All posts by Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Greatest Love Affair Of All

Leave a comment
The subconscious becoming conscious…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The ultimate love affair, in Hindu cosmology, the union of Shakti and Shiva, takes place within the human body. Shakti, in her energetic form, as Kundalini, rests in the coccyx, at the base of the human spine. Kundalini is the divine manifesting substance and force  of all creation. Shiva, the God of pure consciousness, resides at the crown of the human head.

These divine consorts, situated at the opposite poles of the spinal column, are also oppositely charged. Shakti is negative and Shiva is positive. The resulting magnetic force of attraction of these opposites draws this divine couple irresistibly toward the goal of union.

The union of Shakti and Shiva is the union of Spirit, which is consciousness, and Matter, which is the creative energy of all material manifestation. The progeny of their union is the  world we live in. This dynamic union and creation is expressed in Judeo-Christian cosmology in John’s Gospel, “in the beginning was the word (Spirit consciousness) and the word was made flesh (Matter).”

Upon awakening early one morning, I was contemplating Shakti and Shiva’s relationship when Jan abruptly woke from a dream. She told me she had just been in India, where a very tall ladder that had pointed vertically into the heavens was brought down and positioned horizontally, both balanced and secure, across several buildings.

Jan reflected that the roof is the highest spiritual point of a building that is grounded in the earth. The message of the dream: the spiritual journey that is needed now is not a vertical rise, out-of-body into the heavens, but instead a horizontal in-body journey, as one traverses the challenges of their human life, with all its relationships upon the Earth.

These challenges are neatly laid out in Hindu science, as the path that Kundalini traverses through the chakras, or subtle energy power stations along the spine, en route to Shiva. Actually, each chakra entails its own horizontal journey, which requires mastery as we move toward greater fulfillment in life.

The base of the spine center asks us to find grounding, safety and security. The genital region introduces us to sexual and creative energy, which entail their own developmental processes. The solar plexus introduces us to I, as ego, and the mastery of personal power. The heart introduces us to our connection to our Spirit and deepest truth. The throat is about finding our voice. The third eye brings forth intuition. As Kundalini reaches Shiva, at the crown, consciousness unites and becomes one with all creation. In a human life, the fulfillment of this state is experienced as we relax increasingly deeper into ever-widening equanimous love.

The duality of Shakti and Shiva is also expressed in the two minds of the human psyche: the subconscious mind and the ego.

The subconscious, Shakti, is feminine in its receptivity to suggestions. The subconscious has access to all knowledge and creative possibility, as well as the substance to birth new life, but, without union with the novel suggestions of consciousness, is governed by instinctual programs and habits.

The ego, Shiva, is identified with life in the physical body and is the seat of consciousness. Regardless of gender, ego is masculine in its active thinking capabilities. It is the seat of free will and decision making.

The human ego has many developmental challenges it must master, similar to those identified with the chakras. Ego must establish safety and grounding; be introduced to and master sexuality and its animal self, as well as exercise its own capacity to intend creation; become autonomous and have the power of self-assertion; develop humility and acquiescence to truth and its High Spirit Self; use its voice; see beyond its narcissistic shell; and, ultimately, become one with everything.

The subconscious faces no developmental challenges because the subconscious is completely fluid, it can be anything. In contrast to the ego, the subconscious is attached to no identity; it simply responds to the suggestion it entertains at the current moment.

The challenge in human development is for ego to be in the correct relationship with the subconscious mind. Essentially, the ego is the creator, issuing forth the word or image of intent, whose suggestion fertilizes the subconscious, which then galvanizes its substance to manifest new life. The subconscious, in all of us, is the true mother of creation.

If ego does not master safety, it suggests danger to the subconscious, which then manifests an anxious, vigilant personality. If ego suggests inadequacy, the subconscious may manifest a tightened voice. If ego suggests superiority, the subconscious may manifest a pompous, condescending posture and attitude. If ego suggests entitlement to the subconscious, it may manifest a tendency to violate boundaries.

If, on the other hand, the ego aligns with and suggests the truth, the subconscious will open the eye to greater truth and perception. If the ego suggests true love to the subconscious, it activates an energy that draws to us resonant energy. If ego suggests it stay in alignment with its Spirit’s purpose, the subconscious will synchronistically manifest that yellow brick road.

The guidance here is to remain quite protective of the suggestions one both exposes oneself to, as well as personally presents to, the subconscious mind. We live in a time where highly suggestive messages are bombarding both our thinking and subconscious minds at an unprecedented rate, largely due to our attachment to devices, the self-importance of dings, and well-coordinated efforts to infiltrate and influence our subconscious minds.

