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Where Does Spirit Come From?

April 14, 2011

One day, I felt a question come to mind: “Where does spirit come from?”

My initial reaction was to ask, “Where the heck did that question come from?” But as I simmered down and let my reactive impulses find their resting places one by one, I realized that I was left without an answer to the original question. The only thing I could discover was that the question itself came from a very deep place. It was as if the question was leading me to a safe and spacious domain which is unchiseled by the sharpness and bluntness of human language.

I must have contemplated the question for months. It made no sense to me. Isn’t spirit, by definition, the essence of things? How can it have an origin? I grappled with many possible answers, but none of them seemed to hit the mark.

The good news is that a satisfying answer finally did come. But the bad news is that the answer was just as unexpected and enigmatic as the original question. The answer was: “Spirit is born of change.” I could feel the endless truth and harmony between the question and answer, but I felt powerless to articulate this relationship.

At least there’s comfort in knowing there’s no law against trying. My theories about the meaning behind this sort of question seem to come and go of their free will. Maybe the question of the origin of spirit is the root matrix of all questions and answers. Every conceivable question seeks to look behind a veil or curtain to reveal the inner meaning or hidden essence of something. You can split the so-called atom (which literally means “cannot be cut”) a thousand times, but there’s always a way to ask whether the particles can be analyzed for even subtler and more essential constituents.

So I don’t have a comprehensive explanation for all of this. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the real value of contemplating these questions is in flirting with deeper regions of your own spirit. This way, the game can go on forever, because there is always more to discover and enjoy as time turns the question like a wheel – or a flower, depending on the game you believe you’re playing.

The best questions like to play, beckon, and invite. They open up the spaces of potentiality which are so necessary for life to grow. Answer the questions if you like, but notice how your answers echo and fade. Every echo dissolves into the key of silent laughter before being swallowed by the universal hum.

Contemplate a good question, and the joy of it comes from seeing how your life is a story written by two instead of one.

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What Women Really Want

February 3, 2011

The following are my thoughts on this lovely blog post by Phil Bolsta.

If I remember correctly, there’s an Arthurian legend which asks the question, “What does a woman want?”. After a bit of questing, the answer is revealed to be: “To have her way.”

And in Phil’s post (apparently the result of his own arduous quest), the answer is: “To be cherished”.

Maybe this is a commentary on the overall or primary self-image of women in different times and cultures. In medieval Europe, the underlying feeling may have been: “Women have little power and mostly exist to help men have their way.” Today, the culture may be implying to great effect: “Women are currency and have little intrinsic value unless they are developed and assigned some appreciable qualities, such as beauty, motherhood, career skills, etc.”

But what I’m really trying to say is that all these women’s needs for power and adoration are only superficially human. Power and adoration are aspects of worship and devotion. And simply cherishing is a very sincere way to go about it. I think women constantly seek validation of this goddess image they carry inside.

Otherwise, women never quite seem to believe that men (or society in general) “get it”.

It’s no surprise that men often feel as if satisfying a woman resembles an epic undertaking, such as a quest. If you look through the mythology and symbolism of it, a quest is basically a search for the invisible essence or spirit of things – and usually for the purpose of making that spirit manifest so it becomes visible to a needy world.

Regardless of whether a woman sees herself as the image of a goddess, she will likely still want a man to “get it”, i.e. to recognize the invisible spirit within. She wants a man to see what she sees…even if she doesn’t see it clearly herself.

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See God Anywhere You Go

November 12, 2010

A New Path

There was once a young man who had committed a great sin. He was very sorry for the evil that he had done, so he went to the village priest to ask for how he might atone and make things right.

The priest told him, “I’ve spoken with God about your problem, but he does not answer me as usual. You have no choice. You must ask God on your own. There is a small temple on the other side of the hills toward the west. Go there, and accept whatever blessing the Lord gives you.”

“And by the way,” added the priest, “take my cat with you. Maybe I’m just a silly old man, but I feel as if she will be of some help.”

The young man didn’t question the priest’s advice. His mind was already over the hills. He didn’t even think to pack any extra food or clothing. He started walking, and the cat followed as if she were a puppy dog.

After two days, they arrived at the temple. It looked as if nobody had been there for a hundred years. The walls inside were covered in cobwebs. Thieves had long ago removed the jewels and adornments of the wooden image of the deity within.

The young man and the cat went inside and bowed before the image. “I feel a great kinship with you at this moment,” the man said to the deity. “I feel as if I’ve been here before. As if I have always been here. You are God, yet even you are not immune to loss and decay so long as you dwell in this world.”

