Open-Secrets

Blog

  • The Vibration of Life

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God – John 1:1

    vibration resonance word of god

    It’s been a while since I posted and I have nothing in particular to say, so I thought I would see what comes forth if I just pick a couple of random images and write about what they inspire.

    Interestingly enough, I was talking to a new acquaintance this weekend about vibration and resonance. This guy, David, is super-smart and has several businesses (Upgrade Company is one), inventions and patents that all involve applications of energy and resonance.

    I couldn’t remember the specifics of this post on Gaia’s Brain Waveor this one Light Vision, but I am sending David the links.

    Getting back to the images. I have long understood the first movement of God to precede the logos, the word, the big bang – to be the creation of vibration.  What’s the Word of God mean to you? The entire spectrum of light and sound are vibration – some of which we can perceive, much of which we cannot.

    If you have ever sat in silence for any length of time meditating or paying attention to awareness, you may have noticed that your vibratory rate seems to increase. The mind (human brain) can only pay attention to one thing at a time, but awareness and consciousness can hold much, much more. If we let our awareness expand to include more and more, at first, it is like our awareness is expanding similar to peripheral vision. It can be extremely challenging and even uncomfortable to maintain our focus as we allow ourselves to resonate with more and more.

    While many of us can agree that vibration underlies all of manifestation, we may not consider what that may imply about us. Consider the mystics that say it ALL in a space smaller than a needle point or singularity. And of course that everything exists in side of the us, the human being. What then is this body or mind or heart? What is HU?

    Whether we “tune in” or “tune out” (so to speak) – tuning refers to vibration and resonance. Walking, talking receivers and transmitters may be a big part of what we are. Why else is chanting and prayer a practice of many spiritual paths.

    Oh, how the sing
    those wise men can sing
    their Vedas ring
    they just sing OM

    What’s it all mean? Beats me, check in with the brilliant.

    [ad#post468]

  • Personal Transformation

    The Point of Life is Transformation

    change transformationPain & Suffering – the ego likes to avoid as much of this as it can, unless, of course, our identity is one who suffers. Every time I encounter a person asking for spare change, I wonder how much change they really want in their life. How much “change” do any of us really want? How much change can God spare, probably a lot. How much can we endure, probably a lot less than opportunity offers.

    I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Days by Donald Miller yesterday on a flight home from San Francisco.

    We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren’t capable of remembering how we got here. When you are born, you wake up slowly to everything… God is slowly turning the lights on… The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn’t that big of a deal, that life isn’t staggering… We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given – it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm, just another child born, just another funeral.

    This is a wonderful book for all kinds of reasons. I think it is one of the best self-help books ever written because it isn’t so much giving you advice on how to change as it is a revelation on how change is possible – and how it is possible to reawaken to the glory of life and get out of a life that is dull, boring, normal and familiar to the point of being inert.

    In a way, it reminded me of Michael Crichton’s book Travels.Crichton, too, talked about how pain, difficulty, struggle, suffering and confronting the known limits of ourselves is the crucible for transformation.

    As Donald Miller says:

    If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation.

    A Million Miles in a Thousand Days – take the journey.

  • The Neuroscience of Enlightenment

    Is Neuroscience Unlocking the Doors to the Kingdom?

    neuroscience enlightenmentIs this a great time to be alive or what? Who is thinking this question? How is this sense of self generated? Are the thoughts of this self simply habits triggered by cues? How does the brain and all of those synaptic processes create an external and internal reality?

    Ah, questions! Are there really any answers? Have you read these four books?

    Each of these books use information and insight from neuroscience and what we are learning about the brain, cognition and perception to open our eyes to who/what/when we/reality really is – or they at least give us a very interesting lens to look at enlightenment & awareness through.

    Reading these books and the accumulated affect of them on my consciousness reminds me of “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson.

    Here’s a quote from The Ego Tunnel:

    Presence is a necessary condition for the conscious experience. If the brain could solve the One-World Problem but not the Now Problem, a world could not appear to you. In a deep sense, appearance is simply presence, and the subjective sense of temporal immediacy is the definition of an internal space of time.

