In Gratitude to Mother Earth and All Our Kin

See the beauty of Earth. She her as mother and forever home.

Give joyful, heart-felt thanks to her for giving us the gift of life. She sustains us as a loving mother does. 

Give equal thanks to Sun, Moon, planets, and all the stars. Indeed, it takes a village.

See all the living as older sisters and brothers. All of the plants and animals were here long before we were. They are older and wiser in the ways of life than we humans are. They are patient and generous teachers.

We humans are the youngest of Mother Earth's children and often behave immaturely as the youngest in the family do. We do well to respect and watch and learn from our elder kin.  

Our plant and animal kin do not depend on us in order to live. We depend on all of them. From them we have much to learn. We also have much for which to give thanks to them.

Are the Poor in Spirit Blessed?

Many believe they live fallen lives in a fallen world. Some believe they are sinners in a sinful world. Others believe they chose to descend from a "spiritual" realm into this world in order to live as a human and learn an important lesson. Still others believe this world is an illusion of suffering and they continue to reincarnate in this world until they are enlightened and liberated from it.

These different views share much in common. They share in common a low view of both this world and human beings. They express a belief that this world and all human beings are flawed or somehow less in comparison to something higher and beyond. Some go so far as to say that we humans are to blame. They believe that we ruined ourselves and the world by our own free will.

Those who believe such things devalue both this world and being human. They deny rather than affirm them. At heart they are anti-world, anti-human, anti-life, anti-spirit.

Why would anyone believe that this world and all human beings are somehow flawed or less than something beyond? Why would they believe in an imagined better place and way of being? 

From whom would such belief spring? Would such beliefs spring from the hearts and minds of the strong spirited among us?

Might such beliefs come from the poor in spirit who lack the strength to live well in this world?  Are they not the ones unable to enjoy the beauty of the world and the pleasures of life. Are they not too weak to live noble human lives in the world as it is? 

Do they not cope with their poverty of spirit by fantasizing about a better place to go after they die? Is it not they who want prophets and teachers to show them a way to escape this life? Is it not they who long to be rescued by a savior?

Perhaps the problem is neither the world or us humans. Perhaps everything is just as it is. Perhaps the problem is the belief of the poor in spirit. Perhaps what they believe is wrong.

Religious Belief a Thought Virus?

As far as we know, we human beings are the only animals on Earth that have religious beliefs.* Dogs are not religious. Cats are not religious. Neither are crows nor catfish.

Does having religious beliefs make us superior or inferior to other animals? I wonder...especially since we, like other animals, are not born religious. We humans are made religious by other humans- parents and others in positions of power over us.

Religious belief is not natural. At best it is artificial. It consists of stories we humans make up and tell to help us cope with the challenges of life. At worst it is a serious, life-denying thought virus spread by word of mouth and reinforced by guilt and fear- guilt about our natural instincts and fear of divine rejection and punishment. Guilt and fear, expressed in words of divine love, join in our hearts and give birth to a bad conscience, the symptom of a sick spirit.

If religious belief is a serious, life-denying thought virus, we do well to cleanse our hearts and minds and cure ourselves of it. When we are clear, we will be free. We will be free to live spirit-related lives in which we love and celebrate spirit as that which makes us and all the living alive.

* Those who are "spiritual but not religious" may replace "religious" with "spiritual."

Renouncing the Eastern Inward Turn

Is there a more "spiritual" culture than India? It is the home of Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, ashrams, asceticism, yoga, meditation, mantra, chakras, kundalini, world as illusion, karma, transcendence, reincarnation, nirvana, and a crowd of many other "spiritual" beliefs and practices. The Buddha hails from there. India is the home of the inward turn: Turn inward and find truth and transcendence within.

Have you looked at the external, social conditions of India lately? I mean besides the news about the commonality of women being gang-raped. Azadindia.org helps paint the picture of what life is like in a culture that practices the inward turn-a deeply introverted, escapist, life-denying, (anti)spirituality.

