Open-Secrets

Category: Observations

  • 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

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  • Geneen Roth Bounces Back from Madoff

    What Geneen Roth Learned About the Past & Money

    Geneen Roth Lost and FoundYesterday, on the flight from Detroit to San Francisco, I read Geneen Roth’s new book – Lost and Found – Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money. The book is an eye-opening exploration of how the past and our unconscious attitudes about money can wreak havoc in our lives.

    Geneen pulls no punches in the book. From “grovelling for dollars” to “Madoff rage” to the “specter of homelessness,” Lost and Found is a candid revelation about what Geneen learned by losing her life’s savings in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. The book gives us insight into Geneen Roth’s open-ended inquiry into her relationship with money, her unconscious attitudes toward money, her life habits around money, and how she has begun to free herself from it all through awareness & inquiry.

    It takes a lot of courage to reveal so many personal and intimate details as Geneen has in her book. The gift of it for the reader is that we can connect with her and her experience in a real way. Lost and Found isn’t a dispassionate treatise on the effects and insights of falling victim to one of the greatest con men of all time, nor is it a tale of “woe is me.” Lost and Found is more a journey of revelation from a person responding to a “wake up call” from reality.

    We are fortunate to have a person like Geneen Roth who can show us the beauty and power of bringing awareness and inquiry into all of our life.

    (BTW – The magazine cover is wishful thinking, though
    I hope to see Geneen Roth soon on the cover of Time!)

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  • Point 8 (eight) on the Enneagram

    The Redemption of Point Eight

    enneagramYears ago, I submitted an article to the Enneagram Monthly on point eight. Recently, someone asked me about my enneagram fixation (point 8 ) and I thought it might be interesting to post this article on enneagram point eight on this blog.

    Shortly after the article appeared in the Enneagram Monthly, a man (point 8 ) from Atlanta emailed me to say that he started reading the article at work and had to go into his office and close the door for privacy. The article brought a rush of emotion and tears to him as it touched something deep in him.

    Perhaps it will serve other 8’s on the enneagram, perhaps it needs updating or critique. You tell me.

    Footsteps on the Path to the Pearl Beyond Price

    I have lived most of my life under the delusion of point eight.

    I would like to share some of my experience and journey toward becoming a human being. I want to talk about the enneagram – how it’s been useful and how I see it being used to perpetuate the incarceration of the soul. I want to address compassion, humanness & vulnerability, integrity, and the Pearl Beyond Price (personal essence).

    Read the full article – The Redemption of Point Eight

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  • Revisiting Paramahansa Yogananda

    Meditation at Song of the Morning

    On Saturday, a friend and I drove over to the Song of the Morning spiritual retreat center near Vanderbilt, Michigan for a 3-hour meditation. The retreat center is located on the Pigeon River amidst 800 acres of beautiful woods.

    Song of the Morning was founded in 1971 by Oliver Black (Yogacharaya), a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda. (more…)

  • Is it ME or YOU?

    Is it me or you that is bumming us out?

    The other day, I was at a Home & Garden Show in Petoskey, MI. I specifically wanted to talk to some plumbing contractors about water systems for the house. Northern Michigan has hard water, so I need to soften it up – just like me! I also want to install a reverse osmosis system for the kitchen. (more…)

  • Time Travel & Contentment

    Traveling in Time
    A Contented State of Mind

    time travelerMy brother-in-law, Iver, often quotes me – “Things Change!” It seems they have when it comes to time travel for me.

    After 33 years working for a major airline, I retired with little interest in traveling. Now I find myself traveling back and forth between Michigan and California on a regular basis and time seems to fly along with me. I’ve also noticed that time flies when I am driving. Driving across country, down to Chicago, up from Detroit, or just an hour to Traverse City seems like just aother moment in time.

    My experience is making me more and more curious about time, traveling and what is going on with me that seems to result in time flying.

    One thing I notice – my mindset is often that I have all the time in the world. These days, I rarely have some moment in time, the future, tied to my travel plans. I get up and go and figure – I’ll get there when I get there. A 4 or 5 hour flight used to be a pain in the old butt – literally – you know those airline seats – not enough padding, not enough room, and not enough ergonomics for most of us.

    At a 10-day retreat last year, I saw a friend of mine had a gel cushion that looked like it would be great for traveling. I purchased one and now travel through time with it. But, it’s not the extra padding that seems to be shrinking the time, aggravation, and effort associated with my traveling.

    This new sense of ease and contentment seems connected to “being with” what is happening in the moment. In hindsight, my travels these days often seem trance-like – did I just drive/fly 5 hours?? I remember the details: working the crossword, the sudoku, listening to music, etc., but the time involved seems to have flown by or compressed itself into some intra-subjective wormhole of a space.

    Perhaps one day this will all change again, but until then traveling is not as big a pain in the ass as it used to be, nor, it seems, am I to those who help me to travel through time.

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Open-Secrets