Why do we never hear of snakes saving up their old sloughed-off skins?

Obviously, because the new replaces the old.

Yet, there is continuity between the old and the new:  even under the extremes of metamorphosis, there is something unique that can be identified as having moved from the old condition to the new.  In the human being, this unique element is called the identity.

It appears self-evident that my identity is determined by what I identify with—and although I certainly identify with my way of perceiving, I identify even more intimately with my ingrained character traits.  Even after undergoing a transformative experience, therefore, it is nearly certain that my identity will carry some of its old traits forward into its new form.  In this sense, the transformative experience impacts my awareness first and my character second.  Like rain on a tree, it takes only a little to wet the branches—but it must rain really well to saturate the ground and reach the roots.

To transform awareness is easy, in other words, but to transform character is hard.

Yet the transformation of awareness is only half a transformation.  If I do not undergo a metamorphosis of character, then my clarity of perception will forever be obscured by my old habits of thought, emotion, and reaction.  If the rain does not eventually reach the roots, the branches will ultimately dry up and wither—if the transformative experience does not continue long enough to saturate my character and transmute my old traits, then my new perception will eventually be compromised by its need to accommodate the most stubborn qualities of my identity.  For this reason, I need to prolong the transformative experience until my character is fully re-formed.

If I cannot relinquish my angers and resentments, for example, then even my transmuted perception will be forced to rationalize in myriad ways in order to justify my continuing to act and react as before.  If I do not feel compassion for others, then, likewise, my clarity of perception must be deformed in order to place responsibility on others for my continuing to act and react as before.  Similarly, if I hold on to old desires and aversions, then the purity of my perception will be contaminated by something as arbitrary as my personal tastes.

If I do not burn away all the dross from the gold of my character, in other words, not even the refinement of my awareness can disguise the impurities of my character.  I become the butterfly who cannot leave behind its old cocoon, the snake guarding its shed skin.

I am able to awaken from my sleep.

But I am unable to awaken from my dreams.

The path of good fortune ultimately leads to a kind of vital happiness that can neither be decreased nor increased by external circumstances.  Just as a reliable well produces cold clear water regardless of the political or social changes in the town around it, those who achieve the ecstatic life produce a kind of robust happiness that wells up from deep within them and overflows out into the lives of others.  Such a life should not be pictured as an ideal of moment-to-moment uncontrollable bliss but, rather, an ideal of conducting oneself so that, from some point of transformation onward, one’s life as a whole is felt to be a state of sustained ecstasy.

This is to say that the result of personal transformation is joy.  That the consequence of wisdom is laughter.  That the upshot of awakening is exuberance.  It is to say that a return to the natural state of communion with all is a return to the newborn’s state of open astonishment.

How can we say that all our knots are untied if we drag our past sorrows along with us?  How can we say that we are wholly open to everything we encounter if we carry our past attitudes and behaviors along with us?  How can we say that the light of the present has eclipsed the shadow of the past if the new has not yet replaced the old?

The transformation of the lower self into the higher self occurs when my character follows my awareness into the Current and is carried, along with my awareness, forever away from the past.  Suddenly uprooted from all I ever identified with, I am forever part of the one unfolding moment that is the living edge of the breaking wave of the Current.  This communion with all evokes the complete change of heart that crystalizes my transformed character into a perfect reflection of my transformed awareness.

The metamorphosis of the lower self into the higher self triggers repercussions in the field of spiritual cause-and-effect that can only be likened to the bursting forth of a new supernova in the nighttime skies.  With the emergence of each new higher self from its cocoon, the light of the inner universe grows exponentially brighter, increasingly dispelling aloneness and revealing the universal communion inherent to creation.  That the fullness of time’s potential should follow as the natural result of our personal evolution in this way is a bottomless mystery, the very source of all our longings, joys, and triumphs.

This is called following the inner path all the way to the end.

Drink in the rain of transformation until the roots of your dearest thirsts are fully quenched.

Trust that every turning point in your life is an opening through which inner power is accumulated.

Immerse yourself in the moment-to-moment ecstasy of this all-pervading creation.

Take pleasure in using your endeavors to further the success of others.

With every advance, allow the new to replace the old.

At the end of the inner path lies another path, for this is where the path of freedom begins.  Where the path of personal transformation becomes the path of spontaneity.  Where the path of wisdom turns into the path of ecstasy.  It is the point where our transformation is complete and we move on to the next stage.

Personal transformation is not, after all, the goal of personal transformation—the actual goal is freedom, spontaneity, and ecstasy.  It is the freedom to think, feel, and act according to our best intentions, without being compelled by any force within or without.  It is the spontaneity to respond to everything we encounter without preconception, uneasiness, or artificiality.  And it is the ecstasy that comes when we clearly perceive the miracle of being alive within matter.  The path of the cocoon does not lead to the cocoon—it leads to the path of the butterfly.

The ecstatic life is the creative life, the productive life, the rewarding life.

For the butterfly, the ecstatic life is found flitting from one perfect blossom to the next, consuming only the nectar produced by perfect beauty and, in so doing, propagating the next generation of perfect beauty.

For us, the ecstatic life is no different.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

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The Current cannot be described in its entirety—but there are aspects of it that can be described.  It is the on-going Act Of Creation that continues to flow, back up, fill up, spill over, fall, eddy, stall, dry up, submerge, surface, and flow ever on, from seed to fruit and back again to seed.

The Current cannot be described in its entirety—but its entirety can be expressed.  In fact, we cannot avoid expressing it every moment.  All we see and experience is its on-going expression.  It is the living moment, whose continuous outpouring carries all of existence from one end of eternity to the other and back again.  It is the aware dwelling place, whose emptiness houses the natural unfolding of the universe as it expands to infinity and contracts back to infinity again.

It is for this reason that it is said, Move along with the Current and you will know no end.

It is not merely that nothing will be able to stop you—it is that nothing will want to stop you.

Indeed, the action of the Current is its own unfolding.  This is the action of self-revelation, by which the Current reveals itself to itself by means of its own unfolding.  To move with the Current is to align ourselves with its action, allowing its intention to be our own.  In this way, our own unfolding leads to our own self-revelation:  we come to discover our true potential by intending to move along with the Current’s unfolding rather than trying to direct it.  Moving against the Current is the source of all frustration:  trying to direct my life by the force of my own will power is like a leaf trying to make its own way against a rushing stream.

We are trained from birth to exert our will on others and the world in general.  We are taught, by word and by example, that the only way to succeed is to use our will power to overcome others in the competition for resources.  Yet this logic is patently false:  we often succeed, for example, because our competitor fails due to a crisis completely outside our awareness.  Or, just as likely, it is we who fail because of a crisis completely outside the knowledge of our competitor.  Will power cannot make a great sumo wrestler into a successful jockey nor a great jockey into a successful sumo wrestler.

Exerting my will power on circumstances does not bring me good fortune.  This is principally because I cannot be aware of the direction of the Current’s unfolding.  Because the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the behavior of the Whole cannot be perceived by its parts.  This means that blindly trying to direct my life by the force of my own will power inevitably leads me to move against the Current.  In this sense, exerting my own will power is the precise opposite of my expressing inner power.

Clearly, the difference between will power and inner power is one of intent.

When we speak of the chain of spiritual cause-and-effect, we are addressing the way in which intent changes the behavior of people and events:  spiritual cause, in this sense, refers to an intent, whereas spiritual effect refers to a change of behavior.  Intent is able to cause a change of behavior on the spiritual plane because the essence of one person is identical to the essence of another.  Just as salt permeates each drop of water in the sea, intent leaps from essence to essence.  This essence-to-essence communication lies at the root of all beneficial influence:  beneficial intent triggers a change of inner behavior—a change of motivation—on the inner, spiritual, level, which eventually results in a concrete change of behavior on the outer, physical, level.

In this context, will power is the energy directed by the lower self to achieve its aim:  its intent is to promote its own self-interest, even at the expense of others.  Inner power, on the other hand, is the energy directed by the higher self to benefit all:  its intent is to promote the well-being of the Whole, even at the expense of its own.

Both of these intents produce a change in behavior.  As far as the lower self is concerned, its intent to promote its own self-interest causes a backlash against it among the people and events it seeks to influence—no one likes to be exploited and sooner or later the exploited turn on their exploiters.  As for the higher self, its intent to benefit all causes a resonance in the people and events it seeks to influence—everyone wants peace and prospering and they will do everything they can to support those who are willing to sacrifice their personal interests for those of the Whole.

The backlash change-of-behavior brought about by will power stands in stark contrast to the resonance change-of-behavior brought about by inner power.  While both are certainly responses to my own intent that then become spiritual causes of their own, their difference lies in how they influence my progress on the Current:  backlashes hinder my advance, whereas resonances further it.

The backlashes caused by my lower self’s intent accumulate over time, raising inner and outer dams between me and good fortune.  They stand like intangible obstacles between me and the connections I need to make in order to advance.  They thwart my progress, leaving me with the sense of being penned-in and stuck in place—I seem to be unable to step off this treadmill that I no longer remember ever having decided to step onto.  The backlashes caused by my lower self’s intent accumulate over time, spinning a web of entanglements that hold me back, disrupt my sense of timing, and pull me out of the rhythm of the Current.  They accumulate over time, intensifying my own fears, frustrations, and resentments—which only intensifies my lower self’s intent.  By promoting my own interests, I set myself in motion against the Current and away from good fortune.

