Need and desire can be spiritual

"When we think the solution to our unhappiness can be found in the external world, our desires can only be temporarily sated. Not understanding this, we are tossed this way and that by the winds of desire, ever restless and dissatisfied. We are governed by our karma and continually plant the seeds of future karmic harvest. Not only does this mode of action distract us from the spiritual path, but it also prevents us from finding satisfaction in our daily life" -- Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche I was thinking about what's written above the other day as I was walking around the Hawthorne district in Portland. I'd just come out of Powells (a bookstore) and I realized that while I'd enjoyed going into the store and looking at the books, I'd also felt a sense of dissatisfaction, a recognition that nothing I could purchase would be anything more than a distraction, an illusion. I might temporarily fulfill a desire and enjoy doing so, but I would still have to come face to face with the underlying reality that whatever I got was only a temporary distraction from that desire, and it would come back to remind me that it needed something more.

Since then I've also been thinking how much desire and attachment actually anchor a person into living life, providing the drive that people have to live, and I consequently wonder how much the valuing of the spirit over the material world is just another desire, another sign of dissatisfaction expressed in trying to find some spiritual answer that will take away any sense of need a person has.

Seems to me that need and desire are spiritual in and of themselves. Without the need or desire for something, would we strive so much for our goals, our projects, our ideals, etc.? When we determine that something is not spiritual, aren't we just creating the dualistic divisions that cause Karma? I find the subtle hierarchical beliefs about the spirit vs the material to be the most dangerous because in trying to divide everything up we also end up labeling it and using that labeling to create the dualistic tension described as karma.

If satisfaction is to be found, it must be found in our ability to make peace with our desires by accepting them as gateways to spiritual experiences that also allow us to perceive the material world as the manifestation of the spiritual. Instead of dividing, why not just experience it all?

Working with the monkey mind

One the issues that comes up in mediation is what Buddhists call Monkey Mind. It's that troublesome voice that starts saying random messages to you and distracts you from meditating. For people who are trying to achieve a state of no mind, the monkey mind is particularly troublesome because its a reminder that your mind isn't in a place of no-mind. What sometimes occur is that people will attempt to repress the monkey mind, but this usually makes it come back swinging. There's a reason for that: It's trying to tell you something. Instead of repressing the monkey mind, which is ultimately a futile effort, it's better to work with it. And by that I mean it's better to start a dialogue with it. When it brings up a random issue, ask it why it brought up and start exploring it mentally. You'll usually find that it leads you to a source of stress and concern in your life. So you can continue to try and ignore that source of stress or you can work with the monkey mind to resolve the source of stress. Mind you, the monkey mind will raise lots of questions and concerns, but that's why it's there. It's a filter, an agitator, and it won't go away until you've addressed its concerns.

When I work with my monkey mind, I use it as a detector of issues that are bothering me. Sometimes its helped me discover some really deep issues, such as my fear of emptiness and most recently a tendency to fantasize in order to fulfill intimacy needs. And that's what makes the monkey mind so useful. It challenges me to be aware of my issues instead of trying to ignore them.  I like that because then I can proactively work on those issues via meditation instead of letting them build up and be acted out in my life. So the monkey mind is actually your friend, not your enemy. Make friends with it and find out what it can teach you.

How to use breath work to undo physical stress

I've been feeling some physical tension in my shoulders and neck lately, and decided to do some breathing meditation to help me undo the tension and stress. I've found that using meditation to do this has been very helpful in allowing me to undo a lot of physical stress. The way to utilize meditation to undo stress is to focus on feeling the physical sensations of stress, while also focusing on your breath. The normal inclination is to avoid pain, or ignore it. But ignoring pain or avoiding it isn't really a solution and ultimately can lead to further problems. Learning to sit with pain seems to go counter to every instinct we have, and yet by sitting with your pain, and feeling it, you can actually begin to undo the cause of the pain. I breathe in and as I do so, I bring my attention to a focal point. When I breathe out, I guide my attention to the stress point, and begin to massage it, visualizing whatever I needed to visualize to help me understand the tension I feel. I breathe in again, drawing more attention and energy to a focal point, and then breathe out, releasing it to that place of tension, where it continues to work to untie the tension I feel.

Within a few breaths I can feel the pain begin to loosen it's hold as muscles relax and unclench. I feel the pain, but instead of letting it define me, I define its healing with my breath. It continues to loosen up because the breath work provides a rhythm to approach the feeling and releasing of it. Memories and emotions may arise with the release of physical tension and stress, and I will sit with them as well, acknowledging and feeling them, so that I can learn and let go.

This is how I undo physical and sometimes emotional/mental stress. I use my breath and consciousness as a tool. I choose to feel the pain, to embrace it, and thus release it, because I no longer feel compelled to be held down by it. Instead of avoiding it, which actually increases its hold on me, I surrender to it, and in surrender come to understand it, and thus come to peace with it. And all it involves is breathing and focusing your awareness on the tension you feel, so that you can gradually loosen it and let it go

Elemental Emptiness Month 12: From Zero to One

9-24-09 I haven't been able to update since the esoteric book convention. It highlights how busy my schedule has become and how problematic that can be at times. I'm not sure I like that, so I'm looking at what I can change in my life to give me a bit more time. As this elemental working winds down to a close, what I mostly feel is tired. This has been such an intense year, and the second intense year in a row. I need a break from intense years...and although it has been an intense year for me, I feel like I've drifted away from my spirituality to some degree in the process of doing this elemental work. And I guess that makes sense, because in some ways I've had to let go of everything important to me, to make this year's emptiness working work. The path of the abyss is one where everything is sacrificed as journey through it. At the same time, I feel a kind of anticipation about the end of this one. I know all the work I've put in is going to payoff and that the payoff, for me, is really being able to move past so many conditioned responses and behaviors that used to hold me back. I'm tired, but I'm also at that last part of the journey, where you push through the tiredness and make it to the end, because you know its part of the journey. 9-28-09 There's not really much to write. Unlike all the other months, what I really feel right now is anticipation, or being in the center of the eye of the hurricane. I can look around me and see everything I've been dealing, but also recognize where I am and know I've moved past everything. Now it feels more like making a choice and getting ready to move ahead, free of the rotting putrefaction I went through, because the refinement is here.

