A cushion on the floor may be all it takes to establish sacred space… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
It is not necessary to be overly strict, to be held down too tightly by the reins of rules, processes, and dictum. Yet discipline is necessary in a spiritual practice or in simply instigating change.
In the beginning, use rules and well-deserved practices to gain footing, to learn how to do something new, but don’t forget to allow the Self, the deeper self, to be part of the process, especially whenever that deeper self begins to show signs of awakening. Rigidity may not be beneficial in the long run. After a while, fluidity in everything is more helpful as you evolve a spiritual practice, as you learn a new skill, as you bend your mind to accept new ideas.
If the world is to change then each one of you must change. And if each one of you is to change then you must challenge yourself to take a step forward, to move beyond the self you now are. It is time for all beings to open up to the greater flow of life and the energy that moves through you all. And so I challenge you all to begin a new practice that will open you in a new direction, a direction of your spirit.
Dance. Take a class. Take a walk. And then do it again. Read a book. Write a letter. Think a new thought. All of these simple things may be just what you need to open a door to a new self.
Once the door is open, the next challenge begins—to keep going! And that is where discipline comes in. Set some rules that you know are doable and then do them! Once you get into a rhythm, challenge the self to go deeper. Go to many classes. Take longer walks. Sit in silence for longer and longer. Read more; write more.
Let’s say that each morning you will meet the rising sun and set an intention for the day. Do it religiously for a month. Then add something else to your practice. Read from a meaningful book, something that inspires you. Take your reading with you into your day. Let it ruminate. Begin to see its significance. Let your thoughts flow through you without attachment. Begin to observe the self. You might notice changes, subtle at first, but gradually you will notice that they stick.
Allow the self time for the self each day. Begin with establishing that practice: time for the self. Make this time important, sacred, set, not to be missed. Make it ritual. Make it personally relevant.
Sacred time can then be brought into everything you do. Make your chores sacred time. Make your work sacred time. Make your routines sacred time. Just be where you are, comfortably present.
Begin to observe the self as you allow sacredness to enter your life. I speak of personal sacredness, meaningful to you in your modern life, in anything and everything you do.
From Deng Ming-Dao’s Everyday Tao, Living With Balance and Harmony…
Perhaps Jung’s favorite story was Richard Wilhelm’s “rainmaker” experience. While in China, Wilhelm—who translated the I Ching—visited a province that had suffered a long drought. Nothing that was done brought rain. Finally, an old Taoist man, known as the rainmaker, was brought in from a faraway province to break the spell. After sitting alone in a hut for three days, it began to rain. When Wilhelm inquired of the old man what he had done to make it rain, the old man said that when he’d arrived he was immediately infected by the disorder of the place and so he had to sit in seclusion until he restored himself to the Tao, to the order of nature. In so doing, the Tao of nature around him was likewise restored, and then it naturally rained.
Look what happens when a Catholic Pope sits in his own quiet meditation. This rainmaker emerges to proclaim that his church has been too “obsessed” with gays, abortion, and contraception. Let’s see how one person’s revelation contributes to realigning with the Tao.
The physicist David Bohm used the holographic metaphor to illustrate the true nature of quantum reality: every particle of the whole has within it the entire whole. Within every person is the entire universe. If we restore ourselves to the Tao, the universe restores itself to the Tao as well.
If we look outwardly, at the macrocosm, we can’t help but see a world of great imbalance. Traditionally, America has projected its shadow self elsewhere in the world and marshaled the troops to subdue the terrorist “out there.” With Syria, the world drew a line. Putin suggested that it’s time for America to get off its exceptionalist kick and face its own shadow. This week, once again, we experienced another mass shooting at home. Indeed, that “shadow” is very active in our homeland. It’s time for us, nationally, to own our shadow, just as, internationally, all are charged with facing the terrorist within themselves as well.
A Buddhist Master, Heng Ch’au,* states: “Other’s faults are just your own—Being one with everyone is called great compassion.”
The essence of true compassion without is acceptance of one’s own inner darkness. From the holographic perspective we are all the terrorist and the victim alike. From the Taoist wisdom, if but one of us can face the truth of our own shadow’s play in our lives then we are in a position to align ourselves with the Tao, with the truth, with the universe—and all is righted.