At the most evolved level, the relationship between ego and subconscious is equivalent to the love affair between Shakti and Shiva. Ego, acting from the insinuation of its Spirt, joining with the magic of the subconscious, is truly the greatest love affair of all. May we all participate in birthing that dream.

With consciousness and infinite possibility,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Always Find The Positive In The Negative

1 Comment
Finding the positive in the negative…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Most of what we are is either inherited or molded by our formative social experience, essentially, what we brought in with us into this life and how we were greeted when we arrived. The force of these influences can make a strong argument that the course of a human life is predetermined or mechanistically determined.

Nonetheless, as noted existential thinkers and authors Victor Frankl and Edith Eger have demonstrated: Regardless of circumstances beyond our control, we always retain the free will to choose the attitude we will take toward our reality. And attitudes, it turns out, are powerful suggestions that we, as creators, present to our subconscious minds that can completely shift the reality that we live in.

Some of those inherent programs, however, are so powerful that they simply cannot be overridden, like the one the shamans of Ancient Mexico emphasize: We are beings who are going to die. Ironically, this is the one inherent program that human beings refuse to acknowledge and, in fact, spend most of their lives living as though it will never come true!

Of course, the argument immediately arises that to focus on the inevitability of death is morbidly negative and casts too depressive a shadow over opening up to the fullness of life. So what could possibly be the positive side of death?

Death advises us that our time in human form is limited. This impact of limitation allows for a legitimate scientific experiment in the living of a human life. Science insists upon a beginning and an ending to assess the truth and full knowing of something. The awareness of inevitable death keeps us positively on track to discover and test the core hypothesis of our lives. But what is our core hypothesis?

Carl Jung would identify that hypothesis as one of individuation, which entails successfully bringing into realized wholeness the unique combination of opposing parts that we are. Frederick Myers, from his advanced perspective in infinity, would identify that hypothesis as an incarnating soul’s mission, assigned by its Spirit, to answer a question through the trajectory of a human life, which ultimately allows one’s soul group to further refine and thus to advance on its ever-unfolding journey in infinity.

Wholeness must include light and shadow. Individuation is the ability to accept, with equanimity, all parts of self and all parts of the world. Buddha, during his enlightenment, remained utterly calm, as he saw the illusory and transitory nature of all forms. Carlos Castaneda suggested that, as one discovers the specific role one has been assigned in this life, one suspend judgment and live and appreciate it to the fullest, whether it emphasizes the light or the dark side.

The power players on the current world stage are truly playing their parts to perfection, both those who reflect the light and those who blatantly reflect evil. The collective individuation challenge  of our time is well represented, with worthy opponents whose interplay is critical to advancement of the soul group of planet Earth’s dream.

Closer to home, we all struggle with these opposing forces within ourselves. We all contend with genetic consequences, which both limit and promote our physical structure, health, and attractiveness. If we can see these effects, no matter how undesirable, as critical factors to our individual and soul group’s need to master, we can embrace the positive side of the negative.

At the level of the psyche, we all deal with forces that can be extremely critical, deprecating and incessantly negative, generating depressed mood states and compulsive behaviors. If we can understand the necessity of these negative forces in our journey of mastery, we can see the positive value of these petty tyrants to help us emerge from the captivity of self pity.

Self pity shapes our vital flowing energy into a rigid negative form that completely clouds the positive potential latent in the present challenge. It’s a dream where many of the stone steps of a narrow circular stairway are missing, as we feel hopelessly barred from ascent to higher ground. Our energy is fully spent on body armor, condemning our innocence and unlived self to the isolation of solitary confinement.

The shamans of ancient Mexico always included powerful petty tyrants in their lives to help them stare down the imprisoning bars of self pity. Being challenged by ruthless petty tyrants frees our energy from the confinement of defending our hurt selves, allowing it to be deployed in focused action in full conformity to what is needed to master the tyrant’s labyrinth.

To achieve this mastery we cannot afford to spend an ounce of energy on being offended. Here, the petty tyrants of this world offer us the greatest opportunity to break through the narcissistic shell of self pity and entitlement.

The success of individuation in the limits of a human life is the achievement of acceptance; complete acceptance for every experience and character one has ever encountered, as well as complete acceptance of one’s self.

The fruit of this acceptance is an even more refined purity of love. And that refined love is what fulfills our lives and advances our soul group another rung on the infinite ladder of love.

Always find the positive in the negative; it’s the truly soulful thing to do,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Stepping Up The Infinite Ladder Of Love

Leave a comment
Plant your love wherever you go…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

I, like all of us, have been challenged in this life to ascend another rung on the infinite ladder of love. I call that ladder infinite because love forever broadens as it rises to embrace the infinitude of all.

