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Adaptive Spirituality

Posted in ecumenical buddhism, Gnostic, interfaith spirituality, mysticism, Phenomenology, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, science & religion, spirituality, teilhard de chardin, Theurgy, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

We visited an aquarium today and spent a relaxing ninety minutes walking though the magical enclosures designed to transport us to diverse environments housing penguins, seals, walruses, sharks, and a building set aside for “alien stingers,” dedicated to jelly fish, moray eels, and other assorted dangerous marine life. What especially sparked my curiosity was the well-known phenomenon of protective coloration along with the other seemingly eccentric adaptations of so many creatures to their worlds.

The facts of evolutionary developmental biology make clear the genius of nature. Adaptation to selection pressures and genetic mutations over time present variations among which one may prove ideally suited to ensure species survival when conditions change. The subtle beauty and inherent resiliency of the natural world is miraculous: an inexhaustible inspiration and mystery. True science shows the face of G-d. No other evidence is needed.

Nevertheless, so-called Intelligent Design “theory,” the latest incarnation of Creationism, would challenge evolutionary theory, arguing that it is “just a theory.” This betrays a complete lack of understanding of the rigor that the physical and biological sciences insist upon before an interpretation earns the right to be called “theory.” I have no interest in formal refutation of the arguments that make up this so-called theory. It is quite simply a pseudo-scientific pontification, weak theology in biological clothing, and a formulation designed to sound erudite and convincing. It is espoused by and for those who prefer beliefs over the facts. What intrigues me, however, is the spiritual analogue of evolution.

Fluke assume the off-white color of sand and burrow just under the sea floor. It is often very hard to spot them. Pipe fish cling to vegetation ( thin grasses) that look much as they do and, once again, it is quite hard to distinguish the fish from the background. The list is very long of creatures, marine and otherwise, that show the skills of the terrestrial chameleon. These adaptations arose in evolutionary time and were boons to survival in the rough and tumble natural world.

Why did spirituality arise from human consciousness? What is the adaptive significance of our spiritual sense and the cultivation of an awareness of the sacred and the mysteries surrounding it? How does this upgrade the survivability of our species?

Awareness of inter-being is the ground of compassion, and the realization of the unity of all things is the essence of enlightenment. Spiritual adepts are exemplars of a state of consciousness that dissolves petty survivalism, blind self-interest, and the sense of individualistic isolation. In addition, they simultaneously embrace immanence (presence) and transcendence  (recognition of an identity that they have beyond space and time, beyond material well-being and death, that can never be taken away).

While the pretenders are many, and authentic masters are few, those few represent the next step in the evolution of humanity. They are the best hope we have of avoiding annihilating ourselves. The paradoxical truth is that while those beacons of light are there to follow, beckoning us to go beyond our lesser natures, one day of news makes clear that this next step is still very far off. The world can’t wait for grand reformers. It’s up to us to make a palpable difference in small to large ways in whatever our lines of work.

In view of ongoing hatreds, wars, terror, genocide, and corruptions, that a spiritual sense arose at all suggests that its development is essential to the long-term survival of not only our species but of the entire planet. Reasons for hope in the spread of spiritual intelligence can be seen in the actions of souls whose influence continues to draw us closer to the realization of the bright future that hope imagines, including:

  • Thich Nhat Hanh & the Order of Inter-Being
  • Muhammad Yunus, Bangladeshi banker and economist who invented the notion of micro-credit and founder of Grameen Bank, 2006 Nobel prize winner

One person can change the world. We can each contribute to advancing the next stage in the evolution of human consciousness, wait for someone else to do it, or work at cross-purposes with it. Engaged spirituality is making the choice to do what we can, here and now.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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The Superposition Property

Posted in archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, Gnostic, gnosticism, jungian, Jungian Dream Analysis, Matematical imagination, mathematics as prayer, meditation, mysticism, Phenomenology, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, pythagoreanism, science & religion, spiritual healing, spirituality, teilhard de chardin, Theurgy, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

Quantum superposition is the bizarre physical principle that, if the world can exist in any configuration, than it can also exist in one that is a combination of any number of them at the same time. The mind similarly demonstrates this property in ways that substantiate the fact that we are not separate. We exist in many potential simultaneous configurations of consciousness, span time and space, and the world of dreams manifests these configurations.

