Raiders of the Lost Spark

This past Thursday, I delivered a speech entitled “Eat, Pray, Love… Gratitude“. Inspired by the book Eat, Pray, Love, I was made aware of the parallels between the book and my own growth/development and chosen path in life.

Eat: Raw and living foods. Even though I am detoxing and relatively miserable at times, I know it’s a temporary state and I’m willing to push through it. The fact is: I am more concerned these days with what comes out of my mouth, rather than satisfying addictions going into it. I miss eating certain things, but I am enjoying and relishing the process and learning experiences that come with having to deal with one’s feelings head on… I can no longer eat them!

Pray: My growing involvement with church/activities. I am finding my new community to be loving, inspiring, and supportive. I’m happy to be a part of it. I am attending weekly service, as well as a Bible Study and Encounter Group. This is becoming an important part of my spiritual journey.

Love: My relationship. Am I really considering committing myself to someone with 2 young children? Am I willing to put aside most of the “me” to become a “we”. The answer is yes. I love him deeply and want to spend my life with him. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say this – calmly, rationally, and without a drink or 5 2. Everything I am and will be, I want to share with him.

I eat. I pray. I love… 1 Cor 13:13b “But the greatest of these is love.”

The Altered State of Silence

Kierkegaard, likely the greatest Protestant Christian mind of all time, said:
“If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence.“

I never used to enjoy silence. I always needed dialogue. This constant need often manifested in detrimental ways. Constant external dialogue left me in a state when I was also in a constant state of internal chatter. Quietly reflecting was akin to obsessing as I couldn’t stop the noise; I was unable to enter a state of contemplation without fixating. I attribute part of my current near-bliss state to embracing silence as a daily requirement. Yoga, meditation, contemplation. Despite the doctrine and dogma, this is one of the reasons I enjoy going to various church services. They provide the environment for me to enter this place of quiet reflection. With this practice comes an increase of patience, tolerance, understanding, and joy. Kierkegaard was certainly wise.

I am finally going to explore the Kalpa Bhadra Buddhist Centre in Guelph:

“Heart Jewel” with Lamrim meditation

The Heart Jewel sadhana together with meditation on the Lamrim ( Stages of the path to enlightenment ) is the daily practice of all Kadampa Buddhists. Engaging in this practice we receive the blessings of all enlightened beings. Through the power of these blessings we make progress in our practice of Lamrim. Heart Jewel practice is especially powerful to increase and protect our wisdom and with wisdom we can always solve our daily problems.

Since my early days as a hopeful student of fine art/art history (eventually I went into Classics instead, however), I have loved the art of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Of special interest are works with either a devotional or mythological theme. On my weekend visit to Ottawa’s National Gallery, I was transfixed by the below piece. Lacking the gentleness of a Madonna or the sensuality of a Venus, this painting by Hans Baldung was rather shocking in comparison to the works of his contemporaries.

Eve, the Serpent, and Death c. 1510-1515

The themes of the Fall of Man and the Dance of Death can be seen in this work, influenced by the Protestant Reformation and Renaissance humanism. This painting is evocative and erotic. Lust and death are linked, as an seductive Eve, apple in hand, grasps the tail of the serpent while casting a veiled glance at a fallen Adam, who, in a decomposed state, has been transformed into the figure of Death. Baldung, a Northern Renaissance artist, produced several memento mori in painting and print, incorporating both secular and religious iconography.

For the past couple of years, I have been considering this program at the American Institute of Holistic Theology. I was, and am, still considering applying for the MA program at WLU, but I feel strongly drawn to the program at AIHT instead. I have always been a fan of distance learning, and I am very interested in the curriculum.

I have had a long-standing fascination with many of the gurus from India.

It started when I first read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. It filled me with hope and joy, made me laugh, and left me scratching my head in confusion at several intervals. Once of the questions is raised in me is: Why are some religions all-encompassing while other are very exclusionary?
	Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda. He wrote a book entitled “The Holy Science”, which was a comparison of the similarities between Christianity and Hinduism. His views were quite similar to Swami Vivekananda, “to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one God…”
Swami Vivekananda brought Jnana Yoga teachings in Vedanta form to North America in the early nineteenth century. After the death of his guru, Sri Ramakrishna, he renounced the world and spent the remainder of his days as a wandering monk. Most interesting were his viewpoints on religion: “All narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion have to go. All sect ideas and tribal or national ideas of religion must be given up. That each tribe or nation should have its own particular God and think that every other is wrong is a superstition that should belong to the past. All such ideas must be abandoned.” “Religions must also be inclusive and not look down with contempt upon one another, because their particular ideals of God are different.”

My question thus remains: Why is it so much easier for the East to accept such notions than the West? Obviously it is easier to bring monotheism into a polytheistic world view (than the other way around), but the wisdom of these gurus seems much more likely to promote world peace and thus I find it perplexing that more people are not willing to be inclusive with their religious views. Now, more than ever, people need to come together and work toward the greater good of everyone, and the greater good of the planet – not separating ourselves from our fellow human beings.

“Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace”

This is an interesting teaching from A Course in Miracles. This line resonated very strongly with me. I have always been a very goal-oriented person, and often this aspect of myself has caused me a great deal of stress. What is the purpose of goals? Many of them revolve around personal aspirations and achievements, and therefore are ego-based, hence there is a desire for a person to be “special”. This type of thinking separates us from other people. I am certainly not suggesting that people need to give up their goals, but this is a personal reminder to myself that having loftier and more altruistic goals may make me happier in life.

Some years ago, I had a small tattoo of an Alpha and an Omega (Classical Greek letters) placed on my upper back. Little did I know that this had religious connotations: Revelation 1: 8 in the King James Version, when the phrase “I am the alpha and the omega” was used.

Having been raised Roman Catholic, I fell away from my church in those rebellious teenage years, feeling it had little to offer me and that perhaps there was something else. Over the years, I have had many experiences in this arena: attending Baptist and Pentecostal services (there is something particularly appealing to me about the charismatics), visiting Buddhist templates and a Sikh Gudwara, and reading about Witchcraft and Paganism. I decided to do some post-graduate work at WLU in Religion and Culture – Asian Spiritual Disciplines, The Historical Study of Jesus, Psychology and Religion, and Cults and New Religious Movements. What I learned from all of this is that, putting aside some of the NRMs which I studied, a case can be made in favour of all of the major paths of belief in the world. I don’t think there is a correct or an incorrect answer – I certainly don’t have one, and I’m comfortable with this.

Now, at the onset of my research into my thesis for my Masters of Metaphysical Science, I realize that I am stumped for a topic. Maybe I should attempt a synthesis of all of the major world religions and see what I can come up with? It would be reminiscent of the story of “Stone Soup“.

Inspirational quote of the week: “Small heroes master their enemies. Big heroes master themselves” – Rumi