10-01-09 I've been playing the Force Unleashed recently. When I first started my emptiness working, I played that game a fair amount. It represented, for me, the feeling of emptiness at the beginning. It doesn't really anymore because I no longer see emptiness as an antagonist. It's something I can see as part of me, instead of against me.

10-02-09 I reflected today that to truly experience emptiness I've had, in one form or another, to really become empty, to really see everything I hold dear fall through in some form or manner, if only to convey to me the full depths of emptiness. Recognizing that everything could be taken away, that's been hard, but useful as well.

10-06-09 On a really deep level I wonder how much this year's working has really helped me. I've been exposed to what drives me toward feeling empty, come to a really good understanding of it, but I don't feel like its really solved. There's still a part of me that just wants to find someone, something that will somehow meet this very intangible need I have. It's a very primal, emotive part, not something rational that can be reasoned with. And it's likely always going to be there. I guess I've learned better strategies for handling it and recognizing it when it comes out...and maybe I feel a bit less driven than I did before, but I also feel like somehow I just haven't really "solved" the core issue for me. I don't know if I ever will. Maybe, all I'll really come away is a better grasp of my emptiness and a better way of handling it, when it comes up in potentially unhealthy situations.

10-08-09 I woke up this morning thinking about D. D was someone I met when I was twenty. We became lovers. She was seventeen years older than I was, a gifted magician, and very experienced when it came to life, and for that matter sex. I never fully, consciously realized until now just how deeply she imprinted me, or how much the relationship not working out would affect me. The majority of women I've been attracted to have always had a connection to Babalon, Lililth, or a similar type of goddess, i.e. the sacred whore archetype and I think it's because of that imprint from D. This person made a really strong impression and I never fully got to satisfy or see where that relationship would go. So I see it as the root of a lot of my longings and seeking when it came to possible partners and sex in general. I've been trying to find someone with this particular current for a long time but I never fully understood why that was the case. And now I do...I really understand some of my choices in a very different light now than I did before.

10-10-09 I've been thinking further about what I wrote above, about the person I contacted, etc. I look back at various activities, various sexual encounters and I see this particular need trace itself through most of my relationships in a manner that never fully addresses it in a satisfactory way. The two partners I ended up with in long term relationships never embraced that particular archetype of the sacred whore. And conversely I've put myself in situations where I could almost have that relationship with someone who embodied that archetype, but then would take it away from myself, too afraid perhaps of getting what I wanted, or perhaps just not ready. I'm tired of that pattern. I'm tired of the hurt it's caused me and others. And while I do love my wife very much and take genuine pleasure and joy from her presence in my life, I also have to acknowledge that this current is in my life and likely always will be. It's something I want to explore with someone, safely and sanely.

10-11-09 One of my problems or flaws is that I put expectations on a lot of experiences, people, etc. In a conversation with a friend this morning, I thought about that...really thought about how much those expectations have actually caused me to miss out on some good experiences. I know I've placed expectations on so much of my life, and I'm even relatively sure of where that pattern came from. I also know those same expectations create a lot of the emptiness I feel as well.

I've been reading the Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola. It looks at some of the earliest tenets of Buddhism. I'm finding a lot of it speaking to some of the struggles I've been experiencing for a long time. And I've been reminded that I'm not really drawing on all the tools available to me. But I'm not surprised by that either. I've needed to fall apart this year, to see my flaws up close and personal as well as understanding the cause. It's when you know the cause that you can start at the beginning with awareness and readiness to move forward. So falling apart has been discovering the causes...and starting the healing. I'm just about ready to move forward.

She said: "all you have to do is look around you and really see, not the image of your life but the real life. When you can define yourself alone, all the emptiness goes away" The image of my life is the desires, the expectations, the fixations, everything that haunts me because it isn't realized. The real life is accepting how little any of that matters and how much what does matter is less about expectation and a lot more about the experience.

10-12-09: Further discussion with D, as well as thinking about something written in The Doctrine of Awakening, which stated that when a person "needs" another person they are spiritually weak. Not need as in rely on a person to back you up, but need as in codependent need, trying to find someone to fulfill something within you. As we all know by now, my emptiness working has at its core been dealing with that very issue, and on a very primal level, sex as a shadow activity can be expressed that way. Sex becomes a connection, the intimacy a doorway...the problem is it can also be addictive...it's a drug like any other. You become a junkie, looking for your next fix. And for me, sex, like so much else, has been a way to avoid emptiness, to try and fill it up, and otherwise shut it out, but it's always been a temporary fix. And it's always been more about a constructed reality than an actual acceptance of this reality.

I know that now. That's really what this year has been about, is finally, finally tracing the emptiness to every single root event and coming away with a profoundly different awareness of my emptiness in the process, as well as myself. And always going away with the awareness that I have a choice, have always had a choice, but now have more awareness in making that choice.