Harvest Time… in Tao everything is acceptable, life and death, beginnings and endings and all that comes in between… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In the microcosm of the universe within each of us lies the disorder and imbalance that we see in our world without. What is needed is that we suspend judgment and accept the full truth of the attitudes and beliefs that dominate and control our lives.
What impulses within cry for life, yet are held in check by restrictive, fearful, judgmental attitudes? What deep needs are being disavowed, calling for a terrorist overthrow within to right the extreme imbalance of self? What regrets, resentments, bitternesses, hatreds and angers do we harbor in refusal to accept the truth of our own deepest secrets, deepest truths, and deepest disavowed selves? If we can face these mighty truths, fears and imbalances within, in full acceptance, then we arrive at the compassion to restore the Tao within, and vastly right the Tao without.
To project inward is to take responsibility for our holographic selves, to truly take responsibility for our interdependent wholeness.
Sign up for Project Inward!
From within the hologram,
Chuck
P. S.: After I had completed this blog, I posed the following question to the I Ching: How do we restore the Tao? I received the answer in Hexagram #30 Fire, with moving lines in the first, second and third places. The resulting future is Hexagram #4, Youthful Folly.
Fire attains duration by not overshooting its bounds; it burns in proportion to the wood that fuels it. Wood is yin, the darkness. The flame that illuminates is yang. Together yin and yang work in perfect harmony to produce the light of consciousness and the warmth of security. Such is the path to Tao that the I Ching proposes for now, for the individual, the nation, and the universe.
Wednesday evening’s Harvest Moon rising over the neighborhood… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The reading goes on to highlight the first three lines of the hexagram, offering pragmatic counsel for morning, noon, and night that together complete the full cycle of a day, of a life, of an era.
The early morning is the time before ego arises, before world is formed. It is the time for communion with spirit. We awaken with dreams and impressions from our deeper selves. When the spark of consciousness awakens, arise. Ever so gently sit with the messages that came in the night; write them, contemplate them, sing them, draw them. These are the seeds of spirit for the day. Open a meaningful book, or any book, at random. The message you need will appear. Contemplate it. Engage in breathing, candle meditation, yoga, or any spiritual practice that suits your predilection. Take full advantage of the time before the demands of the day kick in. It’s the best time for direct spirit connection.
The midday sun is the height of power. The sun achieves this brilliance because it does not deviate from its path. It does not seek to go beyond itself, and it graciously begins its descent from the zenith. We are advised to align our ego selves with the true needs of our body and spirit selves. Perhaps this means not altering our body chemistry with another cup of coffee to forego our tiredness or push beyond our exhaustion and mental capacity to achieve some ego ideal not suited to the true needs of the self. The operative words here are modesty and balance, as we carry ourselves through the day.
As evening sets in the I Ching warns that we not attempt to extend the day with ecstatic exuberance, be it with substance or entertainment that deprive us of the replenishment needed to be freshly reborn the next day. The I Ching, as well, warns not to slip into melancholy and regret for tasks not accomplished or life not lived during the day. Time instead to prepare for sleep and its journeys, the journeys that hold the seeds of the morrow.
Innocence in Tao… is Tao… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The accompanying future hexagram, Youthful Folly, is the right attitude for us to take forward as we go through our full cycle days and lives. Folly, in youth, is appropriate. It is innocence that approaches new life with curiosity and excitement. Its teacher is life itself, the reactions of the Tao to a being discovering new life without judgment. This is how we should always live our lives, in alignment with life itself. There will be lessons, hard lessons, as life moves in new directions, but there will also be new life as the Tao responds to youthful folly. Let the games begin!
* Buddhist quote from C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion And Synchronicity, p. 197
Sometimes a brick wall is just a brick wall… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Everything had been flowing along nicely. Everything I’d set my intent to and planned for had gone swimmingly. And then, all of a sudden it seemed, things ground to a halt, the flow dried up. Obstacles appeared.
Last night, I dreamt all night of driving racecars on a track. Sometimes I was inside the racecar, zooming around the track, the obstacle course. At other times I was playing with toy racecars on a toy racetrack. But the scenario was always the same. At some point along the way, I’d come to a big hill that I just could not get up. “Oh,” I’d say, “I’m not supposed to go this way.” And I’d turn around and go a different way.