Last night, I dreamt that my son was in trouble with the law. He was in jail with pending charges. At the same time, I was in jail awaiting arraignment on pending charges. It seems that I was both my son and myself.

This is not especially remarkable as we have all experienced elaborate and confusing dreamscapes where space and time simply do not behave themselves as they seem to in waking time and where we can live many lives in diverse places and as many people. Here’s the more interesting twist.

In realtime, the 21-year-old son of a family friend is awaiting the court’s disposition on charges that were recently brought against him during the holidays. A police officer responded to reports of a domestic argument in which this 21-year-old was caught up in a moment of rage in his home.

Shocked to then see a police officer at his bedroom door, he continued his angry tone and did so with the officer as the target. In response, the officer chose to forcibly restrain him, push him to the floor while hurling profanities at him, and handcuff him. Once subdued, this officer is then alleged to have started beating the young man with his bare fists.

Now, his dad, expressing understandable concern for his son, asked the officer to please stop hitting him. In response, the policeman handcuffed and arrested him also. His wife, a very sweet woman, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, then became very upset and tugged on the police officer’s jacket asking him to stop hurting her husband.

At this point, the officer handcuffed and arrested her. The entire family spent the night in jail and no one actually did anything wrong. The police were originally called out of concern for their son’s rage in hopes of calming him down. Last I heard, the court is talking about 30 days of community service for both parents, which their lawyers are contesting, and the multiple charges against their son are being legally reviewed.

So, in view of these circumstances, a Kafkaesque dream about my being jailed with my son in jail for no clear reason is not especially surprising. One could argue that the dreams were simply a reflection of my concern for this good family that lived through a night of hell and who face an ongoing and, by all indications, undeserved legal battle in the months ahead. I would agree with that, were it not for one further development.

When I awoke, I heard from my son in Korea who was just back from the hospital there after a night of violent and unrelenting gastrointestinal symptoms. It turns out the dream was prophetic. While having nothing to do with the law, it was symbolic of my son’s distress and his need to get in touch with me. The surreal plot surrounding the arrest of this family and their pending charges served as a frame for my sense that my son was having trouble. This scenario involving prescient dreams has happened many times over the years. In addition, many people, who share their dreams with me, report similar experiences all the time.

Consciousness laces the universe together. We walk around each day wrapped in the delusion that we travel independent pathways. In fact, our pathways mystically intersect in complex ways. There is no such thing as meaningless coincidences. This is not an example of magical thinking but of synchronistic event horizons. Denying this ubiquitous human experience is poor science. It rejects phenomenological data about archetypal fields in favor of simpler and more easily analyzed effects.

We are beckoned every day to embrace our legacy as children of the stars and mature physical science is leading the way in revealing the entangled and infinite reach of consciousness.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Shakespearean Costumes for Midsummer Night's Dream ( Public Domain)

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Thoughts on the “Via Negativa”

Posted in ecumenical buddhism, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, spirituality, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 5, 2010| 1 Comment »

Psuedo-Dionyseus, the Areopagite

The muse draws me to the keyboard. Let fly the random sparks of a quiet afternoon to allow my soul a moment to depressurize:

  • To love what you eat is appreciation. To eat what you love is a rut. The former makes us grateful while the latter makes us fat.
  • When I am bored, I long to be doing something different. When I am busy, I long to do nothing.
  • Over and over, I hear “change is the only constant”. If it’s changing, it’s not constant.
  • Just when I get hooked on a television series, the network takes it off the air. It must mean something.
  • Gray hair is said to be a distinguished look for men. Hmm. I just thought it meant you’re losing pigment. If it’s so distinguished, why don’t young men rush out and gray their’s?
  • In the “new” barbershops, stylists often ask me, when finished cutting and blow-drying, “do you want product?” In other words, do you want your hair to stay put or blow around like the head of Medusa?
  • CNN repeats the news incessantly. The BBC is worse. Never has so much been said about so little by so few.
  • The real value of that first cup of coffee: it gives me something to balance in those early morning moments when critical parts are still fast asleep.
  • I long for the old days when a large cup of coffee meant its LARGE. In the universe according to Starbucks, large is small, and “Venti” is the big one. Apparently, that justifies the price.
  • Three things I love about getting older: senior tickets at the movies, senior price discounts for Tuesday dinner at Ihop, and approaching more affordable healthcare coverage (not too far off). It’s all good.
  • Proof positive that we all live in “the Matrix”: pharmaceutical company ads urge us, “ask your doctor if X is right for you” just before telling us that side-effects may include embarrassing and unnatural conditions ( you can guess), strokes, fainting, or death. Clearly, they are banking on the fact that, either no one is really listening, or, more likely, no one is really thinking.

Spiritual living is a balancing of the via positiva, or cataphatic theology ( the way of the positive acts and disciplines that are of G-d and Spirit), the via negativa, or apaphatic theology ( what is NOT of G-d & the Spirit) and piercing through empty cliches, and the via purgativa ( the way of the penitent heart).

Let us dance with Sheva and grapple with our fads, follies, fumbles, and funny side along with our more serious celebration of  luminous moments.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

A Statue in Bangalore, India of Shiva Meditating

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The Neuroplastic Universe

Posted in archetypal psychology, ecumenical buddhism, gnosticism, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, science & religion, spirituality, teilhard de chardin, theology, Theurgy, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2010| 2 Comments »

When studying in the mid-80’s for my doctorate in psychology, we considered it a fact that brain cells are the only ones in the body that do not regenerate. At the time, I thought it an odd feature of physiology given the centrality of the brain over the course of human evolution. It seemed absurd that brain cells would be so fragile and irreplaceable given their adaptive significance.

Two years ago, then 20 years after the doctorate, I took a post-graduate course in biological psychology as a refresher, and everything had changed: a change that is continuing and accelerating. Now, thanks to improved technology such as fMRI (fluorescent magnetic resonance imaging) it is the overwhelming weight of the evidence that neuroplasticity is fundamental to brain physiology. In other words, neural networks and pathways are freshly laid down and altered as we learn and grow and as we are challenged muscularly, emotionally, and cognitively each day.

“Positive neuroplasticity” is the capacity of the brain to regenerate functioning that has been impaired by stroke, dementia and the aging process, severe head trauma, or as a consequence of other CNS ( Central Nervous System)  diseases. There are now cognitive training exercises that neuropsychologists present to patients that can significantly improve diverse functioning, including balance in the elderly, memory functioning, and even offer support in the self-regulation of chronic pain.

All this being said, I am thinking about the alchemical treatise attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, The Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes. Sources of this document are traceable to 650 AD. It was regarded as the central document of the Hermetic tradition.

In it, one passage has especially captured my imagination as I consider the revelations of brain science.

It reads:

That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, to perform the miracles of the one thing.

This ancient alchemical principle adds further framing to a better understanding of the mirroring in human nature of the core nature of the Cosmos. If the “above is as that which is below,” then neuroplasticity is an epiphenomenon of  Cosmic Mind. In other words, what we are learning about the temporal mind tells us something about the infinitely extensive and timeless “neuroverse”.

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Psycho-Spiritual Homeostasis

Posted in archetypal psychology, archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, faith, gnosticism, Lectio Divina, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Aurora taking leave of her lover Tithos. Having asked Zeus to make him immortal, she failed to also ask that he not age.