Over the past several decades many Westerners have succumbed to the seduction of the Eastern inward turn. Meditation, yoga, renouncing meat and other material goods, chanting mantras, counting beads, balancing chakras, invoking karma, asserting reincarnation, exploring past lives, and aspiring to nirvana are common among Western New Agers and Hindu wannabes with last names like Smith, Johnson, Williams, and Jones.   

Could there be a connection between following the Eastern inward turn and the decline of social conditions in Western cultures? If nothing else they're symbiotic. The Eastern inward turn feeds the social decline and provides a fictional escape for those in it. This in spite of unsubstantiated claims that those who practice the inward turn play an essential "spiritual" role in society, that of simply being. Their escape into being, into now, supports the decline.

It is past time for an about face toward a spirit-focused, life-affirming, empirically-based, Western-rooted spirituality. 

Note: I said nothing about a revival of religion. We're way past that.

Thumonauts: Explorers of Spirit

Thumonauts are pioneers. They explore one of the last great frontiers. They explore thumos, spirit, that which makes alive.

Thumonauts are possessed by a sense of wonder that we are spirited, alive, rather than not. Being possessed by this wonder compels them to explore and discover all they can about spirit.

Here are a few of the questions that burn in the hearts of thumonauts and compel their exploration:

What is the spirit that spirits the living? What is its nature?

What are the characteristics of spirit?

Plants and animals, including humans, are alive. They are spirited. Does the spirit of plants differ from the spirit of animals? If so, how?

What affects the spirits of plants and animals?

What all is spirited? Only plants and animals, others too, everything?

What is the difference between being spirited and not?

How does one become spirited?

Why does spirit leave and how?

When it leaves, where does it go?

Can the spirited be more or less spirited at different times? If so, how? What alters the degree of spiritedness?

Was there a time when nothing was spirited?

If so, from where did spirit come? How did the spirited become spirited?

When did being spirited begin?

Could being spirited come to a complete end so that nothing at all is spirited? If so, what would end spiritedness all together? 

Our Western ancestors associated spirit with both the wind, breath, heart, and the thymus gland. Why?

How is spirit associated with wind and breath?

How is it associated with the heart?

How is it associated with the gland that bears its name, the thymus gland?

These are just a few of the questions about spirit. There is so much to discover about spirit and  so few thumonauts doing the exploring.

 

Reincarnation? A Different Perspective

After being a spirited-minded-bodied ego can I die and yet remain as a spirited-minded ego? No, every spirited-minded-bodied ego is unique. When one dies it ceases to exist.  We only live metaphorically after we die. At best we live on as an influence in the lives of those who knew us.

However, it does seem possible that in some instances our spirited-mind can continue to exist. However, as a spirited-mind I would be less than I was as a spirited-minded-bodied ego. I would be only a shadow of my true self, a shade. The Ancient Greeks understood this well.  So did the Ancient Germanic tribes.

Can a spirited-mind be reincarnated? It's possible. However, since the body is not the same, neither is the ego, the person. Essentially, a reincarnated spirited-mind is a new and unique spirited-minded-bodied ego. As such it is possible that it could recall memories of being a previous spirited-minded-bodied ego.  

After being a spirited-minded-bodied ego can I die and yet remain a spirited ego? I think not. Spirit is simply that which makes alive. It is the same in everything that is spirited. I have no sense that my spiritedness is imprinted with my ego or unique or in any way.

I could, however, have it all wrong.  Right or wrong, I'm not sure it matters.

Just Say No to Transcendence

I do not seek to transcend my self. My ego is not something I want to transcend. I cannot both transcend my self and be my self. Why would I want to be something other than my self?

I might want to transcend myself if I believed there was something wrong with me or something "higher". However, "I" am not a problem that needs transcending. "I" am not a caterpillar in a cocoon. There is nothing "higher" for me to become than me. "I" am a one-of-a-kind gift. That means I am very rare. I am valuable, of inestimable worth.

Rather than transcendence I seek transformation. Rather than seeking to escape my self, I seek to become the full, strong, mature, unique ego I am meant to become.  Then I will be the best gift I can be for the world.

