INTERESTING TIMES

Contemporary Western postural yoga projects an authenticity and unbroken ancient heritage onto the yogic tradition, while mourning the commodification, secularization and denuding of that tradition by the West. Such lamentation belies the fact that modern postural yoga is a creature of fabrication and reinvention.
--Farah Godrej

I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. We don't feel natural or balanced. When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.
~ Byron Katie

Radical self love

In the tantric tradition it is said that chaos is 'extremely good news.' When you are willing to enter into your neurosis, your confusion, and your hopelessness, you approach the threshold of the sacred world. No matter where you look, all you see is path. Nothing is out of place and every state of mind is shown to be valid and workable. Even your most disturbing emotions are revealed to be of the nature of light, sent to magically evoke the infinite qualities of love buried within the darkness.

It is risky to let in the possibility that you are not broken, are not a mistake, and are not in need of fixing; that you could actually fully step into this world and participate right here and right now – that you need not wait until certain feelings are present or absent, for the right 'partner' or groovy spiritual career to show up, or for things to look quite the way you thought they were supposed to. If you will let her, the beloved will come in at once and remove all of this, leaving you naked before the truth of your illuminated presence.

Here, you will no longer be able to hide out from your unique natural perfection, pretending you are unworthy. You will no longer be able to assert your unlovability as you discover that what you are is love itself. You see so clearly that there is no 'you' here and 'love' over there; this old idea has been burned up in the fires of transmutation. When you are no longer able to conclude that a mistake has been made, you will see that even your neurotic spinning is weaved of particles of luminosity, brilliance, and intelligence.

Please do not postpone your participation here until things look the way you thought they would. Love is here now. And is burning up in its longing to move through you to set this world on fire.

~Matt Licata

"Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you
were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed,
eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part
of it?" ~Richard Dawkins

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe
as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves
of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."
~Carl Sagan

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger
than we can imagine."
~Sir Arthur Eddington (1882 - 1944)

"Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of
any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me."
~Neil deGrasse Tyson
www.tinyurl.com/TysonSpirituality

“Spirituality is about being awake. It’s the attempt to transcend
the mundane, sleepwalking experience of life we all fall into, to
tap into the wonder of being a conscious and grateful thing in
the midst of an astonishing universe. It doesn’t require religion. ”
~Dale McGowan, author of "Atheism for Dummies"

Lately I keep hearing people talk about what they "resonate with". It is how people choose their spiritual paths. "The Lakota (path) is the one I find I resonate best with." And it is how many in complementary medicine decide which modalities to practice. An intelligent and lovely young woman "resonates" with UNDA numbers and believes that homeopathic "drainage" is how she should practice medicine. She would take a patient off a proven medicine to give them what she resonates with. A charismatic professor "resonates" with muscle testing and so uses it to decide what medicines to give.

I take issue with this. If we rely on psychological resonance to help us make decisions, what are they really based on? The attractiveness of the proposition to our subconscious mind? The degree to which it fits with what we already believe? This method for making decisions about important matters is unscientific and terribly dangerous. It might be appropriate for chosing a metaphysical practice, but is it really suitable for making decisions about how to practice medicine? I think NOT. Intuition has its place, but it cannot and should not completely replace rational thought. Unconscious competence comes only after years of conscious education.

In whatever tradition they occur, spiritual practices focuessed on an awareness of interbeing tend to have the intriguing psychological side effect of bringing significant earthly happiness to their most devoted practitioners, almost regardless of external circumstances.
--Martha Stout, Ph.D., in The Sociopath Next Door, p212-213.