The resonances caused by my higher self’s intent to benefit all likewise accumulate over time, helping weave the strands of all beneficial intents everywhere into the single tapestry of beneficial coincidences.  These resonances stand like invisible crossroads that unexpectedly bring me together with people and events that open up opportunities and further the completion of my endeavors.  They increase my momentum, restore my sense of timing, and pull me into the rhythm of the Current.  They accumulate over time, intensifying my gratitude, happiness, and creativity—which only intensifies my higher self’s intent.  By promoting the benefit of all, I move along with the Current and toward good fortune.

This is attained by eliminating the lower self’s intent while cultivating the higher self’s intent.  It is not as complicated as it might sound.  It simply involves watching how our lower self single-mindedly intends to promote its own interests by trying to turn everything it encounters to its own advantage.  Once we observe how single-minded intent works, we simply exchange the higher self’s intent for the lower self’s.  It is not necessary, in other words, to intend a specific aim in order to generate a spiritual cause—it is simply a matter of consistently intending that everything benefits all.  If we practice this uninterruptedly for even a short while, we soon find ourselves collaborating with everything we encounter.

Aligning ourselves this way with the higher self allows us to move along with the Current, increasingly finding ourselves in the right place at the right time, enjoying the sense of belonging that comes with being part of a steady stream of beneficial coincidences.  No selfish intent in the world can carry us into this stream of unselfish coincidences—only when we act as part of the Whole do we sense the movement, rhythm, and harmony of the Whole.  Unforeseeable things happen by chance and we are an integral part of them, employed by them to advance the well-being of all.  Unexpected things happen by accident and we seem to arrive just in time to help shape them into wellsprings of benefit overflowing into the lives of all.  Each moment is a crossroads of resonances, where we arrive together with the momentum of all the beneficial intents everywhere carrying us toward the destination of our shared longing.

This is called using inner power to foster beneficial coincidences.

And it defines the difference between shock and inner Surprise.

Shocks are created to capture attention in order to advance the interests of a particular group or individual.  Inner Surprises are serendipitous coincidences that we have made room for in our lives:  they arrive unforeseen, their very unpredictability opening new windows of opportunity for all.

Shocks are like rocks tossed into a pool, each creating ripples that intersect with the others, generating an on-going series of more and more complicated backlashes.  Inner Surprise is like moonlight falling into a pool—by its very nature it cannot make ripples.  In this sense, moonlight is the essence reflected in every pool of awareness facing the immeasurable night of sleep.

Shocks are intentional and destructive.

Inner Surprises are unintentional and constructive.

We are able to avoid using shock to influence people and events by incorporating the previous stages of Calm, Resiliency, Autonomy, Gratitude, Nonresistance, Curiosity, and Insight into the least expected acts of inner Surprise.  By intending that everything benefit from our every thought, word, and deed, we find ourselves as surprised as those around us by the good fortune we share.

Stabilizing this single-minded intent by returning to it immediately every time it is interrupted, we unexpectedly find that we have crossed the threshold of wisdom and are traveling, irrevocably and irresistively, the path of good fortune.

You cannot create or construct such coincidences—trying to direct or control the Current like that merely reveals the quality of your motives, causing an untold number of backlashes that work against your advance.

Such coincidences occur—and involve you—because you coincide with other beneficial intents.

Certainly, the lower self will argue, everyone knows that such concepts sound fine in principle but have no place in the real world of dog-eat-dog and big-fish-eat-little-fish competition of everyday life.

Yet, the higher self will assert, two ants from the same colony will struggle over the same piece of dung even though both of them intend to carry it back to the same destination—after we have tried the path of competition and found it unfulfilling, how much further down the road must we go before taking a new one?

Interesting, the lower self will argue, but I practiced these principles all day yesterday and nothing whatsoever changed for the better.

Yet, the higher self will assert, you do not think it strange that the light from a distant star takes years to reach your eyes—the more your intent harbors hopes of personal advantage, the longer the time lag between the spiritual cause and its material effect.

Lightning and thunder, the symbols of shock, are natural characteristics of powerful storms.  They may be accompanied by rain, bringing much-needed water to the land.  But they may also be accompanied by the wind, bringing destruction and hardship to people.  Before the storm, it is calm.  After the storm, life wants to return to calm.  Things cannot thrive and prosper in a climate of constant storms.  Our own endeavors should not contribute to sustaining a climate of constant shock.  Our own endeavors ought to use the element of inner Surprise to help return things to their state of calm.  Shock may shake people out of their routines of thought and feeling, but so can inner Surprise.  There are enough natural and historical shocks that it is not necessary to fabricate any—especially when they are merely attempts to gain some advantage for our own interests.

Real freedom is able to exercise self-control for the benefit of the Whole.

Real wisdom serves the needs of people and the natural world upon which we all depend.

Real good fortune is being a well of benefit overflowing into the lives of others.

Real joy is being carried on the Current through this life into the Beyond.

Exercise One—Sit quietly with your eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply.  Visualize yourself as having achieved complete peace of mind, sitting calmly in the center of a circle.  Around you, turning clockwise, are the four seasons, each of which is fixed to one of the cardinal directions:  Spring to East, Summer to South, Autumn to West, and Winter to North.  As the seasons and directions turn around their center, visualize yourself as a great tree whose roots extend vertically deep below you and whose trunk and branches extend vertically high above you.  Now align yourself with this vertical axis running through you, running through the center of the turning seasons and directions.  As you open yourself to sensing the power and peace of the unchanging center of all change, silently repeat the catch-phrase, Tranquility is the center from which all my actions and reactions come.

Exercise Two—Lie down and close your eyes, breathing slowly and deeply.  Visualize yourself on your deathbed, surrounded by your loved ones.  Visualize who is present and how they are acting and how you are feeling about them.  Allow yourself to feel that these are your last moments alive, that these are your last breaths.  As life slips away and you look upon your whole life from the end, ask yourself, What was most important? Linger in these feelings, absorb them deeply, allow yourself to be affected by them.  Complete the exercise by writing your future self a letter setting forth your priorities.  Now govern the rest of your life accordingly.

If we respond to this age of overexcitement, agitation, and frenzy with encouragement, tranquility, and good will, then we can capture attention without shocking, we can influence people and events without creating backlashes, and we can succeed without causing suffering for the Whole.  Before following the example of others who are competing with us, we ought to study the consequences of using shock to attract attention to our endeavor—we ought to look deeply into the backlashes it produces and how it disrupts the natural unfolding of people’s lives.  We ought to keep in mind that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we must.  We ought to try to begin right away, uninterruptedly intending for all to benefit from our endeavors, accumulating resonances in the field of spiritual cause-and-effect that will draw together the diverse forces needed to create the most beneficial surprise possible.

This is called the art of making the whole world the path of good fortune.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

As competition intensifies, it becomes more and more difficult to capture the attention of those you seek to influence.  Since everyone else is having the same difficulty, even the competition for attention intensifies.  There are numerous ways to capture attention but the one people fall back on when they are hardest pressed is shock.

Shock gets attention.  Because it works, it is used whenever people demand attention.  Whether it is a matter of shocking claims against another or shocking images or shocking lyrics or shocking news or shocking volume or shocking humor or shocking stories or shocking games or shocking appearance or shocking behavior or shocking violence, shock is used whenever people will not be denied attention.  This raises two problems.

The first is merely technical.  Few of those who know how to get attention using shock have anything worthwhile to offer that will hold the attention once it has been captured.  They can get people’s attention but cannot hold it long enough to influence their attitudes or behavior.

The second has far-reaching ramifications.  Shock is like a drug:  the more it is used, the more of it is needed to get the same effect—and the more widely it is used, the more the social fabric is frayed and torn.  When people are bombarded from all sides with shock they get unnerved.  The general equilibrium of their lives becomes so disrupted that they begin to expect that more shock might be right around the corner.  And because shock is only shocking if it is more shocking than the last shock, the next shock—the one that is possible, the anticipated one, the one most feared, the one that may happen at any moment—is truly unnerving in its looming potential.  Those seeking attention in such an environment feel they must continue to increase the shock value of their message, which has a paradoxical effect on those they seek to influence:  on the conscious level, it makes them calloused to the tactic of shock, while on the unconscious level, it makes them habitually nervous and uneasy.

When this kind of assault on the senses is routine and wide-spread, people have difficulty even recognizing the degree to which they are being affected.  But so much over-stimulation does take its toll on people.  They no longer relax as they should.  They experience chronic stress, which adversely affects their mental, emotional, and physical health.  They always feel rushed and never have enough time.  They cannot stand being bored—they need constant stimulation, distraction, and entertainment.  They no longer appreciate silence or their own company, preferring other people’s music, words, or images to their own.  They lack patience, concentration, and true self-confidence.  They are chronically worried, nervous, anxious, fearful, and distrustful.  They become intolerant, feeling like they cannot take one more assault on their dignity.  They grow increasingly polarized in their reactions, some becoming irrationally emotional, aggressive, and explosive, with others becoming passive, withdrawn, and victimized.

Whether shock is used for profit or ideology, for oneself or one’s group, the long-term result is the same.

It is a tragedy when an individual suffers like this.

It is a disaster in the making when a society suffers like this.

Seeking my own personal success by adding to the suffering of the Whole is the very opposite of the path of good fortune.

The reason shock works is that people’s adverse reactions to it are relatively predictable.  This kind of influence is called guiding by backlash and refers to the practice of directing people’s attitudes and behaviors by provoking them to react against well-timed shocks.  In its more overt aspects, it is little different than using a cattle prod—the electric shock, when applied to the right place at the right time, drives the herd in the desired direction.  In its more subtle aspects, it is analogous to pruning—making a cut at the right angle above the right bud channels new growth into the desired direction.  While not an infallible tactic, using shock to create the desired backlash produces more predictable reactions than other tactics.