The challenge of reopening to love, once you’ve experienced love, as we all have, regardless of its level of fulfillment, is to grow that love forward. Love can only build upon the plateau of love you have already accrued.

We accrue love in many of our relationships in life, be they with humans, animals or trees. Letting go of a physical relationship can never erase the fact of that love, regardless of its ending in the materiality of this plane of life.

If you are to love again, you must include all the love you have ever experienced as the foundation for new love. However, that growing love must be separated from attachment to the nostalgic familiarity of forms and habits already lived. Love cannot grow if it remains tethered to a past life. And yes, one can have many lives in one physical life.

A sense of undying loyalty to a relationship that has physically ended binds love’s evolution and hinders maturity into new life. Successful mourning ultimately frees everyone to continue their journey into new possibilities. Allowing oneself to be vulnerable in a new encounter, while knowing through experience the disappointments of failures or missed opportunities in love, is a major growth point.

Jeanne and I had a contract in our earthly marriage that insisted we never impede each other’s growth. As our wedding song honestly stated, “our love will grow for all we know.” Vows simply do not guarantee that love will grow. If it’s not right, love insists you set each other free. It’s the truly loving thing to do.

We launched that contract to new levels when Jeanne left this world. She has since been an impeccable warrior; and she has almost completely refused to grant me a moment of familiar connection to our once-treasured earthly existence.

Our love grows now on the premise that we independently assume total  responsibility for our lives and exercise total freedom in the different planes of existence that we currently reside upon. For Jeanne, that is life in the formless plane; for myself, it remains the continued life in physical form.

Of course, I must admit that Jeanne is a magical trickster, whose maneuvers upon the earthly plane have offered me enormous growth opportunities. But these gifts always come with the insistence that I assume total responsibility for the decision to live and realize the possibility in the seed of the offering. Our loved ones in infinity often challenge us to evolve in ways we’d prefer to avoid.

Jeanne was instrumental to the possibility that I might grow love forward in my relationship with Jan. To achieve this, I needed to fully embrace the love I’d accrued with Jeanne but then totally take it into new frontiers with Jan, completely detached from Jeanne in a personal sense. Yet that growing love is fully given to all, as we mature into beings who love with equanimity.

Jeanne, Jan and I are fully aware that we are part of the same soul group, whose goal—similar to the goals of all soul groups—is for all its members to fully master their individual challenges so that their group, as a whole, can ascend the infinite ladder of love.

Ultimately, there is only one soul group, the soul group of infinite Oneness. Ultimately, all soul groups will merge into that Oneness. An analogy would be the human body, which consists of countless soul groups, such as the soul groups of the liver, the heart, the kidneys, etc. All these distinct organ soul groups ultimately merge into the oneness of a human body.

I would venture to assert that all lives that currently reside upon this Earth plane are members of the same soul group. Yes, I concede that within that group are smaller more intimately connected groups, but we are all extant at this time to both challenge and support each other to advance the Earth dream we all reside in, to rise another rung on the infinite ladder of love. Clearly, to love is the only way to keep that dream alive.

Each of us have the opportunity to ascend the infinite ladder of love in this life. It begins with releasing attachment to the past life of our family  of origin. While cherishing its memory and foundation in love, we allow all the members of our nuclear soul group family to shed their previous forms, as they grow their individual lives forward, whether it be upon a plane of form or a plane of formlessness.

Perhaps most significantly, we must allow our evolving selves to molt, to shed the skins of completed life, in the form of attachment to old ideas of self, and to be fully present to new possibility, as we bring life and love to the unlived sides of our soul’s potential.

To love the many lives of self through the developmental stages of this life, as well as all the people with whom we’ve shared those lives, while at the same time releasing all to their new lives, is the foundation to build new love upon, as we take another step upon the infinite ladder of love.

Love is all around you,
Come on and let it grow,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Completing the Physical While in the Physical

Leave a comment
Completion now, or later?
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Life in a physical body is a solid dream. We require solid foods to maintain the body of that dream. When we exit from that dream, at completion of the solid life we are in, we shift into the dream of life in a much more refined, subtle energy body; one that no longer requires solid foods to survive.

However, attachment to the habits, pleasures and goals of life in a material body cast their shadow upon the new parameters of life in the energy body. Frederick Myers called this stage of existence, life in Illusionland. The Buddhists call it life in the bardos; the Christians call it purgatory.

The architect of these interim dreams is one’s need to achieve satiety with the physical instincts of hunger, sex and power, as well as the ego’s obsession with receiving attention and validation. Imagination and intent are the bricklayers of these subtle dreams.