By the end of my night of dreaming, I understood that if we are living in alignment with nature, in the Tao, there are no true obstacles; everything is there for a reason.
Some obstacles, it becomes abundantly clear, are impossible to overcome. We might be driving along the road to find it blocked by a fallen tree. Of course we could sit there and steam about it, but it’s pretty obvious that we won’t get through. It’s clear that we have to turn around and go a different way.
At other times, obstacles arise that are less clearly interpreted as obstacles. We might be trying to reach someone. They don’t answer their phone or email, they don’t respond to texts, they don’t appear on Facebook. For days they refuse to be available. We get angry, take it personally, look to blame or imagine the worst. But in reality, an obstacle has appeared, telling us that it is not the right time to make contact. We must pull back and wait patiently for a sign to show us differently.
The way I see it, when an obstacle appears, the universe is showing us that it has other plans for us. Do we waste our energy fighting back, or do we acquiesce and say, “Okay, where are you taking me? What am I supposed to learn?”
In my dream, every time I came to the big hill, I’d try like heck to get up it, even though I had already done it all night long and never succeeded. It didn’t matter, the hill was there and I was, of course, going to give it a shot. I accepted the challenge. By the end of my night of dreaming, however, I got the hang of it. By the umpteenth time I’d arrived at the hill, I was finally ready to accept the opposite challenge: to face that the hill was there for another reason altogether, that it was time to stop trying to transcend it and instead turn in a totally new direction.
Sometimes what at first appears to be closing in on us is really showing us our path of heart… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Sometimes our challenges are posed by nature, at other times by our own pigheadedness, our inability to be flexible and flowing. We want things to go a certain way and by golly they had better go according to plan! It’s pretty hard to give up our dreams and our perfect scenarios to the possibility of disaster and defeat. If we are going to be in alignment with nature, with our lives as they naturally unfold, however, we must not only accept but face what our obstacles might be trying to tell us about ourselves.
We tend to want to blame, to point out how others have ruined things for us or disappointed us. But once we remove our outward projections, we might find that something really important is being placed in front of us, something we might not be able to fathom at the time. The universe might have other plans for us.
In my dream, I was presented with acquiescing to that which I could not control or override. In my real life, obstacles often reveal themselves in more subtle ways, but they are nonetheless clearly there, asking me to pause and reconsider. Am I just wasting my energy here for no reason? Am I pushing for something that is just not going to be good for me? If I get up that hill, is there something far more complicating and devastating awaiting me on the other side?
I have had several occurrences in my own life where, had I proceeded in the direction I was going in, disaster awaited. I have sidestepped death on more than one occasion. And so, I know how the universe seeks to get our attention, to alert us to danger, in subtle and not so subtle ways.
When we force something that is just not going our way, we may be getting ourselves into serious trouble. My dream was challenging me to take the obstacles seriously, but to be open and flowing as well, to learn acquiescence to the signs and synchronicities that arise in the natural course of life.
Nature acquiesces to the end of one season and the birth of the next… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
If we can avoid getting too wrapped up in self-doubt or self-recriminatinion, without going to blame or judgment, obstacles can be used to guide us forward. They offer us the opportunity to question our reality. What am I being shown here? Am I too controlling? Is my ego inflated? Have I lost my connection to my physical and emotional self? Is my illness, my failure, my loss or lack really leading me to my fulfillment, to something totally new and unexpectedly good, rather than the negative disaster I immediately interpret it as?
And, better still, as my dream points out: if we are truly in the Tao, in alignment with nature, with the synchronicities that arise in our lives, there are really no obstacles. Everything comes to us for a reason. Sometimes, it’s only in hindsight that we see this. Sometimes its only in hindsight that we are thankful for all the obstacles that have come into our lives to save us and project us forward into more fulfilling and adventurous lives.
Sometimes it’s just time to turn and go in a new direction! Jan
Here is this week’s channeled message from Jeanne:
Our resident butterfly reminds us that no matter how battered we get by life we are still beautiful… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Proceed slowly and thoughtfully through life. Consider your options and the best method of approach to your problems, your issues, and to life in general as it greets you each day. How do you wish to be in the world? From your heart center will come your answers. Look there.
In all aspects of life seek balance, seek calm steadiness, even while you at times must take quick action and respond without time for forethought. As you more often act from a place of deep contemplation and soul searching, so will your times of stress and reaction be addressed from this place of kindness and compassion too.
