The Great Spiral of Spiritual Evolution

On April 13, 2012April 13, 2012 By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

“A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end – and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral”

~ Maynard James Keenan

You have heard, I am sure, of the circle of life. Anyone who has watched the Disney Classic “The Lion King” has felt themselves tearing up (or at least in awe) while sitting through that opening number where the interconnectedness of all of nature is emphasized (and with a phenomenal musical score nonetheless). But when it comes to the concept of spiritual evolution, it isn’t so much a circle as it is a spiral.

Circles are perfect. Just ask the Zen masters who saw the circle as the embodiment of absolute enlightenment. Called the ensō, this circle represented strength as well as elegance. It was used to represent both the void and the universe in all its wild complexity and, more recently, has come to be seen as an expression of the moment and the perfect completeness of “now.”

This is all fine and good for representing the perfection of enlightenment. But what about what comes before? Better yet – what about that which comes after?

Enlightenment, you see, isn’t the end.

Wait, what? Isn’t that what this is all about? Isn’t enlightenment the whole purpose of spiritual evolution? Isn’t the prospect of enlightenment all about the perfectness of the moment, of that instant when everything becomes clear to you and you finally realize the true nature of reality and the reason that you have been put on this earth?

Of course it is. But that doesn’t mean that enlightenment is the end. Becoming enlightened does not mean that you instantaneously become perfect; never have a bad thought or speak a bad word ever again. In fact, enlightenment is, if you will, simply the beginning, for it isn’t enough to know the true nature of reality; to know the reason that you have been put on this earth and how everything fits into place. Now that you know it, you have to live it. You have to live your truth and that, quite frankly, can take some doing.

In fact, living your truth and the progression that comes after enlightenment can actually be more confusing than what came before, and that is because you are no longer on a journey. You are no longer following a path to actually get somewhere. Now that you have got to where you are going you have to create an entirely new life; a new existence; a new reality for yourself, like the pioneers who traveled out west in their covered wagons. They didn’t always know where they would end up, but once they got to where they were going, it was time to get started on the real work; on creating a life for themselves out of the wilderness they had discovered. It is the same with enlightenment.

Once you have awakened; once you have become aware of the true nature of reality and of your real reason for existence, you stop searching and begin creating a life based on your new realizations, and that isn’t so much a circle as it is a spiral.

Imagine if you will a giant slinky. A slinky is not much more than a flexible coiled spring whose individual spirals are all part of a much larger whole. Now, when you condense the spring into its smallest form you see it for what it really is; a slinky. But when you pull the spirals apart – stretch that flexible spring out to its maximum length, it almost appears that the slinky is made up of individual spirals.

In fact, if you were small enough (and if you turned the slinky on end) you could start at the bottom end of the slinky and slowly but surely walk your way up; spiral after spiral; to the very top.

Congratulations! You’ve just made a visual picture of the evolution of the soul.

That’s right. Once you’ve broken free from the infinite loop of habit; of years and lifetimes’ worth of repeating patterns and conditioned responses; once you’ve attained enlightenment as to the real nature of reality and of your place in the universe, then and only then can you start your real journey, the journey that will take you up the spirals of your soul’s spiritual evolution as you create for yourself a life based on those things that you have come to hold dear.

Each level of the spiral is a circle complete and contains within it that reflection of eternity attributed to the ensō. And yet, as the Zen ensō leaves a small space at the end of the brush stroke completing the circle, so too does a spiral leave a space for the one walking the circle to move up to the next level, completing the circle while transcending it at the same time and integrating everything that was learned in transitioning the circle below into the creation of the life currently being lived.

The Only Place to Start

On December 19, 2011December 20, 2011 By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

At the heart of everything mankind believes in, there are two very fundamental principles; Thought and Action.

You see it everywhere; in everyone; clear as anything. The majority of people fall into one of two camps.

There are those that fall into the camp of wanting to take action – now – against something, someone, anyone. Who or what shall we fight against? Well, who or what is the perceived threat? Well, let’s take action then. Something has to be done. Plans are laid – battle cries are sounded. But somehow or another there never seems to be any clear-cut thought behind the action. There is no motivation for actual follow through, simply the pressing need to DO.

