8 Billion Souls Gathering for the Great Learning

8 Billion Souls Gathering for the Great Learning

by | Jul 14, 2023 | EpochalChanges, spiritual-growth

My heart breaks open every moment as I take in the beauties and the sufferings of these times.

If you are not aware of the ways that our industrial lifestyle has at first slowly and then quickly accelerated the imbalance of the planet’s systems, you may be recognizing it now.

It seems that this truly is our Atlantis Moment, a time when our flaws, misdeeds and selfishness come back as consequences and we see them clearly.

This is a time to draw close to our inner connection to Source, to God, and to our core sense of self; a time to stay mindfully centered and aware.

Eight Billion humans — as many humans live today as have lived through all times on this planet. Have we all come to gather and experience this Atlantis Moment together?

It seems so.

I wish great peace to all who visit this website looking to establish a deeper meditative practice and to cultivate quiet sacred inner space. Thank you for your spiritual striving.

Dana

 

 

The Challenge of the Witness

The Challenge of the Witness

by | Dec 16, 2022 | meditation, spiritual-growth

In most Eastern styles of meditation, we speak of “the witness”: the inner eye that sees the internal and external world. During meditation, the witness watches our thoughts and emotions pass by. It notices states and changes in the body and mind. In daily life, the witness also picks up on the states, thoughts, and feelings of those around us.

In deeper meditation, when a level of alive stillness is achieved, we are directed to turn the attention of the witness away from what is being observed and toward that which is creating the stream of awareness, that which we might call Self, Atman, God, Source, Universe or other.

I have been disturbed, many years now, by what I witness in the world–and I suppose that you, my reader, have been disturbed, as well. The various nations, philosophies and religions seem set on destructive paths.

And so, I wondered today if I could find a way to communicate some of the similarities that bind us together as one humanity, and so I looked for a metaphoric description of “the witness” in a religious text. Immediately, the Bhagavad Gita came to mind. In this sacred Hindu text, two Kingdoms, related by blood, are set to engage in war: one army on one side of a great plain, and the second army, posed to go, on the other.

It is just before dawn. The God Krishna and a revered warrior-prince, Arjuna, stand together in Arjuna’s chariot. Now Arjuna cries out to Krishna in despair: Why must there be war? Why conflict between families? 

The answer, as I recall its meaning from my reading, long ago, is this: it is none of Arjuna’s business to know the why’s and wherefores of the world, for conflict and war are inherent to the human drama, and each of us has many lives and repeat many karmas.

But Krishna also tells Arjuna: you can detach yourself from the drama. You are with me, after all, in this moment, this time, and place. Here is where your focus should rest. Witness me.

As Arjuna turns his attention away from the war and toward his friend, Krishna reveals himself in his glory and, if you are sensitive to the beauty of language, the description of the glory of Krishna is utterly transporting.

In essence, the story is this: The witness part of us is called to become still, to detach from the conflicts of the mind and emotions and from the conflicts of society and the troubles of the world.

At each moment, the witness can turn to its godly companion and be utterly transported into a universe of peace, beauty, and revelation.

I just wanted to share this thought here. It is not meant to be taken as advice or guidance. 

The Darkness of the Pandemic, the Beauty of the Arctic, a Prayer for Survival, a Poem of Realistic Expectations

The Darkness of the Pandemic, the Beauty of the Arctic, a Prayer for Survival, a Poem of Realistic Expectations

by | Dec 20, 2021 | EpochalChanges, spiritual-growth

In these times, we become aware that the darkness is more dense and more deceptive than we’ve consciously experienced before. Apparently, those who know the hard facts believe they must hold them back, whether because they themselves can not face them, or because they believe that we cannot face them, or both. The darkness of enforced ignorance, or willful ignorance, and of designed deception is one of the greatest downfalls of modern humanity.

On the one hand, we have a disease let loose from a laboratory being chased by vaccines that are not as effective or as safe as promised, with alternative treatments used successfully around the world actively suppressed and belied. But an even grave danger is the tipping point of oceanic warming and the thinning and loss of arctic ice, which acts as a mirror, reflecting heat away from the ocean. Record levels of flash floods, heat spells, and freezing weather plus a lack of bees and water pose an imminent threat to the world’s food supply and endanger the survival of entire populations. 

If we came together to actualize the meer reflection project, we might have a chance at staving off the worse consequences of oceanic warming and loss of ice. Yet this discussion is not happening.

I pray now for a humankind that insists on knowing and understanding the facts and that acts to protect life on earth.

Below is a video of a poem, “No Regrets,”written by Danna Faulds and read by a climate scientist Beril Sirmacek with music by Frank Weening.

In this video, the question: what if this is the end, is met by a realistic acceptance of probabilities: she has reconciled herself to the probability of irreversible climate change, with its devastating consequences–but she embraces her spirituality, and lives fully and with heart.  

What if it were the end of the world. . .

