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Archive for the ‘spiritual healing’ Category

The Day of the Fruitless Fig Tree

Posted in ecumenical buddhism, faith, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, Lectio Divina, meditation, metaphors, mysticism, Phenomenology, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spiritual psychotherapy, spirituality, Theurgy, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Great ( Holy) Monday, March  29, 2010

Here in the Northeast, this day has been one of incessant rain and cold: a thoroughly raw and inhospitable day. While the first buds of Springtime have appeared and the forsythia are in partial bloom, it feels as if Springtime has been put on hold,  in stasis for a time. A sheet of dark clouds fills the sky.

I also discovered today that one of the large evergreen trees in our yard fell unnoticed into an adjacent one in a storm of several weeks ago. It is being supported by the other tree but can, with another windstorm, fall and destroy the fence and a shed that it now is just grazing. Other smaller evergreens also fell to earlier storms and the debris is abundant. The task of Spring cleaning will be time-consuming this year.

Inspecting the property for damage and assessing what needs priority attention was well-timed to today’s celebration of Holy Monday.

This is the day on which we recall both the life of Joseph, one whose loving heart made possible the care and nurture of a soter, and also the fruitless fig tree cursed by Jesus: a symbol of Pharisaic and official religious who are full of words but bear no fruit. This day is a time for meditation on who we are, striped of all the public and quasi-public masks. It is a day to contemplate authenticity and what it means to bring ourselves daily to the work of being found fruitful when the Bridegroom comes as Joseph surely was. We are invited by the Spirit to live joyfully and productively in the service of true compassion in the world.

We prepare today, at the opening of Holy Week, with reflection on where we are inauthentic, not truly ourselves, dishonest, uncaring and narcissistic. We are invited to inspect our inner “yard” to identify the priority debris that needs Spring cleaning.

So, the weather today is perfectly well-suited to its mystical import as I meditate upon my own shadow:

  • What fruit have I produced that radiates the Light of Christ?
  • What thoughts nourished such fruit, and what thoughts rob them of needed nutrients?
  • In examining my behavior within the last 24 hours,was I a vigilant steward of the essential teachings?
  • What distracted my vigilance?
  • How will my reflections today shape Holy Tuesday? How do I envision living tomorrow?

Troparion of the Bridegroom

Behold! The bridegroom approaches in the middle of the night,
And blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching;
But unworthy he whom He shall find careless.
Beware, therefore, O my soul.
Be not overcome with sleep,
lest thou be given over to death and shut outside the kingdom.
But arise and cry:
Holy, holy, holy art Thou, O God!
Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!

© 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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A Measure of Our Civilization

Posted in ecumenical buddhism, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, Moral politics, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2010| 2 Comments »

When I usually think about the matter of our advancement and progress as a species, I, as I suppose many, begin to enumerate technological accomplishments, innovations, and breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe. All that is certainly relevant. But, a simpler, more straightforward, and not sufficiently well appreciated metric is the condition of our public toilets.

Civilization is really less about knowledge and more about compassion, fellow-feeling, watching out for one another, empathy, and caring.  Without these qualities, our advances are cold, and can too easily convert to a merely more sophisticated manifestation of barbarism.

So, how far really, examining the state of public bathrooms, have we truly come?

I never cease to be amazed by the deplorable state of American public toilets. I will spare my reader any of the imagery that I am sure s/he can conjure at the mere thought of American restrooms. If we look at it as a reflection of how advanced we are as a culture, the experiences all Americans and visitors to our shores have had paint a depressing and demoralizing portrait indeed.

I am constantly shocked at what I discover in public facilities. How can people, who no doubt are, for the most part, otherwise fine and upstanding citizens when in the public eye, behave so thoughtlessly when in these private moments in public facilities. To leave the toilets in the way they do suggests a total absence of civilized attitudes and mores. There is a passive aggressive character to what one sees in these places. One’s heart goes out to those who have to put things right who are in the employ of the restaurants and stores.

By contrast, my diverse British, European and Asian experiences suggest far more mindfulness and care in leaving a clean facility the way it was found. There is a cultural maturity that American society appears to have not yet achieved. With the state of public toilets as a measure, we in the U.S. are relatively uncivilized. The behavior is at best adolescent and at worst the product of people who lack even the most rudimentary hygiene and social graces of a toddler.