Whether it is a government defining an internal or external threat, a religion describing eternal punishments for wrong-doing, an advertisement announcing a new way to avoid becoming a social pariah, or a hungry infant crying upon waking, the tactic of using shock to elicit the desired backlash produces relatively predictable reactions.

Contrived or natural, however, shock cannot be overused or misused without producing unwanted backlashes:  the government that cries wolf too often loses credibility, the religion that proscribes all joy of life is abandoned, the advertisement that promises to fix a nonexistent problem becomes a parody of itself, and the infant that cries incessantly finds that some of its real needs go ignored.

As it turns out, all use is overuse.

And any use is misuse.

This is the I Ching trigram for Thunder.  It symbolizes the shock that follows an unexpected lightning bolt.  As such, it represents the power to initiate change by acting in such a way that others feel compelled to react.  It speaks of our need to defy expectations, timing our actions to maximize the impact of our influence.  By sensing the startling suddenness of Thunder within, we train ourselves to embody inner Surprise.

Inner Surprise is the culmination of the previous seven stages of this course.  It is the art of combining the skills we acquired in those stages and applying them in the least expected ways to the ever-changing circumstances we encounter.  It is the art of waiting until the crucial moment to act, in much the same way as the rain cloud must build up to the cloudburst.  It is the art of influencing people and events by echoing their inner state.  It is to shock what the butterfly is to the caterpillar.

There is nothing so surprising as finding ourselves in sudden resonance with something new and unexpected.  This experience of startling familiarity with the unfamiliar never fails to astonish us, for it reawakens us to the unfathomable mystery of the world even as it reassures us that we are a vital part of it.  How is it that something new and unfamiliar can strike us so immediately as intimate and familiar?  And how can that same thing strike others close to us as strange and inconsequential?  Because, for reasons beyond our scope of vision, we and not someone else are attuned to the same invisible essence as that which we find physically unfamiliar but spiritually familiar.

What the five senses of my lower self may not recognize as dear and valuable, the essential sense of my higher self may recognize immediately as a perfect match to some part of its intrinsic nature.  Such experiences demonstrate to me that I share certain motivations with people and events beyond myself—motivations that I may not even know I have until I experience firsthand their reflection in others.  Something touches me, in other words, and in so doing, influences me.  Something moves me, and in so doing, changes my attitudes and behaviors.  When this happens to me, I am influenced by the inner power of others.  When I am able to evoke such a response from others, they are influenced by my inner power.

But the inner power expressed by individuals does not arise from within the individual.

It is a manifestation of the chain of spiritual cause-and-effect that arises from within the Current.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It is the seed of Insight in the sense that external factors gradually influence our internal state, building up greater sensitivity until it triggers a new Insight.

It is the fruit of Insight in the sense that our inner Insight gradually influences the external situation by consistently encouraging harmful things to change and beneficial things to be preserved.

So although Insights seem to come full-blown and of a sudden, they actually result from a slow accumulation of subliminal experiences that gradually sensitize us to our surroundings.  We are not suddenly more insightful, in other words—rather, a growing awareness of something new works its way up through our unconscious until it crosses the conscious threshold and we can grasp it conceptually.  Insights seem to arrive suddenly because we have unconsciously been preparing for them by building up an emotional tension to be released once they enter conscious awareness.  This is why Insights are experienced as important and meaningful:  they arrive as the marriage of a new idea and a profound emotion—a marriage whose union gives birth to the breakthrough experience.

And although it seems that our Insights do not significantly impact our surroundings, this actually reflects a failure of our own perseverance.  Once we accept that each thing is on its individual path to perfection, then our influence can only add to or subtract from the other’s momentum:  criticism and conflict cause friction that impedes momentum, whereas approval and encouragement help propel each along its path.  The way of gradual influence, therefore, is the way of facilitation and accord:  we are able to put our Insights into effect when we methodically and consistently help others break through the impasses holding them back on their path.

The lower self will argue that this may sound nice enough but it is not practical because not everyone is a good person deserving of goodwill or kindness.  In fact, it will argue, there are those who are so cruel and malevolent that they deserve only cruelty in return.  This kind of argument—reducing issues to their extremes, as if that disproved a point that holds valid in a vast number of other cases—is a favored tactic of the lower self when it feels its interests threatened.  Wisdom does not express itself in obvious arguments against a compassionate and egalitarian ideal.  Anyone, after all, can construct hypothetical cases in the extreme that show how religious, spiritual, and philosophical ideals cannot work in the real world.  It takes the Insight of the higher self to see how they can.

For example, it is self-evident that if everyone everywhere was treated from birth with kindness, approval, and encouragement, generation after generation, so that no one anywhere experienced any cruelty or malevolence, then the number of people who became cruel and malevolent would drop each succeeding generation until the trait all but disappeared.  Those who claim this itself is impossible will admit that under the right circumstances they themselves would be able to extinguish their own tendencies toward cruelty and malevolence—but they will not admit that others would be able to do the same.  Such is the nature of the lower self, which fears most of all the prospect of living up to the potential of its light half.

As already stated above, although it seems that your Insights do not significantly impact your surroundings, this actually reflects a failure of your own perseverance—it requires the long view and a faith in the principle of metamorphosis for you to keep acting in a way that ennobles all when so many others appear to be doing just the opposite.  However, once you accept that your ideas, goals, and endeavors are all part of your own individual path to perfection, then the conduct of others no longer has any bearing on your own.  Rather than you being impacted by others’ actions, in fact, it is your conduct and demeanor that gradually influence others to change what is harmful and keep what is beneficial.  This form of inner power emerges because your attitude and behavior stem from inner Insight rather than short-sighted self-interest.

Success of every kind depends on this alternating expression of Insight:  on the one hand, external events gradually bring about internal breakthrough experiences and, on the other hand, internal breakthrough experiences gradually affect external events.  In this sense, we become more sensitized to our surroundings, which leads to more penetrating understanding, which we express through our actions, which better sensitizes others to their surroundings, which leads to their own Insights.  And just as we are motivated to act in accordance with our Insights, others are motivated to act in accordance with theirs.  By allowing others to influence us, in other words, we are able to influence them.

Fail to keep increasing your sensitivity to your surroundings, however, and you will lose the creative momentum that keeps you moving from success to success.  Fail to keep increasing your sensitivity to your surroundings, furthermore, and you will lose touch with what motivates those you seek to influence.

Failure of every kind depends on a lack of Insight.

What is holding me back?

Increasing my sensitivity to everything in my surroundings may not always be enough to answer this question.  There are times when I need to turn Insight back upon myself in order to advance the next step on my individual path to perfection.  This is both simpler and more complex than deriving Insight from my external surroundings:  simpler, in the sense that my internal impasses depend wholly on me for their existence—and more complex, in the sense that much of my identity is formed around my internal impasses.  Once I break through them and leave them behind, they no longer exist—but so long as they do exist, they deform the natural flexibility and adaptability of my personality and character in much the same way that dams change the natural flow of a river.

This brings us to the Seventh Paradox Of Wisdom: the more fixed my internal impasses, the more fixed my sense of personal identity.  If I do not periodically look for and identify my internal impasses, then I come to live with them so long that they seem to be part of me.  If I do not find a way to pass through them and resume my original direction, then the very course of my life is changed by the artificial reactions I have to my surroundings as a result of the habits that have replaced the natural flexibility and adaptability of my personality and character.

I am not fully myself, in other words, until I resolve all the internal impasses still haunting me.  Which is to say that I cannot reach my full potential so long as I fail to break through my internal impasses.  This is because I allow these internal impasses to create friction and conflict in my life—I myself slow my own momentum on my individual path to perfection.  If I am to reverse this tendency, I must increase my sensitivity to my unconscious habits of thought, emotion, memory, and instinct, identifying and then breaking through each in turn.

A straightforward approach to that end is for me to ask evocative questions and then follow the train of associations that my answers set in motion.  It does not take long to see how each habit has developed into an internal impasse that has shaped my reactions, and therefore my relationship, to my surroundings—

My habits of thought come to light when I inquire, What do I believe strongly?

My habits of emotion come to light when I inquire, What do I strongly dislike?

My habits of memory come to light when I inquire, What do I react to with alarm?

My habits of instinctual drives come to light when I inquire, What do I feel compelled to do?

As I encounter each impasse, I identify it quickly and accurately—is it a true impasse, a false impasse, a receding impasse, a sticky impasse, a hard impasse, or a soft impasse—and then treat it accordingly.  Using these questions to draw my impasses out of the unconscious and into awareness where I can break through them consciously, I feel myself progressively lighter and lighter, as if burden after burden has been lifted from me.  As impasse after impasse is penetrated and passed through, my sense of buoyancy and good will spontaneously result in my reverting to the natural flexibility and adaptability of my true personality and character.  In this way, my authentic reactions to my surroundings are restored and my relationship to the world more accurately reflects my individual path to perfection.  I regain my creative momentum and find it many times easier to break through the external barriers to good fortune.  My ideas and plans are part of the underlying harmony of the world and I find collaborators with whom to reap success.

This is called using Insight to release trapped power.

It is a principle otherwise expressed in the Eighth Paradox Of Wisdom: the longer an internal impasse goes undetected, the more powerful the resulting breakthrough experience.  Once broken through, in other words, it is the oldest, deepest, and most unconscious impasses that are the most liberating.

