May 2021 – Temple of Why

Back to Just Sitting

Well, it would seem my experience was a one-time event or something I can’t through my own power recreate. I do think I had an experience, I had bright light wash over me and I had a lot of energy after I finished meditating. I am grateful for that and will continue meditating.

During my meditation yesterday, I did have another interesting experience. I was drawn to apologizing to everyone I have ever hurt, spoken badly about, gossiped about or otherwise was not nice too. It took a long time, people and situations kept popping into my head and it really made me realize how judgmental I really am.

When I was done, maybe 45 minutes, I was drawn to examining why I said some of these things I did or reacted the way I did to situations. I found it really stemmed from how I felt about myself and my reaction to how I thought they were thinking about me or treating me.

Next I apologized to myself for thinking badly about myself and realized I created my own perceptions.

Was pretty profound for me and I felt very connected to all things and people.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ~St. Paul

New Spiritual Strength Unleashed

By bringing focus to the God Light in my Solar Plexus, I connected to a surge of strength that I have never felt before. I feel as if a connection has been made that allows me to access an inner fortitude and to direct what is happening to me and in me more than ever before.

I connected with an energy that I was able to direct to revitalize my body and send healing to areas that have been troubling me.

I also feel that I am able to bring things that I want to achieve to me rather than reaching for them.

I feel like I have been able to access something that has been within me laying dormant and it is a strength that I didn’t know was there. I have always been looking outside and it is inside.

I am eager to see if I can sustain this vital energy, or if I can tap into it again freely to energize myself throughout the day. I hope so, this feels like a breakthrough I have been working towards for forty years.

The Light Within

I started meditating and trying to connect to the God Spark or God Light Seed that I know is within me. God seems closer now than ever before. I have been consciously reminding my self of God’s presence which I have intellectualized as being with me, but never truly internalized. If there is a seed of God within me – which there must be because I am alive – then I carry her/him with me always and s/he is always available.

I just need to attune myself to be able to listen within to hear the pulse coming from the seed. Maybe that is what has been beckoning me all this time. Lighthouse pops into my head, the beam of light providing direction. How I will hear any information coming to me I have yet to discover.

I sense the light is in my Solar Plexus, the nerve center in the core of my body. I can’t ignore the obvious implication of “solar” or “light” plexus. The Solar Plexus chakra is of course the center for our authenticity, will and purpose in life.

I feel like I am making some progress right now, maybe the time is just right. Maybe the sun is just peeking through for me.

Alive = Spiritual

I’m alive because of that God spark that some call it, is in me, so are all living things. I don’t believe God is male or female, is my God Spark like a computer chip that God has programmed for me based on what I have done in my past life and what we have agreed I need to experience and learn in this life?

I am being more conscious of my God Spark as a part of the larger collective. I exist in that larger collective and what I do ripples out across that continuum.

I am composed of matter and that God Spark and a lot that goes on in my body I am not consciously directing, perhaps the God Spark is.

I have also determined that my thoughts can impact my body, my body reacts to what I am thinking. I have started as a part of my spiritual practice, being more conscious of my thoughts as they impact me and my health and others around me.

I have minor health issues mostly caused by trauma, falls etc. As a part of my morning and nightly conscious relaxation, I instruct my mind to heal my body, sending encouraging thoughts that I know my body can heal itself. I am also going to incorporate dialog with my God Spark and see where that goes. God is in me and around me, I know that, so I will interact and see what happens. God isn’t up in the sky on a throne. I have prayed to that God before, I will start exchanging thoughts with the God that is much closer.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Please feel free to share any suggestions.

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What do I believe and why?

Instead of looking more to see what others believe and why, I started to really examine what I have learned and what I have come to believe. At the same time, I do have St. Augustine’s caution ringing in my head – “whomever endeavors to teach himself about God has a fool for a teacher”. But am I looking to believe what someone else has determined to be true – dare I say – for themselves? Is there a one size fits all ultimate truth that everyone should believe? Somehow I don’t think so and the argument that one religion, one set of beliefs, is the only one true faith limits God. We all see things from a different vantage point and, at the same time, we are all coming from the same God root so no, I don’t think there is one right way.

