2009 is going swell!

And I’m going to share that the last 6 weeks of 2008 were beyond rough… and I feel inspired, perhaps compelled, to share the understanding that is beginning to land on me from my most recent trip through spiritual madness. If that sounds like a downer and you want to quickly move away… I understand… it’s this lopsided culture we live in that wants to pretend there is only the yang… by not speaking of the yin. Today I know better… we’ll gain by starting to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… so help me something.

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So I’m going to share what I’m making up today as a result of what I imagined waaay back in the final weeks of 2008. And yep… I’m gonna talk about God and mysticism and all sorts of spiritual stuff… some politically correct (but only by accident) and some not, because frankly I do NOT believe that ‘politically correct’ is ‘correct’…it’s just silly nonsense.

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Understand, I know this process has value for me. I hope that my sharing of it has value for you too. And believe it will if you are one of the many today, that I see all around me, suffering from this madness. Because if we’re willing to speak of spiritual madness, we might find ways to learn to manage it and come out the other side with some grace.

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Here’s a bit of perspective… necessary in order to understand what I’m talking about when I say, spiritual madness. A brief look at my email subject lines, along with a stroll through the local bookstore, reveals a question frequently being bandied about these days…

“What is your life purpose?”

That, or some variation of it, is something more and more people are starting to ask themselves. We seem to start out asking it casually, “For what purpose was I born?”. Here’s the thing… I find myself wondering if you know what that question triggers in you. Do you know what that answer requires?

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There was a time, long ago in the mystic tradition, that you would enter a monastic lifestyle where you would prepare to ask those questions. For heavens sake (and I mean really… for heaven’s sake) you would fast in order to ask those questions… there was all sorts of ritual in order to ask that question. Because it was known that when you invoke direct contact with God… your life goes upside-down and nothing is ever the same.

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I am, admittedly, a product of the 60′s. I attended a Catholic school from K- Grade 8 and perhaps as a result, was keenly aware of a couple of profound (at least symbolically) events. One was the Dali Lama being forced out of Tibet and the other was a meeting called Vatican II. Placed on a global scale, what resulted was access to information that had been secret for almost 2000 years. Western mysticism and Eastern mysticism both suddenly available in ways never before available to the regular folk… people like us.

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Finally, we could approach sacred text. We could study material not available to us before. We could talk about it with spiritual teachers like we never were allowed to before. (The trick was… finding true Spiritual Teachers who were ready for us )

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And it was the start of the consciousness movement. You know… we wanted to ‘see’ God in our lives… without even knowing what that means.

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So what DOES that mean?

Now we’re getting close to where the madness comes in. You see, evolution comes in stages. And the first stage is separation.

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Understand this – when you ask God to talk to you, what you are really saying is, “I want you to re-order my life so that every false voice is taken away from me”. For those of you who prefer Law of Attraction (LOA) verbiage… you are saying, “I want you to re-order my life so that ever vibration that is not a match for my desire is taken away from me”. Really, that’s what you’re saying.

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The problem comes from our human thinking. We ‘think’ being ‘on purpose’, being conscious, is the end of chaos. What I’ve learned is that it actually means quite the opposite.

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You say, “I want to clearly see why I was born… for what purpose”

People… when we step into the mystical, the arena of inviting God, or Source, or whatever you want to label it, into your life you are, since God is always in your life, really saying… “take away my distractions. I want to be close to you.”

Here’s what I notice… and it appears to go several layers deep, what we think we’re asking for are answers to physical concerns. But let’s be honest here… what we really have is a physical fantasy about how God is going to show up in our lives. “I want a steady relationship… and a steady job… and money in the bank and…” Newsflash: that’s NOT the way it happens!.

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What really happens when you start asking for spiritual intimacy is that you enter a journey of going into yourself alone. And that’s where the separation begins. You see, part of this journey requires you break allegiance to human reasoning.

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You’re instantly confronted with the realization that your understanding of God is flawed. The first trip through madness usually brings to your attention that you’ve created a God that looks just like you only 1000x better. God’s goodness is 1000 x better than yours, God’s wrath is 1000x bigger than yours. You realize you’ve taken yourself and created a God duplicate, expecting God to behave like a human being. Whoops!!!

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So there you are, stuck. Expecting a rational order to divinity and wanting your spiritual path to have some level of human order.

Hello!!! The whole purpose of a spiritual path is NOT to have human order. It’s to transcend the need for human logic!

So… have you ever found yourself asking the, “Why me?” questions? The questions that would solve the mysteries in your life? “If I only knew why that had to happen…” “If God would just tell me the answer to this“. Well, I have a question I’d like you to ponder…

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What if mystery was the answer to your question?

What if, in fact, the journey toward getting to know divinity is to enter into mystery? Is to leave your allegiance to divine order and your need to having things explained in human, logical fashion?

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more later…