As you exercise your balanced self, as you speak from your heart center, so will these aspects of self become more comfortable and more pronounced. Your personal make up will change as you exercise your inner self in your outer world.
In all beings is this possible, for all beings are as one. Do not discriminate or separate the self from others. For in true reality, as energetic life, you are all the same. Seek knowledge of what lies in your own heart and begin to see the world outside of you respond from this place of universal compassion as well. It’s how your energetic make up works!
Be kind to the self today, but be equally kind to others as well. This is how you will begin to exercise a more compassionate self and a more compassionate world.
Your life is vibrantly alive and flowing in the universal energy—if you dare yourself to experience it that way!
Can’t wear it when I go… – Photo of Chuck’s Jacket by Jan Ketchel
We issue forth from infinity, a seed planted with the intent to individuate, to become a unique life with a specific purpose in this world. All seeds share the same fate: to become fully what they are. And when this life ends, we return from whence we came: “Going home behind the curtain, going home without the costume that I wore,” -Sincerely, L. Cohen—from Going Home
All the while we are here, we seek our lost wholeness in the many masks of God we attach to, projections that reflect our infinite Selves. But, while here, we are also on a mission. Our infinite self, Brahman, must stay safely ensconced behind our bliss sheath, beyond our awareness, as we, in turn, seek our bliss in becoming the seed we are intended to be in this life.
Joseph Campbell, like Carlos Castaneda, encouraged us to fully embrace and experience the life we are in. After all, our challenges are experiments from the fourth-dimensional Self, as Jung put it. For Jung, the fourth dimension was the dimension of quantum physics, which grasps the unitary interdependent nature of reality. It’s the dimension beyond space and time, where psyche and soma merge like a particle and a wave, in infinite oneness.
Jung designated our Brahman self, the Self, granting recognition to the part of us that is infinite, that lies behind the curtain. Less than one year before his death in 1961, Jung confided the following in a private letter:
“…one can define a dream as an experiment of a four-dimensional nature. I have never tried even to describe this aspect of dreams, …because I have found that our public today is incapable of understanding. I considered it therefore my first duty to talk and write of things that might be understandable and thus would prepare the ground upon which one could later on explain the more complicated things…” –C. G. Jung Letters, Vol. 2
What does it really mean anyway? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here, Jung hints that dreams, in sleeping and waking life, are experiments from the fourth-dimensional Self. The experimenter is the Self that lives in infinity. It is that Self that projects its seed of intent into this life. This higher Self intends the life we are sent to live in this third dimension of time and space, birth and death. Jung suggests that it is this higher Self—seeking to view, enhance, and experience itself in an experimental life—that projects us into this life, to then live that intent, whichever way it goes, bringing back its recapitulated experience to infinity in dying.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico came to the same conclusion: we are beings projected from infinity, granted awareness that may be enhanced through experience—whatever that might be—in a three dimensional life, which eventually ends and contributes its findings back to infinity.
From this perspective, we can see that we are always in two places at once: Self and ego self, eternal and transitory. Furthermore, the antagonists in our life, our petty tyrants, are necessary players in our quest to individuate. Our petty tyrants rattle our self-importance. In fact, by their merciless actions, they stamp out any flame of ego-worth. It can take years to emerge from the ashes of such abuse. Yet, freedom can only be obtained in accepting the true nature of things—that ego life is an illusive life, partitioned in third-dimensional reality.
If we drop our ego attachment yet maintain our awareness, we enter fourth-dimensional experience: enlightenment now. This is what our petty tyrants offer us. Our encounters with them tear apart any illusions of ego importance. We encounter fully the relativity of our life in this world.
Yup, everything dies. – Photo by Jan Ketchel
We are beings who are going to die, our lives are transitory. No need to build up a trust fund of worth to obtain immortality; it’s all a distraction. Our true purpose is to fully actualize the seed in keeping with the intent of our higher Self, without attachment to everlasting life in a temporary vehicle. This experience of bliss—fully actualizing the life in the seed—aligns us with that higher Self, without need for a protective sheath. We can handle the impact of our immortality while in our temporary vehicle. Here we join with our fourth-dimensional Self in our three-dimensional life, living now.