How do I know I am not deceiving myself though? We all know people who spout frankly ridiculous claims that are not well thought through and where do they fit in? Just as where that person’s level of consciousness is today? Maybe I guess.

I must have learned something in my search. I must have come to at least some of my own conclusions and I actually think I have. I am also thinking about discernment, “you will know them by their fruits”, or I will know what is true by the good it produces or produces in me. Another tool for discernment that I remember learning is, “what brings you peace?”

Peace. I think that is a key belief. Looking back to the Bible peace is mentioned 429 times in the New Testament and love is mentioned 215 times, so peace is mentioned twice as many times as love. Peace is a key tenet in Buddhism and Hinduism as well.

Peace, what brings me peace, what peace can I give to others? That’s my contemplation for now.

Sending you peace.

Still sitting, resisting old patterns

I am still sitting in my discomfort. I have always been driven by my desire to know “God” and to have a strong spiritual direction. I also have a strong drive to know the truth. In my past that meant hours of research and delving into spiritual disciplines I was unfamiliar with trying to find God. I wanted to understand why people believed what they believed while trying to establish what I really believed. That has been a lifelong quest lasting actually 40 years.

Now that I can comfortably admit I am spiritually lost, that my search has led to a myriad of dead ends, I am at a stand still. I have basically proven what I don’t believe, but have yet to fully formulate what I do believe. What I believe and why and is there anyone to share that with?

I am resisting falling into my old pattern of finding a new place to look, doing more research and discovery, and it is hard for me, it is a well established pattern.

So I am not going to. I am finding some relief writing about sitting and waiting, for what I don’t know, maybe a new inspiration? I can’t see the forest for the trees, but I feel like there is a big mountain ahead.

Sitting in My Lostness

I am an Aries with an Aries rising so usually my first response to being lost (or any issue) is to drive to solve. There is a solution and I can find it, has always been my motto.

I have been searching for God for many years feeling like I tasted his/her presence on many occasions, but she/he always seemed to feel unreliable, certainly not summon-able, and fleeting. I do realize that God is ever present and as close as my breath, but those are words, I also realize that I can’t expect to “feel” God all of the time, but those too are just words.

I have decided to sit in my lostness and just sit. I am going back to the beginning – they say always go back to the basics if you have lost your game. There are no “basics” here, but I can go back to the beginning of my belief.

I didn’t grow up in a spiritual household, I knew “God” and “Jesus Christ” as swear words used in anger and frustration. Christmas was about Santa Claus and my mother’s depression at the holiday never quite meeting her expectations.

But somehow there was a connection. I majored in Philosophy in College and did my senior thesis on the existence of God. I decided God existed based of Descartes’ 6 Meditations. Badly recounting Meditation number 3 – we get the idea of the sun from the sun, and we get the idea of God from God, therefore God exists.

So I will start with, God exists, and sit there.

I chose this image because I don’t want to romanticize being lost spiritually. Just like being “lost” and not knowing which way to go or how to get out, being lost spiritually is not fun for me. I don’t like it and I don’t know where to go, nothing has worked or “stuck” in 30 years or more despite my endless trying and reading and researching. Am I trying too hard? Probably, so I am trying doing nothing. But I am not confident. I don’t think this is necessarily going to work either, but something has to eventually, doesn’t it?

Spiritual Seeker is Lost

I have spent the better part of the last 30 years seeking the truth about spirituality. I’ve learned a lot and yet I still feel like I know nothing. I have been a devout Catholic delving into the mystical traditions while also understanding the rubrics of the faith, what the early fathers and councils have said and the likes of Thomas Merton and Teilhard de Chardin. I have been to evangelical revivals and watched people get slain in the spirit and speak in tongues, I have been to Buddhist temples and listened to Thich Nhat Hanh, I have read Paramahansa Yogananda from Autobiography of a Yogi to Journey to Self-Realization. I have even been to Wiccan and Druid meet ups.

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I have had an active meditation practice for these 30 years which has been productive and I value the peace it has given me and yet…

I feel like what I am seeking is right in front of my nose and yet a million miles away.

Spiritual seeker, is lost.