And then there are those that sit back and twiddle their navels. No action is needed. Ever. It’s all in your head. Everything. Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be. There IS no enemy. There IS no threat. No action is needed because the universe has everything well in hand. Visualize whirled peas. Love is the answer. Sit back and let love change the world. And that is all fine and good, except that it never does.

Of course there are those in the middle who look at both sides, throw up their hands and say “what the hell ever – there’s no reasoning with either of you” and go back to their daily lives, but more often than not they usually end up coming back eventually; back to their religion, or to a cause or to someplace where they can feel as if they are actually a part of something.

So where is the disconnect? Why is it that the each side of the coin can never see the other? THEY ARE THE SAME COIN.

But it is a coin.

And coins have to be spent to be of any good to anyone.

Oh, they’re pretty enough mounted up in a frame on the wall, all nicely polished with pretty labels describing where they came from and how much they are worth. Or in the bank, accumulating interest, all safe and secure. You also see them lying in gutters, the bottoms of fountains, and stuck underneath the seats of vehicles alongside the cheeseburger wrapper from last week and last year’s map of Cleveland. It’s so easy to lose them in good intentions.

But money (pardon the expression) is like manure. It isn’t worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.

And that, you see, is the disconnect, and the question that needs answering; what are we spending the coin on?

The answer is not to simply sit around and wait for the universe to sort it out – because WE are the universe. But neither is the answer to focus on some evil power or entity outside of ourselves. The answer is not even to focus on the external problems (poverty, disease, disempowerment, abuse, violence, hatred – in all of its myriad forms) – because, believe it or not THEY ARE NOT THE REAL PROBLEM. They are the symptoms; symptoms of the real disease.

The disease is fear. It is the fear of not being able to control our circumstances, of having things done for us, and to us that we do not want and didn’t ask for. All the external symptoms of the disease are curable – yes. But not by attacking them. That does nothing but feed the fear; make it stronger. And those who are afraid will react – you got it – out of fear. It’s a never-ending cycle.

So what do we do, sit back and twiddle our navels and trust that things will work out as they are supposed to? (Sounds a tad bit like pre-determinism to me). Of COUSE we take action, but it’s not the kind of action most would suppose, because you’re not attacking the symptoms. You are taking what the navel twiddlers found out during their meditation sessions (but didn’t know what to DO with) and applying it to every aspect of your being – every aspect of your life.

You see, love IS the answer, that’s the force that holds the universe together, and the universe WILL sort everything out and, since you are the universe, it’s up to you to do the sorting. And since we have determined what the disease is (the disease that is causing all the symptoms that we despise so very much) the action is to inoculate ourselves against the fear. Cut it out of our souls and replace it with the only thing that can make us whole…unconditional and unadulterated love.

I’m not talking all rainbows and roses here. Love is not always pretty, and when it’s healing the wounds caused by fear and hatred and self-doubt it can be downright painful. But it’s the only place to start.

We can heal the world; but only if we heal ourselves first. Once we have healed ourselves – THEN we can start helping others, pointing them towards the same sort of healing. Until fear is gone from inside of each of us – we will NEVER be rid of it in the world.

We can change the world; but only by changing ourselves – and our perceptions of the world around us and only by combining thought and action and putting them to work in our own lives.

Spirituality by Picasso

On December 12, 2011 By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings2 Comments

I find it amusing when someone claims to have THE truth. Don’t get me wrong, I admire their ability to stick to their guns and defend their viewpoint, but to insist that there is only one way to look at things – only one truth – makes me shake my head.

It’s like looking at a photograph of a person – or a painting – and making assumptions about where they were and what they were doing from the angle the photo was taken or the painting was painted. How on earth would you know – from a head shot – what type of shoes the person was wearing (unless you were there) or what was happening to make the Mona Lisa smile?

The painting style known as Cubism began in the early 1900’s with the work of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. This style was based on the idea of incorporating multiple points of view in a painted image, as if to simulate the visual experience of being physically in the presence of the subject, and seeing it from different angles – all the different angles – all at the same time.

I’ll grant you that it makes for some confusing paintings (until you can wrap your brain around what you are looking at), but I think that the same concept can, in effect, be applied to spirituality.

