a blog, and not the other way around.

    Many of us overlook an error as I did for most of my life. We forget how we become what we are today. We do not archive the changes and the transformation and instead carry a huge pile of visuals and emotions that are as useless as the old newspaper. When the change is not noticed, we never come face-to-face with the change-agent, the life. Since we easily miss the change within, we don't even suspect the change without. Objects remain distinct, distant and distracting.

    Life needs to be recognized and not just lived. Apparent life as a ceaseless flow of emotions and impressions conceals its real identity as energy, and as vibrations in its core. Then change becomes a corollary and not a surprise or a mystery. Change teaches us a lot and one of the first lessons is how it results from vibrations and the movement intrinsic to life. Change is continuous and that makes yesterday, today and tomorrow merely human and artificial constructs.

    I also realized my mistake in taking the emotional scaffoldings as the pillars of my being. Very soon, a need for solidity, stability and a status quo started subsiding and I became comfortable with the fluidity of my beliefs, self-view and the world-view.

    Our realization of change within gives us courage to hold any ideas and positions as transitory and any personal truth as only relative. That also gives us a glimpse of divinity that is completely devoid of construct of any kind. Human thinking is a grand tool of initial enquiry into the truth, but an obstacle beyond a point.

    I am reasonably sure that human thinking is a disastrous tool to witness god. It is not only incapable of fathoming divinity, but is also a cheater who shows a lot of counterfeit pictures of god as authentic. My trust lets me see god present all around. But even that I hold as 'subject to change'.

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    1. Hi again,
      I'm immensely challenged by your ideas and perceptions of reality. You seem to be saying that the human condition with all of its intelligence, emotions, and other capacities is not capable of conceptualizing or even understanding the divine. Yes?

      I sort of get that AND I stand firmly IN the human condition valuing its status of being (as I see it) part mortal/human and part divine. I don't want either of these two without the other at this point because I believe that the union of the two IS what we are given in this manifestation that we call the human condition. I question my friends who seem to have shed their human roots. Is that true of you?

      I am very intrigued as to how you "glimpse . . . divinity that is completely devoid of construct of any kind." Please say more about that.

      I agree with you that "human thinking is a disastrous tool to witness god." I don't put enormous emphasis on thought. It seems to me, however, there are intuitive leaps (grace?) that come to us bidden and unbidden. I have had the experience of a voice speaking through me that didn't seem to be OF me. It spoke for several months and then disappeared. I know that sounds lame but it happened. I wrote down everything it said at the time and I was amazed. I don't feel unique or special in this. I sense that such graces are available to all of the creation helping us, for a moment, not to "see through a glass darkly" but to actually see.

      I don't kid myself that I see or apprehend the whole; I don't. I'm certain there is something beyond my abilities to comprehend.

      If I had to say where the divine is manifest in the human, I'd say in metaphor, music, poetry, art, meditation--things that unite us momentarily with the divine. In the very act of creating, I lose myself and become the ocean instead of the wave.

      I'm very interested in how you DO apprehend the divine because it seems to me that you DO based on what you've posted so far. Thanks again for your sharings. Roxie

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  5. The problem is not with human condition, but with our perception of it. I hold an inclusive definition of the world. First, it is multi-layered and secondly, the subtle elements hold the manifested gross. For example, a tree can be just an inert object. Or one could become aware of the continually changing, growing & dying tree. Or one would see life behind the changes and witness commonality of omnipresent life in all the objects. I call that life, divine and everything else as its manifestation.

    I write poetry, plays; am a musician; am an innovative teacher and enjoy each of these creative channels. They allow me to be simultaneously aware of the material expression and the divine presence. Its inclusive.

    What happens with knowing both, the gross and the subtle, is one becomes aware of the extra/ unnecessary part of the baggage. One understands the difference between sentiments and emotions; between punditry and wisdom; between logical intellect and intuitive intellect. So, I don't reject or undermine intrinsic human-ness; but, find no need to be locked up in it.

    It is only by unlocking awareness from physicality one can witness divinity. And its right there; divinity is not non-physical; it is in fact its parent. Like, you can't "see" the butter in the buttermilk unless it is churned; you can't see the divine unless you are free from all the human constructs which are designed for material living.

    Finally, the challenge if at all is not to the fact that "you don't see or apprehend the whole". Problem is, we have hypnotized ourselves that we don't because we can't. And for me, that is not true.

    (If you are not positively challenged, blame it on my poor expression.)

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