In all things, nature seeks a steady state. Young lovers, like the mythic Aurora depicted in the public domain image above, leaving her now aged and enfeebled Tithos, last only for a season. Thereafter, love must take on new and changing features.

The neurotic pursuit of eternal youth fails to appreciate the natural order of change and re-balancing. There is nothing so pitiful as an older man lusting after a girl who could be his daughter, or an older woman pursuing a much younger man. These couplings are contra-natura and, as such, cannot long prevail.

Mind-body-spirit are continuously being recalibrated to new realities, and finding the “sweet spot” at each station on life’s path is our spiritual task. Neurosis simply reflects our failure to find it. Homeostasis is the capacity of animals to regulate physiological limits to secure a balanced system. Whether we speak about the endothermic animals who have inherent self-regulation of such parameters as temperature or exothermic, who carry out control by behavioral adaptations, the aim is the same: support an equilibrium around a mean value developed in evolutionary time. Such regulatory mechanisms include insulin production, kidney regulation of water and ions, conformance to circadian rhythm, and the sleep cycle to name but a  few.

As in matter so too in spirit, we see homeostatic feedback loops at work as we thread the needle of insight. Carl G. Jung spoke often of the need for complementarity and balance of feminine and masculine,  Shadow and self. The human ecology shows the same socio-spiritual dynamic. As a long-time facilitator of team meetings (large and small), I can anecdotally attest (as so many of my colleagues will as well), that a meeting of all men is a very different meeting than one with mixed gender representation.

The discussions tend  to have more sharp edges with an economy of time invested in discovery and willingness to live in the question. On receiving a facilitation assignment, the first thing I look over is the roster to see just how gender diverse it is. In any event, in such gatherings, mixed representation ensures a better return from extremes to balanced views as issues clarify and strategies are developed.

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Portents

Posted in archetypal psychology, archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, faith, gnosticism, holidays, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, science & religion, spirituality, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2009| 7 Comments »

Christmas Day, 2009

The gifts of the Magi are among the most captivating of the traditional stories of Christmas. Three kings read portents in the heavens and were motivated by what they saw there to make the arduous trip to find the site of a cosmic event of enormous importance. The title of  Magi, used in  in the Gospel of Matthew 2: 1-12, is a reference to Priests of Zoroastrianism who were reputed to be adepts in the astrological arts.

While their number conveniently provides an allusion to the trinity, and their convergence on Earth alchemically captures a likely convergence in the heavens, I’ve always found the story hopeful and imbued with a sense of the power and meaning of synchronicity. While astrology ( western & Vedic) keep their fascination for many, they have largely been relegated by the intelligentsia of the churches and science to the margins of history as quaint anachronisms of the magical fixations of the past.

Astrology can certainly be presented as a simple reading of the future as typified by the entertainment horoscopes published in daily newspapers. One so predisposed can neurotically cling to the supposed predictions and use readings as a guide to selecting auspicious occasions to engage in some behaviors or avoid others. What I find intriguing instead is use of astrology as a medium by which to enhance sensitivity to the possibilities and patterning occurring within and among events. The idea of meaningful coincidence and Jungian studies come to mind. Psyche and cosmos are entangled. They mirror one another.

I have studied Vedic Astrology for over a decade and have found it always intriguing and rich, not as a divinatory system, but as a medium for active imagination, and a formalized process for entertaining higher-order synchronicity. It is less about a predestined path and more about potentialities, proclivities, and convergences. It is another poetic language by which to explore the mysteries of consciousness.

In 2006, Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a cultural historian and professor of Philosophy and Depth Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies, published his very thoughtful and provocative work, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. It is a courageous piece of writing as it looks ahead for a new model for the 21st century and beyond it, by looking back to Astrology. This is a perilous undertaking for an academic in today’s zeitgeist. The book is an invitation to revisit foundational assumptions that we hold about Mind while fully embracing the new physics and what it reveals about Mind and Matter.