10-16-09 I volunteered at a play party tonight, to help out with one of the communities I'm part. After finishing up volunteering, I watched some people play and was struck with a feeling of incredible loneliness, and later a feeling of anger at myself and others for the last few years. I feel really alone. I have for a while. And a lot of it's my own making. Seeing the fun and intimacy others were experiencing tonight just brought it home to me.

10-18-09 I ended up writing a long post about how I was feeling the other night on another site and got some useful feedback. But it also seems that the last couple of days has conspired to put me in touch with some possible interests...and I kind of laugh about that, because it's the end of the emptiness working...and that ending is going to be opening a lot up for me. Last night I had a dream of a silver web and in the middle was a glowing orb and cracks were starting to appear in it.

10-20-09 I went and got the tattoo for Xah. The artist, Alice Kendall did an excellent job . You can see a picture below of the sigil for Xah, as well as the saying "From 0 to 1" Tonight, I went into my ritual room, and painted my body with the sigil of Xah, while vibratingh isn ame over and over again. Eventually, the fox lord came, eyes laughing, tongue lolling out. "You've been through a lot this year. What have you learned?"

"I've known myself at my weakest, all my faults, flaws, and reactions exposed to myself. I've known myself at my strongest, confident, secure in who I am, able to achieve anything. And I've known myself as a mixture, and I am humbled by everything I've experienced. And I'm ready to move from 0 to 1, from a place of reactions to the past and old wounds, to a place of conscious decision and acceptance of the consequences."

Then I, for a while, just meditated on this last year, on what I'd learned about myself, and my choices. This has been the hardest year of my life, in terms of really facing myself, and fully coming to terms with my emptiness. I've had to dig up all my core wounds, come to terms with some different people and their effect on me and also more importantly come to terms with my choices and how those have really effected others. I can't say I'm a better person, so much as I'm a much more aware person after this year, after, the last five years really...and that awareness provides me an opportunity to be much more mindful of my choices. This year has been the culmination of a lot of internal work. I don't even recognize myself sometimes, because so much has changed...but I'm ready to embrace this person I've become, and let go the weight of the past.

At times I wondered if I could make it...I spoke for a while just to myself about this last year, about what I learned, about who I've decided to be. And then I told Xah I was ready to finish this year, and move into the next one. I decided to use a bit of sex magic and brought myself to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy gave myself to Xah again and felt him enter through the sigil I'd placed on my arm and then felt the zero crack open and from it came forth the direction I've chosen...then a shower to wash the paint off...and now it is the 21st my Birthday. And I've made it through this year of emptiness and found myself and found clarity and sanity and peace with myself. For yes, there is emptiness, but now I no longer need to fight it or run from it. Finally, finally, I have accepted it.

I read through my entries on emptiness...it's about a good four pages worth Just re-read everything...from start to now. If you go to the categories dropdown, you can select emptiness and read every entry...go back four pages or so...start at the beginning...You'll read a journey of this last year, of a person's journey to find himself and find resolution and closure with an element that most of us in the West would rather ignore.

Below is a picture of the tattoo I got as a tribute to this last year.

Happy Birthday to me.

Element Emptiness Month 9: Craving and Desire pt. 2

6-19-09 I'm feeling out of sorts today. This is one of those days where there's missed connections, where everything feels slightly off. It's a day where I feel the craving to be filled a bit more sharply. A day where nothing I do really satisfies and underlying everything is a feeling of loss. I hate those days. They don't happen often, but when they do occur, no matter what I do that day, it feels like nothing got done. Sad though, measuring the day by what got done or didn't...yet I do it all the time. There can be benefits for doing it, but is that really the only way I find worth? 6-22-09 Envy is one of the shadows of desire. Feeling envy is like feeling pointy, sharp knives being stabbed into you...Each stab is a fresh reminder of the pain you feel. Just one of those nights.

6-27-09 I'm alone this weekend. My wife is off with her boyfriend and I have our home to myself. In someways, though, I've felt fairly alone lately, because the emptiness working is intensifying and I've also been letting go of a lot of my cravings when it comes to wanting other relationships...letting go, but also feeling.

It is the act of feeling which allows for the letting go. I've never realized as much as I do now how much I sometimes have found value in myself through the relationships I have with others. I think some of that can be healthy, but can get unhealthy if the value is only because of those relationships.

I want to be involved with someone new...be dating someone...and I acknowledge that. But I also accept that if and when it happens, it will occur because it's the right moment...which doesn't mean I'm not looking...just means I'm less frantic about it.

And more appreciative of the relationships I do have with wife, family, and friends. It's wonderful to have people hwo genuinely care about you and love you and want you in their lives. I appreciate that more than ever because having those relationships is what's helping me get through this emptiness working.

6-29-09 As I've continued doing this emptiness working, something which has come into my consciousness more has been an awareness of other peoples' emptiness. It's consequently made me more aware of what I am comfortable dealing with and what I'm not comfortable dealing with. I think every person has some degree of emptiness in them and I think it's not unhealthy to have it, but how it's expressed can be unhealthy. When I'm around someone and that person wants something from me, in a way that tries to fill that person up, I know it's a case of trying to fill up the emptiness. In some ways, it's a kind of psychic vampirism. And until people get comfortable with their emptiness, and understand how they are reacting to it, it will cause them to act out in ways that involve trying to fill themselves up. I know this, because it's been that way with me, most of my life. Only recently have I come to a place where I'm not acting out that emptiness...but because I'm aware of that emptiness in myself, I can also feel it in others, and see it in the behaviors they exhibit.