It seems to me that one cannot talk about spiritual progress unless the words are first made credible by virtue of lifestyle and action. For all the rhetoric about social progress, this is one example of the distasteful truth that our illusory march of civilization is a quite thin veneer; a pretense, a front for violent, thoughtless disregard for others. I imagine that these people, who anonymously deface and defile our public bathrooms, act, for the most part, with what must be a feigned cordiality and at least a modicum of  intelligence in the open square when their behavior is anything but anonymous.

The measure of spirituality is what we do when alone and when others cannot see what it is we are doing. By that reasoning, there is a much distance that we need to travel before we’ve earned the right to be known as civilized society. As a personal practice, I work to be attentive to what I pass on to others from the standpoints of both the quality of my work, and the simpler gestures of care and concern.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta summed it up admirably:

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.

My own personal campaign involves such small things as:

  • drying off the sink after use with paper towel
  • informing the management if a toilet is clogged or a faucet or urinal is running constantly
  • alerting the management if the waste baskets are full to overflowing vs throwing ( as I see done so often) on the floor in the general vicinity of the wastebasket
  • ensuring that the person who follows me will be glad that I preceded him.

I hear a lot of talk about civility ( and the lack thereof) and I often make comment about it. The talk is fine as long as we are spending our energy to do what’s right on behalf of the next person. Anything less is hypocrisy and sophistry.

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

Good works are links that form a chain of love.

We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

– Various quotes from Mother Theresa with appreciation for her example

© 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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“On the Reef of Norman’s Woe”

Posted in Analytic Psychotherapy, archetypal psychology, archetypes, buddhism, Comparative Mythology, ecumenical buddhism, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, meditation, metaphors, Phenomenology, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spiritual psychotherapy, spirituality, Theurgy, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Norman’s Woe is a coastal reef in Gloucester Massachusetts immortalized by the tragic poem ” The wreck of the Hesperus” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It tells of the captain of a ship, the Hesperus, who met a fierce storm off the Eastern coast of New England. His daughter was onboard. Other senior crewman offered their good counsel but the captain was filled with hubris and refused to hear it.

In trying to save his daughter from the ravaging seas, he had her strapped to the mast to avoid the threat of seeing her swept overboard by the tall and ferocious waves crashing on deck. Horribly, all perished, including the girl, who drowned as the ship capsized and, having been tied to the mast, was unable to free herself and possibly survive the calamity.

The tale of an innocent’s death and that of all crewman on the reef is a cautionary fable loosely based on a devastating blizzard that in fact did occur off the coast of New England in 1839. The story rings in my ears as I read the wonderful just published book, Breakfast with Socrates, by Robert Rowland Smith.

In this breezy and very accessible retelling of the legacy of philosophy, Smith places each of many of the great philosophers in the midst of our everyday experiences, and we get an opportunity to briefly “dine with them” and imagine conversation on the questions with which we struggle as we navigate the mysteries, triumphs, and travails of our lives. All of this got me to thinking about the enormous treasure trove that is the classics.

Each of the great books, treasures that have withstood the test of time, offer enlightened and ever fresh commentary on our condition. Each of the voices from the ancient choir of the lovers of wisdom offer free counsel to anyone with the courage and mental fortitude to embrace it. Yet, the overwhelming lack of interest, generally speaking, in the classical library remains an undeniable reality.

The cry for relevance, practical plug-and-play utility, and small-minded self-help prescriptions is deafening. It is as if two meals are served: One a banquet of culinary genius, gourmet foods and great wines, and all for free, and it is rejected; while the other,  a grease-stained bag of fast food burgers costing far more than it’s worth, offering unwholesome calories, and containing excessive undisclosed filler materials and meat shot full of antibiotics and hormones, is the one hastily chosen and enthusiastically consumed.

It is time to go back, all of us, regardless of how well versed we are in the classics in general and the writings of the great philosophers in particular, and set up a renewed daily diet of wholesome calories. Furthermore, here’s the irony, like the free gourmet meal, the classics can be downloaded for free.

It is time to learn the lesson of the Hesperus and listen to the counsel of elder sages who speak to us from the deep recesses of recorded history. We can still save the young girl,  the archetypal Sophia, who is the the very soul of Wisdom. We can still rescue her from drowning in the turbulent and vicious seas of postmodernity and 21st century egoism and spiritual consumerism. We can resuscitate her and so revel in the sweetness of her voice, the alertness of her sight, and youthful embrace of the real.