What if it were the end of the world. . .

by | Dec 8, 2021 | EpochalChanges, spiritual-growth

What if the worst predictions were true, and the planet is about to go into climate-extremes-overdrive, with alternating patterns of extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme drought, and extreme floods, increasing in ferocity year by year.

As you read these words, you might realize that we are already in that pattern. Extreme climate patterns are already upon us. 

I would not be up-to-date on this subject, were not a good friend’s brother a teacher on these matters. Following his posts now for several years, it is clear that what many believe is an overblown narrative is actually not. It is very real and the pattern is only getting worse, quickly, year by year, season by season. 

The sadness of this is often overwhelming. I can tune in to the species that are going extinct, the plants, animals, insects, even the microflora in the soil. It feels like tiny lights are being extinguished, one by one, and then all together, and threads of the fabric of this matrix just pulled out and disappearing.

So why then are we here? If the cycle, as it were, on this unbelievably beautiful planet is drawing to a close, what are we doing here? 

Many are leaving. Whether the death occurs in the so-called First World because of illness or despair during the lockdowns of the pandemic, or if the deaths are in so-called Third-World countries, which is where the worst heat is striking. These countries have been catapulted into economic collapse as a result of our lockdowns, leaving millions of people to starve.

Why are we here? Why be born into this time and place, to see, cause and endure this suffering?

Today, meditating on this question, I got a kind of answer. We are here to be as aware as we can be about the causes and consequences, and we are here to be the best selves we can be, to turn to our God and to our deepest spiritual resources, to be kind and good in the face of hardship, and to ask the hard questions and find the hard answers, whatever they might be in any person’s unique situation.

It is helpful to remember that we opt-in, as it were, to the circumstances into which we are born and live. However hard or relatively easy the circumstances, they contain just the right challenges for our soul at this time of great tribulation.

Perhaps, for many of us, the hardships we endure now are an opportunity to lighten our karmic burden, to recognize, deeply feel and work through the patterns of multiple incarnations, lightening the backpack as we travel on.

It is a rare time, a time of rarified consciousness, we not only look our own death in the eyes, but at the end of an entire cycle. 

Go into your calm inner place of oneness with self and with God.

Go there as often as you can, sit, breathe, remember who you are and where you are, and then remember your eternal, timeless and placeless self. 

Acknowledge that this time and place is exactly where we are meant to be. 

***

I do still have hope and I count on our continuing on–if not on this planet, then on another. We are a beautiful, creative, heartfelt soul group, and we will find our way.

 

Finding One’s True Self

by | Dec 17, 2020 | spiritual-growth

Recently, I was asked to help a colleague find her true self.

What does that mean?

My colleague had psychic experiences as a child and young adult. They were disturbing, and she had to “turn them off” in order to function. She adapted to a mind-oriented way of being and went into a study of hard science. Then life sent her some hard shakes and she began to question who she had become, what her values are. She turned to prayer.

She wants to know how to find her true self – the self she was before she forced herself to have a materialistic, atheist mindset.

The request to help someone find their true self is paradoxical because in the truest spiritual sense, finding our true self feels more like a dissolution of self into a larger whole – the experience of bliss of oneness.

This merging into our true self is so unlike what the mind can conceptualize and comprehend that, famously, every spiritual school agrees it is “beyond words.”

Experiencing this true self is, in a sense, a psychic experience, in that it involves the development of subtle energetic perception – which might be called psychic perception, and that comes about through spiritual practices.

However, the meaning here of “psychic” has little to do with being able to receive visions, knowledge, or insights about other people or places, or to be in contact with the deceased or with spirits from the other side.

This true self is beyond all that. And, as is said in some yogic traditions, when the siddhis, or “psychic, occult talents” develop, as they will if you do enough breathwork and meditation, they are a distraction and a temptation. We acquire these skills as part of our perceptual range, but they are just that: skills – and not an end-goal in themselves.

Usually, when I am asked about finding one’s true self, what is meant is finding one’s purpose in life. Again, this can be a misleading question, even when we ask it to ourselves with deep sincerity.

When we incarnate, we come with a purpose. It can be something large, to carry out or participate in a great cause. Or it can be something small, such as learning to be less self-absorbed and to humbly dedicate oneself to the wellbeing of others. (In which case, the preoccupation with one’s purpose is the opposite of what we should be learning.)

I like Michael Newman’s descriptions of souls and their evolution, the idea that as souls progress, we are drawn to develop different skills and talents.

Some of us are healers, some are ethicists, some scientists, some are involved in the care of the earth, and so on. We come back again and again to complete our skillset, but also to develop our “character,” to mature in our depth, our ability to hold a larger perspective, and a willingness to sacrifice. (I think I just described my own challenges…)

I suggest reading Newman’s Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, to offer perspective to this question. Newman himself offers “Life between Life” hypnosis. He says that when people experience who they are between lives, they get a sense of their purpose, and gain more energy and confidence to take on the challenges of this present life.

I offer hypnotherapy too, along with mindfulness guidance and the RoseWay meditation. I also find that guiding a client or student into a deep sense of self – indescribable experience – the result is more energy and deep confidence for this life today.