In his epilogue, Tarnas writes:

….our own marvelously complex nature depends upon and is embedded in the universe. Must we not regard the interpenetration of human and cosmic nature as fundamental, radical, “all the way down?” It seems to me highly improbable that everything we identify within ourselves as specifically human – the human imagination, human spirituality, the full range of human emotions, moral aspiration, aesthetic intelligence, the discernment and creation of narrative significance and meaningful coherence, the quest for beauty, truth and the good – suddenly appeared ex nihilo in the human being as an accidental and more or less absurd ontological singularity in the cosmos. Is it not much more plausible that  human nature, in all its creative multidimensional depths and heights, emerges from the very essence of the cosmos, and that the human spirit is the spirit of the cosmos itself as inflected through us and enacted by us?

Clearly, the writers of the Gospel of Matthew had no reluctance in speaking of cosmic and human convergences. Why should we be reluctant to do so? The revelations of science are slowly but agonizingly pushing aside Cartesian dualism. It will not pass easily. Why is it assumed by many christian thinkers that Christianity is somehow purer if the agency of cosmic evolution is denied in favor of supra-natural events?

The Magi read the portents in the sky. They saw patterns converging and were moved to follow what they saw to be an unfolding narrative of creation. Rather than doubt it all or debate points of theology, they accepted mystery and went out seeking after it. For me, Christmas is a reminder that whatever our approaches, all roads up the spiritual mountain lead to the same summit. Studying synchronicity can only further enliven our capacity to see the subtle in the everyday and the greater story embedded in the variety of swirling and interacting, diverging and colliding events that occur all around us.

The spiritual life is about seeing clearly and living accordingly: to awaken. It’s up to us entirely whether to open our arms wide to mystery, or accept a smaller fraction of the great opus of creation.I choose the greater landscape and the wider bandwidth.

Glad Tidings of Great Joy!

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Knowing

Posted in archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, faith, gnosticism, mathematics as prayer, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, science & religion, spirituality, teilhard de chardin, theology, Theurgy, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

Russian Orthodox icon of the Transfiguration (Theophanes the Greek, ca. 1408).

Can we replace faith in G-d with direct knowledge? The Perennial Philosophy, or religioperennis, invites us to do just that.

Rene Jean Marie Guenon, ’Abd al-Wâhid Yahyâ, an important proponent and student of metaphysics, focused his prayerful attention on the esoteric and universal aspects of world religious traditions. He himself, a European, chose to focus on Hinduism, and was later received as an initiate in the Sufi tradition.

Guenon talked about the “mystical infinite” and “mystical zero.” The Infinite embraces all possibilities. Mystical zero is non-being and, so, has in it no possibilities.

We see the sacred infinite in humanity’s use of symbols that serve as windows into mystery. The icons of Orthodox Christianity are a case in point. The venerated images represent portals into divine space & time.

Our acts of bowing before the Buddha or before icons, the power of prostrations to change one’s state of mind, the fingering of the rosary beads, and so many other similar practices, make the Infinite fully present for us. We can imagine infinity, though we are ourselves finite.

The Infinite and the transcendent become concrete in our experience. We feel it. We sing about it. We write about it, and our dreams are limitless tapestries.

We can look out to the cosmos and, through the invention of mathematics, look more deeply into the idea of time, and contemplate the large-scale structure of the universe. We infer physical attributes based on known laws and theory that lead us to reflect on the condition of the universe in its first microseconds.

This is all heady stuff. It does suggest that the Infinite is undeniably within us, wrapped around us, and that it is personal. The mystical infinite is not an abstract idea, just like my love for my family is not abstract. It is self-evident. The Mystical Infinite is deeply personal.

The products of imagination, coupled with our rich observations and imaginative hypotheses and insight, are concrete evidence of the pulse of the Infinite resident in the human spirit.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.  – William Blake

The Mystical Infinite emerges continuously in our thoughts and interactions.