7-01-09 Sometimes an event will occur, which triggers issues for me from the past. Frex I give someone a gift and that person doesn't exhibit as much enthusiasm or interest in said gift as I hoped (expected) s/he would. On the one hand, Lupa's pointed out that I tend to build up some expectations as to how someone will act when I give that person something. And there's some truth to her observation. I do sometimes build up an expectation on how I think someone will act or react to something I do and that can lead to disappointment and isn't fair to the person either.

But in thinking about it, the root of this issue is in feelings of neglect. My honest feeling wasn't so much disappointment, as a feeling of neglect, of not being noticeable enough, worth enough to be shown consideration to. And yes that issue can lead to high expectations, but when I trace it back to myp ast, I trace it to my childhood, where I was essentially an indentured servant. I was expected to do a lot of chores, and was rarely, if at all thanked for what I did. In fact, I was usually only acknowledged when I did something bad. Everything good I did wasn't worth noticing or paying attention to. And sometimes...I still feel that way. Now, that isn't the fault of anyone I know. It's my issue to deal wih, my issue to own, but part of owning it is acknowledging it, being honest about it, and recognizing what triggers it. And also recognizing what I need to do, to decondition that trigger.

7-3-09 I recently added a new business to my entrepreneurial gig and in the midst of doing that got some real gems for my emptiness work: Humility is believing in yourself and in abundance. It's believing you have everything in the world to offer and also believing that everyone else does too." It's an interesting definition of humility, and one I find compelling. And what does it have to with emptiness...Simply recognizing that everyone does have something to offer. It's a shift in thinking that focuses on recognizing the value that each person has. And for me, this is a shift which has been occurring for a while, since the advent of my entreprenurial focus. And when I've come to this view, it's changed some of my feelings about emptiness, because I recognize more and more what it has to offer to me as well.

7-03-09 There are times where I still find myself struggling with being completely open and upfront. I want to be open...but there's also that part, which doesn't want to be open. That part is the part that learned early on that being open was a bad idea, that it would be used against me.  And rationally I know I'm not in that place anymore...I'm not that child anymore, but emotionally my issues with the authority that someone could have with my life is one that makes me feel uneasy. That uneasiness brings its own contributions to how I handle situations where I want something, but might have to get someone else's approval to get it. Sometimes I really have to muster up my courage to bring something up, because of that uneasiness. It's gotten easier to deal with over the last year, but its still something I have trouble with occasionally.

7-06-09 This month so far has been quieter than all the other months. Sure some stuff has come up, and there is still an awareness of emptiness, but at the same time there's also a quietness, a kind of calmness...and not the calmness before a storm, but more like a calm centeredness of knowing myself and knowing emptiness and feeling collected and grounded with both.

7-10-09 Sometimes I will catch myself in a stream of thought that is focused around desire and in that moment acknowledge just how much that desire occupies my thoughts. It's useful for recognizing just how much I want something, as well as asking whether that focus is really helping or not. It's showing me as well the place desire has in my internal landscape, and now I'm learning how to sit with that comfortably. It's not always easy, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed by how much my thoughts can sometimes go toward desire, but learning to sit with it is teaching me a lot about how I feel when I feel desire and can't act on it. I'm seeing what underlies desire, which sometimes is a feeling of emptiness and fear, and sometimes is a desire to connect.

Some further realizations. Some of my desires deal with taboo, the desire to do something forbidden. When I thought about that and traced it back, I found the root, of course, in my past. Because I lived in a very disciplined household, one of the things I did to get power in those situations was to go behind my parents back and to lie to them. If I could get away with something, I took it as a triumph. And I see that same behavior in my life, over and over again through my twenties, and to a lesser degree my early thirties. Never mind that the root situation is gone...there's still this desire to do something forbidden, and the pleasure of getting away with it. I'm not acting on that desire now, but it doesn't mean I don't have fantasies about it. Today when I had such a fantasy, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, sitting with it, and figuring out where the desire originated from. And having done that, I can say that it makes a lot of sense to me, but it's no longer needed. I'm not in a situation where I'm dealing with some authority over me restricting me from enjoying what I like. I'm in a situation where I have that authority and ultimately responsibility for what I do. Needless to say, that gives me a lot of incentive to continue working on this stuff, instead of acting out on it.

7-12-09 I've been re-reading Epstein's works on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Seemed appropriate for the emptiness working. In one of the books, Epstein talks about realizing that the pain, anger etc., isn't something you can remove, that instead you've got to sit with it and work through it. The same is true of desire. You can't remove it, and you do need to work through it. It's something which needs to be experienced, but in a manner that allows you to know that you are truly at peace with how it makes you feel. You can't eliminate the emptiness, the desire, the anger, because it's something which is part of you. We treat it as the other, because we don't want to deal with it. But it's only in sitting with those feelings, that we can find peace with them.

7-13-09 I am simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable with my desires. I am comfortable in the moments I express them, but uncomfortable with having them...and it's fairly easy for me to figure out the root and where it all came from...but sitting with it and being present with is something else I'm still learning to do.

7-17-09 Sitting with my desires today, I realized just how important it is sit with them and be silent in that sitting. And by silence, I don't mean not talking, so much as I mean really listening. I still don't feel any more comfortable with it, but I do feel like I'm finally ready to listen as opposed to frenetically acting.