Each religion and spiritual movement has a point of origin; a founder or founders who viewed the world around them, and their own and their followers place in it and saw it all in relation to god from a certain angle – from a certain perspective. They felt the truth of what they taught – felt it to their bones – but they all made one very big mistake, and that was to assume that their view, their perspective, was the correct one. Or more to the point, that their view was the ONLY one.

In fact, if you take a step back, and view the different spiritual movements, the different religions, you can see how each of them had a perspective of truth – as if each was/is looking at the same object, only from a slightly different angle.

It would seem – upon reflection – that the logical outcome of this would be to piece together the puzzle using the different perspectives to get a lock on the truth that each of them was perceiving from its own perspective in time and culture; to choose those parts of each “truth” that were accurate in order to construct your own view of the “truth.”

Of course there are those who would say that this dilutes the truth – that to pick and choose what one feels or believes are right from different movements lessens the impact of the message.

And indeed, that is the problem.

So why not try this; instead of picking and choosing what one “likes” or feels comfortable with from the different movements and religions, why not leave them all exactly as they are?

This does not mean to not study them; to not come to understand them, how they came to be and how they were viewing the world around them. Instead it means to not try to pull a truth from here and a truth from there, but to leave the movements and religions alone; to leave them as they are and instead to take a step back from them so that they all fit onto the same canvass so that they will provide a three-dimensional view (when taken all together) of the truth(s) which they were/are trying to convey.

Only then; when you have seen the totality of them all, instead of choosing one (or several concepts from each and making something new for yourself), why not embrace them all; the totality of truth as seen from your new, fourth dimensional vantage point? I can almost guarantee that it will be a far more comprehensive view than any you have had before, including aspects of humanity, and of your own self, that you may not even have bothered to consider before.

It may be a bit difficult to take in, and at first it may seem like having one’s spirituality defined by a Picasso – but if you can manage it, it may end up lending a depth and understanding to your overall perspective that might otherwise be missing.

The Spaces In Between

On December 7, 2011December 7, 2011 By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings2 Comments

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

~T.S. Eliot

Have you ever noticed that as humans we tend to focus on the tangible; the object, the sound, the smell, the taste, the texture and never the spaces in between that give the objects their shape?

My eyes read the lines of text in a book or on a computer screen, but what lies in the spaces in between the text? For it is only by including those spaces that we can form words and sentences.

My ears hear the drum beats in the music playing on the radio – but what is it that is not heard in the silences; those spaces in between; those pauses in the music without which there would be no music, just a continual cacophony of noise?

My mouth tastes the food that is placed into it; it chews and swallows, but there is a moment, just before I swallow when I am neither chewing nor swallowing, and without that pause there would be no differential between the two.

And when it comes to breathing, what exists in the instant between the exhalation and the inhalation; that pause where I am not breathing but transitioning from one to the other?

Perhaps, once upon a time, mankind actually paid attention to the spaces in between. Perhaps we listened to the silences and read between the lines. Perhaps we once saw the beauty in emptiness; in the space where something could be, but was not; and felt with our hearts the pure power of potentiality.

But somewhere along the line we became obsessed with filling up the spaces. I don’t care if it’s in traffic or in conversation; in home decorating or in our belief systems; for some reason we feel that those spaces just have to be filled.

Maybe we feel that by filling up the spaces we can reassure ourselves of our own solidity (when in truth, physics dictates that we are anything but).

Perhaps it is because in filling the silences we no longer have to listen to that inner voice that tells us that we are more than this shell of a body; that there is more to life than this physical reality.

And perhaps the true mystery of life lies not in the knowing and the becoming – but in the spacesin between; in the silences of the symphony; in the darkness behind our eyes when we blink; in the blinding moment of sexual release when the world shrinks away to a pinpoint and everything else ceases to exist; in the pauses between heartbeats when we can feel the true nature of who and what we really are.

Consider that it may be in the not-doing that the secrets of the universe lay; in the non-tangible that the truth of reality waits patiently to be discovered.

And perhaps, just perhaps in learning how to read between the lines; in learning how to listen to the silences between the sounds, in pausing between heartbeats to appreciate those moments when we don’t exist; perhaps then and there we will find what we’ve been looking for and in so doing become so much more than we could ever have imagined.