  • our capacity to transcend natural self-interest and altruism;
  • our poetry opening phenomena to reveal the Spirit;
  • our works of fiction creating alternate worlds, populated with colorful characters, and through whom we live multiple lives in diverse times and places;
  • our science opening up our minds to ever deeper mystery;
  • our finite and limited senses opening up our consciousness to the infinite gradations and finer nuances;
  • Cantor’s set theory and mathematical work on infinity proving that there are even different kinds of infinity (e.g., the infinity between two real numbers, and the entire set of all integers, etc.) also suggests perception that goes beyond the usual.

The universe is alive, emerged from mystical zero, to complexify, and express itself in many diverse forms of Being. How, then, can there be any doubt whatsoever of the Presence of the Mystical Heart of Infinity.

Love, true agape, is itself sufficient demonstration of a transcendent function. Add to it the powerful emergence of the collective archetypes in every facet of our lives, and we experience the Beloved as lovers. It is not an object of study, but a dance of eternal intimacy.

How beautiful to be conscious and to know without doubt that infinity is within us, among us, and is our true home: our origin and our destination. QED

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Why I Am An Eclectic

Posted in gnosticism, meditation, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, science & religion, spirituality, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , on December 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Eclecticism, eklektikos, εκλεκτικισμός, emerged among the schools of Ancient Greek Philosophy in response to stoicism and epicureanism that placed the pursuit of practical happiness and virtue ahead of truth. It also represents a response to the skeptics, “skeptikoi,” σκεπτικισμός, who argued that, while obtainable in theory, truth, in practice had not yet been discovered nor demonstrated.

I stand with Philo of Larissa, Posidonius, Seneca and, especially, Cicero. The truth is obtainable by use of multi-modal, multidisciplinary and multidimensional methods to increase the odds of finding it. Truth is a matter of probabilities, not absolutes. Purists apply a more dogmatic stance on pursuing truths through use of a single way applied with rigor, discipline, and fidelity to tradition.

Certainly, discipline is crucial and is not the enemy of enthusiasm. A chosen structure is freeing to the extent that it removes the need to constantly reinvent process. On the other hand, the danger of reifying the system itself over time, mistaking its own assumptions for truth, is real and significant. We are constantly interpreting our world, and it is a struggle to separate interpretation from reality. After all, believing is seeing!

My postgraduate training is in dynamic psychotherapy. I chose to enroll in a decidedly eclectic training institute for my post-doctoral certificate. While adhering to the three pillars of classical training (personal analysis, supervision, and coursework) the goal was to discover one’s own style and approach from among the many orientations available.

Though I am dispositionally Jungian, there is so much to learn by looking deeply into classical Freudian thought and practice, the work of the neo-freudians, the Sullivanian interpersonal model, the works of Heinz Kohut, Lacan, R.D. Laing, Zezek, and many others. The truth lies in the between spaces.

In the same way, the greatest future revelations will emerge from the cognate fields of biophysics, the new psychophysics, interdisciplinary consciousness studies, psychoneuroimmunology, the spiritual  psychotherapies, and integrative psychology. In my practice, I also make routine use of clinical hypnosis, Jungian dream analysis, and the best of behavior analysis, biofeedback, and meditation.

Fresh hypotheses and deep insights are often more arresting when viewed from the edges among current schools of thought. The polymaths of the 21st century will pave new ground, break down old barriers, and throw open the windows of established fields to a fresh breeze. They will be resisted. The orthodoxies will repel all boarders. Yet,  changes will come in their own good time; changes already well underway.

I do respect the contrary view with which I enjoy an open and critical dialogue. The purist’s perspective warns, correctly, against the dangers of superficial dabbling, or dilettantism, and the possibilities of a shallow treatment of the subject at hand. As a true eclectic, I agree! Reaching across boundaries is no excuse for simplistic thinking, vague generalities, or gross analyses without a feel for the nuances.

