Creating a Common Spiritual Language

Spiritual Experience and the World

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Many people around the world have had what could be described as a Spiritual Experience. This is such a common phenomenon that many religions have varied names for them…. whether revelation, synchronicity, God speaking, etc….These experiences can be described as revelatory and can often direct someone’s daily choices to their entire life. Many cultures have found ways to induce or access these realms or experiences, whether through meditation, shamanic Journeying, prayer, etc.. Some people in Society are born with natural abilities to access these realms, while others grow into them, and others may never tap into them. These experiences bring us beyond our mind and ego and help us see the larger picture. This is critical as the ego and mind are simply tools to help us work in this world, but can often fall short in connecting the dots of the larger picture that we need to work for. This is where spiritual revelations are so critical. These experiences help us get beyond the self preservation that the mind and ego were developed for and help us recognize the larger goal of our individual and collective lives on this planet. Without this we may never have reached the heights of success that humanity is currently experiencing. Many of our greatest thinkers who have sculpted this expanding, amazing world we have come to know were inspired but such experiences.

To engage in these experiences it is critical that one applies Ethics as this will help direct a successful experience Without it, one can get lost in Dogma or general confusion as to their life and direction in context of the greater whole. Thus one must always seek the highest with an open mind to have a successful experience. This, again is where debate with others can help achieve these goals. If there is divisive ill will when entering the experience then it will fall short of creating a harmonious planet and thus is not worth engaging in at this critically important time for the human success of the human species.

In order to complete the journey and fulfill the mission one gathers from the experience one must learn how to fulfill the knowledge gathered in the real world. This is the most critical piece of the journey for without it, one will not fulfill why they engaged in the process in the first place. This is of critical importance. One can learn more about this process through Joseph Campbell’s “Power of Myth”.

Duality, Satan and the evolution into Oneness

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So being brought up as a Catholic there was always lots of talk about Satan and evil. However, as I got older I recognized that the black and white line of duality wasn’t always so clear…. it often times was different shades of gray. As I evolved into Eastern thought and traditions I began to see that in order to have light one must have dark, that the two balance each other out and in fact help the human soul evolve through this planet towards the light and ultimately beyond duality. However, I once heard that Swami Kaleshwar said, after stepping off a plane in Las Vegas, that Satan walked on this ground. This left me wondering exactly what he meant by such a comment, especially after I had thought I had walked away from such a concept. After much research and inquiry through deep judeo/christian teachings on the subject along with listen to great Theologians and teachers such as Rudolph Stiener & Joseph Campbell, I began to recognize that Mastering duality is one aspect of our Human maturation, however, another aspect is mastering the self and its selfish desires, hence Jesus temptations in the desert…. which were all ego-centric temptations offered by Satan. The first half of the journey of the Human soul on this planet is self-centered as we learn to master our true capabilities and take care of our basic needs. This, however evolves into the second half of the human journey, the realization that my well being and growth is ultimately reliant on the development of others, not just humans, but all conscious and sentient beings. This is where the realization comes in that we are all connected. This is offering the structural foundations for the evolution of the entire planet, which is so critical at this time in human history. A time that sees the true completion of the first half of the human journey, which is completed by seeing our true potential fully exemplified. The first half of this journey in the development of the individual has created this human crisis we are currently in. This has now created a time when our future success is now wholly founded on the success and balance of every other sentient being in relation to each other, human and non-human. This is why it is so critical that we all overcome those selfish tendencies that Satan seeks to embody in us and learn to overcome his challenge, by serving others and seeing the divinity in each other. This over comes the task and temptation which Satan was created for, that of tempting humans into self interest and gratification through material attachment. However when we see it all created by god and learn to serve god and its creation through alleviating the suffering of others, this then brings us all closer to divinity, as exemplified by Jesus. Afterall, God asked Satan to serve Humanity, yet he didn’t want to and only wanted to serve God, so God condemned him to hell where he could not see the face of God….. A place where we are all coming from and learning to evolve beyond by seeing the divinity of all of gods creation and learning to serve all of it, which takes us beyond the duality created by God.