Some thoughts on the limitations of gods

Warning...this post will likely be considered blasphemous if you are of the school of thought deities are all powerful, all knowing, and therefor infallible. That said, let's move on to the content... I recently finished the new Prince of Persia game and have been playing the downloadable add-on epilogue adventure and in both the main game and the epilogue there is a very interesting point raised about the power and intelligence of a deity. At one point, in the main game, one of the protagonist's wishes that there was an army helping them fight Ahriman, and the other protagonist says it's actually better that it's two of them, because an army of people would be more dangerous because they could be tempted by Ahriman. In fact, she goes on to explain that the real danger is that peopel would be tempted by Ahriman. Yes, this deity could tempt them, but the fact is, the choice is ultimately the person's and that makes that person very dangerous. Ahriman, in this game is simply the god of Darkness. In some ways he has less individuality and less choice than the humans he could tempt. He's dangerous, but his danger is limited by the context of the function he serves by being a god of darkness.

In the epilogue, the characters face a monster that Ahriman creates, and both note the lack of originality and the one character says that Ahriman is still weak and so is using forms he is familiar with, when creating monsters out of the corruption. But it also brings up an interesting question about the creativity or lack thereof that Ahriman displays. Ahriman is limited to some degree by the very role he has as a god of darkness and so what he can do is also accordingly limited.

In the Buddhist conceptions of deity, the gods, despite being powerful within the function that they fulfill, are less powerful than humans because they are defined by that function and even defined by the way humans relate to them. In the past, it has been pointed out to me that deities can grow and develop as a result of the relationship that they have with people, and I agree that this is true, but it is actually because of that relationship that they can grow and evolve...that the function of what they do can change. A god of darkness is kind of old hat in contemporary culture...but a god of darkness and several other functions is a god that has adapted to the times as a result of its interaction with people.

I think that there are some spiritual seekers that are too eager to give all power to the gods, while divesting themselves of the responsibility for their actions by saying: "My god made me do it." Undoubtedly they would look at what I wrote above and say I was being blasphemous to the spirits, that I would be punished for my affront by describing gods as beings that may not be all powerful and may in fact be defined and shaped by the relationships they have with humans and other beings. Yet, the simple fact of the matter is that everything is defined by relationships. A human being is definitely not all powerful...s/he has to live on a planet with a breathable atmosphere and other forms of live in order to sustain his/her own life...and that's just survival on the physical level. The emotional, mental, and yes spiritual level also necessitates relationships of some kind in order for a person to survive and indeed thrive.

Why wouldn't this principle apply to gods? In fact, I don't think gods are all powerful and I think they are limited by the function of what they do and how that is defined in the relationships they have with others. I think that when people put gods on a pedestal, they are divesting themselves of responsibility for their own actions, or using that god to justify their own attempts to have power over other people. This isn't to say that a relationship where a person feels subservient to a god isn't spiritual or right for that person...for clearly that can be a relationship that person needs. Nor is it wrong to feel a sense of awe or humbleness in working with a deity...but such relationships will ideally not involve abdication of responsibility. Rather, ideally the god will challenge the person to grow and use the spiritual lessons to help that person fully understand the nature of the service s/he has entered into in choosing to work with or worship that god.

All the same, I don't think treating a god as all powerful or all knowing is a wise idea. Recognize it's power and knowledge, but also recognize your own. Recognize the context of the relationship in order to better appreciate that relationship and learn and grow from it, while also helping the other end learn and grow as well.

On the value of Inner Alchemy

I'm copy editing a book for Immanion Press called Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot: A Troubleshooter's Guide to Magic by A'Miketh, and I'm really impressed by what I'm reading, because this guy has managed to explain some complex concepts in fairly approachable language, and more importantly he's cleared stated the value and need for doing external work before getting into all of the flashy external magical work. And I have a lot of respect for that. I was chatting with Bill Whitcomb earlier tonight about how change occurs in society, and we both agreed that change takes a long time to occur when it's done right, because the best way that change occurs is through changing the internal reality of yourself and modeling that change to others. It's not nearly as dramatic or active as trying to protest political rallies or trying to throw a revolution because you dislike what other people are doing. It's a much slower form or change...it takes time and some effort to create change in yourself that brings you to healthier patterns of behavior and communication.

But I would take that kind of change over the change of a revolution, because a revolution inevitably only replaces the previous oppressors with the people revolting against them. That is to say in a revolution the only thing that changes are the people in charge. What doesn't change is how those people treat other people, because for a revolution to usually be successful, it is violent...and that same violence twists the people who beget it, so that they become what they hate, because having overthrown a previous government, they quickly begin to fear that the same will happen to them. The French revolution and the Bolshevik revolution and revolutions in China (both in the early and mid twentieth century), and to a lesser extent the American revolution are good examples of this process, where change is promised and a government is overthrown and ultimately what replaces it is more of the oppression that the revolutionaries claimed they fought against. This incidentally is one of the reasons I'm skeptical about the so-called good intentions of the activists...I see them as just another form of political extremism and should that extremism replace what we currently have, I don't believe it will be any better than what it replaces.

I favor instead a revolution that comes from within a person...a fervent desire to change the self, to recognize that to change the world around us, we must first be willing to take responsibility for our own actions and thoughts. Instead of blaming others for the woes of the worlds, we should take responsibility for ourselves and what we can change...our attitudes about others, our actions toward the environment we live in and do it in a manner where we model how we want the world to change, but without trying to force that change down everyone's throat. I imagine that may sound idealistic, but in copy-editing this book and reading this person's thoughts on how to create a system of mindful awareness and internal change mechanisms in western practices of occultism, I see more than idealism...I see a methodology and practice that can make it happen, but ultimately requires a voluntary to make it occur. I turned to Taoist and Buddhist breathing and meditation techniques to develop a system for internal work that was also mixed with Western techniques for pathworking, but in reading some of Dunlap's ideas, I also see some hope for Western occultism developing some of those same internal practices without having to borrow as much from Eastern practices.