The key to eclectic integrity is to set up and follow a rule of study, prayer, and living: a discipline that avoids skimming the surface. It is much harder to carry out than a deep dive into one model, structure, framework, and literature. Nonetheless, it’s a good and right struggle. Inevitably, a new language coalesces around a nascent field, or cognate discipline, along with its own journals, dialogues, and investigations. In time, this too gives rise to the next specialization and the cycle continues.

We are creatures of habit and we like things well systematized. There is a permanent tension between staying fresh, with eyes wide open ready to see things in new ways, and the wish for “knowledge” that leads, hopefully, to laws (of behavior, the universe, living systems, microbes, etc.).

For me, the way of the eclectic is exhilarating, and tension between going wide and the deep dive of narrow specialty is a wholesome one that keeps us honest. It all boils down to the question: What do we know, and how do we know it? The physical sciences are in a state of revolution as we speak. Physics has now long acknowledged that observing phenomena has effects on them.

And so, how do we come to know the “truth?” We keep at it with beginner’s mind, deep respect for diverse angles of view through many lenses, and a youthful readiness to lead from the edges.

My meditations today will revolve around this idea: How do I lead form the edges? How robust is my discipline in integrating my pursuit of knowing through mind, heart, and spirit? What discipline is worth honing, adding, or amending?

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Getting to the “Point”

Posted in geometry of spirit, gnosticism, mathematics as prayer, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, sacred geometry, science & religion, spirituality, teilhard de chardin, theology, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

As we go ahead on our course in life’s spiritual voyage, we come to explore the multifaceted and multidimensional character of Spirit. We look at all of its diverse manifestations and forms, symbolic expressions, signs, and personal experiences. As we progress, as typified by our education, we dive into literatures that themselves present increasing degrees of complexity and nuance. We stretch as we go from our earliest studies of simple geometries to the more complex ones and then on to even more abstract mathematical imagining.

Often ignored in all this diversity and language and intellectual sophistication, is the lowly point. We hardly give the small dot on a page much attention ( unless, of course, it separates dollars from cents, pounds from pennies). So, what’s a point anyway?

In geometry, the “point” is an object in space  lacking in extent ( volume, area, length, etc.). In the Cartesian plot, it is  a unique position in space defined by paired values x and y. In any event, we spend most of our time thinking about trends, three points or more, and the geometric shapes. What, then, of the forgotten, lonely point?

In astrophysics, there is a vibrant dialogue that has been underway for some time on “gravitational singularity.” This also refers to a “point” where the “gravity well” runs so deep that objects, including light, enter but do not re-emerge.  Singularities are points of infinite density at the center of “black holes.” It is thought that our universe began as a singularity just prior to the “big bang.” In fact, you and I began life, in a sense, as biological singularities: single points that then became ever more complex through specialization of cells.

In turning to the matter of Sacred mysteries, there are striking parallels.  Out of the very simple comes complexity. From the still point at the center, humankind has evolved complex systems of expression to capture the naked singularity that cannot be so clearly seen, but that exerts such great power on our consciousness.

Alpha & Omega are points, not trends, not triangles, not cones, nor circles. Ultimately, we will all get to the point, and it will be a return.

Practically speaking, this meditation awakens a sense of the reason we meditate at all. To get to the point, the singularity, the origin and the destination.

I include here a relevant prayer and meditation from the Liturgy of the Order of the Christos [ A Celebration of the Cosmic Heart] incorporating poetry from a number of the Nag Hammadi texts.

Ω

Glory be to you, O Father.

Glory be to you, O Word.

Glory be to you, O Grace.

Glory be to you, O Mother.

Glory be to you , O Most Holy.

We give thanks to you, O Light.

In whom darkness does not dwell.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo.

Who are you O Holy One that comes out of Light?