Contra Vedantists and New Agers: No "Self", Just "self"

Some believe in a Self, an ultimate, eternal, infinite Self. It's like an ocean. 

They believe their self, their ego, interferes with their awareness of Self. They desire to transcend their ego and, like a drop of water, be absorbed into the boundless oceanic Self. Then they will be without limits. Nirvana.

Let's be clear. They're not talking about something they know. They're talking about something they believe, a matter of faith. They are certainly free to believe what they believe. 

They might have had what I call an ecstatic unitive experience. They might have experienced being absorb into the ocean. It's an experience based on what they believe. As we believe so we experience.

I do not share their faith. I do not believe in an ultimate, eternal, infinite, oceanic Self. What I see and experience are drops, egos, individual selves: your self, my self, and all other selves. "Drops" is not the best metaphor. "Stories" is better. 

For the time of my life, until I die, I am a story, forever changing, always in the process of becoming. My story is an adventure. I make it up as I go, one action at a time.

As the main character of my story, I do not seek to vanish like a drop in a boundless ocean. Like an acorn lives to become an oak tree, I live to become me. I am always becoming me. "Me" is an ongoing creative process of development. "Me" is a narrative of revelation in a network of other narratives of revelations. 

We all play roles in each other's stories. Our lives are interwoven networks of spirited

narratives. We are living threads in a potentially eternal weave.

"Me" is always new. So are you. There is always more of us to become.

Why would anyone want to extinguish their self? Extinguishment. That's what nirvana is. It's the opposite of being truly alive and becoming who we are meant to become. Turning inward to seek nirvana is another way of avoiding and denying our life. It's another form of self-medication. 

I prefer opening my eyes, engaging in life, and living it fully.

This World, a Boarding School?

I have no reason to believe that I existed before I was conceived in my mother's womb. 

I have no reason to believe that I am an eternal soul that chose to descend from "above", enter a human body, and have a human experience in order to learn an important lesson.

This world is not a boarding school that I attend for a while to learn a lesson and then leave to return to my true home up there somewhere. I'm not just a visitor here.

This world is my home. To this earth I belong. Every grain is my kin, a living universe of learning. It's far more than I could ever take in before to the earth I return. 

The Virtue of Faithlessness

Faiths are mental constructs, jigsaw puzzles of fictional ideas, buffers between us and reality. 

Dare to live a faithless life. 

Shed what you can of your mental construct, inherited from others, and live free.

Dismantle, piece by piece, the jigsaw puzzle of fictional ideas. Peek at reality on the other side.

Exercise the power you have, your innate virtue, to live face to face with reality, buffer free.

Dare to live naked, faithless, intimate with reality, and feel alive.

Contra Descartes

That I am a spirit means that I am spirited, alive. Spirit is that which makes me alive. Without spirit I would not be a living body. Without spirit I would not be a living mind. 

Spirit precedes body and mind because spirit is the life of both body and mind. By my spirit my body functions. By my spirit my mind produces thoughts and images. By spirit I am alive. 

Descartes declared, " I think, therefore I am."

Contra Descartes: I am spirited, therefore I live.

Knowledge and Belief or Wonder and Curiosity?

The previous posts raise a few of the questions we can ask about the great mysteries of life, death and sex. More important than answering the questions is allowing the questions to have their way with us. 

Let's not pretend to know the answers. Rather than knowledge we have beliefs. Wonder and curiosity are better. 

Wonder and curiosity trump knowledge and belief every time.

The Great Mystery of Sex, Part 3

For many sex involves physical pleasure: touching skin to skin, the firm embrace, the moment of penetration, the ride, orgasm, the physical desire fulfilled.

For others sex involves pain, even death (How does the Black Widow spider become a widow?) Why does physical passion go hand in hand with sex? Why are they linked?

For many sex involves intense emotions- fear, excitement, happiness, anger, guilt, shame, and sadness. Why are sex and intense emotions linked? 

Some recognize that sex is spirit-related. It's about life. It sustains life. Why are sex and the continuation of the living linked?

For a few sex is a devotional practice and the sexual embrace a sacred and magical act. Why? What's behind that?