What is holding me back, it turns out, is what ultimately propels me forward.

Freed from internal impasses, where does Insight propel us?

Or, perhaps more to the heart of the matter, What are the further reaches of Insight?

As impasses are penetrated and left behind, we gradually realize that we ourselves are becoming Insight, in the sense of a special form of awareness, of attention, that, like a beam of light penetrating the dark of night, cuts through the entangling vines of the senses to perceive the real nature of existence.  We don’t want to be misled by the words special form, however—this metamorphosed form of Insight is simply the natural and normal awareness of the higher self.  As the barriers to contentment and fulfillment fall away like a butterfly’s cocoon or a serpent’s shed skin, so do the persistent misconceptions and uncertainties that plague the lower self.  As these impasses dissolve and melt away, our identity undergoes a gradual but profound transformation:  we identify less and less with the single lifetime of this material body, and more and more with the immortal lifetime of this immaterial awareness.

It is at this point that Insight is turned around to shine full upon itself, like light reflected back upon its source.  It is here that Insight empties out into the source of awareness, like a river empties out into the sea.  And it is here that Insight comes to embody a living emptiness, a dwelling place where all life might dwell, a timeless garden where all might ripen to perfection.  Insight turned back onto itself is the gate of the Great Reunion.

The further reaches of Insight, it turns out, extend all the way back to its origin in the Beyond.

Exercise One—Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply.  Visualize a dark grey stone wall before you.  Visualize your attention as a steady gentle wind blowing against the wall.  Visualize that wind gradually eroding a hole through the wall.  Visualize that hole growing larger and larger, until the wall gives way and falls.  Once you have succeeded in breaking through the wall, begin the exercise again, this time repeating the catch phrase:  Is this the limit of awareness?

Exercise Two—In the routine of everyday life, see each person you encounter as having an enlightened master within them.  See each person’s inner master as testing the quality your spiritual perceptiveness by pretending to be opinionated, hypocritical, greedy, ambitious, self-centered, and driven by instinctual needs.  Hone your Insight until you can see the enlightened nature of each person’s inner master peering out from behind the persona of the lower self.  When you can hold this perception steadily for periods of time, then turn your Insight around and see the enlightened master peering out from behind your own persona.

Just as there cannot be good fortune without wisdom, there cannot be wisdom without Insight.  And there cannot be Insight without gradual penetration of the impasses that afflict us within and without.  When we break through all impasses, we return to the state of wholeness.  When we return to the state of wholeness, we relive the time before we were ever wounded.  When we relive the time before we were ever wounded, we reclaim our perfection.  But we don’t want to be misled by this word perfection—this is not the static stereotyped perfection of the temporal imagination but, rather, the ever-evolving individual perfection of eternal Insight.  In this sense, the higher self is the Wind Of Light coursing through the Night Of Matter, patiently, gradually, carving the one infinite impasse into a perfect mirror of the Beyond.

So what the lower self calls success is achieved when we are able to influence our surroundings in a way that furthers our goals, whereas what the higher self calls success is achieved when we are able to influence our surroundings in a way that furthers the perfection of the Whole.  Treat all of existence as a single soft impasse through which you are flowing, wearing away all the detritus until only the hidden diamond remains:  fulfill your role as part of the great spiritualizing influence and the unrelenting wind of your good will and encouragement will assure your ultimate success.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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There is the true impasse, from which we can only turn back and withdraw.

There is the false impasse, which, when seen accurately, is actually an obstacle that can be circumvented.

There is the receding impasse, at which we become trapped because we do not believe we have actually come to an impasse.

There is the sticky impasse, to which we keep returning despite being turned back every time.

There is the hard impasse, which can only be broken through by using sharp, abrupt force.

And there is the soft impasse, which can only be broken through by using slow, gentle pressure.

Each of these impasses can, in turn, exist externally or internally.

Come to recognize true impasses quickly and accurately.  Don’t waste energy testing them.  Turn around and return to your last decision—reconsider it in light of what you now know and make whatever course correction you need to.  True wisdom does not waste a single moment on true impasses.

Come to recognize false impasses quickly and accurately.  Repeatedly test their resistance to your advance, looking for the motives behind the obstacles.  Review your recent decisions and actions, considering whether the present obstacles are a backlash to your own doings.  Clarify your own motives, both to yourself and others.  Just because it is not a true impasse does not mean you are heading in the right direction:  make sure your true path lies on the other side of such obstacles before trying to overcome them.

Come to recognize receding impasses quickly and accurately.  These impasses are like the horizon—they constantly recede as we advance, giving the illusion of unimpeded freedom of movement.  And like the horizon, they also follow us when we retreat, always keeping the same distance from us, for it is their seeming remoteness that creates the bounds and limits of our opportunities.  Don’t blindly accept others’ claims about the quality of your freedom or the absence of better alternatives.  Think for yourself.  Judge for yourself.  The largest cage is still a cage.

Come to recognize sticky impasses quickly and accurately.  These impasses are like gravity—they exert a constant pull on us, so that no matter how often we appear to escape their influence, we feel compelled to return to them time and time again.  Here the wish to change something is just as profound as our inability to do so.  This in turn creates a situation in which we simply cannot let go of something we know we should.  Keep reminding yourself that you have gone over this same ground many times and each time realized that the problem cannot be solved nor the hope fulfilled as things stand now.  Promise yourself that you will return to it again if things ever change.  Every time it comes to mind and you are tempted to revisit it, push yourself away just as you would from the dining table when you are too full to eat another bite.  Pull your attention back to the present moment and don’t allow it to be pulled away into the past or future.

Come to recognize hard impasses quickly and accurately.  Such impasses appear formidable but they have a brittle nature.  Because its presence is so imposing and intimidating, the hard impasse is unaccustomed to any reaction but acquiescence and compliance.  This makes it susceptible to unexpected and forceful reactions that upset its equilibrium—especially reactions that shock its rigid and often hypocritical sense of propriety, dignity, or morality.  It is the weight of authority and established precedents that gives the hard impasse its sense of indomitability—but these very strengths can be confused and overcome by the truly novel and incongruous response.  Do not test its strength beforehand—feign compliance until the moment comes to strike.  Then forego all timidity and act with absolute confidence and certainty of purpose.  Strike like a thunderbolt at its blind spot and the hard impasse will splinter and collapse.  Of all the kinds of impasses there are, this is the rarest.

Come to recognize soft impasses quickly and accurately.  Such impasses are impenetrable in the short run but can eventually be breached by stubbornly patient encouragement.  This kind of impasse is built of weakness:  it has been attacked, betrayed, undermined, and ignored to the point that its defenses are the only part of it that show.  Distrust and hardship have made it strong:  nothing can enter without its explicit permission and that permission is long in coming.  Take the long view and adopt a demeanor of polite respect and disinterested concern.  Like the wind working against the soft places in stone until it erodes a hole right through, gradually prove your trustworthiness through consistently beneficial actions.  And just as the wind does not react to the stone but, rather, acts upon the stone, don’t react to the ingrained defenses thrown up by this impasse but, rather, exert a uniformly encouraging influence on its protected heart.  It is by gradual influence upon the heart of the soft impasse alone that we are granted permission to pass and advance on our way.  Of all the kinds of impasses there are, this is the most common.

This is the I Ching trigram for Wind.  It symbolizes the ability to gain entry everywhere by means of steady, gentle effort.  As such, it represents spiritual penetration and the gradual unfolding of understanding that leads to wisdom.  It speaks of our need to dedicate ourselves to the lifelong perfecting of character whereby our blinders of opinion fall away, freeing us to perceive the world as it truly is.  By sensing the patient influence of Wind within, we train ourselves to embody inner Insight.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

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Why the least interesting thing?

Because it lies outside the routine of what we consider important.  By pursuing new lines of thought, especially those you are least likely to pursue, you gain entry into a greater field of possible discoveries.  Exploring the depths of the very details that do not attract your attention—the most innocuous leaf in the forest, the least significant word on a page, the most boring person at a gathering—grants you entry into a secret web of hidden connections that shatters old habits of thought and evokes new associations that lead to deeper understandings, sharper intuitions, and greater opportunities.  It cultivates, in other words, a richer imagination.

This is not to say that every uninteresting detail opens new opportunities for success.  Many will seem to dead-end without producing any noticeable results.  But their usefulness may lie in the future connections they establish with as-yet-unforeseen experiences.  The cumulative effect of widening the range of your interests like this weaves a highly-sensitive web of far-flung strands, each of which triggers excited curiosity in the center whenever it catches something new.

Outer curiosity, however, merely reflects a narrow field of interests based on personal tastes and lifestyle.  Pursuing the most interesting things within that field on a recurring basis, which is what we typically do, brings us to a different kind of dead end eventually.  Like a mine that has been played out, such a narrow field of interests inevitably stops producing anything of value.  Stale ideas, uninspired connections, and untenable plans—such is the sad legacy of the habit-ridden mind.

Our ability to operate at peak performance, on the other hand, depends on our capacity for sustaining a sense of wonder.  Without cultivating a lifelong sense of excited curiosity, we fall prey to the been there, done that self-defeating frame of mind.  Perpetually maintaining a childlike curiosity about all of existence, however, allows us to follow in the footsteps of the ancient who observed in wonderment, You cannot step into the same river twice.

In order to rise above mediocrity and triviality, we must see the world with new eyes, touch it with new hands, and hold it with new hearts.  Even though our heart’s desire may be a still-evolving concept, if we are ever to actually attain it, we need to experience all of existence as a sacred game and our own participation in it as sacred play.