In that dream state, a mere thought or desire constructs an entire illusory world for the soul to live in. We do not awaken from these dreams until we are truly satiated with the sensual experience of these material desires. We cannot ascend to the new world of possibility of life in the energy body until we’ve completed the incomplete dreams of material life, the seeds of which are planted and lived to completion in Illusionland.

While still existing in the real dream of the solid body, we are afforded solid opportunities to fulfill our material dreams. Fulfillment means true completion, a lack of interest in having more. We can never move beyond that which we still carry a torch for. In some way, we must come to peace with all our passions before we can open to the next rung of spiritual adventure. Why wait?

To complete the physical while still in the physical is to become fully lucid in the life one is currently in. Lucidity is consciousness of freedom of choice, but one must first learn to suspend judgment. If, for instance, one must complete a life of victimhood, choose to fully complete it.

If, on the other hand, one is bored with victimhood, a true sign of completion, then take charge of venturing beyond old habit into the uncertainty of new life.

That boredom may have been accrued through countless groundhog day cycles that culminate in a eureka moment of completion that allows passage to new life. Finally the knock of the Spirit is heard. This may also include physical impacts or other natural consequences that contribute toward that ultimate moment of satiety.

We are all sharing a collective Earth dream of epic proportion right now. Almost out of necessity we retreat into the daydreams of out-of-body fantasies. Our need for safety has us sleepwalking through these extraordinary times. Time to wake up.

The truth is, we are all participating right now in a collective dream that has a very clear intention, and that is to discover if (given our freedom of choice) we will choose to evolve or to extinguish this dream. I’m quite certain we are all in this world at this time because we are ready to collectively answer that question.

Individually, we each face this same question in the context of our everyday lives. Will we fulfill our physical life needs and desires while in physical form? Or will we extinguish that possibility in this lifetime and thus dream it forward into Illusionland?

Be in the body of this life. It’s the main attraction while we’re in it.

With lucidity, let’s keep this dream alive by assuming responsibility for all our dreams, particularly the one we currently, physically embody!

Dreaming with lucidity,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Relativity Of Mind

Leave a comment
An integrated mind is a mind at peace…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

We might ask ourselves: “Who am I?”

The answer? It depends.

We are of two minds. One of those minds has an identity, an ego, that thinks, feels and knows who it is. The other mind is the subconscious, a far vaster mind that has access to all knowledge and has the potential to become anyone and anything. The subconscious mind has no ego or fixed identity. The subconscious simply becomes what is suggested to it.

When the ego thinks, the subconscious takes the suggestion of that thought and creates it in the physical body. The subconscious does not discriminate fact from fiction. If the ego imagines a frightful possibility, the subconscious treats it as real and armors the body to tense and prepare for clear and present danger.

The subconscious is the older of the two minds. It stores the evolutionary history of the body for its duration in physical life, as well as the historical journey of the soul that inhabits that body. Consequently, the subconscious lacks a specific identity, as its roots stretch way deeper than its current incarnation.

Without locking into any personality the subconscious reacts automatically and instinctively, in a way that has best served the survival of the species. Thus, it reacts to situations based on the suggestions of survival programs that automatically present themselves via association with a current challenge.

However, the subconscious is highly influenced by suggestions from many sources. The ego, or actual personality, exerts a powerful influence through its thoughts, beliefs and imagination. The ego thinks and reflects, which the subconscious does not do, and the subconscious manifests these dramas. Many a psychosomatic symptom or illness is directly the creative manifestation of a suggestion to the subconscious through conscious rumination.

The subconscious is also highly impacted by the free flow of thoughts in the universe, or by the points of view we expose ourselves to in news shows and social media. Political campaigns are judged by the size of one’s financial war chest, which is ultimately spent on suggestions to the subconscious mind’s of voters as to what they should believe and vote for.

Additionally, the subconscious is influenced by our divided selves. Beside our conscious identity are many parts of ourselves that live below the threshold of consciousness, in the region of the psyche that Jung called the shadow. These sub-personalities have minds of their own that constantly offer the subconscious suggestions that immediately register in the body.

I utilize a simple neurofeedback device that registers immediately a changed brainwave state should a background doubt whisper during a meditation session. The subtlety of sensitivity by the subconscious to become what is hinted at is extraordinary.

One does well to bring consciousness to these shadow ideas, that they reach levels of resolution to not unseat one’s conscious intent. This is the path of individuation where one enlarges one’s personality by truly reconciling the oppositions within the self.

Suggestions from such an integrated personality promote health, creativity and fulfillment where that which is within truly reflects that which is without. Such a mind finds duration beyond the relativity of time and space.

Beyond relativity,
Chuck