     So Las Vegas, I came to understand, is none other than the capital of Self Centered behavior on every level, and why Swami Kaleshwar would say that Satan walked that ground. So learning to overcome duality through unconditional love as part of our evolution on this planet while also not judging, as Jesus taught is how we can evolve through this Dualistic world, as the east so astutely teaches. However, overcoming Satan and our self centered desires through seeing the divinity in others and then serving and empowering them is how we can evolve into one Co-Creative, globally harmonized human family, one that serves the family of all life.

God of the Sky, God of the Earth

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So for the last 10,000 years we’ve been moving towards a Masculine God of the sky as commonly exemplified through our Judeo/Christian traditions. Now the interesting correlation is that most Masculine cultures and deities arise in Deserts, a place so harsh that God the Mother is often denied, or dead, given her creation is minimal. Deserts, from what many speculate are human artifacts, except for the Australian Outback, which happens to be the oldest continent on Earth.

So How are these deserts created? Well first comes Deforestation, where the timber is used for varied things like building, heating, Ship Building, etc. Then comes annual Agriculture, which interestingly enough seems to have come about around the same time as the rise of Masculine God. Now the trouble with Annual agriculture is that over a short time all the nutrients wash out of the soil, which then requires fertilizers. Now if your rain cycles come from the ocean then one can resort to grazing and fortunately the ecosystem in these climates will regenerate much quicker since there is water (ie Northern Europe & the Eastern US) Now if your rain is based on forest cycles (approximately 60% of all inland rain is generated by forests.) then when we cut down our trees these rain cycles dry up, creating dryer and dryer feedback loops. Prairies are a last horah or the first steps in recover, depending on where the ecosystem was before.

Why Religions? Why Spiritual Permaculture?

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After  reading David Holmgren’s Book “Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability” which I finished in his living room, and having one on one discussions with him about the holistic view of the world, I recognized that David’s reference in his book about the potential of Permaculture in laying the foundations for a spirituality or dare I say a “religion” had a lot of potential (“Religio” means to link back – J. Campbell). When one steps out of the structure of religions one begins to realize that they all serve one purpose: Harmony. That is, Harmony within ourselves, within our community, with humanity as a whole, with nature, with future and past generations and with, as much as possible, the 96%? of the unseen, as quantum physics says is outside of the material realm (which matter is really just slow vibrating energy, which when burned is released in high vibrational energy as heat and light…. no wonder we love that stuff…. versus freezing to death in cold and darkness!). This is the common thread they all hold. All the old local traditions did exceptionally well at explaining these aspects when placed in their smaller understanding of how the world works (Joseph Campbell & Bill Mollison have shed some wonderful insight into how traditional cultures did this in their native landscapes, whether it was Polynesians, Aborigines, Bedouins, or you name it). Yet when taken out of their native landscape and brought into the face of our expanded world view, thanks to science, many fail to help us understand how that fits into this new world understanding of science and human advancement.

The major world religions of today that we have all come to know often times are removed from their native landscape and have done so either by focusing on the “One” God (often in the sky) or by focusing on bringing peace within individuals or communities. This has allowed many of them to expand from their native landscapes without loosing relevance. This has also allowed the growth and evolution of humanity into a globally interconnected species. This has also resulted in the expansion of the Human population primarily by turning ecological capital into humanity and society (from 1 Billion to 7 billion in the last 150 years). However, this has often been to the neglect of our earth, and ultimately to our own detriment, as we are currently witnessing across the globe ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and ultimately desertification, where very small populations of humans can survive. This is where our modern day holistic science, ecology and design combined with morals, ethics and a focus on Cooperation and Positivism (aka Permaculture) can lend themselves to the healing and rebuilding of the earths biological capacity and thus human population capacity (although we will have to get responsible with our reproduction out of respect to our future generations) in our quickly approaching post fossil fuel world .

As we work with the Permaculture Principles and design methods they can lend themselves to the key foundations of creating Harmony again. The question remains, how do we apply positivism and cooperation between our Spiritual traditions and cultures across the globe (a Niche analysis if you will). We must also understand what the roll of the mystical experience that each tradition teaches and how these apply to permaculture and our daily lives in the world. We will also explore how we create a new Holistic Myth, if you will, that incorporates all this. One that is Positive, cooperative and helps us see humanity as one very successful family/species on this planet that now must learn to take responsibility for its amazing capacity and powerful actions and learn to heal the damage on all levels. This is why Spiritual Permaculture and what this Blog will address.