The abundant pleasure, pain, and power of sex raises so many questions.

Why is life squirming in sex?

The purpose of asking questions is not to get answers. Behind our pretense, we do not know. Our questions are met with silence.

It is okay that our questions link with silence. It's okay that the answers remain secret and hidden.

It's okay to stop making up answers to fill the silent void in our mind and eclipse our wonder.

We can open ourselves to wonder and smile in the presence of the great mystery of sex.

The Great Mystery of Sex, Part 2

Why are the living, the spirited, "driven" to sex?

Some have sex with many others. Some have sex with only one for their whole adult life. Others have no sex at all. Why the variety of ways?

Why have some developed restrictions with regard to sex- who can have sex with whom, when and how? Are they about producing the best off-spring? Are they expressions of power? Fear?

How did we humans become so mentally and emotionally conflicted about something so natural as sex? What perpetuates our conflictedness?  How do we liberate  ourselves from it?

Many perform elaborate rituals before they join in sex- strutting, deferring, calling, cooing. Why?

Why do so many of the living have sex for reasons other than reproduction - for pleasure, comfort, bonding, distraction, escape, manipulation, or dominance? 

Has sex always been so complicated? Does it have to continue to be?

The Great Mystery of Sex, Part 1

What death takes sex gives: life.

Sex and spirit go together. Sex is spirited and sustains spirit. Sex sustains life. Sex affirms life. It celebrates life.

As you read this sex goes on all around.

Right now billions of the living are touching, stroking, sucking, mounting, penetrating, thrusting, clawing, biting, smacking, humping, riding, banging, panting, moaning, groaning, screaming, spewing, gushing, collapsing, gasping for air, relaxing and calming back down.

Members of the opposite sex writhe together. So do members of the same sex. Members of the same species join. So do members of different species. Some squirm alone, others in pairs, still others in groups.

By light of day and darkness of night, the living dance a wet and wild orgy.  No law or moral code constrains it.

Why all the slippery, messy sex? Why is it that sex sustains life rather than something else?

Why is it that sex and spirit, that which makes alive, intermingle?

Why are so many conflicted that they do?

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 4

Afterlife?

Do we continue to live after we die? I ask on behalf of all the living.

That I ask confirms our not knowing.

I hear two replies: beliefs and silence.

Why do we even ask this question? Is it born from an innate drive the living have to keep on living? 

If we do live on after we die, who among us lives on- only humans, other animals, plants, the stones? 

If, as some believe, only humans live on, do all or only some live on after they die?

If we live on, how? Where? 

Do we ever live again on this earth?

If what is living inherently desires to keep on living, isn't it natural for us to create stories about how we continue to live after we die? Isn't it natural to create beliefs about living on and reinforce them with divine authority?

Rather than beliefs, I accept the silence.

We do not know what happens after we die. We do not know. 

The answer to this question is hidden from us. It's a secret. It always has been. It is one of the great mysteries.

What happens after we die? We do know one thing.

We decompose.

But then there are also those intuitions, dreams of the dead, ghosts, NDEs and other allusive experiences that leave us wondering. 

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 3

Death-like Experiences

Sleep, fainting, hibernation, being knocked unconscious, coma, near death experiences, orgasm: These are death-like experiences.

Sleep. We lie down and are dead to the world for a while. We humans spend a third of our life in the death-like state of sleep. 

Why? What is the purpose of sleeping?

Many of the living dream when asleep. Why? What are dreams? What is their purpose?

Hibernation: Many of the living self-bury and sleep like dead for months each winter to rise again in the spring. Why? What is the purpose?

Fainting: Something or someone takes our breath (spirit) away and we fall like dead to the ground. For a few moments we're dead to the world. Why do we faint?

Being knocked unconscious, coma: A blow to the head of almost any animal will render it unconscious. The effect of some blows is short-lived. Other blows induce comas. Still others kill. What a mystery the death-like state of unconsciousness is. While we're unconscious the living keep vigil hoping- or not- for our resurrection. 

