Spiritual Beliefs

At work my co-workers and I had a big discussion about God and the nature of reality.  John is a Christian, Mike is Rosicrusian and although I too am studying the Rosicrusian text I don’t consider myself partial to anyone belief.  I actually study any and all religions, philosophies, science and mystical and occult phenomenon because I think they all tell a little bit of truth about something that can not really be explained rationally.

Each of us had a spiritual belief of sorts.  John wasn’t pushy about christianity although he did mentioned his spiritual belief of having Jesus as a way to talk to God.  I believe any of us can have the same access to God that Jesus did.  He did say: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

But it is just a belief.

What Bruce Lee Taught me about Religions

“Don’t think…FEEL. It is like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not concentrate on the
finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory…you understand?”

I have gotten so caught up in forms, organizations and dogma that I lost track of what these forms were pointing to.  So I’ve given up those trappings and in that way I’ve returned to my early childhood of just listening and feeling the truth within.

My Religious & Spiritual Journey

Dharmapalooza 2006

Here is where I’m going today, Dharmapalooza.  Unfortunately, I can only go for one of the three days and only to hear Zen Master Genpo Roshi speak.   Next week I’ll be coming back to Boulder for a book signing with Ken Wilber on his new book Integral Spirituality.

from Stuat Davis’ blog

Bring it. Oh, eht’s ah-eddy beh’ brough-EN!! You’re all invited, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, Atheists, Sikhs, and Bahai! (Ahem. Sorry, no Scientologists). We want you all. Just bring your love and get ready to rock.

Every year, I host this special event, Dharmapalooza. We get together, meditate, learn some new stuff about love and being a human, and we party our asses off at a killer rock ‘n roll show. This year is going to be the best one ever. Are you kidding me? We have landed the ultimate special guest: Zen Master Genpo Roshi. You do not want to miss this event, and you will if you don’t secure a reservation. There are 100 spots available. No more, no less. They will go fast.

Here’s the skinny:

When: October 27, 28, and 29.
Where: Boulder, Colorado. Events will take place at the Shambhala Buddhist Center in downtown Boulder and at Trilogy Music Club (they are right across the street from each other).
How Much: $99 (US). That price includes a full day of Big Mind with Genpo Roshi, a live concert with Stuart Davis (and band) at Trilogy, and one meal. All attendees must arrange and pay for their own travel to and from Boulder, accomodations while here, transportation to all locations, and meals. The fee is due upon arrival on Friday Night, and it goes toward covering rental cost of the music club, meditation center, staff for each event, and Genpo Roshi’s travel and expenses. I am just out to break even on this one, and this is the lowest fee we can charge and still do that.

The event schedule is:

10.27 7pm, Group Dinner at Red Fish
10.28 10am, Shambhala Meditation Center, Boulder / Introduction by Stuart
10:15 Meditation
11am Lunch (on your own)
12:30pm Big Mind with Genpo Roshi
6pm Group Dinner at Trilogy (restaurant side)
8pm Stuart Davis Concert at Trilogy (music club side)
10.29 12 Noon Group Lunch at Immersive Studios, Boulder (this is where attendees get to do their thing, perform, exchange info, etc.)

To reserve a spot, email Stuart directly stating how many people will be in your party. First come, first reserve, 100 spots only. The Trilogy show will be open to the public (and you will get in free) but all other events are closed and for attendees only.

My Religious/Spiritual Journey

I’ve had an interesting spiritual journey. When I was between the ages of 7-11 there was no reason to rationalize religion, meaning, truth, spirituality ect. I just happily knew that all was well. There was an innocent, unchallenged knowing of infinity and all things possible.

I think that all went down the tubes between the ages of 12-13. I had some sort of breakdown. I started really thinking about the problems in the world. I started to blame humanity for all suffering (the planet, plants, animals and of course other humans). I started to really wonder about life. I wondered if life was even worth living because everything seemed wrong. Things were bad at home, but my struggle was more internal. I was depressed and hungry for a knowledge that seemed non-existent. If there was anytime in my life that I could have commited suicide, this would have been it.