It seems to me that when a culture or society doesn't have a system of some sorts for developing reflective and consciousness awareness of emotions and reactions and triggers, it is very hard for that society to change. And really, for this kind of internal work to really bear results, you need everyone in society doing the work...not just some monks in a mountain hideaway. This is why I hope such practices will continue to become more prevalent in this culture...so that people can really be aware of what sets them off and work on deprogramming the bad triggers, while also figuring out who they really want to be and how they want to manifest that to each other and the world at large. I think if such practices were more prevalent there would be much less violence, much more cooperation, and also much more of a sense of connection to and with each other as well as an awareness of the responsibility we have to each other, to ourselves and to the environment we live in, aka, to the entirety of this Earth and universe.

Different perspectives on Deity

While I've written extensively about my relationship with deity and the concept of service from a Buddhist perspective on this blog, it's not the only perspective I have about deity or how deities interact in our lives. Over the last sixteen years I've come up with a variety of different perspectives all of which are equally valid and true for my approach to deity. Perspective 1: The Buddhist/Taylor perspective - Gods are powerful, but also slaves to their power. They may have people who worship them, but ultimately the lessons the provide those people are focused on getting those people to grow past needing gods, so that the gods can stop being diety and ascend to Nirvana. As long as one person worships the gods, the gods are still enslaved to their power because that power is derived from the belief of that person. To westerners, this is a fairly blasphemous approach. It argues that any god, no matter how powerful, is ultimately a servant to the human's journey to reach nirvana. I personally find it appealing because it is such a different approach to the evangelical fundamentalist orthodoxy found in extreme versions of Christianity, and to a degree even in some pagan beliefs. I also think it's a useful exercise to implement this perspective sometimes in terms of viewing the gods in a way that is decidely foreign from how many of us in the West may be encultured to perceive them. Instead of viewing a deity as an omnipotent being who we have to obey or else suffer hideous consequences (whether it's hell for the Christian version, or some kind of curse according to different pagan versions), it can be useful to consider that a deity is actually there to teach us by the example it provides of being a slave to its own power, and to the attachment that the power can represent.

Perspective Two: Chaos Magic/Taylor Perspective - Deities, spirits, demons, etc., are psychological archetypes and imprints. They symbolically represent deep structures within us. We use the symbols to access those deep structures. I tend to favor this perspective the least. I find it useful in terms of reaching some of those deep concepts as well for entity creations, but I also think it's a perspective which all too easily leads to a solipsistic perspective of the universe.

Perspective Three: Derived from Fantasy books by Feist and Eddings/Taylor Perspective: Gods, demons, etc are beings we have relationships with. As we evolve and grow in those relationships, so too do the gods, spirits, etc grow. We are interconnected and need each other to help each other evolve. I've seen this perspective argued in fantasy books more so than anywhere else, but I actually tend to think there's some truth to the arguments. The gods fulfill certain roles, but also grow as times change, and humans grow by having a relationship with deities, where the deities challenge the humans. Both humans deities give something to each other by the relationship that is had.

Those are the three main perspectives I have when it comes to deities...one and three are more prevalent than two...I don't really see a need to pick one perspective, because I think all three can be relevent at a given moment.

Hungry Ghosts

In Buddhism, there's a concept about desire called the hungry ghost. The hungry ghost represents the extreme of desire, the suffering a person feels in desire, and an inability to satiate that desire. As some of you may know, I've been involved a lot of internal work for a few years now. Doing the internal work is probably the hardest magical work a person can do, because once you start poking and prodding your reactions, subconscious patterns, etc, you open the door to facing your internal demons as well.

On Saturday, I went for a walk for a few hours...thinking over a lot I have on my mind about some of the current internal work I'm doing, and also dealing with a feeling of dissatisfaction that I feel sometimes, a feeling that has sometimes motivated my actions, in an attempt to find some distraction, some sensation, something that can drive away that feeling of dissatisfaction. I walked around and I looked at different things I might buy and I realized nothing I could buy could drive away that feeling of dissatisfaction. I thought for a moment of what it might be like to go on a date or see a friend, but I knew right then that no one I saw, no one I talked with could do away with that feeling.

I realized that feeling is my hungry ghost. It is the desire that is felt and yet is never satisfied, a desire to feel complete, a desire which likely never can be satisfied, because no matter who is in my life, no matter what relationships I have, or things I buy or use, that feeling is something that I may always feel at some point or another.

The best way to deal with a hungry ghost is to sit with it, feel it, acknowledge it, and then let it go. This is not easy, because it will use every thing to distract you. It will say, If you buy this, you won't notice me" and for a little while that might be true, but the hungry ghost will return and with it returns what it represents, whatever energetic blockages, feelings, etc, it hides that a person needs to feel in order to come to peace with him or herself.

So after I walked for a while, I just sat and meditated with my hungry ghost, accepting its presence, accepting what it represented, accepting I might feel this sense of dissatisfaction, but the only thing that could resolve it was to acknowledge and accept it, instead of fighting it. At some point, after doing that, I felt somewhat better, somewhat more at peace...it's still there, but it doesn't hurt as much and maybe someday it won't hurt at all.

Enlightenment does not take you off the hook!