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

Excerpted from the poem, The Wreck of the Hesperus, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

© 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 Gift of Signage

Posted in archetypal psychology, archetypes, Comparative Mythology, ecumenical buddhism, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, meditation, metaphors, Phenomenology, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, Theurgy, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I marvel at human ingenuity and it assumes so many forms. Not the least demonstration of our creative prowess as a species is the invention of signs for every conceivable condition and situation under the sun. When I travel, I am always struck by the wide range of signs ( traffic, warnings, announcements, and designations). Around the world, there are the clever varieties of stick figures and cute expressions differentiating the men’s and women’s toilets. On flights, proof that classical conditioning is a powerful force, there is the tyranny of the red lit restroom light signifying an unwelcome delay to one’s own relief, and the sheer delight that comes over one when that light turns green.

Engaging our visual and sometimes auditory sense, signs awaken us to present or emerging realities. We are made aware. We are told to mind our way forward, alter our behavior, adjust our expectations, and do things that are judged more healthy and wholesome by the authorities that be. With the rampant fears attached to pandemics, there are notices posted in restrooms world-wide reminding us to wash our hands. Public service advertising reminds us to do the same and dispensing bottles of Purrell and  related antiseptic equivalents are popping up everywhere.

Signs are comforting. It accentuates the essentially social nature of our conduct as human beings. It reminds us that life entails obligations for the other and for the society in which we are a part. Signs are a check on individuality. They represent the boundaries of personal freedom and represent curbs on the otherwise unbridled appetites of the narcissistic and solipsistic.

There is a tension that exists always between signage and the personal individual spirit. This tension is itself a trigger for a meditation. It represents the truth that we are neither individual nor collective, but a hybrid species alive at the intersection.

Spiritually, taking time to nullify the two polar myths of life opens up extraordinary vistas: the myths of individuality and plurality. These two myths define poles of a central dilemma in our consciousness. As we ponder the tension they inspire we become aware of a third way forward: the way of the sojourner, voyager, and argonaut.

We cannot complete the journey alone. We are vitally and necessarily interdependent though what inspires us is deeply personal. We emerge as transpersonal beings. We live in-between these poles and, as captured so masterfully by Homer in the Odyssey, we must navigate between the two sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and avoid being lured too close to either and crashing upon the rocks that lie there as we traverse a turbulent sea. We must chart our course, boldly, bravely, and mindfully, straight through between them.

When next you see a sign, consider it a meditative trigger on the true state of our being in the World and an invitation to explore the psychic geography of our true home in the Spiritual City.

© 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 Hindu Gentleman in 2D

Posted in archetypal psychology, archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, faith, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, meditation, metaphors, mysticism, Phenomenology, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, Theurgy, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2010| 1 Comment »

Seated diagonally across from me in business class was a quiet couple and my attention was drawn to them almost immediately upon boarding my flight. The gentleman was very quiet, unassuming, and seemingly pensive. His wife, dressed in traditional clothing, was also very reserved, relaxed and attentive. Every once in a while, they looked at each other and just smiled. It was a smile that I recognized immediately. It’s a smile that cannot be faked and is earned only after many years of marriage. It says: ” Hello my dearest friend and my reason for being.”

It was certainly not my intention to intrude but I simply could not tear myself away for too long though I made certain that my observing was covert and unobtrusive. What captivated my interest was the depth of their comfort with each other, the simple intimacy and affection without sentimentality. It was reassuring and cut through all the thinking one does about life purpose and meaning. Here, in a moment, was the unadorned answer to the puzzles of meaning. Their worlds were defined by one another. They saw life and its purpose in each other’s eyes. The smile, like that of so many Buddha statues, was one of profound recognition and imperturbability.

At one point, they each turned inward and simply sat quietly, as we all did, awaiting taxi and takeoff. Our flight was delayed owing to a mechanical problem so there was more time to either doze, read, or, as did so many, flip through email and send and receive text messages. The Hindu couple just sat. No reading, dozing, and no cell phone. They just awaited the next moment. Then, at one point, I noticed the distinguished gentleman ( distinguished more in character than in dress) take out and open his passport as if to read it. He opened it up and then, to my surprise, touched it with seeming reverence to his forehead.

At this gesture, I was perplexed. I wondered:” Is this a devotional, a simple prayer, a superstition, or did I see it all wrong?” A few more moments of thought and I concluded that the motion was too deliberate to be  misread. Once again, I found myself impressed. It was not a movement intended for anyone to see. It was not a grand and ostentatious motion designed to draw attention at all. I only noticed it since I was already taken with this couple. While others may know better, I surmised that this was a prayer perhaps of protection, a blessing for  a bon voyage, and an homage to the reality that we are not in control of so much that happens to us and around us.