Between 13-14 years of age, I started going to my best friend’s Southern Baptist church. The moment I started reading the bible I was addicted to the words in red. Some of what this hippie was saying blew my flippin’ mind. But the Baptist church was so traditional that it seemed like everyone was going through the same old motions they’d done a million times. The spiritual juices had dried up centuries ago. It seemed like ALL tradition even the preacher’s sermon.

I eventually went to a Pentacostal church. These people brainwashed me. I got the “holy ghost” and it was all over. I actually had a spiritual experience. It was like a shot of energy through my body. It reminds me of the song we used to sing, “its like fire shot up in my bones.” I was witnessing to other kids, reading my bible everytime I got the chance. I stopped watching T.V. for a while, I would fast, pray consistently and I stopped cursing for a very long time. Needless to say, those days are gone. According to all my old Pentacostal friends, I am the worst kind of sinner, a backslider. According to them, not only am I going to hell, it’ll be like a cop going to prison.

In the end it was the denominational thing the pushed me away. You see, every sect (denomination) of christianity (i.e. baptist, penocostal, jehova’s witness) believes that all the other will go to hell. So who is right? Further more, what about the billions on Earth who have never even heard of Jesus? Will they go to hell? I guess I just have to many questions to retain a dogmatic view of the world.

The last thing I did as a traditional christian (non-denominational) was street preach. I did that at about 15 with some other insane christians. We went to the most decayed part of Lodi, CA right in the middle of about fifty homeless and start preaching. I was scared out of my mind. Not of the homeless but of giving a sermon. I don’t even recall what I said, but I’m sure it was bullshit.

The first real doubt about the current state of christianity came to me via a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail, by Micheal Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. This book is about Jesus being married to Marry Magdalene and having kids (which by the way is the premise of the Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown). I don’t know whether this is true or not but the mere mention of this sent tears rolling down my eyes. It wasn’t so much the idea of Jesus being less than a pure God as much as it was the culmination of everthing else that I had read. I’d been reading about the beginings of what is today called Christianity.

I read about how the Roman Catholics set everything up by streamlining the bible (about 100 A.D. there were many sects of followers of Jesus one was Irenaeus who had the ear of the Romans) and burning books and killing whatevery they considered heretical, the nag hammadi, the truth behind christmas and Easter (superimposed over pagan religious holidays which traditional christians oppose). Today, this is just interesting facts but back then it was like someone ripped out my heart. I started to wonder what else was a lie…

At 16-18, I started expanding into other traditions, philosphies and religions. I looked into buddhism, vedic texts, Upanishads, Immanuel Swedenborg, theosophy. I even looked at a book on Satanism (living life via complete selfish ego… fuckin’ crazy). I just wanted to know what was going on and began to feel that there was a connection between all of them.  Some thread of truth stringing them all together.
When I was about 17 or 18, my cousin introduced me to Eckankar. The first book I saw was called, the Far Country, by Paul Twitchell. The cover is something I will NEVER forget. It was a painting of Paul on a mount Everest peak at the feet of a spiritual master who was pointing the way. Just the picture alone brought tears to my eyes. It was freedom. The freedom to come and go beyond the trappings of this world. I dove in with both feet. It had some amazing experiences, dreams and met some wonderful people. Once again my belief was shook. I started hearing that some old master named Darwin Gross that had been kicked out. Then I kept stumbling upon some dude named David Lane who REALLY, REALLY seemed to hated Eckankar. I wonder why. Honestly, I probably would have writen him off as a lunatic if it hadn’t been for Eckankar trying to sue him.