A game is an activity whose rules intentionally set it aside from the realities of life.  Play is an individual’s adherence to those rules in order to temporarily step aside from the realities of life.

Experiencing all of existence as a sacred game, therefore, implies that there is another, more fundamental, reality from which this one has been created.  It follows that sacred play means we intentionally enter into this sacred game for the express purpose of temporarily stepping aside from that other, more fundamental, reality.  This further implies that entering into this created, secondary, reality has a transcendental goal, the attainment of which benefits us in that other, more fundamental, reality. For this reason, it is a sacred game.

For something is sacred when it is created by, and reveals, the transcendental.

All water in the sea tastes of salt.  But when it evaporates to form clouds, it leaves the taste of salt behind.  And when it rides the wind inland as rain clouds, it falls upon the mountains as freshwater.  Yet once it rushes from brook to stream to river and, finally, back into the sea, it regains the taste of salt it shares with all sea water.

Within that other, more fundamental, reality, we all possess the sense of Oneness.  But when we depart it, however temporarily, we leave the sense of Oneness behind.  And when we enter this created, secondary, reality, we enter as Individuals representing the One.  Yet once we move through all the stages between birth and death and, finally, return to that other, more fundamental, world, we regain the sense of Oneness we share with all awareness.

In considering this analogy to the cycle of water, let us not forget that it is during its time as freshwater that it actually nourishes all life on land.  Similarly, we need to remember that it is during our time as sacred players representing the One within its created, secondary, world that we have the opportunity to benefit all life within this sacred game.

To see the ordinary as the transcendental—that is the art of sacred play.

To see the least interesting detail as the sacred—that is the art of inner Curiosity.

To see the present moment as both the fruit and the seed of eternity—that is the art of sustaining a lifelong sense of wonder.

To see every life, including our own, as necessary and essential to the ultimate outcome of this sacred game—that is the art of attaining the ecstatic life.

To see all of existence as a sacred game whose rules, goal, and even other players are all unfathomable mysteries—that is the art of breaking through all resistance to the heart of childlike exploration that leads to discovery, inventiveness, and creativity.

To see our own intent as a molecule of water, moving with all other molecules of water through the cycle of sea water, cloud, rain, river, and back to sea water—that is the art of awakening the inner power to bring the best ideas to life.

To see that seeing things in the right light is the distinguishing characteristic of personal transformation—that is the art of keeping our feet firmly on the path of good fortune.

No matter how many times you do something, there is some new detail you have not yet examined.  No matter how familiar you are with something, there is still some undiscovered detail of it that is strange and unfamiliar.  No matter how well you know something, there is some seemingly irrelevant detail that continues to elude you.

These are the details that hold the missing keys to unlocking the full potential of your endeavors.  But they cannot be explored as a matter of course, as a purely mechanical exercise—you must see past what you have already experienced, you must see through what you expect to happen.  Without an attitude of sincere curiosity and a real heartfelt eagerness to discover what lies outside your habit-driven attention, you will plow the same field in the same way, over and over, without ever finding the treasure buried right beneath your feet.

Exercise One—In the midst of your everyday routines, look for what you always overlook.  Notice what you never notice.  Pay attention to what never attracts your attention.  For example, take note of the painted lines on the road.  What kind of paint is it?  What kind did it replace?  Why?  How is it applied?  With what machine and who invented it?  How was it done previously?  How was it first done?  When?  Where?  Whose idea was it originally?  How was it accepted?  What other alternatives were explored?  Who makes the paint?  How much does it cost?  How much is spent worldwide every year on it?  What shortcomings does it have?  What alternatives are currently being explored to improve on it?  How long does it last?  And so on:  the more you look into each question, the more questions ought to be raised.  Once you have explored one detail as far as you can, move on to another.  In performing this exercise, don’t look for connections to your own endeavors—if you are conscientious in following this training regime, then the connections will come naturally and of their own accord.

Exercise Two—Study other people, both strangers and those you know well.  Watch more closely.  Listen more closely.  Use the passive attention you have been cultivating to notice what you usually ignore.  Ask more questions, following up on statements or ideas that you would otherwise find lackluster.  Try to see the world through their eyes for the moment, delving into the details of what they have found interesting and meaningful.  Treat each person as mysterious and unpredictable, revealing through their surface behavior something deeper and more universal about life.  Give them more room to express themselves more fully.  React to their actions with honest curiosity, eradicating approval and disapproval from your verbal and nonverbal conversation.  Keep in mind that the very jewel you hope to find may lie barely hidden beneath the surface of just such an interaction—the only obstacle blocking the successful completion of your endeavor may well be broken through by the next thing the person in front of you says.

The open awareness of Nonresistance that you cultivated in the previous lesson is essential to your development of inner Curiosity—and particularly to your developing a sensitivity to the inter-connectedness of all things.  Please keep in mind that if the things that have interested you in the past have not taken you all the way to where you wish to go, then becoming interested in new things may well provide the momentum for you to finish this leg of the journey.  Destroy your idea of what is “interesting” and “uninteresting” and the whole of existence is a goldmine of inspiration that can never be played out.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

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This is the I Ching trigram for Fire.  It symbolizes both the power and the vulnerability of knowledge, for although fire illumines the dark, it is utterly dependent on the wood that fuels it.  As such, it represents the conscious mind’s desire to know, which leads us to great wisdom and great folly, both.  It speaks of our need to be conscious of our conscious mind, honoring it as our first tool even as we recognize that we are still learning how to wield it honorably.  By sensing the spiritual longing of Fire within, we train ourselves to embody inner Curiosity.

Absolute openness of awareness draws us back into seeing the world with new eyes.  By developing passive attention, our minds relax and do not seize upon images and impressions as soon as they appear.  This way, we stop leaping from the present moment to others we associate with the past or future.

The governing of attention does not, however, mean we remain in passive attention all the time—rather, it means we train ourselves to remain in passive attention longer than we are accustomed to.  This allows us to store up creative energy that, once it has gained enough momentum, is discharged in creative acts forged in the fire of active attention.

The governing of attention, therefore, means that we train ourselves to shift back and forth between active and passive attention as the moment requires.  Few of us nowadays, though, can sustain the undirected and unfocused knowing that precedes meaningful action.  Indeed, it is our very thirst for meaning that pulls us out of the undifferentiated source of creativity and back into the conscious differentiation of mental categories and personal associations.

This kind of thirst for meaning is inauthentic because it stems from our discomfort with the oceanic experience of the one awareness that is the source of creativity, insight, problem-solving, and belonging.  Rather than taking joy in temporarily dissolving the limitations of the conscious self by communing with the Universal Self, we fear the loss of our individual identity and pull back from the brink of awe before we are transformed.

By not staying in awe long enough, we lose our sense of wonder and no longer look at each moment as utterly new and full of unimaginable potential.  By not staying in awe long enough, in other words, we no longer see things as they really are.  And so we stop advancing easily and naturally along a course infinitely more rewarding than any we could have plotted for ourselves.

This inauthentic thirst for meaning arises from our belief that the highest expression of free will lies in exercising control over the circumstances in our lives by making decisions consistent with our values and goals.  Honing our intent to serve our own self-interest like this means that all our actions are predetermined and predictable—the very opposite of the free will we had sought.

The more predictably we act out of short-sighted self-interest like this, the more we react to large-scale circumstances in the same way as everyone around us.  While such lemming-like behavior allows us to be accepted by those around us, this kind of conformity breaks our spirit, deadens our creativity, and trivializes our life.

Instead of finding meaning, we create meaninglessness.  This is so because something acquires meaning only when we can place it within a larger context—when everything relates to my own self-interest, however, I lack the larger context within which to place my life.  Without anything greater than myself against which to situate my actions, I am left with a profound sense of loss, alienation, and meaninglessness.

Keep in mind here that we all claim to have something higher we believe in and to which we dedicate our lives.  But we are trying to speak honestly here and to reason through our common obstacles, so let us not indulge in self-deception or dissembling.  For the moment, set aside what you say, set aside what you want others to think of you, set aside what you want to think of yourself—when it comes to actions, you are a rare and exceptional individual if you place the interests of others ahead of your own.

Yet all this goes against the wisdom teachings of the elders, who make it abundantly clear that the ultimate expression of free will lies in surrendering to the higher will of the universal source.

What then does such surrender feel like?  What is the inner experience like?

It feels like drifting on the great ocean without rudder or sail.  It is the recognition that, although I know how to navigate by the stars, I have no concept of my destination.  I voluntarily give up my efforts to direct my own course—and quite naturally allow the breeze to carry off any maps drawn by others.  I trust the soundness of my raft, fashioned from the timbers of passive attention and lashed together with the cord of active attention.  I move with the vast serpentine currents of the great sea, carried where it goes.  No longer embroiled in a journey with a goal and destination, I embark on the primordial journey of exploration.

The inner experience of such surrender is your sudden recognition in a moment of calm that the journey of exploration is itself the destination and that, without striving for it, you have entered the ecstatic life.

There is an absent-minded pirate who wanders aimlessly, wondering aloud, Now where did I bury that treasure?

The problem is that we ourselves have grown so absent-minded that we would not recognize our part in the story even if we had an eye patch, a peg leg, and a parrot on our shoulder constantly repeating in our own voice, Now where did I bury that treasure?

We have forgotten, in other words, that we ourselves hid our priceless treasure in just that place we would be sure to look once we were prepared to use it wisely.

Even worse—we have forgotten to keep looking.

The wisdom teachings are replete with such stories.