Within the bosom of the divine, all things are reconciled. We wrap ourselves in mystery and in acknowledging it we are profoundly freed of the worry that otherwise consumes us as we work hard to take control where control doesn’t belong to us. We are creatures of ritual. I am always comforted and impressed when people of whatever faith openly practice their ritual without any need of recognition or the attention of others. When it is inspired by a profound personal identification with mystery it is full of hope and it offers that hope to any who, with eyes opened and hearts opened wide enough, can benefit from the warmth and glow that the practice affords to the practitioner.

“Where beauty and love are there also is G-D!”

© 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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Table For One

Posted in archetypal psychology, ecumenical buddhism, Gnostic, gnosticism, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

All perspiration should be followed by well-deserved incubation.  We need to stop; take a deep breath, a genuine pause in the action.  We need to seek our own counsel and be authentically alone.

Our lives today are, however, a 24-hour productivity circus. Our technology makes it possible to squeeze every last ounce of possible energy and time out of the day for things that have either short-term urgency or that are part of the reason we are paid. If we are very fortunate and make good choices, we love what we do. Even so, the real pause is not a luxury, though it increasingly may feel like that.

At the end of an intense two days in leading meetings while traveling abroad, I came to rest at 4 PM yesterday. It was good to see people once again who are new friends and work with them on meaningful things. In fact, the long work and the effort expended in facilitating the session made the alone time , as it always does, both necessary and more deeply delicious.

So, off I went to dine in the hotel’s restaurant once again, as I have so many times over the years, countless times in fact, and I found myself looking forward to it. Too often there is a touch of embarrassment and awkwardness in asking for a “table for one” and it even sounds somewhat sad. In reality, though, it was a celebration. I chose a good table right by the window so that I could occasionally look out. Not much to see, just a store across the street, passersby, a man rushing to say goodbye to someone leaving in a car, the early darkness of the evening, and the yellow glow of street lamps in a lovely British city with deep history.

Time alone can be romantic: Fine dining mixed with casual banter with the waiter and the maître-de. No one else was in the restaurant at this early hour. I had it all to myself. I took my time. I reflected on my blessings, on the many countries and cities my work has made part of my life. I thought of those other cities and similar nights spent dining alone in memorable places all over the world.

Curiously, what stand out for me are the smallish things and not the tourist spots and the national treasures. I recall the purple light bathing the bridge across the Thames that I enjoyed as I dined alone at the Sir Christopher Wren in Windsor, the Crypt, an unlikely place to eat underneath St. Martin’s Church in London, the restaurant at the Intercontinental in Warsaw, breakfast dining at the Four Seasons in Shanghai, a small old world pub in Prague, and the Charles Bridge, typing a short story on the patio outside my room at the Park Hotel in Vitznau, Switzerland, the site and scent of honeysuckle along the front wall of the Red Lion Inn in Henley and many others.

Without question, life is punctuated by big events, but the real spice  comes in the form of the small accent marks, the parenthetical and prepositional phrases, and the quotes: discovered settings combining mood and presence in a special moment of solitude. They are forever etched in memory . Yes, there are moments of loneliness when I think of how much I’d love to share it with those I love, but this also gives rise to an agenda to do so. Experiencing it all in solitude and then to share it as I am doing here now adds sweetness to an already deeply fulfilling experience.

I sing a song in praise of quiet dining with one whose company I’ve learned over much time to better appreciate ………, myself.

© 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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If You See the Buddha/Christ….

Posted in ecumenical buddhism, faith, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, meditation, philosophy, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, thomas christians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2010| 1 Comment »

“Kill him!”

So goes the saying.

In other words, to find him as uniquely resident in another person is to objectify him and engage in idolatry. Makes sense in the context in which the saying arises but, in another sense, this is, tragically, the way humanity tends to typically react on meeting a remarkable spirit, a Mahatma, a Soter, or a Buddha. We kill him.

In meeting the Christ, the prevailing political powers were inspired to homicide. “Crucify Him!” the crowds screamed. “Crucify him and release Barrabas.” Better a criminal be released than the Prince of Peace for Jesus was seen as far more dangerous.  Jesus, like prophets before him and prophets who came after, was persecuted for the very wisdom for which he was initially extolled. Why? What is the great danger that so stimulates fear in lesser hearts?

It is authenticity, presence, authority, and intimate connection with the divine source, the infinite wellspring. The prophets do not suffer fools with political or diplomatic grace. They don’t tell us what we want to hear. They don’t congratulate us for our astuteness and prideful qualities. They don’t bathe us in praise for our genius and our goodness. They don’t thank us for magnanimity and goodness nor do they tell us that we’re ok.