Sometimes people have funny definitions of enlightenment, as in if I'm enlightened I can do no more wrong. I've never thought of enlightenment as that. Rather to me is it: Once you are aware, i.e. enlightened, you can no longer use ignorance to excuse your actions. You have to take full responsibility. In Psychology without the self, by Mark Epstein, this is phrased much better: "Before Awakening, one can easily ignore or rationalize his shortcomings, but after enlightenment this is no longer possible. One's failings are painfully evident. Yet at the time a strong determination develops to rid oneself of them...Continuous training after enlightenment is required to purify the emotions so that our behaviors accord with our understanding."

That's pretty much the truth of enlightenment. You wake up and suddenly you recognize the effect your behavior has on you and others and you can't hide behind it anymore. The path is hard because once you recognize your failings you have to face them. And continuous training is a reality of enlightenment. Just because you are aware doesn't mean your behaviors automatically stop. I'm an excellent example of that because while I can definitely say I'm more aware of my behaviors, I'm also really having to work hard to change those behaviors and isn't easy. Knowledge does not equal wisdom...wisdom is only found after a person has actively chosen to change those behaviors by using that awareness to mindfully temper how s/he interacts.  And that tempering usually involves making more mistakes, facing in full how you act, and then motivating yourself to change because you realize you don't want to be that way any more.

Enlightenment doesn't take you off the hook. It demands more of you. Edited to add: As an interesting side note, just as I finished writing this post, I got thwacked by reality over something that definitely falls into this category. Ayup...you never get let off the hook.

Continuing some thoughts on Diety and Service

In my previous post about Deity and service I got some comments and they got me thinking further about some of what I was exploring in that last post.  One commenter, in particular, asked for some defintions. 1. Define Deity

I define a Deity as a pan-dimensional being that has its own existence, and lives on a different plane than this one. Deities can exist independent of people and they have their own power, but I also think that people provide the deity some of its power, and to a degree define it. The power is provided by the belief the people have in the deity. If people don't believe, the deity doesn't have as much power, as it would have if people believed in it. The deity is also partially defined by people, in terms of the sphere of influence or the meanings people provide it. Those meanings provide the deity power, but as I mentioned earlier they can also , to a degree limit the deity, because they also define where the deity exerts its power. A diety of love, for instance, doesn't really have much influence over a battle. A good example would be where aphrodite gets wounded when she goes out into the battlefield...it's not her place, not her realm of influence. She has power, but war isn't included in that power.  Another interesting aspect to this is that while deities have power, the methods for how they use that power, as it applies to this plane of reality may involve the worshippers they have. Those worshippers are physical vehicles...they exist here...they enable the deity to influence events more directly than they might be able to otherwise...in shore the deities may need worshippers as a way of effecting reality...of course they also give benefits to their worshippers.

Now, I also think a deity can grow...one reason deities may have worshippers is to be able to not only have a pair of helping hands in the physical world, but also to be able to learn from the experiences people have here. They partake of those experiences vicariously. Invocation is a good example. you invoke a god and get possessed for a while so the god can use your body, but also experience this reality more directly.

Maybe the experiences deities get from people is what helps them grow and refine their power and even their existence...something to consider...and again this brings up the questions of identity I mentioned in the last post, both for the people involved and the deity.

2. Define “service”

In the context of the deity-human relationship, I think service occurs on both ends. The worshipper agrees to believe in the deity, agrees to serve the deity by performing tasks for the deity, and even letting the deity have access to hir, via invocation. At the same time, the deity serves the person. The person seeks the deity, because the deity represents access to some deep meanings. A deity of lust for instance provides access to the deepest layers of desire a person may have. The deity provides a medium or interface to access those deepest layers. The person needs to experience those layers, and the deity provides that opportunity.  The diety may also provide the person much needed lessons or discipline or other experiences that help that person come to peace with what the deity represents. It seems odd to me that, in fact, this facet of the deity-human relationship is rarely examined, as if people should not get anything out of the experiences they have with deity.

3. Define “Conditions of Service”

This falls back to number two. From my own experiences conditions of service seems to vary from deity to deity. Some deities want a one-time offering, others want more sustained work. My service to Babalon for instance is of a more sustained type. Conditions can change as well. Both the person and deity are living and the relationship that is had also changes. Likewise I think at least some conditions change as that relationship changes YMMV. 

4. Is a fish more “powerful” than an anteater?

Depends on the context...and in fact this question admirably applies to what has been discussed. Is a human more powerful than a deity? Certainly not in the native environment of the deity (The human might not even be able to exist in that environment). In Malkuth, it's not so much more powerful, as a human has a type of power here that the deity may not have, which could be a good reason for the deity to want to have worshippers. Some might consider this blasphemous, but I think the following questions should be considered in some depth by people dedicating themselves to deities: Why does the deity choose me to interact with? What am I providing it, that it can't get otherwise? What can I learn from this experience?

Asking and answering these questions can help us understand the effect of deity on our own identites, as well as on how we live our lives. It may help us consider as well, what we hope to learn from our experiences with the deity. finally, it may explain why some people sometimes stop working with particular deities...perhaps they learned the lessons they needed to learn...perhaps the deity learned what it needed to learn.