A widow fell ill, for instance, and lost all her belongings except the priceless jewel she had inherited.  Fearing creditors would try to steal it, she sewed the jewel into the coat of her only child so that he might never want for anything.  But her illness worsened suddenly and she died before telling her son about the jewel sewn into his coat.  The young man fell on hard times.  Impoverished and homeless, he wandered the land, suffering gravely in his loneliness and misfortune.  One day, as he was performing another menial task for another bowl of thin broth, his threadbare coat caught on a nail and tore open.  To the young man’s amazement, out toppled the priceless heirloom, changing his life forever.

Or, similarly, a desert saint taught the people of his village by one day riding his donkey through the crowded marketplace, whipping it into a frenzy, upsetting carts and scattering the busy barterers, all the while shouting accusingly at everyone he passed, Who stole my donkey?  Who stole my donkey?

And so on.

We possess immeasurable wealth without knowing it.

The very thing we are seeking has been carrying us through life all along.

And the treasure is buried right before our eyes.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

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But where does this power come from?

On this point the wisdom teachings are unambiguous—it arises from voluntarily ending all inner resistance to the unitary nature of the world.  Failure to do so, in fact, forms the very core of resistance keeping us from fulfilling our purpose in life and finding lifelong fulfillment.  It is what keeps us from living the ecstatic life.

At this very moment, there are imperceptible waves and particles passing through my body.  I am taking in part of the atmosphere, converting it, and breathing it back out into the atmosphere.  I am converting food and water that I have taken in and will return to the world in changed form.  Nutrients I have taken in from the world have been converted into hair, nails, and skin cells that are regularly being sloughed back off into the world.  I have played my part in a marriage of sperm and egg that has produced an entirely new human body in the world.

My experience that there is a “me” that is separated from the rest of the universe by this boundary of skin, in other words, is as naive as the idea that one of the cells in my body is a “me” that is separated from the rest of my body by the boundary of its cell wall.  Yet this illusion of separateness is what we maintain throughout our lives despite all evidence to the contrary.

Inner Nonresistance depends, therefore, on eliminating our core of resistance once and for all by daily increasing our sensitivity to the oneness of all that exists.  This means that our first-hand experience of the unity of all creation is of paramount importance to “sensing the openness of Earth within”.  But it also means that if we are to “train ourselves to achieve inner Nonresistance” we must cultivate our openness to the unity of all creation in such a way that our appreciation and understanding continue to deepen over time.  That way, the longer we work to stabilize our sensitivity to the Whole, the more we can see how our social and familial conditioning have taught us to view the world dualistically, with “me” as the subject inside and “everything else” as the object outside.

On this point the wisdom teachings are unanimous—there is no “inside” nor any “outside”.  There is just this single vastness, this one unified ocean of existence, whose infinite number of parts makes up the one indivisible Whole.  And whose unitary nature imparts to each of its innumerable parts a trace of the Whole, just as each drop of water in the sea carries the taste of salt.

Although it seems like this perception of the indivisible Whole is difficult to achieve—somewhat like a fish trying to see water—the opposite is, in fact, true.  What requires tremendous energy is our effort to ignore this very perception:  while a fish living its entire life in the sea may never actually see the water in which it lives, it does sense the water temperature, water pressure, and myriad other aspects of its invisible environment.  Likewise, we are subliminally aware of the indivisible One that is the unchanging background of permanence from which we arise and to which we return.  So it is impossible to be completely ignorant of the single Source and Destination of all that exists—but it is just as impossible for our minds to experience it consciously without right preparation.

Therefore, the first half of this course was about breaking the conditioning that stands in the way of our experiencing the world as it truly is, whereas the present lesson builds on that foundation in order to begin our cultivation of the inner power that will enable us to make real what we can envision and thereby live the ecstatic life.

Inner power is attained once we stop wasting energy on resisting awareness.

As noted above, there is nothing but our own resistance to sensing the unitary nature of the world that is holding us back from achieving our own lifelong success.  While this identifies the principal obstacle on the path of good fortune, however, it does not yet make clear precisely how it is that we resist awareness nor how we are to reclaim that wasted energy through Nonresistance.

So, what is the precise mechanism of resistance and Nonresistance?

The governing of attention.

Attention is energy.  Active attention expends energy.  Passive attention stores up energy.  Active attention looks for things to pay attention to, whether they be external or internal in nature.  Passive attention waits for things to present themselves to awareness, whether they be external or internal in nature.  Active attention is like a hunter’s arrow.  Passive attention is like a fisherman’s hook.  Active attention is like a scalpel.  Passive attention is like a sponge.

Active attention is focused on acquiring, whether those acquisitions be concrete or abstract, real or imaginary, in nature.  Active attention moves out from the center of awareness, pursuing security, status, recognition, relationships, knowledge, self-knowledge, and so on.  This constant pursuit of acquiring results in a steady outpouring, an unrelenting diminishing, of energy.  Suffering from the misconception that such acquisitions will replenish our energy, we redouble our outpouring of energy and redouble it again.  It is as if a lion spent all day trying to catch a hummingbird to eat—even if it ever managed to actually catch it, the minute amount of energy recouped from such a meal would never make up for the tremendous outlay of energy expended in the great beast’s day-long activity of running, leaping, and stalking.  The paradox of active attention is that the more it acquires, the more depleted it becomes.

Passive attention, on the other hand, is unfocused.  It is completely open awareness.  Like a blotter, it soaks up.  Like the open sky, it absorbs every cloud.  Like the open ocean, it absorbs every wave.  It is that which receives and, specifically, that which receives impressions.  This constant state of receiving results in a steady in-pouring, a limitless increasing, of energy.  It is as if innumerable torches were lit at noon—no matter how many torches were added to daylight, its capacity for brightness could never be exceeded.  The paradox of passive attention is that the more it empties itself, the more energy rushes in.

Active attention resists new awareness in the same way that someone who is always talking never hears what is being said.  Passive attention welcomes new awareness in the same way that the newborn are completely open to the undifferentiated world around them—or the way the ocean welcomes the inrushing river.  Or the night welcomes the morning light.

In general, most of us nowadays engage only in active attention, having forgotten that passive attention even exists.  This keeps us bottled up in the dualistic world view of subject-and-object and, therefore, closed off from a first-hand experience of the unitary nature of the Whole.

Passive attention makes conscious our subliminal awareness of the Whole, thereby granting us access to the source of awareness, creativity, insight, problem-solving, and belonging.  By enabling us to consciously sense the oneness of all things, passive attention brings us into harmony with the one intent of the Whole.  Harmonizing our individual intent with the one intent ranks among the most profound experiences of Nonresistance:  with time, we increasingly stop thinking of our personal needs, increasingly succeed at helping others identify and fulfill their hearts’ desire, and increasingly participate in the world with a sense of joyful belonging.  This last point is particularly telling, since it speaks to the connection between passive attention and the ecstatic life—a connection that is of great moment on the path of good fortune.

Passive attention awakens our awareness of the Whole, leading us out of resistance and into Nonresistance.

Nonresistance, in turn, harmonizes our individual intent with the one intent, awakening our inner power.

Inner power, in turn, allows us to accomplish things as if they were long-fated, removing all blocks to the ecstatic life.

This is a chain of spiritual cause-and-effect to which we will return in Part Seven of this course.

Exercise One—Sit quietly with eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply from the abdomen.  Visualize yourself sitting in the middle of a clear stream, your hands folded in your lap, facing upstream.  As you gaze at the water coming toward you, you notice bits of debris, such as leaves and twigs, floating closer and then on past you.  Now occasionally a bit of debris floats close enough to you that it catches in the crook of your elbow, just large enough that it cannot pass where your arm rests against your torso.  Visualize yourself responding immediately by silently repeating to yourself, Pass Through, as you move your arm enough to let the small piece of flotsam continue its journey downstream.  Every few moments, another small piece of debris catches in the crook of one arm or the other, to which you respond immediately by silently repeating to yourself, Pass Through, as you move your arm enough to let the small piece of flotsam continue its journey downstream.  After practicing like this for a while, visualize yourself recognizing those currents that are consistently carrying the bits of debris which are catching on you.  Identify the bits of debris earlier and earlier that will catch on you, silently repeating Pass Through as you move your arm even before it catches on you,  After practicing like this for a while, visualize yourself sitting with your arms permanently held away from your body enough that nothing, not even the current, catches on you as you silently repeat the catch-phrase, Pass Through.  In practicing this exercise, it is important not to skip or rush through any of the steps in its progression.

Exercise Two—Sit quietly with eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply from the abdomen.  Visualize yourself as an open window in an ancient stone wall that runs across a vast plateau ringed by mountains and crowned by clouds.  The wind blows this way and then that way, constantly shifting, rushing first from one side of the ancient wall and then from the other.  As the wind pours through you, first this way and then the other, silently repeat the catch-phrase, One.  After practicing this for a while, visualize the wind passing through you in one direction with each inhale and then shifting to pass through you in the opposite direction with each exhale.  With each inhale, silently repeat the catch-phrase, One. With each exhale, silently repeat the catch-phrase, One.

The practice of Nonresistance is the practice of Inner Nonresistance.  It is the cultivation of a more refined awareness that no longer clings to ideas, emotions, and memories in order to fabricate an artificial sense of self.  It is the stabilization of an awareness that allows thoughts, feelings, and memories to pass through it without catching on it.  It is the harmonizing of that awareness with the unitary nature of the World.  Because our reactions to events around us are based on the degree to which we can respond without preconceptions, we will lead a more fulfilling life if we can tap into the wisdom making up such an enduring part of the universality of human nature.