On the contrary, the soters (saviors) tell us what we don’t want to hear. They force us to look in the mirror without blinders on. They speak of our sin. They tell us about our delusional and illusionary egoistic state. They exhort us to do better and to live more sincerely. They ask us to repent ( and they do so with a sense of keen urgency).

In claiming an innate greatness, not with hubris but with enlightened self-knowledge, the saviors and spiritually authentic teachers and sages are critiqued by the fearful as blasphemous. Truly, there is no more fearsome thing than to be required to enter the “inmost cave” where we meet our true face and our real condition. Unfortunately, the need to reject takes many clever forms but, in the extreme, that rejection translates into murder.

As we approach Easter, we are urged by the Calendar of tradition to look at ourselves and ask:

  • How many times must we crucify him?
  • Am I complicit in any way in cleverly dodging the inconvenient and difficult teachings?
  • Do I play politics with the Word, cherry-picking the Gospel to fit my own preferences and comfort, refusing to embrace the difficult wisdom that passes all understanding?
  • Where around me are those who are even now yelling at the top of their lungs in abject terror of the truth — “Crucify Him!”

© 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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Lost or Stolen?

Posted in buddhism, ecumenical buddhism, faith, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, meditation, Phenomenology, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, theology, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Ah, the pressure of owning things. I work to stay non-attached but the seductions are great. We grow fond of the appliances, paraphernalia, clothing and accessories that form a self-concept package. We can pretend that we are not attached to such things and know the importance of doing so intellectually but that holding back from lustful living is often itself a clever camouflage for its opposite – unbridled identification with our invented identity and its symbols. The true test is how we respond in the face of the loss or theft of something upon which we have come to rely.

This past December, I was given the gift of anew iPhone. Many of my business colleagues had made the shift and I confess being quite pleased in receiving it. The functionality of it has proven quite impressive. Ease of typing, surprisingly, was better than I expected. The touch screen feature is very efficient, the capacity to combine Ipod and phone, GPS navigation, internet access, document reading and editing, Skype calling abroad, and a seemingly endless supply of useful, if not simply entertaining, applications are striking features. Suffice it to say that, in just two months, I’ve become a true fan.

Last week, while traveling on business, I lost the phone. I simply cannot reconstruct, as so often happens, the steps I took, and how I came to get separated from it, but it is gone. Was it stolen when I was inattentive (perhaps when I stopped to check in with a car rental office and left it in the car on the seat), or did I unwittingly drop it in the snow? Whatever happened to it, the device that I had come to rely on was surely missing.

What was interesting was the way I felt. I was angry and I felt, if it was stolen, somewhat violated. In any event, I found myself very down, self-critical         (deservedly), and acted as if I had lost an old friend. After all, it is just a device, an expensive one, but a device nonetheless. This prompted a series of meditations on the meaning of lost articles to the psyche. Our sphere of personal space expands to include the devices and possessions with which we either adorn ourselves or our environments. We breath meaning and personal value into that which we draw close, whether machine or not. We cultivate strong bonds of dependence to what we label as ours.

While I am certainly disappointed in losing the phone, I am also amused at the two days spent continuing the search and, most especially, the dark feelings that the loss engendered in me. Though the lesson is an expensive one, it is still a lesson. We are creatures who naturally become attached. We cling.

We are reassured by what we come to own. It extends our reach into the world. There is unquestionably narcissism in it for we see our reflection in these things. After all, we populate these devices with favorite applications. We name the device. We give it character through selected wallpaper and personal screen savers. We imbue it with reflections of our values and our interests.

Losses like these are reminders and they are corrective. This is not to say that we should never own such things and make good use of them and enjoy them. It simply makes compelling the speed with which we move our sense of meaning into them. It is right and good to stand naked regularly and look at ourselves, at who and what we really are.

It is good to remember that the unadorned, or beginner’s mind, is the true and primordial state, and the only place in which truth resides. All the rest is fantasy and represents a form of from low to high states of play.

Let us celebrate our inventiveness, our cleverness, our technological marvels, and our sciences. Let us thoroughly enjoy the things that give us pleasure, while always remembering, returning to this central truth each day, that it is all an invitation to a higher play: an infinite play of being the vessels through which divinity flows.

Standing alone with nothing at all, we are still the perpetual focus of the Beloved who forever and unconditionally sees our naked grandeur.