    Is it possible to transcend this subjective Now-ness, to escape the tunnel of presence?

    Is that great, or what?

    The debate over whether we are just a bunch of chemical & electrical reactions in the brain vs. are we something more subtle and eternal outside of space and time continues. For me, these books have just made things more exciting and mysterious – and that book on habit is actually a great owner’s manual on how to make those changes you always wished you could.

    The Evolution of Consciousness & Enlightenment

    [ad#post468]

  • Enneagram Character Traits Continue to Surface

    Enneagram Point 8 Characteristics Still Smiling at Me

    enneagram point 8A couple of recent Enneagram conversations with new friends resulted in me observing that some of the point 8 character traits are still functioning in my psyche.

    My first encounter was with someone who had attended an online webinar with David Daniels (an enneagram person I haven’t seen in 20 years or so). My conversation partner thinks they may be an 8 on the enneagram. We managed to spend several hours chatting about most things under the sun without resorting to arm wrestling or shouting – proving once again that 8’s aren’t all aggression all of the time.

    The point 8 enneagram trait that was first to jump into my conscious awareness was – we’d rather have bad news than no news.

    Those 8’s – are they a riot or what? Eights have this connection with truth, but that doesn’t always play out in a good way as they can be prone to “my way or the highway” and “might makes right.” The significance of which can lead to distorting the “truth” to a relative position or perception. In my case, it was simply a matter of wanting clear communication.

    In my first conversation, I made several references to how important communication is to me, especially in regards to friendship. Being forthright is an art to cultivate. Just blurting things out won’t do, but it’s one place to start if that’s all we have going for us. Developing sensitivity, steadfastness and a non-judgmental attitude are  essential – and it seems, a life-long endeavor on my part – that sensitivity thing, what a challenge! I may actually have to be more present in life – what’s up with that?

    The second encounter with the enenagram occurred at Roast & Toast, a local coffee shop. I was sitting down at a table when I noticed a gent next to me, had a copy of Richard Rohr’s book on the Enneagram. I hadn’t seen that book in years and I said so to the gent. As it turns out, I was speaking to a local minister who is using the book to help with research on his Ph. D.

    We had a long chat which ultimately left me feeling very sad. The conversation opened around the enneagram and the power of silence for transformation ( perspective on this can be found in The Void). The conversation turned toward a recent incident in the church… What was sad, was how entrenched & fixated some of the people involved were… leading to another member having to resign a position. All of this in the name of God & morality.

    Aha, that 8 thing – wanting to pick up the sword in defense of the underdog and take off a few of those sanctimonious heads! Alas, all that practicing presence seems to have taken a toll on me as I simply felt sweet sadness…

    I found it quite interesting to find myself in 2 enneagram conversations in one week with total strangers. Perhaps stranger things will happen.

    [ad#post468]

  • Disintermediate the Teacher?

    Keep the Teacher, Disintermediate the Ego & Superego

    disintermediateThe other day I had an insight into an experience that happened 43 years ago. That experience rocked my world and set my feet on a journey that has yet to end – but, is no longer dominated by going, getting or becoming. I used to think of that experience as my first “spiritual experience.”

    I was 19 and hanging out with a bunch of my college friends. I asked a simple question, received a simple reply, and the strangest thing happened… I felt a thick substance descend into my body from the top of my head. When it reached my shoulders a feeling of “welcome home” flooded me… I felt comfort, acceptance and peace. When the substance reached my heart, it felt a single point penetrated my heart. The sensation was ecstatically painful. A radiance flooded out of that point. The experience turned on a dime as something in me set out in search of itself…

    And that is where I see that things went askew… as I now see how my separate self, ego-self, normal self/mind reacted to that experience, immediately engaged it and enmeshed itself in a life-long journey and search. I wonder what would be different if a teacher had been present – one who knew of essence and the point of existence. How would my journey have unfolded if in that moment of time I had the wisdom and support to simply settle into the immediacy of that experience instead of picking up the “flame of the search,” I might have simply recognized then that there is no where to go. The experience was a revelation about what is here, always here – mostly hidden by our beliefs, ignorance, assumptions… what the heck, I was 19 – it was a blessing just as it was/is.

