See previous blogs for continuation of the theme.

For our circle of life, I use the Wheel of No-Change!

This wheel was used to help work with recovery from addictions. In many ways we are addicted to life, lived via the ego-identity.

Exit from Maintenance? Attachments are blocking!

Unfortunately attachments will remain in the soul memory and affect future passage onwards, even after death. This will be especially so if predominant negative thoughts remain to the time of death. Some type of obsession, addiction or just plain old lust may have a regressive effect regarding next realm entry. Fortunately the power of Self Knowledge, (or mantra/ faith/devotion etc. for the spiritually minded), will cut through the bonds eventually, even it seems there is some delay. Be patient with the short trial which occurs also while practicing the Journey, devotions, meditation, yoga, or mantra repetition, and allow the onward journey to pick up successful in its own time. (Seek also the Inner deity /Guide or Ω. Thy will – not my will). Surrender to the Divine Grace or your version of this, to allow what you can’t control or overcome, to be cleared away.

The last dominant thought is very important, and if we are dependent on our spiritual practice, then we will remember what we need to at death. Even if you think you are such a sinner or bad person, invoke your mantra at the point of death. The emissaries of darkness will be held back. There is a lot of confusion involved in all religions within the “holy books”, but take only what you need for sanity. What makes sense, and seems productive. The writings of those who have been realized are more important, as they have had the experience and can better advise accordingly. 

Religion and spirituality issues have become in more in recent times, part of a mental health clinician’s initial evaluation, or assessment. That doesn’t address the issue of human desire and attachment, nor the consequences of that. It’s a clinical direction that often defers to culture, political correctness, religious groups etc. without really understanding how all the mental health issues are is bound up with, or concurrent with spirituality. Therapy and counselling services may look at the issues in part, but may not revisit this area during treatment, once any initial assessment phase is over.

Some researchers now point to the association of spiritual values with psychiatric disorders, and make comparisons for instance, to worship frequency. Then there is the issue of, say, a religious or spiritual person who develops mania or a psychosis, with seemingly obsession about their belief to a dangerous point. Remember that whatever is normal for a person, as part of personality expression, may also be expressed as quite disordered religious type thinking. Historically, persons with “crazy” thinking or behavior were often seen in a different light by the public, and even put on a pedestal! Unfortunately though they could be seen as possessed or witches with fatal consequences. I have not seen and met or read of any spiritual advanced being, who was not at some stage intimately involved with religion in some form. Why would anyone with mental health disorders not have the same involvement? It’s just the mind disorder that “skews” things. (Yes, of course, there are severe clinically, diagnosed disorders of the mind which need professional input, due to the danger presented to the individual and others).

It’s the spiritual journey that addresses the issue of human life attachments. This though could be made without any references to or involvement with, religion, either as belief or practice or as morals. Many say “I am not religious”, without seeing that a lot of their spiritual practices historically were part of organized religions. Religion and spiritual practice may seem to go hand in hand then, although nowadays this relationship is seems more tenuous and even hostile at times. The spiritual seeker may find at a certain stage, a burning desire or motivation to escape from or leave behind all or some of previously held religious beliefs and practices. Many gurus also seem to imply that at the higher stage of spiritual practice you move on from religion, and even from the teachers and teachings that you started out with. So, theoretically, the spiritual journey could be made without any references to, or involvement with, religion, either as belief or practice or as morals. Yet, I have not seen, met, or read of any spiritual advanced being who was not at some stage involved with religion in some form.

The spiritual journey is about the goal, the end product, not-withstanding the connections made on the way with organized religion, New Age ideas, and therapies. Religion etc. becomes a block to spiritual growth when it interferes with, or is allowed to, block further evolvement. The concepts of God, deities, messiahs, and avatars or incarnations, belongs to the realm of the practitioner but not to the world of the Realized One, who has become awakened, enlightened or divinely fulfilled. That goal is really quite anarchic, disinhibited, and even destructive in terms of what passes as conventional ways of equating ordinary life with the Higher Power. It might seem to indicate a madness, psychosis even, or perhaps almost catatonic depression, as some yogis have presented. (See my descriptions of such yogis in my book: English-Man, Beggar-Man, Holy-Man).

Devotion which derives from or is associated with the East (Hindu, Buddhism and others), is sometimes contrasted in a negative way with the Western scientific civilizations, and traditions of Christian and Jewish monotheism. In regards to some of the New Age practices, they are often contrasted with science or religion, and can be in this basket. Some though, have presented alternative therapy modes, which have become more mainstream, and even for instance, more acceptable to conservative Christians. On the positive, there does seem to be an amalgamating or synthesizing impetus happening, which could lead to total holistic approach to the concept of well-being and awareness. It comes out even in the current “trendy mindfulness” explosion, and the being “woke” stance. This seems good reason to say there is a revolution potential, for practices that have a wide appeal to different of people, who then have a what seems to be new outlook on spiritual searching endeavors. It probably is actually a synthesis of what has gone before, and not a revolution. People now more often, seem to want religion that is non-judgemental, and accepts a variety of beliefs. This is worlds away from fundamentalism, which also fights back to maintain its traditional power base.

Never relapse

Who am I? What am I? What is life? What is Truth?

We then go into the whole dimension of being conscious of being part of Consciousness.

Our consciousness is part of, and the same material as, the Cosmic Consciousness.

This is why we say we are Divine.

You are Divine because we can place ourselves as inseparable from the Divine.

If God is Divine then all Creation must be so also!

(Where then will you then place – evil)?

Finally!

Experience the Divine as Consciousness, but get there via the pathway of what seems to be a duality, where human is on side and God is another, over there somewhere. (Or use your Ω focus with CEP as your pathway for the Journey). Where there is duality there is suffering, but there is suffering anyway whatever ones state of realisation. Fear occurs when there is another, a separate being or separate universe components. This is the norm though for humans, as it is what we started with when we lived in the Stone Age. Anxiety and angry reactivity have remained over our human history, as a long established human response, originally geared for survival. Along with a bunch of other emotional/mental activities. This now is what we have still got and what we have to work with even though we are not fighting off wild animals or killing woolly mammoths for dinner.

Fear, anger sexuality etc. have purposes beyond survival needs, and can be harnessed to engender success in the modern world, or they can destroy. In our natural state of consciousness there is no fear, because that is a human activity. Never the less we can harness, transform and transcend fear through practice, where the duality of having on external Higher Power is the source of alchemic processes that lead us ultimately beyond duality. We can access this Power also via our own Inner Deity or Guide, it doesn’t need Divinity, God or spiritual practice. It’s all in here in all of us. We created all this business of religions and the sought through some practice to re-attain what we already had and were. However this way of “attainment” is very difficult for most humans, and I have myself also engaged in devotion to an external Goddess. (Yes, a She). Worship of a destructive or fierce Goddess is about addressing our human destructive tendencies, seeking to transform them via their surrender. God is not just a benign presence, as even the coming incarnation or avatar, isdepicted as a destroyer. (Kalki). The Bodhisattvas who return to “save” humankind are also depicted a fierce beings carrying various weapons!





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