© 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 Ferryman

Posted in archetypes, ecumenical buddhism, faith, Gnostic, gnosticism, meditation, metaphors, Phenomenology, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, Theurgy, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The steel behemoth lurches, pulling fast-away just after my arriving;

Not a moment to lose as I begin the clear afternoon crossing.

∞

A gently undulating sea receives my haste and purpose with cool indifference;

Only the evanescent foam at the stern in the wake of my transit takes any notice.

∞

So goes the journey of souls ferried here and there in dissolving moments;

Consumed by flights of well-meaning, scheduled intending.

∞

As native gulls soar and search, and the diesel-beast heaves forward;

Under smooth and comforting skies,  a fresh-clean and azure-blue.

∞

No white scars of cloud or flight of any man-made thing;

And my eyes go out to where sky and water meet, and I hear my heart beating.

∞

No goals no roles no missions to delude me;

I am the lighted sea, and the winter sky.

∞

I am the boiling foamy-turbulence in the Archimedean trail;

The hungry gull, the bustling crewman,

and the poet watcher,

a curious looking-man,

gazing down upon the crossing.

∞

© 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 Antidote

Posted in ecumenical buddhism, faith, Gnostic, gnosticism, interfaith spirituality, mysticism, Practical Spirituality, spiritual healing, spirituality, Theurgy, thomas christians, zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2010| 4 Comments »

A slow poison has gripped the planet, a toxin far worse than greenhouse gases, the chemicals leaching into the water table, and those fouling the oceans. This is an invisible poison known principally by its effects: spiritual blindness, narcissism, solipsism, ideological extremism, jihadism, and unbridled capitalism.

The toxin is fear, and its manifestation is hatred and unthinking speech and action. Each day we are heavily dosed with this poison in diverse form, including:

  • news of dying soldiers and civilians,
  • renewed threats against innocence,
  • resistance to repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the continued march of homophobia,
  • violence committed by opponents of “a woman’s right to choose” against clinics and licensed physicians ( including a recent case of murder in the name of “saving the unborn”),
  • Congressional appetite to invest more money in support of two wars while demonstrating cold reluctance to act swiftly in support of fellow citizens dying for want of health care insurance, and
  • unthinking enmity toward our President by those predisposed to demonize and mythologize his character, personal history, and intent out of irrational fear, and the hatred it engenders.

The radicalization of the marginalized and the psychically fragile, and the actions of the misguided few possessed by evil intent, march forward with incessant resolve to harm. It has always been so. It is the march of Mordor, Saruman, Sauron, the Ork, and the Nazgul, Ringwraiths of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It is the dark advance of the White Witch and her minions in the land of Narnia imagined by C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and its inspired sequels.

It is easy to fall into the pit of despair over these realities as one perceives the dying of the light. Yet, into the shadows burns brightly the flames of the hearts aroused by true fellowship, enlightened purpose and authentic love. This Light grows undaunted to meet the challenge and as the shadows rise so too does the Fellowship of the Ring and Gandolph, and the Pevensie children guided by Aslan of Narnia.

The Light is unquenchable and the more stark the darkness the more luminous is its radiance. The more cacaphonous the din and stench of hatred and evil, the more sonorous and mellifluous are the psalms of the loving.

It is good to dose ourselves each day in these psalms of love as a preventive against malaise, anger, and dejection, all of which weaken us and play into the Shadow’s game plan. Each tradition offers its own poetry in praise of the perpetual Light as treatment for anguished souls under siege.

Among them are the precious and illuminating songs and sayings of  Sufi masters such as Shaykh Sidi Hamza el Qadiri el Boutchichi whose admonitions to the penitent and inquiring heart include these uplifting and illuminating entreaties:

Love all creatures, whatever their religion might be or their race and opinions. Everyone has his place in the divine pattern. It is not for us to judge.

When love inhabits the heart, nothing is difficult and everything which happens to one can be turned to spiritual profit. This is because, thanks to love, the veil separating us from reality becomes ever thinner. One experiences thereby a deep joy from this proximity and one becomes flooded with a profound perception of beauty.

Everyone issues from the same light. There is no distinction.

Whether we look to the words of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, or their prophets and disciples, the simple truth of the powers of real love are repeated time and again in diverse forms. Without authentic love, all expressions of spirituality are bankrupt and false. Wisdom begins and ends in the heart aroused by true compassion — not the usual and all to easy sentimentality and saccharine Hallmark-card expressions typically exchanged on Valentine’s day, but the love expressed through true Knowing of the Other as Oneself.

Indeed, let us be each other’s “Valentine”!

© 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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