Falling for your...Self.

So I’m thinking… “I am not my thoughts” and realize that this is true but it is still a thought and nothing more.  So I try not to think, which means I am thinking about not thinking. Dang! After a while I again have a sense of knowing I am not my thoughts and feel slightly impressed that I may be in touch with my Self but soon realize it’s still my mind simply thinking in a quieter voice.  I get a little disgusted at my feeble attempts to escape my chatter when I sense something like a smile, a pure feeling separate from my pitiful mental gymnastics, but completely in love with them. I feel compassion, the real me I feel is compassion completely enamored with this chattering brain and insecure creature I experience. Perhaps a good indication of the Self is the incredible judgment free, compassion it has for the temporal self. The feeling hangs with me for a time flavoring my perceptions and interactions with others. I feel rather impressed with this real me. I really fall for this person hidden behind all my chatter.  It is no small task to learn to love your “self” warts and all with such a difficult tool as the human mind.  How much more would it be to come to know and love the true “Self” who can never view your human experience with anything but perfect compassion and love.

Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.

The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.

Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,

The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

Rumi

Transcending Practice.

Beyond the thin veil that masquerades as impenetrable density lies that unspeakable, eternal, ecstatic union of the One; from which all being emerges and remembers its true essence.

A spiritual practice is like the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle, they are tools of departure designed to take you to the next stage of the journey. If we are so devoted to a practice that we refuse to divert or depart from it, that practice can become a hindrance to our development. Practice doesn’t make perfect it takes us to the place where we can realize we already were perfect even without the practice.  Loosen up and play with your discipline.  Go with you intuition.  Stop and focus on an area you sense has need.  Let your practice take you to a state where your imagination is ripe and explore what it is to be connected and free from limitation. 

Remember that all practice serves our weakness and need for simple constructs to help us explore the Self that is beyond all constructs and language.  Hold it loosely or it will obstruct the view of that which is inexpressible.  Be grateful for the practice, which in its proper application serves to trick our minds into perceiving beyond the illusory into the eternal. It is not an easy thing to trick the trickster and we long for that experience where the state of awareness remains.  Until then we devote ourselves to the journey and the cycle of doing the practice and transcending the practice.

Divine Feedback…(when the vibration coming from within connects to the source)

Divine Feedback…(when the vibration coming from within connects to the source)

I usually think of feedback as the irritating high pitched sound produced when the sound waves from the speakers make their way into the microphone and collide with themselves producing an exponential shift in wavelength and volume.

I have always been an aurally responsive person.  As a young child I used to rock myself to sleep every night as my radio played the pop/r&b hits of the early to mid-sixties.  The Jackson Five and Aretha, didn’t disturb my sleep at all; their music was my path to rest.  It would wrap me in its rhythmic tones and provide a safe place to surrender into the trance of sleep.

In pursuing a less dogmatic and more mystical journey of faith I have found immense help through the use of binaural recordings that stimulate the brain to produce wavelengths that are conducive to experiencing meditative, reflective and creative states of mind.  Other wavelengths aid my attention deficient mind to focus, read and study.  This is not a new phenomenon at all but simply an ancient one making use of new technologies.  Spiritual practice based on sound and music is found in every religion and particularly in the mystical traditions. There are Gregorian chants, the Hindu mantras, Sikh hymns, Tibetan Buddhist chanting and Hebrew Psalms. King David’s intimacy with God seems to have been strongly connected to both his connection with creation as a shepherd living in the fields and under the stars as well as the music that gave voice to His communion with creator.

Perhaps due to my Pentecostal roots I prefer my meditation to take a noisy path to solitude.  I use entrainment recordings, and am also learning to produce my own chants and intonations while being attentive to the effect of particular vibrations on my consciousness, my sense of well being and my emotional state.  At times this practice has produced profound experiences of connection and liberation that I would liken to “feedback” (when the vibration coming from within connects to the source) producing a transformation and magnification of the vibration that is beyond the self.  It is not I finding God, nor is it God coming to me from out there.  It is rather the source encountering the source in the creation and for a moment we have “divine feedback”. 

When feedback hits the auditorium all activity momentarily ceases and everyone gives full attention to the phenomenon.  Conversations stop, heads turn, people cover their ears and squeeze their eyes shut. When inner feedback is experienced the ceaseless chatter of thought is silenced and we are immersed in the great silence. For a moment the myth of separation is consumed by the critical mass of the vibration that has encountered itself in an amplified environment. The trumpet shall sound….and we shall be changed.  The mountains shall tremble at His voice and the feedback of Her almighty Marshall stacks! Rock On Great Spirit