After reading as much as I could stand of what he had to say, I was done with Eckankar and the entire “new age” movement. Basically, what I learned was that most (if not ALL) Eckankar and “new age” movements were almost exact replicas of what religions and spiritual lineages in India. I knew this about most of the new agers, but some of the plaigerism is so bad its hilariously sickening. (check out Path of the Master, by Julian P. Johnson)

Having spent most of my 20′s in the military in spiritual limbo, I am now in my 30s.  I am not willing to throw out the teachings of Jesus just because some organizations have tried to subjugate people for power.  Nor am I willing to toss out the source material on which Eckankar was founded. I’ve learned a lot from both organizations. They have served their purpose as pointers to something greater.  For a while, I was very bitter about religions and their negative affect on people, but the positive affect can’t be understated.  Religion (in my oppinion) is an amazing guide for humanity toward something that is infinite and will always remain unmanifest.  Religions is not really at fault, for every word that seeks to explain and every form that seeks to imitate the infinite is a lie because it is so beyond anything that we can express as finite beings.
Lately, my goal has been to connect everything I’ve learned into on cohesive map pointing to truth. What I have found is the rosicrusian order and the Ken Wilber’s studies on integral spirituality.  The ultimate lesson I learned in what is now a 22 year journey can be summed up in what I once heard Bruce Lee say,

“Don’t think…FEEL. It is like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory…you understand?”
I have gotten so caught up in forms, organizations and dogma that I lost track of what these forms were pointing to.  So I’ve given up those trappings and in that way I’ve returned to my early childhood of just listening and feeling the truth within.

Holographic Universe beyond matter

The Holographic Model is presented at lenth by many renound philosophers.  It actually goes in much more detail then what the video summarized about our reality being an image in our brains and into realities beyond, layers of reality and the complete illusion of reality.  Ken Wilber talks about it in his book, Holographic Paradigm.  You can also read more about it in Holographic Universe, Mike Talbot.  Many other scientists (neurologists, physicists, ect) use this model because it does well in explaining the “holon” nature of  reality. (Holon = a whole as parts of another whole. Like whole molocules forming a whole organism)

What is really Amazing is this:
Spiritual teaching have been explaining the nature of reality as layered deminsion of illusions for HUNDREDS of years:

plato -

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/plato.html

Hinduism -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(Hinduism)

Christianity -
*gnostic roots – successfully destroyed by Roman Catholic church who used to be pagan:

http://www.leaderu.com/popculture/gnosticmatrix.html

islam – http://www.secretbeyondmatter.com/islamicscholars.html

perenial philosophy-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy

There is something beyond that neither science or religion can adequately explain.  Mystics, shaman, spiritual teachers, and madmen (like eckhart tolle) of nearly every culture have had glimpses of it.  Their explaination is so transformative these beings typically gain a following of fans, disciples, apostles, priests (ect.) that end up starting a religions.  The religions (without fail) get subjegated by whoever is in power so that they can gain more power.

This is true for Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.  At their core, the mystics behind these religions are actually saying the same thing.  Religion is chock full of BS like ethnocentricity, sexism, tribalism and other methods of control.

Whether you believe in the now mythic figures who brought the truth or not is really irrelevant.  The beauty is in what they were pointing at.  Science is on the very begining edge of that.

All the stuff about Allah at the end was getting into some of the more deeper ideas about the universe being a reflection of something infinite and perfect.

Religious Scarcity of Truth vs. Mystical Wealth of Truth

What got me out of traditional Christianity was the denomination wars.

Penacostals said that all baptists were going to hell and some baptist said the same about the Penacostals.

This is because each of these denominations, like many other traditional religions, believe that they have a monopoly on truth. Truth and enlightenment, for those who claim a trademark on them, is very rare and very scarce. So they horde it and keep it for themselves everyone else be damned.. literally. It is an idea so sacred and holy that it is worth killing for. Just look at fundamentalist Islam.

As I’ve been studying and following more mystical and meditative type paths, I’ve noticed that many of them don’t hold the same ideas about truth. A buddhist will talk openly to a Kabbalah Rabbi for example, where it is not as easy to get a Christian and a Muslim (or even a traditional Jew and a Christian) to talk very frankly and openly.

I believe this maybe due to their views of who has owns the patent on truth.

Nevertheless, I think that religion is necessary in the same way that government is in the current stage of humanity. It can turn ugly at times but it also has a moral center that is important for human evolution.

It is important that we have a more inclusive, respectful view of other cultures/religions and what level they are at. It is just unfortunate no one else seems to agree.

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