The Seeker’s Manual

Here is a simple meditation to reinforce the power of two simple and all-important principles: Love and Gratitude.

On the inbreath, raise the hands to just above and in front of the shoulders, extended with palms facing somewhat out, somewhat up, as if holding a large earth balloon. The chest expands as the lungs fill with air, and the eyes are open to the wide beauty of the outer world, the realm of Nature. Experience Love, opening self to the gift of all that is.

On the outbreath, fold the hands one over the other, on top of the heart or at the center of the upper chest. The eyes are closed as the body relaxes, letting the air out of the lungs. Attention is drawn within, in a state of inner peace, to the realm of Spirit. Experience Gratitude, accepting self and the gifts received from all that is.

Most of our lives are spent in distraction from these primary outer (Love, Nature) and inner (Gratitude, Spirit) experiences, as we explore the web of social relations and react to cultural demands and opportunities. Culture is key to our existence as a social species. Yet we can become overwhelmed by the social world, internalizing its judgments and superficial priorities, and forgetting our primary place as children of Nature and the Cosmos, precious vehicles of spirit.

Take time out to walk or run or sit in Nature, and to sit or lie in stillness to allow Spirit to resonate within you. Suddenly the concerns of self and family, tribe and nation, lose their power as a greater power and peace open to you. When you return to choose and fill your social obligations, you will be more powerful and peaceful than before.

There are two kinds of happiness, and, for that matter, too kinds of sadness: big and little. The big kinds are existential; the little kinds are conditional. Small happiness over a good meal, ego-sadness over a failed opportunity - making ourselves feel good or bad depending on the circumstances of the moment. Existential happiness comes from a place beyond good and bad, a sense of being content with the overall perfection of balance, free from judgment. Existential sadness, like Satre’s “Nausea,” is really the ego or small personal self’s intellectual reaction to the proof of its own irrelevance. The emotional content is loneliness, in the void left as the imprint of the self-important vanishes. Is there another polarity between these larger forces of happiness and sadness with existence itself? Again, they are unequal forces to begin with, as the intrinsic state of perfection is happiness itself; while the affected sadness is but a remnant of the nostalgic ego, as it mourns its own passing. There remains a dual challenge, however: to disidentify both with the mournful ego looking for meaning or company, and the self-satisfied dweller in the Garden. It is a hidden secret of “The Secret” that if our desire to manifest our own happiness (or our success in doing so) leads us to feel proud and happy about our powers and good fortune, our opinion will change when our prayers go unanswered and our fortunes change; but the more genuine and lasting manifestation is neither a material prize nor a feeling of personal success. Rather it requires a humbler respect for the truer powers we may tap into once we let go of our conscious or unconscious agenda for social status and ego-gratification.

I learned something yesterday: I realized that instead of asking, “What can/did I do today,” I can ask, “What can/did I learn today?”  Or even more to the point, in present tense: “What am I learning today/right now?”

Interesting that my realization came yesterday on a day when one notable event (among others) was a vehicle accident that happened right in front of me, when a pickup passed going 70 MPH toward a red light the driver didn’t see until too late, so he couldn’t brake enough to avoid rear-ending the car stopped in the lane ahead.  ”Oh, sorry,” the geezer said to the distraught (but uninjured) young Hawaiian woman in the car he hit.

I guess the obvious lesson here (for all concerned) is, “Be careful.”  It could go deeper into, “Life is short, be happy,” or, a favorite saying of my mother’s, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  Indeed, “Everything is happening in perfect time” … but not for all of the people all of the time.  Or, to the follow the American theme, the event could signal the financial “crash” of an out-of-control empire in denial of the red light ahead.  Hmm, what’s that in my other browser window? “Don’t say we didn’t warn you this time — a new crash is dead ahead” (link from Michael Ruppert’s blog).

Maybe I caused the accident by my driving too slowly (only 5-10 MPH over the speed limit), or by dropping the avocado I bought just before getting into the car twenty minutes earlier.  In short, I’m still not sure what I learned about that accident.  It’s a kind of synchronicity, which Jung in coining the word claimed has meaning but not necessarily in any defined sense.  A sense of appreciation of essence.  In witnessing this accident, for instance, the scene went from fast motion to slow motion, to surreal … rather like the dreams I used to have about working at the airport taxiing planes and watching helplessly as they plowed into the terminal.