Near death experiences (NDE): Heart, breath, and brain waves flat-line on the monitor. We see ourselves below. Through the tunnel we go toward the bright light. We experience love. Suddenly we back but not like before. We're transformed. Real? Hallucination due to a lack of oxygen? We do not really know.

Orgasm, the little death: It's a type of unconsciousness, similar to fainting but more fleeting. Induced by intense pleasure, it takes our breath, our spirit, away. It's a death we live for, a death we return to and rise from again and again. If not inflicted by another, we'll inflict this little death on ourselves. 

Do you know how many orgasms are happening right now? Why orgasm? What a wonderful and mysterious little death it is.

Note how resurrection follows all of these death-like experiences. That's what makes them death-like rather than death.

Are all these death-like experiences rehearsals for the real thing? Do the resurrections that follow make you wonder? I wonder if after death itself...could it be...that we...? 

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 2

Death: The Crust of Earth

Former rocks, plants, and animals, including humans, make the crust of this global grave yard on which we live. It's a crust of death.

Death supports life. All of the dead feed all of the living.

Life supports death. All of the living feed the crust of death.

What does it mean to die? Is dying the act of giving life?

The living kill. We share in the violence of death. We force deposits into the crust of this global grave yard.

Why? Why do we kill each other? Why all the death? Is it to feed life?

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 1

We expire, spirit-out. We die. We all die.   

Death is omni-present. It's all around. It's within. Cells of our body are dying right now. We're all in the process of dying.

Dying is happening right now. Do you know how many died as you read this?

From the moment we're conceived we begin our journey toward death. Any moment could be our arrival time.

Why? Why do we die rather than keep on living? 

Why does our arrival time remain hidden while we live?

The Great Mystery of Life

Why are we alive rather than not? Is this not the biggest question of all?

Does life have a purpose? If so, what is it? Is it the same for all living beings?

What does it mean to be alive? If something changes, is it alive? Is there anything that doesn't change? Is everything alive?

Did life have a beginning? If so, when? Where? How? 

Are some lives more valuable than others? If so, which ones? How do we decide?

Why is sex such a huge part of life?

Why does life feed on death? 

What determines how long we live?

These are just a few of the questions we can ask about the great mystery of life in which we participate.

Some borrow answers from others- parents, religious authorities, spirituality celebrities, philosophers. 

Others presume they're wise enough to make up their own answers. 

Either way their discomfort with not having an answer is numbed. 

I prefer the discomfort of not having an answer. I call it wonder. 

For me the point of the questions is not to answer them but to let them inspire in me a profound sense of wonder. 

Life, Death, Sex: The Three Great Mysteries

The word "mystery" comes from an ancient Greek word that meant "secret, hidden". It's related to the word "mute" which means silent.

We humans  are limited in our ability to know and understand what we experience as we live. As a result, we feel that much about life is secret. Much about life is hidden from us. 

Things hidden attract us. They feed our curiosity and compel us to ask questions. We ask about life. The answer is silence. Nature is mute about so many things. The gift nature offers us wrapped in muteness is wonder.

So, we live with our questions unanswered. We live with secrets in the presence of a nature that is mute about most of our questions, especially our big ones: 

Why are we alive? 

Why does anything exist rather than nothing? 

Why do the living die rather than keep living? Why do we stop existing? 

Why is sex so intimate with both life and death? 

Why are the living driven to unite in sex for pleasure, pain and reproduction? 

Why sex?

These are the three great mysteries: life, death and sex.

My next three blog posts ask the unanswered questions about these great mysteries that give us the gift of wonder, if we accept it. 

Ah, No Place Like Home

Nature is not something out there I go spend time in. I'm as much a part of nature as everything else. 

It's all nature and nothing but nature as far as I can see. There is nothing above or beyond, nothing supernatural. Even goddesses and gods are part of nature.

Who sold me the lie that I live apart from the rest of nature? Who sold me the lie that my true home is somewhere else or that I can go to a better (or worse) place after I die?

Why did I believe them? Why do others still believe them? 

There is no other place for me to be than here. I'm from here. I live here. I love here. This is my home. 

Home sweet home. Ah, yes, there is no place like home.