    The capacity to not follow thoughts, impulses and feelings, but to rather stay in the immediacy of the experience with no predisposition to “getting” anything from it – seems to be more of what is happening as I sit. More and more revolves around relaxing – allowing the body to relax, feeling the psychic structures and allowing them to relax… relaxed awareness in the now – no journey, nowhere to go. There’s interest, but not in being able to describe or understand my experience – most of that is driven by the past – thank you very much superego, your love and protection is no longer required.

    Don’t disintermediate the teacher, disintermediate the separating boundary – be with immediacy. What happens then?

    [ad#post468]

  • The Nondual Duel

    Nonduality is Not the Final Word on Reality

    I recently received this email from a fan of Open-Secrets:

    http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/SAND2012-self.shtmlJohn there are many nondual psychotherapists, among them Stephan Bodian, author of ‘Wake Up Now’, and the authors of ‘The Sacred Mirror’ and ‘Listening From the Heart of Silence’.  who criticize all progressive approaches.  They say to put all ones resources into realizing oneself AS  aware Presence first and then return to embody the Realization into ones personality afterwards.  
     
    They claim that the Diamond Approach keeps one endlessly mired in one’s history and is sort of an endless treadmill that never really crosses the gateless gate.  It can be too easy for the ego to think of these states and stations as attainments for the personality, and that the direct approach cuts through the ego activity much cleaner. 
     
    I understand and agree with Hameed that this seems like pushing oneself into a condition that might not be the natural unfoldment of the souls dynamism, and that by surrendering to where one is in the moment is much more appropriate. 
     
    I only say this because they have started an online journal that looks very interesting and are asking for contributions from bloggers and others interested in the field of nondual psychotherapy.  I would personally love to see a discussion started on the benefits and shortcomings of the direct / progressive paths.  I really like your blog and would love to see someone with a background in the Ridhwan school represented in the journal.

    if you are interested the web address is  http://undividedjournal.com/    Thanks for your awesome blog. 

    I make no claim of being established in nondual realization, though I have had enough experience of the nondual to recognize it and compare that state with others.

    Here’s where my curiosity leads me in regards to the above:

    • I’m curious about why this has significance to the author of the email. It’s an interesting point that he brings up, but people have been misunderstanding and taking exception to A. H. Almaas and the Diamond Approach for years. In addition, the DA is just one of many valid teachings and paths that assist people in moving toward the truth and realization of reality.
    • My experience is that many people have experiences of the nondual, but then reify their experiences into intellectual understanding which can then be debated for the rest of time. Rumi had the same problem with intellectuals of his day.
    • I have no idea if Stephen Bodian lives and abides in the nondual and I am making no assertion about him. If he does have the position stated above, then my curiosity wonders about “nondual positions” an oxymoron in its own right, and the answer to this question – Is there no value in learning and developing skills and insight that move one in the direction of reality and help to ease daily suffering?
    • It’s true, some people become endlessly mired in working on their object relations. Some get endlessly mired in meditating, or efforting toward nonduality. Ego identity, loves the muck and the mire – intellectual debate about the merits of anything can be a mire.
    • Almaas does not see nonduality as the end-all of the spiritual journey. It is just one manifestation of the infinite potential of True Nature. No one manifestation of TN has any more or less merit than any other – except to the subjective consciousness of the experiencer. Almaas has, over the past 6 or 7 years, been teaching more and more about Total Being and Freedom. This is what he refers to as the 4th turning of the wheel of the Diamond Approach. The 3rd turning of the wheel is associated with nondual awareness.

    These are a few of my first response thoughts. Now, I am returning to…

    BTW – Almaas will be speaking at the 2012 Science & Nonduality conference in October – sounds like a reat opportunity to get his personal take on all of this.

     

    [ad#post468]

Open-Secrets