Life is like that sometimes.  Space-time bends as opposites collide in a flash of light, and into the vacuum moves life and death, marriage and birth, pain and grace, creation and destruction.

At the bottom

of the self

there is no self

only nature

other people

and all the reality

that we can imagine

also see: The Meaning of Life - a website offering practical advice about lucid living

Of the all-abiding oneness we might say there are three primary divisions: Nature, Culture, and Spirit.

Spirit is the foundation.  Spirit brings us past the sensible form we are used to thinking of as “reality,” and into the hidden energetic realm within all forms and beyond all forms. Spirit is the essence of matter, of all things.  It is the ocean of vibration, the waves that continue despite our attempts to particularize, to define, to control and limit.  Our access to spirit comes most fully through the practice of meditation, as meditation trains us to go beyond habitual boundaries of thought, emotion, language and action; to taste oneness firsthand, and to dwell within it.

Nature is the sensible and material realm we live in, despite our persistent attempts to wall it out, to tame and exploit it for our private human benefit.  Though we have taught our kind to fear it, to escape it and to master it, Nature remains our constant home, our ever-forgiving Mother. Perhaps the chief characteristic of our true and sustainable relation to Nature is a sense of belonging.  Only with the attitude of belonging can we heal our dangerous split with Nature and begin to resurrect the symbiosis that all life shares, by practicing survival strategies grounded in respect and care of the Nature that sustains us.

Culture is the outer layer of skin on the earth, the sum of practices we bring to our biological and psychological survival.  Human culture, though in large measure it appears to have divorced itself from underlying Nature, is itself but a phenomenon of Nature.  The social animals, whether termites or lions, provide a clear example to us that to survive and flourish in a state of Nature requires cooperation and bonding within one’s own species.  Our practice of culture, whether “primitive” or “civilized,” entails the honing of craft … making arrows or learning piano scales.

To ground our scattered contemporary lives more fully in these essential realms - Spirit, Nature, and Culture - requires first of all seeing the necessity of all three in a healthy human life.  Lacking sufficient connection with either one results in the impoverishment of our health and quality of life. Yet we are programmed from birth (in modern Western society, at least), to discount spirit in favor of material values; to spurn Nature in favor of the clever works of man; to enjoy culture as passive consumers instead of creative participants.

To overturn these paradigms means replacing toxic body-memory with direct connection, expanding identity from self-concern to mindful presence and engagement with the whole, through all three of these primary channels and practices: Spirit, through meditation; Nature, through a sense of belonging; Culture, through our chosen craft.

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To apply these principles to my own life (by way of example), I might cultivate these practices as follows:

Meditation: daily routine, spontaneous awareness, journal writing, reading, music improvisation

Belonging: nurturing relationship, food strategy, outdoor time, exercise, sun, attention to natural health

Craft: writing, editing, music practice, composition, publishing, social sharing

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To go further in implementing these practices, I might follow a schedule such as:

Morning: meditation and yoga, music composition and practice, writing and publishing, editing and promotion

Afternoon: improvisation, food gathering and preparation, outdoors/sun, exercise, relationship

Evening: relationship, social sharing, music, journal, reading, relaxation

further reading: Eco-Culture

starting with what is
in the moment
the sun on the water at Thetis Lake

doing what is most important first
at every moment
what the body needs

living the dream
in the moment
going deeper in the vision of now

this is about the how
where the what comes naturally
and the how needs daily discipline

to shape the container
to maintain the intention
to remember the primary truth

like today: sleep, yoga, meditation
food, connection, practice,
exercise, nature, expression

these are the basics, and the rest
the career and financial ambitions
follow as nature, culture, spirit and time allow

The Well

There is a well, and in it lies clear water.  At the bottom of the well is a lot of sediment.  When removing the sediment by means of a bucket on a long rope, it gets stirred up and muddies the water.  Was it better to leave it there, building up gradually?

In meditation, the sediment is emptied out, and over time the water settles into its clear, pure state, with clean rock on the bottom.  During the day’s worldly activity, new dirt is shoveled into the well, clouding the water and adding to the sediment at the bottom.  Each day requires removing that sediment to open and clear the well so the water can run clear and pure again.

bamboo flute:
click to play

Life, like music, love, and baseball, is a series of tests and lessons, punctuated by seasons of inspired bliss.