Further thoughts on service and deities

In my post on magic sometimes being like a bad acid trip, one thing I discussed was how being in service to the gods really involved those gods being in service to us. Where that concept comes from is Buddhism and how that particular belief system views gods. It acknowledges that the gods have more power in certain ways than humans do, but that very power is what entraps those gods. Those gods are limited and defined by what that power represents. They are attached to those meanings and cannot detach so long as people call on them to access what those gods represent. The gods become interfaces of identity for people to work with. Those interfaces represent the deep structures, the nebulous concepts that people want to work with. The gods provide structure for accessing those deep structures. When a person serves a god of death, what are they really serving? Are they serving the actual god, or the concept of death as represented by that god, or the identity of death as given a face by that god? And why do they need to be in service to that god? In fact, such service from a Buddhist perspective is an attachment to that power, and yet such service can be liberating. By choosing to work with the deity and it's method of identification with the deep structure they really want to connect with, people are ultimately getting the deity to serve them.

The deity shapes those people who serve it, provides them experiences they need, and ultimately ends up freeing them of the very attachment that drove them to serve the deity in the first place. Why? Because the deity has served its function, has served the people that serve it. A diety cannot, in the end, not serve the people that come to it. The deity is bound to service by the very power it has, and by what it represents. So long as people call on the deity, the deity cannot be free of the service or the power it has taken on. It is not free of the attachment to meaning, to the deep structure that people give it. The deity serves those people, even as it demands service. It's very demand of service is calculated to give those people the experiences they need to have in order to grow. They serve their deities with devotion and lose themselves in that devotion and so come to understand what it was they were really seeking. Liberation results when that understanding is achieved. At that point, the person can decide if s/he really needs to be attached anymore to that concept. The deity's work/service for that person is done when that occurs.

A deity cannot be free of it's own service, it's own power until people no longer need it. The very power it has creates obligation. Like a king who ascends the throne, the deity can never resign or abdicate it's responsibilities. The king is always on duty, always on task. The king has power, but that very power binds him to the people, even when it doesn't seem like it does. The same is true for the diety. It has power. It can compel people, it can control them, but it is also controlled by its own service. The most powerful diety has less freedom than the most powerless person because the deity is defined by the domain of influence and meaning it represents. It can never not be that.

This brings into question some intriguing concepts of identity as it applies to deity and to people. What is the role of meaning within identity? How is a person's identity shaped by the attachments and meanings s/he takes on in life? What kind of service or obligation does this create and how is magic used to either enforce or free one from those meanings and attachments? What is the role of deity in the identity of a person?

These are some of the ideas I am pondering and working through in my own life and naturally, I'll be expanding upon this a lot more in the books I write, but this is something for all of you to chew on in the meantime.

"Sometimes Magic is like a Bad Acid Trip"

"Sometimes magic is like a bad acid trip" solis93 said to me yesterday as we were talking on the phone about editing, Hermeticism, and magic in general. Yes, yes in fact magic as a spiritual path, as a mystic path, is sometimes like a bad acid trip. I'm not talking about service to any gods here either. I know some people believe that's hard work, but what I'm talking about is a whole different ballgame, because in the end the Gods themselves will hold us back if they can. They have power, and yet they are, in the Eastern conception of them, bound by that very power, attached to what they represent, and what they mean, and so that power becomes weakness for them, because they can never move beyond what they are. They can never transcend the state they are in. Service to them, while useful, ultimately is designed to free people of them, because it exposes the limitations of the very power the gods have. Do I speak blasphemy to some of you? So be it. Blasphemy it may be, in the end, and yet we are all on journeys that are journeys for us to walk the path we walk and so the gods becomes tools, becomes servants to us, much like a king becomes a servant...He has power, but also obligation, and service...he is never free, he can never not be king. No one will let him retire. He has to die to free himself, and that death, while a transformation, nonetheless is the ending of any lessons he could learn. The same is true of the gods. Until they die, they are never free of the service. Even when they hold you in service to them, still they exist in a more profound slavery to you! For, in the end, unwittingly perhaps, or perhaps with conscious awareness, they are really instructing you on your path, providing you the means to move on...to transcend, to transform. And so even in service to them, you are ultimately in service to yourself, to the HGA, to the highest self, to omnil, 0 and 1, all things and none, Kia, nothingness and everything, that which is so profound about yourself that should you reach it, you will look back at the bad acid trip and laugh, because it was just a small step in a long journey. The gods serve you even as you serve them, like an infinity sign, bound together in a continuing cycle of suffering and desire...it will never end, unless you move further up the spiral, and yet to move up is to submit, to be destroyed and then created again, rising like the phoenix from the ashes, even as the ashes form the alchemical seed of transformation that moves you profoundly across the universe.

When I talk about magic, in this context, I'm not talking about just obtaining a result. I'm talking about doing the internal work, about doing service to yourself and others by doing this work. When I meditate and I delve inward, I'm on a path of discovery...not to destroy the ego, but to help the ego...not get rid of the self, but give the self different perspectives, free the self of the behaviors that hold the self back. This is work that is humbling because it shows you so much about yourself and the insignificance of it all. And yet in that insignificance is significance...0 and 1, The seed. And from the seed, and the roots, in the internal depths, arises the plant, the power, the path, the flowering of life, unfolding, revealing, creating the external to match the internal so that the internal can learn from the external...no dualism here...we all come together and we all fall apart. In the moment we experience identity, we experience every variation thereof and from that find profound patterns that reveals the secrets of no-thing.

The internal work is the highest test of the self, the test of your identity, your transcendence, that who you are. The methods we use to do that internal work, whether through meditation, through ceremonial magic, through any of it really, are all designed to teach us, to help us learn. But this no denial of the body, or desires, but rather an embrace of them, a coming to a healthy place with them, a recognition of where they fit within us, and how they teach us. To deny them is to provide more suffering than we had before...but to accept them, define boundaries for them, even as we submit, is to come to understanding.

Through understanding arises opportunity...growth...Eheieh

Arise