The man was lost in contemplation of the world, especially his condition within the world. But the cat’s eyes were looking upward, as if gazing at an invisible crown upon the deity’s head. The cat jumped up to the platform and started climbing the wooden statue. As she sat on top of the head, she reached down and scratched at the mouth of the deity.

At first, the man looked up and saw the cat’s furry paw moving. But it only took another moment to notice what he had been missing all along: the deity was smiling.

“Thank you, kitty,” the young man said. “I understand now. It’s time to go home.”

The journey home was slow and easy. The man was not in a hurry this time. The hills were lovely, and every turn offered a new world to experience. “Maybe I never allowed myself to see what’s always been in front of my face,” said the man.

As he neared the village, he could see the priest waiting for him at the outskirts. The priest said, “You look as if God has answered you. I’m eager to know how things went.”

“The Lord is smiling,” said the young man.

“But who is the Lord?” the priest asked with half a smile.

The young man replied, “I don’t know. I only know that I’m sitting before his image wherever I go.”

“And where is God’s temple?”

“Within my heart. Or everywhere. Same thing.”

“And who will renovate this temple?”

“Not I, but the one who dwells there,” replied the young man.

The two men and the cat began walking home. The priest went back to his house. And the young man turned the other way to his own home…followed by the cat.

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A Key to Immortality?

October 6, 2010

This has got to be the number one way I waste the little time I have in life. If you were to do a really honest accounting, this might end up being a major time waster for you as well. I’m talking about this super short story posted by author Paulo Coelho: 10 second reading.

The man is given only five minutes, but this is a parable about the entirety of a typical human life. It only takes five minutes to demonstrate what most people spend their entire lives doing: trying to change others.

The angel of death doesn’t even need the power to take life; the power to take time and energy is sufficient. The Book of Destiny ends up being a really effective monkey trap to get people to lose consciousness of their own value, so they can feel nothing when they barter away their lives. The Book shows how people are perfectly capable of taking their own lives.

Think this story isn’t about you? Maybe. But first, see if you’re into any of these typical human attempts to change others:

  • Working really hard to meet people’s expectations so they will change their opinion and appreciate, like, or love you.
  • Getting angry or frustrated because people don’t meet your standards.
  • Finding perfectly reasonable ways to explain why certain people or circumstances must change in order to please you, God, or some universal principle of rightness.
  • (Fill in a thousand more ways you might react to unsatisfactory conditions.)

But on the other hand, what if the man in the story had done things differently? An alternate ending to the story could be:

As he was leafing through its pages, the man began searching for the point where he meets the angel of death. So strong was his fascination with meeting the moment he was already living, he flipped through all the apparent justice and injustice in other people’s lives, feeling none of it as worthy of consideration, and forgiveness naturally flowing from his heart with every turn of the page.

When he finally found the place in the book he was looking for, his time was up, and the angel closed the book. The man looked up, only to see a brighter angel who strangely resembled himself. It was the angel of life, and he said to the man, “You have no place in this book. You have no destiny. You are free to live, and death has no real meaning for you.”

And right there, the angel took the man’s soul.

I would gladly trade all the time I’ve spent focusing on other people and circumstances for just five minutes of really living in awareness of the present.

carpe diem and all that…

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Dancing is…Highly ILLOGICAL!

September 6, 2010

I watched this video, and all I could think was, “This is wrong. Very Wrong!”

But…why was I smiling?

Dancing has never been good to me. When I was a little kid, one of my Sunday school teachers liked to punish disobedient kids by making them dance in front of everybody.  Ever after, I would avoid any parties or get-togethers where dancing might be involved.

But then I grew up a little.  I studied music. And I studied religion and spirituality. I learned that you’re really just fooling yourself if you think you understand something you haven’t experienced yet.

And then I started to pay more attention. It’s easier to pay attention when you notice how dance is basically a marriage between movement and time. I decided to observe as many things as possible, both within and without myself. The realization caught me off balance: everything is dancing. Including me.

I still don’t like the idea of dancing very much. What’s the use of making a ritual out of shame and embarrassment? But if I stay still for just a moment, then I can sometimes hear the inner music. It seems like people who really love to dance are not moving; they are being moved.

There must be a reason why I have to smile when watching people who love to dance. In my thoughts, I find them both puzzling and offensive. But I don’t stop smiling. Could it be that my body knows something that my brilliant mind overlooked?

I want to explain why dancing can make me smile, but explanations don’t come easily on this subject. A story might help, though. Stories have a way of explaining things that can’t be seen from the outside.

To be continued…

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