The power of intention is indeed powerful - but to put all one’s eggs in that basket is to risk falling into the trap of attachment to results in the world.  The wheel of fortune may bring success where efforts are applied … but as the wheel turns round we are met with transience, decay, and insistent sand blowing in the gears of progress.

On the heels of apparent success, comes obstruction, new challenge, and the shadow of the hungry ghost. Suddenly I understand, as the page I open in the Tao Te Ching (trans. Colin Mallard, p. 149) reveals:

To act with intention brings failure.
Grasp something and it slips through the fingers.

The sage has no intention
So he cannot fail
Since he grasps nothing
Nothing is lost.

Into the midst of depression over that unintended failure, a germ of understanding comes to sprout.  Nurtured by meditation, it reveals a glowing orb of joy:

“The more we can feel a spiritual happiness within and the growth of wisdom, the more courage we will have and the less empty we will feel within.”  - Rosemary and Steve Weissman, a little inspirational book, p. 113

Going deeper, I revisit the field of action with fresh motivation to refine, engaging with clarified intent - not simply to attain or achieve, but simply to express from the heart of what is, dancing to the only song I am granted to sing.

more audiovisuals with flute…

Mystic Beach | Thetis Lake | Danya’s Pools | Daily Prayer

Heartsongs: flute improvisations

Flutes Jam - Learn to improvise on flute or pennywhistle

shakuhachi flute:
click to play

Daily Prayer

electromagnetic streaming data
distraction, downloads, quanta
all possible/probable manifest
at a click

thoughts, emotions, supposed
sensations and scenarios
settle deeply, back into bliss
clear focus, unframed

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more audio-visuals with flute:

Mystic Beach | Thetis Lake | Danya’s Pools

Heartsongs: flute improvisations

Flutes Jam - Learn to improvise on flute or pennywhistle

“Sri Aurobindo used to say that the sole purpose of books and philosophies was not really to enlighten the mind, but to silence it so that, quieted, it can start experiencing and receive inspiration directly.”
–Satprem, Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure of Consciousness, p. 281

We do everything in a state of tension, hurriedly, carelessly, unconsciously; in response to the thousand and one promptings of external life, not to mention its blows, we behave physically like a patient in a dentist’s chair: we are tense and turned in on ourselves, out of haste, or fear, or anxiety, or greed.  This is the legacy of a few millions of years of animality: our substance remembers having struggled to survive, it keeps hardening itself.  This hardening is one of the causes of death, and a great obstacle to establishing the true vibration.  When we stiffen and harden under a blow, we gather all our vital force in one point, as a defense; a huge current suddenly flows through a tiny opening, which turns red-hot and hurts. If we learned to broaden our physical consciousness and absorb the blow instead of rejecting it, we would not suffer - all suffering is a narrowness of the consciousness, at all levels. We can thus understand that were this dust of warm supramental gold to rush suddenly into our cells, and were the body to react with its usual hardening, everything would burst.  In other words, our cellular consciousness, like our mental and vital consciousness, must learn to expand and universalize. (p. 321)

And so what is there to add to the adventure of consciousness by one (Aurobindo) who dedicated his life to its exploration and elucidation?  How can you venerate the silence by adding more words to it?

The mind left to its own devices will make up more verbal propositions without end, whether in attempted communication with others or in the safety of its own domain; and these deserve to be measured for truth next to one another and in light of the greater wordless silence that is the big picture outside and inside our habitually dictating selves.

Would it be better to do as Sri Aurbindo did and retreat in solitude for 24 years, or to seek to attain an unshakeable stillness and silence that could serve as a beacon and shining example for any and all to follow?  The answer Satprem provides, in his 300-plus pages of dense commentary, is a resounding No.  What Aurobindo found and Satprem emphasizes, is that there is no enlightenment apart from the meat of life and death; no individual salvation without the liberation of all the world from suffering; no adventure of consciousness outward from the body and its failings, but only into the depths of our reality, our atomic and subatomic structure, where we find what we are looking for in the very place we are.

Satprem says, “We have lost the Password, that is the bottom line of our era” (p. 349).

A new word, if it can bring us back to this journey, is not extraneous but vital.  If it is true it can serve as the password we seem to keep forgetting.  To that end there is always an opening for a fresh attempt - especially as truth insists on leaving behind all that has gone before, and coming to us naked and new and in need of our understanding as of this moment, going forward into the yet unknown.