This should not be mistaken for political Nonresistance, which, as an ideological response to political repression and violence, carries into a situation an already-established set of responses.  While such an approach is unquestionably superior to its alternative in theory and nearly always in practice, the wisdom teachings are clear in pointing out that there are no fixed and certain guidelines in this world—wisdom has to be a living presence within us, the expressed ability to discover our own guidelines and create our own responses to each evolving situation.  It is in this way that wisdom grows toward its limitless potential with the arrival of each generation.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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What, then, do we mean by natural metamorphosis?

Just as a single cell grows naturally, without any internal intention, into a full-term fetus and then, without any internal intention, emerges from the womb and continues growing, without any internal intention, through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood toward old age, the lower self that identifies with the body grows naturally, without any internal intention, into the higher self that identifies with the spirit.  It is called natural because it requires no internal intention, no individual will, no setting of or striving for a goal.  It is called metamorphosis because the difference between the experience of the lower self and the higher self is as profound as that between the caterpillar and the butterfly.

And though we do not generally think of the change of form between an acorn and an oak tree as metamorphic, it is true that the acorn no more resembles the oak than the caterpillar resembles the butterfly.  So this sense of natural metamorphosis includes not just our inevitable growth from a lower stage to a higher one, but also implies the full realization of our potential.  Beyond this, however, it further compels us to envision just how drastic the change of form between the lower self and the higher self really is:  that which identifies with the body dies with the body, whereas that which identifies with the spirit is reborn with the spirit.  Here the wisdom teachings are manifestly clear—clinging to the earthbound body brings sorrow and suffering, while leaping into the beyond with the spirit brings joy and ease.

Understanding this process of natural metamorphosis is essential to our quest for the path of good fortune because our lifelong success depends on it.  While striving for material success may bring about temporary relief from material hardship, it creates a backlash in the realm of spiritual cause-and-effect that produces an inner tension and conflict that leads to perpetual dissatisfaction and, eventually, a deep sense of loss and aloneness.  Too much concern with material well-being, in other words, arises from a fear of the future and a basic distrust of the world:  pursuing this kind of success may seem to lead to good fortune but it actually pulls us into a downward spiral of envy, opportunism, and self-interest that sets us at odds with our surroundings and traps us in a more personal kind of misfortune.

Finding spiritual well-being, on the other hand, may not result in an immediate improvement in material circumstances but it creates repercussions in the field of spiritual cause-and-effect that draw us into a heartfelt harmony and tranquility that leads to perpetual fulfillment and, as time goes on, an abiding sense of gratitude and belonging.  Welcoming spiritual success like this emerges from a love of the present and a basic trust in the world:  inviting this kind of success may seem to ignore the practical concerns of material well-being but it actually pulls us into an upward spiral of good will, generosity, and selflessness that harmonizes us with our surroundings and invites us, in turn, to partake of the greater good fortune of the Whole.

Changing the way we act—which is to say, changing our motivation for acting—in this manner brings us face-to-face with the Fifth Paradox Of Wisdom:  lifelong success is born only when immediate success dies.  Caring about immediate success must come to an end, in other words, before our feet finally touch the path of lifelong success.  This is because lifelong success does not result from the right course of action, but from the right intent—and intent cannot be feigned:  seeking my own success will bring lifelong failure, seeking the success of all will bring me lifelong success.  And it is this metamorphosis of intent that leads the way to our metamorphosis of the lower self into the higher self.

So long as all I wish for is my own personal good fortune, my intent remains fixated on the fears and insecurities of the lower self.  This doesn’t just keep me from advancing on my spiritual path, however.  It also keeps me from advancing materially, since it pulls my focus from the needs of the world-at-large to my own.  This in turn narrows my vision and makes it impossible for me to perceive the full range of opportunities before me.  Being motivated by my own personal success, then, does not increase my chances of success—on the contrary, it places a stranglehold on my imagination, diminishing my aspirations by blinding me to the possible connections between all the needs and resources in my surroundings.  By focusing only on the resources that might meet my personal needs, I create a blind spot in my awareness that makes it impossible for me to integrate my intention with all those around me.

Indeed, if I view my surroundings as a field of intentions, I come much closer to seeing the world as it is—and better integrate my actions and reactions with those around me, since I can better anticipate others’ actions and reactions based on their personal intentions.  Awareness of other’s intentions is not nearly as mysterious or difficult as I might first imagine:  by taking the time to actually understand their circumstances and then placing myself in their situation, I can intuit the needs and desires of others with reasonable accuracy based solely on the universality of human nature.  For those of the right temperament and sensitivity, moreover, there is no reason to restrict awareness of other’s intentions to those of human beings, since animals, plants, and all of nature flesh out the field of intentions with needs and purposes of their own.

So I have no excuse for not caring about the success of all around me—it is in my best interest to do so and it simply requires a modicum of empathy and fellow-feeling to share their hearts’ desire.  Setting my success above theirs will only bring me failure in the long run, but making my success part of theirs will bring me lifelong success.  If their own intentions are ill-conceived and self-destructive, then part of working for their success entails changing what motivates them.  If my own intentions are ill-conceived and self-destructive, then part of working for their success entails changing what motivates me.  And it is this metamorphosis of intent that leads the way to our collective metamorphosis of the lower self into the higher self.

Indeed, it is from this teaching of Universal Benefit that we receive the catch phrase, Peace And Prospering For All.  And it is from this same teaching that we derive the Sixth Paradox Of Wisdom:  one succeeds only when no one else loses.

This is the I Ching trigram for Earth.  It symbolizes the power of nature to nourish every life without favoring any over another.  As such, it represents the womb of creation, wherein the seed of every thought, emotion, and memory is given equal opportunity to take root and endure.  It speaks of our need to change with the seasons of change, emulating the natural way that plants harmonize their cycles of growth with the Earth’s cycle of seasons.  By sensing the openness of Earth within, we train ourselves to achieve inner Nonresistance.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

To see the world in this way, without any blinders on, forces us to adopt one of two world views:  either the universe is a meaningless accident or it is a purposeful creation.  Let us examine these two viewpoints more closely.

According to the first world view, this is a material universe and nothing exists but the matter and energy that make it up.  But its matter-energy has become living.  And conscious.  And conscious of itself.

Beyond that, we know that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed—all the past atoms and all the future atoms of the universe exist right now.  They are simply being constantly rearranged.  Matter breaks down and its atoms are reassembled in other forms.  Living organisms die and their atoms have nowhere else to go:  they are part of the unchanging pool of atoms that make up the universe—they simply regroup into other material forms.  Living organisms die and their energy, likewise, has nowhere to go:  it remains part of the unchanging field of energy making up the universe—it simply becomes part of other individual fields of energy within the universal field.  All the past energy and future energy making up the universe is present right now.

From this viewpoint, then, everything is matter-energy.

Yet matter-energy has become conscious.

Therefore, consciousness itself must be matter-energy.

And since matter-energy cannot be created nor destroyed, consciousness itself—which is to say, awareness itself—can neither be created nor destroyed.  Which means that awareness has existed since the universe began and will continue to exist as long as the universe does.  Which means that no consciousness can ever be lost, not even in the death of the biological organism with which it is associated.  Awareness has nowhere else to go:  it is part of the unchanging pool of awareness making up the universe—it simply reforms into other constellations of awareness, associating with an ever-changing array of matter-energy.

All the past awareness and all the future awareness is present right now.

The second world view does not differ from the first except that it sees this unchanging pool of awareness as the causative principle, as the creator itself, of all matter-energy.  And this universe of matter-energy is seen, in turn, as the single living body of the single conscious awareness.

It can be argued that some modern religions are more sophisticated than this, postulating the existence of a separate creator, whose existence is outside and beyond its creation, so that it exists both before and after its creation.  But this argument can be answered with another:  while such a belief may be true, it is not arrived at by direct seeing of the facts-at-hand, whereas the same spiritual world view can be awakened by perceiving the immanence of awareness—whether it is called mind, spirit, soul, or self—within matter.

Reasonable minds may differ and it is not my purpose here to argue hypothetical points, but I would not be the first to point out that a universe purposefully created to include so much suffering raises unsettling questions about its distant creator.  A self-created universe where life and awareness are evolving by adapting and learning, on the other hand, better describes the facts-at-hand and places the responsibility to end suffering squarely on the shoulders of conscious life forms.

Such are the wisdom teachings of old, as epitomized in the example of the golden lion,  Though it is in the form of a lion, it is made of gold and not anything else.  Though it is made of gold, it is in the form of a lion and not anything else.  The gold and the lion are inseparable,  They are one thing.  Awareness is form.  Spirit is matter.

To see all of matter as incarnate spirit is to see the sacredness of everything, including ourselves.

According to the first world view, then, the universe accidentally came into being in such a way that matter-energy gave birth to life, life gave birth to awareness, awareness gave birth to self-awareness, and self-awareness became aware of its own uncreated and indestructible immortality.  That all this should come into being by accident, evolving into a self-awareness such as yourself able to conceive the indestructible nature of your awareness, so borders on the impossible that it can only be viewed as miraculous.

That it arose by accident means that there is no one to blame for the way the universe works—and no one but ourselves to blame for the way human civilization works.  That it all arises by accident also means that our own individual life histories are accidents, as well:  who we are born to, what kind of physical body we inhabit, the culture into which we are born, the opportunities and obstacles we face—all this is part of the accidental nature of the universe and does not bear on our intrinsic worth or capacity.  This likewise implies that all of human history is accidental and that no culture or people have any greater intrinsic rights than any other:  liberating ourselves from the self-serving mythologizing of nations, religions, and other negative forms of tribalism, we are able to transcend the historical conditioning that separates us and coexist ethically and morally based on the universal self-sameness that unites us.