What mouth can speak your name, or mind conceive your nature?

You hold the whole of creation within the circle of your care.

You are the Center,

The Circumference,

The Origination.

The Destination.

Maranantha, AMEN!

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Life is Like A Box of ……..

Posted in archetypal psychology, archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, geometry of spirit, gnosticism, kabbalah, mathematics as prayer, meditation, mysticism, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, sacred geometry, science & religion, spiritual healing, spirituality, teilhard de chardin, theology, Theurgy, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2009| 2 Comments »

Doughnuts!

At the center you’re on the edge.

Yes, that’s right. Whether you fancy Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Cremes, the true doughnut ( the one with a hole in the middle), is a fitting metaphor for the spiritual life. Forrest Gump’s good and ever wise mother notwithstanding, chocolates are not the most fitting symbol. What I am talking about is the geometry of the Spirit. When you travel along an edge of the doughnut, you are also moving around the center.

Mathematicians refer to the doughnut shape as a torus, and its shape is “liminocentric”. So, what’s the meaning of this obscenely multi-syllabic word? In the case of liminocentricity, traveling along an edge, or, an outside part of the shape, is paradoxically also traveling inside of it. Many who talk about this kind of shape refer to the “chinese boxes” by way of analogy, wherein a series of smaller boxes fit inside larger ones. To be liminocentric ( limen, denoting thresholds, and centric, for center) small and large details of the shape are also the same.

The term was first used by Psychologist John Fudjack in his 1995 paper, Liminocentric Forms of Social Organization. The word has caught on in circles as diverse as physics, art, and consciousness studies. So, what’s all the fuss about?

In living spiritually, thresholds matter a lot. The moments of insight are most often threshold moments: we feel on the verge of some discovery. Perhaps we see something with fresh eyes, as if for the first time, or we are challenged in a way that seems to pull us into a new, unfamiliar space. But in opening ourselves to it, we are somehow closer to the center of reality, nearer a compelling truth.

Moses’ metaphorical encounter with the “burning bush” was liminocentric. He was at an unprecedented threshold, having stepped on holy ground where nothing was as we generally experience it. A bush burns without being consumed, and his relationship with the One embodied in the heat of the flame is at once personal, transpersonal, and Other. According to the Jewish Study Bible, the voice of Yahweh signs himself by uttering the words,” I will be what I will be.” The  burning bush was wholly and fully present, and also alive to all possible futures at the same time.

Moses stood on a mountain facing an awesome and, no doubt, terrifying visage, face to face with the ineffable, and they spoke: A Divine Q&A. He stood on a precipice, an edge, a verge of unknowing, and, at the same time, entered into the Bridal chamber, was at the center, at-onement with the Intimate Mystery.

Mathematicians and astrophysicists have gone far in exploring the geometry of liminocentricity. In fractal geometric terms, it is an apt model for the topology of the universe. The torus shape is ubiquitous: storm systems, galaxies, and black holes. There is no finer meditation than to open one’s eyes to the shapes of nature all around.

As we perceive the varieties of beautiful forms, we come to fully experience the outward topologies in deeply personal ways. Consciousness, it seems, is shaped as nature is shaped. Gazing inward, we experience our own threshold moments in which we are traveling an edge, and yet are closer to the center. We are involved in something seemingly small in finite time and space, but mindful, as a result, of the incomprehensibly vast.

  • Being present at the birth of one’s child;
  • The moment of awe standing on the perimeter of a volcanic caldera;
  • Holding the hands of a loved one as they pass away;
  • Hearing a lover’s heartbeat while feeling one’s own;
  • Being really awake in that fleeting split second in between two thoughts and listening to true silence;

As I move through this last day of the holiday weekend here, I will be taking special notice of things liminocentric, and of those moments that are both edges and centers, and where the structure of small details mirrors the large.

In any event, my next doughnut promises to be a very special treat indeed.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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