To be released from all preconceived constraints and see ourselves as miracles within a miraculous accident is to see the absence of any objective meaning that others might try to ascribe to life.  It is to see, in other words, that our fate is in our hands and that we have the freedom to mold ourselves into anything we choose.

Once we recognize that we finally have the means and ability to mitigate all the suffering in the world, we are able to step out of the narrow ravine of fearful competition for resources that separates us and into the vast, open plain of universal prospering that unites us.  It is here, in discovering a goal that all benefit from equally, that distrust and separatism can be set aside—and goodwill and kind-heartedness can flow between all peoples everywhere for all time.

That the accidental and meaningless nature of the universe should lead us to a point of humane and spiritual conduct teaches us that, despite the harshness of its conditions, we can adapt to the material universe without losing our intrinsic nature.  And what, from this perspective, is our intrinsic nature?  Accidental, of course—accidental in the sense of not predetermined and not preformed.  Which is to say, open-ended, infinitely flexible and adaptable, and capable of spontaneously changing along with changing circumstances.

In light of our miraculous good fortune, then, of having arisen from meaningless accident to be presented with the opportunity to establish an immortal and perfect civilization, the only authentic response to life is a continual outpouring of profound gratitude.

According to the second world view, moreover, this self-awareness that was aware of its own uncreated and imperishable nature gave birth to self-awareness, awareness, life, and the material universe.  That all this should come into being by the purposeful intent of our own collective self-awareness, investing our formless nature into form itself in order to discover and actualize our unknown potential, so perfectly expresses the miraculous nature of all we experience that it seems impossible.

This is simply because of the times in which we have been raised.  So pervasive is the single-minded message that we all need be fearful and insecure and self-serving, that we no longer need hear it anymore, for it has become so deeply ingrained in our hearts that only the most profound and disrupting of experiences can uproot it and replace it with the message of trust, good will, and loving-kindness.  Indeed, it seems inconceivable that such a message of hope and well-being could be passed among all people everywhere, from every parent to every child, generation after generation, with the same single-mindedness employed in spreading the message of fear and distrust.  Self-styled pragmatists will argue that such a message could never be sustained because of all the events disproving it—yet the message of paranoia has easily been sustained across the centuries despite the constant stream of events disproving it daily.

So we raise generation after generation of fearful, selfish, and distrustful people, allowing those who can shout loudest—governments, religions, corporations, the media, and the wealthy—to convey a message of division that benefits them by ensuring the continuation of their standing.  Here we allow our own self-created suffering to arise, for this message of division is what enforces unnecessary poverty, hunger, illness, and violence on billions of our peers every day.

We come into this world wide-eyed and open-hearted, ready to love and be loved, but find ourselves surrounded by sullen, withdrawn, and desperate people.  Time and again we see the awe-inspiring potential surging from the eyes of the newborn—and time and again we resign ourselves to the eventuality that that light will dim and be nearly extinguished by the unnecessary harshness of their social surroundings.  What, it is only fair to ask, do we under these circumstances have to be grateful for?

For the light of potential in the newborn’s eyes.

Once we experience ourselves as not created by anything or anyone, we can come to grips with the fact that we are yet learning what we wish to be.  That we are yet deciding our fate.  That we are yet evolving both our understanding of a worthy purpose and our resolve to carry it out to the benefit of all.  That we are yet becoming more conscious of our true potential.

What do we have to be grateful for?

For the great barely-tapped reservoir of wisdom, compassion, and creativity within us.

Your heart beats to benefit all the cells in your body, not just one in particular.  The sun shines to benefit all life, not just one in particular.  Similarly, we are immortal because awareness is conjoined to the entire universe of matter-energy, not just one body within it:  we are immortal because the universe is our body, not just a particular life form within it.

Once we experience ourselves as indestructible and imperishable, we can come to grips with the fact that we ourselves are just newborns.  That the dreaming awareness is beginning to awaken.  That we are leaving behind the immaturity of the early stages of growth and advancing upon the universal path of wisdom.  That although we have much room for improvement, we have the reserves to reach our furthest goal.

From the perspective of the second world view, therefore, it makes no difference whether matter created mind or mind created matter—the only authentic response to having the good fortune of temporarily being comprised of atoms of self-awareness capable of sensing first-hand our own irrevocable immortality is a continual outpouring of profound gratitude.

This is the I Ching trigram for Lake.  It symbolizes rejoicing.  It speaks of our need to experience—and give expression to—all of life as a blessing and a gift, the richness and poignancy of which surpasses any imagined.  Just as a lake perfectly reflects the sky above, our animal nature and intellect must become a mirror for the open spaciousness of our universal awareness.  By nurturing the spiritual sensitivity of Lake within, we train ourselves to embody inner Gratitude.

Perfection does not mean things are the way we want them to be—it means that, because of the chain of cause-and-effect, things cannot be different than they are.  This carries with it the additional meaning that introducing new actions into the chain of cause-and-effect will produce a change of circumstances downstream.  For this reason, perfection always refers to a state of emerging perfection:  things are always as good as they can be under the circumstances, but circumstances can be changed and things can be changed for the better.

So perfection is the perpetual state of the universe.  Because it is not a human universe, however, we discern many apparent imperfections in it.  This is largely due to our upbringing, which traditionally teaches us from a very young age to look for imperfections, to “find what is wrong with this picture” and to “find what doesn’t go with the other things”.  While this awareness of form is a useful skill, it is not traditionally balanced with training to acquire the compensatory skill of formless awareness, which allows us to perceive the otherwise invisible essence common to all form.  And since it is on this level of essence that the perfection of all creation can most profoundly be appreciated, the spiritual sensitivity required to radiate authentic Gratitude comes only after we calm our animal nature and intellect, keep our attention from dwelling on things, and free ourselves from any habits of thought, feeling, memory, or action.

Because the universe has to support an infinite array of life forms, moreover, it has many aspects that are openly hostile to human life.  Even under the best of conditions, everything we know and love is going to perish.  Herein lies the practical aspect of Gratitude, for it requires great courage to look into the face of such loss without flinching—only the strongest and the wisest know how to endure the foreknowledge of such loss by maintaining a continual outpouring of Gratitude for the honor and privilege of living in the same time and place as that which they revere.  The future death of all you hold dear is made bearable, in other words, by experiencing the most profound Gratitude for their presence in the present moment:  to gaze upon what we love as if for the last time is to gaze upon it forever.  To be grateful for the shared moment is to step into the shared eternity.

Without this practical aspect of Gratitude, its ideal form becomes mere abstraction and flight from life.  Beyond that, however, it can be said that of all the forms of expression, none are so rich or poignant than those which give voice to the inevitable perishability of what is loved even as they rejoice in the moment of shared presence.  Indeed, this form of expression reflects the dynamics of perception perfectly:  imperfection comes about when we perceive what is absent, whereas perfection arises when we perceive what is present.

Train yourself to perceive the perfection around you and your heart will fill to overflowing with rejoicing and Gratitude.  But train yourself to perceive the imperfection around you and your heart will fill to overflowing with sorrow and ingratitude.

Exercise One—Sit quietly with eyes closed and visualize a single atom, once part of a star, becoming part of the atmosphere, then part of the soil, then part of a peach tree, then part of the peach you are eating, then part of your own consciousness, then part of the atmosphere again, and on its way to being a part of an infinite number of forms over the course of the universe.  Expand this vision to include all the atoms everywhere in flux as they move between all the various forms of matter-energy:  what was inanimate becomes animate, what is organic will become inorganic, in an ever-shifting interchange of atoms.  Deepen your appreciation of this invisible interchange by sensing how everything, whether organic or inorganic, animate or inanimate, must be viewed as being both alive and aware.  Hold this vision in mind as you engage in your everyday activities, seeing all the things and people you encounter as the temporary forms of shifting atoms:  everywhere you go, address your intent to this underlying interplay of the smallest elements of creation by paying silent homage, Thank you forever.  You see mountains or buildings, clouds or furniture, trees or lampposts, people or animals, and you acknowledge the relationship between the atoms temporarily making up your form and theirs, paying silent homage, Thank you forever. Do not force feelings that are not present and do not imagine things that cannot be—as with previous exercises, simply perform this one sincerely and allow thoughts to be transformed into emotional and physical feelings in a natural and easy-going manner.

Exercise Two—Sit quietly with eyes closed and visualize an upwelling of joy, a rejoicing in the perfection of all creation, surging out of you as you silently repeat the catch phrase, I am a well of happiness, overflowing into the lives of others.  Allow the emotional logic to sink in:  a well of happiness is not changed by happy or sad things around it—it changes things around it by nurturing their deepest essence at that point where perfection recognizes perfection.  View all around you as perfect.  If things appear to go your way, be grateful for the opportunity to learn humility in the face of success.  If things appear to go against you, be grateful for the opportunity to learn flexibility in the face of obstacles.  Make yourself a part of the spiritual landscape, silently repeating the catch phrase, I am a well of happiness, overflowing into the lives of others.

If we are truly to make a better civilization, it will be because we are motivated by a profound sense of gratitude for the impossibly miraculous creation within which we find ourselves.  As our awareness continues to evolve we will recognize on our own what the wisdom teachings of old have whispered all along:  Gratitude is the first gate, Gratitude is the last gate, and Gratitude is every gate between.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites