All Considering » Spiritual Teachers

Michael Mirdad interview

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:35:59 +0000

As promised, here’s some questions I had for Michael Mirdad, author of ‘You’re Not Going Crazy…You’re Just Waking Up! The Five Stages of Soul Transformation Process’, and his answers.

1. You say that nearly every process of learning is ultimately about understanding and experiencing greater levels of unconditional love (p. 14). What do you mean by ‘unconditional love’ and how would you describe it?

Unconditional love means to love everyone and everything unconditionally. This means loving all without a hesitation of whether or not they are worthy of this love. It also means having respect for everyone and everything. It isn’t the same as the love we often feel as human beings, including romantically. When we love unconditionally, we are expressing the highest form of love that a human being can experience. It’s a Divine expression that exists in the heart and soul of every being–although not yet developed in every being.

2. You say there are three states of mind or levels of consciousness. Can you explain the difference? And how does one avoid over estimating the ‘level’ one is at?

There are basically three levels of consciousness that you will reside in as you go through the soul transformation process: Victims, Students and Masters. Victims allow crisis to destroy them and fail to see any lessons to learn from the ordeal nor do they allow themselves to heal whatever brought the crisis to them. Such behavior of denial usually keeps attracting similar lessons to the Victim–again and again.

Students do their best to participate in the changes life throws at them to improve their lives. This allows them to learn their lessons, as all good Students do, which in turn more likely allows them to move across the bridge to the new, re-building phases.

Masters are individuals who have developed enough spirituality within themselves that they have graduated, more or less, from being mere Students on the path. Masters can be so courageous that they actually don’t wait around for the next change that life throws at them. Instead, they know how to recognize what exactly it is in their life that needs to be dismantled and brought to a new level of experience. Masters choose to initiate changes of anything that would hinder their greater good.

3. You quote a variety of spiritual teachers from East and West, but your main inspiration is ‘A Course in Miracles‘. What’s the most important thing the Course has taught you?

Well, ACIM is certainly one of the most powerful books available and is referenced in the “Crazy” book, I generally don’t associate with it more than other similar materials. Nevertheless, a couple things that the Course shares that almost nothing else has effectively done, is the difference between the ego and the soul, as well as the difference between reality and illusion.

To understand more completely the difference between our Spirit, our soul, and our ego, let’s use the human body as a roadmap of sorts. Our Spirit then resides in the upper three chakras (located in the head and neck); Our humanness resides in the lowest three chakras (located in the root, navel, and solar plexus chakras); and our soul is then located in the remaining center (heart chakra) that sits directly in between our Spirit and our humanness. Our Spirit is the Divine spark or I Am Presence that resides in us all, untouched by our wounds or limiting belief systems.

This is why, how, and where we can literally say that God is within us and yet is also in Heaven. Heaven in this case is high up in the heavens–the heavens that float up above our body and soul–in the upper chakras.

Our soul, on the other hand, is the part of us that believes it can separate from Spirit and is therefore off on some journey down into the “Garden of Eden” (within our hearts) and has begun a journey into the universe. Having then bought into the idea that we have separated from Spirit, gone into the universe on a journey of learning and experience, we fell (from the Eden-like state within our hearts) into an even great state of separation and created the world of our humanness, wherein our newly densified identity (ego) was given the reins to rule and control who we believe we are and chooses for us what is real and valuable and what is not.

So, where we are now is as follows: Spirit is forever sending a loving call for us to return to our True Identity. Our heart and soul hears the call and is always doing all that it can to speak to our fear-based humanness and convince it to release its beliefs and attachments and to rise up and go Home. The ego part of our humanness resists at all costs, knowing that when we rise into love, fear (and its source–the ego) ceases to exist.

Nevertheless, every time we allow ourselves to listen to the higher calling of our Spirit and soul, making healthy choices in our lives and doing all that we can to be loving and forgiving, we dismantle the ego’s hold on us and rise into a higher level of consciousness–closer and closer to our True Nature–God.

4. The three early stages (dismantling, emptiness and disorientation) all sound very painful. Can one speed up the process?

Yes, we can usually speed up the process by practicing responsibility and by learning the lessons that got us into the crisis in the first place. In other words, since we are there to learn, the sooner we do it, and with humility, the sooner we will get to the other side. One of the dangers though, is in our refusing to let go of control. This is certainly the issue that slows us down the most.

5. You describe the goal of the five stages as ‘waking up’. What do you mean by that?

The term “waking up” is meant on a few levels. First of all, it is referring to our need to wake up on a personal level and become more active, conscious participants on our spiritual path. Second, it refers to our need to wake up from the hypnotic control that this illusionary world has over us. In other words, the crisis’ in our lives are literally “wake up” calls to help birth us into becoming spiritual beings and not just human beings.

6. You use the word ‘God’ a lot, but from your occasional references to It, I gather that you’re not talking about a personal God. What’s the meaning of the word ‘God’ here?

As you’ll find in my books and teachings, I often say that God is more likely to be experienced by humans as a feeling–such as love, peace, and joy, rather than seen–such as an actual Being. So in some ways, it’s not personal at all, in the sense that God is not personified or made into a limited being with form. And yet, God is indeed personalized in that it is literally brought into your very heart and soul as a feeling that is tangible and indeed very personal.

7. What’s the relationship between us and God?

Simply stated, God is the part within each of us that remembers our Divine Nature. This Divine Nature is sometimes referred to as our I Am Presence but, by any name, it is all that really exists and is constantly knocking at the door, meaning calling to us from the center of our mind, asking us to wake up and rediscover who we really are.

8. Surrender plays an important part in your book. What does one surrender to? Why is surrender important?

Surrender is crucial in so many ways. Surrender demonstrates that we are open to learning and are willing to release our ego nature. Surrender means that we are open to being guided from a Source that is higher than our limited selves. Surrender is an essential ingredient to get us over the bridge between our old, limited lives to the new life that awaits us when we learn to follow Spirit as our Guide.

PS. I noticed in Katinka’s blog that the Re-Building Stage is not totally understood. The main point here is not that we will now move on the new lessons and problems. The point of making it over that bridge into a new level of love and trust is that when we learn to function from this new level, we tend to attract less problems. Also, if indeed we do have a crisis, we tend to be able to move through them far more quickly and with greater ease. Love & Light, Michael Mirdad

When yoga increases stress: about the teacher

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:28:15 +0000

Yoga is generally sold online and off as a great stress reliever. I can vouch for that: with the right teacher, yoga can be very healthy emotionally. I’ve often come away from a yoga class with a great big smile on my face that was certainly not there before.

However, last week when I was preparing for be my first serious theosophical lecture, and stressing out – and managing my stress – I decided NOT to go to yoga class. Instead I stayed at home, made what physical preparations were to be made and read a book. I avoided yoga class because my teacher is, aside from very good at guiding us through our bodies, a bit emotionally needy.

She makes a big deal about people not coming, about people not drinking tea afterwards, about students not showing up without telling her in advance that they’re not showing up. Paradoxically that was the very reason why I did not come, and I decided so late not to go that I also didn’t phone to let her know.

I did not go because I knew that her emotional neediness, her lack of detachment, was going to increase my stress level if I did go.

I guess that’s why detachment is so important in a spiritual teacher.

Osel Hita Torres – aka Lama Osel goes on to make movies

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:32:06 +0000

This is a true story that someone emailed me because it reminded them of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s story. That is: someone raised to be a teacher, steps outside the tradition that he was brought up in to do something totally different. Lama Osel was born to Spanish parents, but brought up as the reincarnation of Thubten Yeshe. In keeping with traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings he only met his teachers and other children who were thought to be reincarnations of important lamas. Kept away from TV, movies and modern music.

His first disco experience was a shock. “I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?” [The Guardian]

Lama Osel then studied film and went back to using his Spanish name: Osel Hita Torres.

He’s facing the very issue Tibetan Buddhism is facing: how to combine tradition with modernity. This dillemma is wider than that: any and all religions are facing this problem. Islam fundamentalism is one response and Christians too are having to battle with this. What makes Osel’s story all the more poignant is that he was born into a modern western family. If his parents had chosen to raise him Buddhist, but not as a lama, things would have turned out very differently. Or so we can guess.

In Krishnamurti’s upbringing Besant and Leadbeater decided very quickly to make him aquanted with Western mores and habits. To give him a Western education, aside from his spiritual training. That did not prevent him from defecting, but perhaps it’s not too much to say that it helped him in his path.

Osel’s teachers on the other hand decided to keep modernity away from him. As Robert Thurman notes in the Time article about Osel:

Robert Thurman, a Buddhist scholar, former monk and friend of the Dalai Lama, recounts that when told years ago that Hita was to receive a traditional Buddhist education in India he expressed concern. Thurman’s argument: “If he wanted Tibetan traditional [education] he could have reincarnated in a Tibetan family in exile.” The result of the misplacement, he says, is that Hita “has broken away in a full-blown identity crisis.” Thurman thinks that after some time in our “busy postmodern world,” Hita may see the value of the Tibetan tradition, “which he will then be able to approach or not, of his own free choice.” And, he adds, “More power to him!”

The FMPT, the organisation that Osel was selected to be the leader of, is a curious mix of traditional Gelugpa Buddhism (a branch of Tibetan Buddhism) and modernity. It has taken on the conservation of Tibetan Buddhist scholarship by teaching lay people what in earlier times monks learned. It’s therefore a very scholarly tradition. Students (that is the proper word) are expected to not only meditate and take what vows they feel able to take, but also learn Tibetan, learn Gelugpa philosophy and the traditional ways of discussing Buddhist philosophy.

Fate has made sure I know several people active in this foundation in The Netherlands. The following is based on what they told me: while it’s clear that the FMPT is instrumental in keeping a knowledge of the scholarly tradition of Gelugpa Buddhism alive, it is not very successful at bridging the gap to Western people. That is: Westerners, especially Dutch Westerners, aren’t averse to discussing what they learn. In fact, they’re predisposed to do so. BUT to expect them to discuss in the regimental ritualistic way of the Tibetan Lama’s is too much. It’s attempted, but never very successfully. From the perspective of Buddhist history this is only natural. The Tibetan debating tradition started out as just that: people debating Buddhist philosophy. But with the isolation of Tibet, the debates cristalized – and they became memorized.

Now that Tibetan Buddhism has been liberated from Tibet (forgive the expression, will you?), it needs to face the world and reinvent debate. Perhaps, when Lama Osel is finished making films and documentaries, he can come back to the FMPT and help them modernize the forms while retaining the essence? But, from what’s published on the FMPT website, perhaps we may expect even more radical attempts from him. He says there:

Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being. There is no separation between myself and FPMT – we are all working together in so many aspects and terrains. Humanity is our office. Besides, I don’t really qualify very much in Buddhist studies, because I didn’t finish them, so working together is the clue.

So I’m trying to find a different way for this future generation. One of the ways is through music, movies and audio-visual techniques. In a movie you can condense so many different stories. You can put in music, you can put in different situations and messages. Even just the sunset can be enough to give you peace to find a moment of meditation in yourself. There are so many different millions of possibilities in movies.And not just movies, but documentaries actually going somewhere and interviewing people who may have reached a level on their path where they are at peace with themselves, and so much more….!!!

That first sentence does remind me of Krishnamurti’s radical perspective. So let’s repeat it: Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being.

Osel , I’m very curious to see where you’re headed and wonder if you’ll ever step into the shoes of ‘Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche‘ again. But let’s close off with two quotes from the original article in a Spanish magazine that got the whole thing going:

“Osel gets emotional when he sees the Dalai Lama take the floor. If Buddhas really exist. He would be one of them. He is an enlightened one.”

“The responsibility of teaching has always weighed on him. His heart tells him that for the moment he should learn. The literal translation of lama is teacher, and I’m no teacher. A good lama is a person for whom it doesn’t matter what others think about him, and who thinks about others before thinking about himself. That, to me, is being a lama, a good person.”

Limits to quantum mechanics and spiritual freedom

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:41:14 +0000

I’ve been reading Creative Evolution: A Physicist’s Resolution Between Darwinism and Intelligent Design, by Amit Goswami. I’m impressed, the chemist in me (I was taught some quantum physics in college) doesn’t find fault. Nor does the biologist or the philosopher (I took biology and philosophy of religion classes in college too).

But I do have some reservations with the implications of Amit Goswami’s quantum spirituality for our every day lives. And I have quantum physical reasons to back them up too. I hope you all don’t mind a little chemistry lesson today.

Electron orbits

Above you’ll find an image of a carbon atom – as chemists think of it. What you see – the big red balloons – represent the four ‘free’ electrons that carbon has. The other electrons are so close to the carbon core they can’t be shown here.

The electrons shown have some freedom of movement. They have a space of probability where they can be – for each represented by a specific red balloon and a smaller white balloon opposite it.

These four electrons are called ‘free’ because they can pair up with electrons from other particles, other carbon atoms, or oxygen, nitrogen or something else entirely. Carbon is so good at uniting with other elements to form molecules that make up – ultimately – life.

But while those electrons are called free, they still have only limited freedom. It’s precisely their place in the atom that makes the whole thing work. They can combine with other electrons (indeed have to) to form molecules or something, but they are not free to go out of their orbit. The balloon shown here is there space. In quantum terms it’s not clear whether the electron has a place somewhere specific within the balloon, or whether it’s spread out. Indeed, the answer to that question depends on how you measure it (sound familiar?). But for today the main point is something else: that electron has a space to dwell in, and that’s all the freedom it has. Most of its fellow electrons are even more limited: closer to the core they are limited to orbits as circular as most of you have been taught in school, though even in their case it’s a probability orbit, not an ordinary one.

But probability doesn’t mean complete freedom.It’s a freedom within the laws of physics. Freedom within those balloons in my picture.

My point for today is that we’re similarly constrained.

I’ve looked up some videos from Goswami and he sort of agrees. Let’s look at what he says about separateness:

Goswami says here that the dictum is true that we create our own destiny. But in the seventies it became clear that merely creating cadilacs was a bit hard. It became clear that the place from which we CAN create our own destiny is not an ordinary state: it’s in fact satori or moksha or however you want to call it. There is no free lunch. We have to meditate BEFORE we can create our own reality.

I’m saying – even in satori this freedom isn’t total – we still are constrained by the laws of nature.

This of course doesn’t deny the other things Goswami says here: that in the process of reaching Satori or Enlightenment a person becomes much more loving, much more creative, transformed, capable of experiencing reality at a much more subtle level.

Jiddu Krishnamurti and theosophy (and occultism)

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:40:24 +0000

In response to a question by Gino…

Jiddu Krishnamurti is best known for having left the Theosophical Society early in his career. What’s less well known, though described in the biography by Pupul Jayakar is that at the end of his life, in private conversation, he talked about his life in a way that confirms much in the theosophical way of looking at life. For instance on page 382 he talks about having a couple of angels – it sounds like he’s talking about guardian angels. He is telling Radha Burnier to become president of the TS, and that India is still the land of the sacred, though it’s being polluted. In effect it sounds like he wants Radha Burnier (now still president of the Theosophical Society) to help regenerate India’s wisdom, by her becoming president of the Theosophical Society. And he’s saying: want two of my (guardian) angels?

This explains why, at the last election, Radha Burnier insisted on running again – when it became clear that the other candidate would not be living in India if he was elected.

To be clear, here’s what he says about clairvoyance:

Extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, occult powers, cannot free thought from confusion and misery; sensitive awareness of our thoughts and motives, from which spring our speech and action, is the beginning of lasting understanding and love. Mere self-control, discipline, self-punishment, or renunciation, cannot liberate thought; but constant awareness and pliability give clarity and strength. Only in becoming aware of the cause of ignorance, in understanding the process of craving and its dual opposing values, is there freedom from suffering. This discerning awareness must begin in our life of relationship with things, people, and ideas, with our own hidden thoughts and daily action.

But in the context of this biography it is clear that while he doesn’t think clairvoyance is very important, he does NOT deny it’s existence. Or even that it is part of his own life. Just not worth talking about publicly.

Managing the unconscious – about possession and mediumship

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:32:07 +0000

I’m working on a post about channeling and mediumship, but it’s a hard delivery. One of the topics it relates to though is that of managing the unconscious.

Our psychologists are learning a lot about this topic. For instance, in learning anything we’ve always been told repetition is important. What we now know is that rest is important too. A good night’s sleep will give the brain time to integrate what’s been learned today. This is why when learning a language it’s so important to spend an hour a day, instead of 7 hours on one day and then nothing. This helps the unconscious brain – the brain that goes on working while we busy ourselves with other things – have the time in between sessions to get organized.

In the field of anthropology possession is one of the topics that can’t be reduced to ‘culture’. The general pattern is that someone who is of low social status gets ‘possessed’ and brings messages from spirits. The people around that person have to figure out whether the spirits possessing that person are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. In that process the result is usually that the low status person gets more of what she needs, and then the spirit attacks stop. Some people graduate from being possessed to being able to control the spirits. These are called shamans in the anthropological discourse on the topic.

Shamans use their connection to the spirit world to serve their whole tribe. When social structure is changing, you will often find that the culture of possession changes as well. In Sri Lanka for instance more women are finding a position of status through becoming possessed at will. These priestesses have no place in the traditional order, but instead find a niche in the new city scape.

I think what this is partly about is that when someone learns to delve into the subconscious, into states of consciousness that ordinarily we don’t have access to, and learn to control that process, the result is a more integrated personality. That is: such a person has conscious access to cultural forces and emotional aspects of life that other people get guided by unconsciously. This is also one of the values of psychotherapy and one of the reasons people who come out of hard times stronger than before are worshiped in US culture.

People like that transcend the ordinary limits of life, and go on to create something new. Something better. Society rewards them by giving them status and listening to what they have to say. Though honestly, sometimes the message is no more than: ‘you too can overcome adversity’. Which is not always true after all, because part of the reason we’re so in awe, is that it IS hard to transcend what IS.

The debate about mediumship is hard – because the question is: is this person at the mercy of their subconscious, or have they integrated and transcended it? In other words: is what they bring merely emotionally comforting, or do they have something new to add? Have wise insights to add, or are they dressing a poisoned wound without cleaning it?

Rudolf Steiner and theosophy – about local versus universal wisdom

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:30:59 +0000

I’ve been reading ‘Rudolf Steiner Erdenleben und Werken’ (aka: Rudolf Steiner‘s earth life and works) by G. Wachsmuth. It’s a good biography, though obviously written by someone who is a fierce devotee of Steiner. He tells Steiner’s story as Steiner might have wanted it told. For my purposes this is good: I want to know the ideals, the mythology of Anthroposophy, as much as I want to learn the facts of his day to day existence.

I’ve not finished the book yet – I’m still reading about the years that Steiner was a member of the Theosophical Society. But it’s already clear that Steiner has his own priorities when it comes to where he needs to go – and they have nothing to do with the Theosophical Society. Because Wachsmuth is so very thorough in reporting just what Steiner said on important topics in what year, it is clear that Steiner already had great misgivings about the TS before he left it/was expelled. From my perspective those misgivings were hypocritical, but we’ll get to that later.

Let’s start with Steiner’s mission on earth, as he probably saw it: he wanted to integrate Western Wisdom with the esoteric tradition. He wanted to bring out the underlying truths in Goethe’s work, as well as other philosophers of the ‘Abendland’. Abendland is German for what has been called the Occident, or the Western World. It’s clear from the way the term is used though that it’s a more specific cultural stream than that: those people who have united in their culture the Roman, German and Christian heritage.

We should remember that Steiner lived to see the decline of Germany as one of the great superpowers until it lost in World War 1. Dying in 1925, he did not live to see the Great Depression, which would hit Germany hard and would prepare it for Hitler.

What Steiner was in effect doing, I think, was standing up for Germanic wisdom – and bringing it up to date with the spiritual and scientific insights of the time. He integrated the most important of theosophical ideas into his anthroposophy: karma, reincarnation and human spiritual evolution. Though of course he gave a personal spin on the latter concept. I say ‘of course’ because no one has been able to do otherwise on that topic. It turns out to be very hard to wrap every detail up in a vision of human spiritual evolution. The latest to try that I know of is Ken Wilber, but Blavatsky had preceded Steiner in the attempt.

Steiner saw the theoretical bend of most theosophical lectures and didn’t like it at all. For instance he once reported on discussions about building schools, creating magazines and other things. He felt that instead of discussing such things, one should just do them (p. 140). Can’t help but admire someone like that. In the doing many of the questions one has in advance will iron themselves out. Usually plans and their execution are very different things – so to just act is often a good idea. One can always change things that don’t work or aren’t in line with one’s vision.

It would not be fair to Steiner to suggest he didn’t take in the Eastern Wisdom the Theosophical Society brought to the West. He did. He lectured on topics like Buddha and Christ. His conclusion was always that there were initiates all over the world: Buddha being one of them. But Christ was special. His dying for humanity at Golgotha was a landmark occasion in human spiritual evolution. It changed things fundamentally. In order to iron out inconsistencies in the Bible, he came to the conclusion that there had been two Jesus Children. This makes his Christology rather unique of course.

What’s important for our narrative is that Steiner was busy with a LOCAL version of wisdom. This is fine, as long as it doesn’t become exclusive. Most of us have favorite spiritual stories and ideas, and they’re usually based on the religion we grew up with. However, as president of the German section of the Theosophical Society it was his duty to stand up for the freedom of each person to find truth wherever they could. This is where the paradox or hypocrisy comes in. He did always stress that people should be free to find their own truths and should investigate for themselves. He had this in common with Annie Besant, but didn’t seem to realize it. He felt Besant and C.W. Leadbeater were mostly building up a series of doctrines that people were supposed to either believe or leave.

In the end Steiner did leave. He had already founded the Anthroposophical Society when Annie Besant expelled him for not allowing members of the Order of the Star into the German Section of the Theosophical Society. This is hypocritical because this meant, in effect, that people who decided for themselves to belong to that organization, could not be in his. That meant they had to either believe it, or leave the TS. In other words: he became on this issue what he accused Besant of being. And of course, she had to expel him. It was a set up piece, he knew the time had come for him to go in his own direction. And of course most of his followers, and therefor most of the members of the German Section went with him.

The result is, for better or worse, that the Anthroposophical Society is mostly about Steiner. It has founded schools, created a whole field of alternative medicine, alternative agriculture and much else. Steiner’s teachings have a very practical side to them that has been fruitful in many directions.

In contrast the Theosophical Society (with headquarters in Adyar) is still a place where people come together to try and find universal wisdom. The result is that in the TS there will be lectures on Buddhism, Yoga, Alternative Christianity and Gnosticism. The Theosophical Library in Adyar is world famous for the rare Indian manuscripts it has preserved. There is hardly a topic theosophists won’t discuss. And yes, that has the weakness of being mostly about talking, not doing. Because how can the universal ever become specific enough to guide action? That translation from spiritual to practical is mostly left up to the individual members, though in the area of charity the Theosophical Order of Service does do a lot of good in India, Pakistan, the US and other countries. And in the theosophical spirit it does so without imposing any ideas on people and without regard for people’s background.

For me personally the quest for truth is too important to let local considerations be important. Only when one looks at the whole – the whole of humanity – can understanding of underlying issues be fully understood. This is exemplified by the current economic crisis: it shows that local experts just don’t know enough to deal with a crisis of this kind. It takes a global working together. Similarly, ecological problems don’t limit themselves to the boundaries of countries or cultures. Polluted air goes everywhere. The falling of PH in the seas isn’t limited to Iceland or China. Global climate change is indeed global, even if the effects are very different locally.

More about Steiner and Theosophy.

Sorrow, stress and spirituality

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:23:11 +0000

My mom said good bye to her day job last week. She’s a psychotherapist and had invited a Dutch professor, Dr. Ruart Ganzevoort, who talked about men, spirituality and trauma. (One of my moms specialties was working with men and lately, traumatized men). It was a very interesting lecture and brought home to me something that had somehow not quite registered: that my mother is interested in spirituality too. It really is a family trait.

As I said – a very interesting lecture. For instance, it seems that research has shown that men are likely to become less spiritual or religious after trauma, where women are likely to become more religious/spiritual. Ganzevoort’s theory was that this is because men become more independent and more closed up after trauma. Women too often close up after trauma, but they will become less independent as well – as a general rule. This is partly to do with what society expects of women versus men, of course. Religion tends to make people more social (=less independent) and more open. Which is generally what women do as well. That was the paradigm of the evening anyhow (and my summary of it, without taking notes – hope I got it right).

This means that traumatized men have a particularly hard time. They are less likely to be able to use spirituality as a support – yet when they’ve grown up religious, the religious imagery they grew up with will play a part in their way of dealing with stress whether they like it or not. Why? Because religion and sorrow are interlinked in any spiritual tradition.

Let’s go over a few religious traditions so you’ll see his point:

Buddhism: Buddha left the safe haven of his childhood after having been faced with the truths of old-age, disease and death.
Judaism: The main stories in Judaism are about the persecution of the Jews, how God has punished them and how they survived anyhow.
Christianity: Jesus dies on the Cross, wondering why God has forsaken him.
Islam: Muhammad overcomes his enemies.
Hinduism: The Mahabharata is a story of war and family strife. The Bhagavad Gita confronts the eternal question: should one keep one’s hands clean or live in the world to do one’s duty?
The American dream (aka The Secret): starting out poor and becoming rich through one’s own exertions.

I’m leaving out the theological explanations that make each of these stories palatable to the ordinary believer. That is perhaps one of the functions of religion: to make sorrow and adversity palatable in our day to day lives. But for people who have to face the deeper sorrows – loosing a child, surviving war, incest – these stories are not enough. In the stories there is always a happy end. Buddha finds enlightenment. The Jews will be saved at the end of time. Christ got resurected. Muhammed DID overcome his enemies. The war in the Mahabharata does end. Arjuna finds God. In the American dream the poor person DOES become rich. Those endings are what make the stories palatable. But for those living in poverty without a way out – the fact that some have overcome such things is not always enough. These stories can help one keep going, giving hope, but they can also make one bitter. Why didn’t God save ME?

This is the eternal existential question. In the west it has become crystalized in the question of Evil: if there is a Good All Powerfull God, how come there is Evil? For those of us who don’t believe in a God outside creation, the question changes. But however the question is put – the facts of sorrow, of stress, of adversity and evil can’t be denied. For most of us it’s still possible to believe the universe in general a positive place. We trust we will not be run over by a car on our way to work. We trust that when we ask for directions, we will usually not be lied to. We need this trust. It makes it possible to act. But what if that basic trust gets violated? That’s the question people who have lived through trauma have to face. Religious cliché’s are not likely to help them – whether men or women.I guess that’s where therapy comes in.

[Most of the examples in this blogpost are rephrased from the lecture by Prof. Ganzevoort - just wanted to share]

Disadvantages to kindness…

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:45:59 +0000

Alright – that title is a bit over the top. The thing is, I’ve been pondering the difficulty of managing groups filled with people who all mean well (you’ll read why later on). Or rather – the majority means well, wants to be kind and all that. The disadvantage is… that unkind people can create havoc in such groups.

It’s a classic philosophical problem. I think Pascal formalized it first (please correct me if I’m wrong): In the realm of the ideal Christian (meek, kind, turning the other cheek), the one selfish person is king. So how does one have an organisation, or a community, of people who try to live as ‘a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity‘?

The easiest solution is to scorn all organizations. To keep on migrating online to whatever spiritual forum or ning has not been spoiled yet. The second obvious solution is for the leaders to just get rid of those that they don’t like. This is the solution that has given the Catholic Church such a bad name in certain quarters.

But let’s focus on the reason I’m asking these questions. An online theosophical community has recently faced first the expulsion of a trouble maker – then the expulsion of the moderator who expelled her - then the reintroduction of the trouble maker – then the moderator leaving the community. Yes, I’m taking the side of the moderator on this one. The lady who was expelled had been rubbing me the wrong way for a while.

[edit] I’m not talking about myself. I’m still a member of that community and will remain active there depending on the quality of the conversation. I have NOT been expelled or banned. [/edit]

What happens in such a community full of decent people – is that the person who was expelled gets defended. I think it’s a reflexive defense of the underdog. But if one doesn’t protect the lambs from the wolf, how can the lambs be expected to live? The troublemaker has been making trouble on that forum, and while it’s still active, I expect the atmosphere to deteriorate further.

As an ethical and spiritual question it’s a hard one: when is it kindness to give Love for Anger? And when is it best to be firm and strict? When to ignore misbehavior – knowing that ignoring it may well bore the person who is being a nuisance – and when to step in and say something?

I was terrible at this balance when I was teaching middle school math. I have a tendency to respond to everybody & everything. Online this usually works alright – keeps the conversation going – but I do have to reign myself in when I have nothing kind to say. Recently I’ve been deleting my own comments from this blog for instance.

Getting back to the other reason why this is relevant: the moderator who was expelled and a few others, including yours truly, have started a new theosophical forum. If you want to be invited (it’s invitation only for the moment, though we’ll be going public in a few days), say so in the comments.

In forums the issue is simple: how to have a lively forum where people feel free to express themselves, yet avoid flame wars?

© admin for All Considering, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments |
Posted in : Christianity, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Teachers

Blavatsky on Atlantis

Katinka - Spirituality — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:43:21 +0000

Atlantis is a Western myth that many have written about. The source of all the stories about Atlantis are the Ancient Greeks. In Blavatsky’s words:

The story about Atlantis and all the traditions thereon were told, as all know, by Plato in his “Timæus and Critias.” Plato, when a child, had it from his grand-sire Critias, aged ninety, who in his youth had been told of it by Solon, his father Dropidas’ friend—Solon, one of the Grecian Seven Sages. No more reliable source could be found, we believe. (S.D. Vol. 2, p. 743)

All that which precedes was known to Plato, and to many others. But as no Initiate had the right to divulge and declare all he knew, posterity got only hints. Aiming more to instruct as a moralist than as a geographer and ethnologist or historian, the Greek philosopher merged the history of Atlantis, which covered several million years, into one event which he located on one comparatively small island 3000 stadia long by 2000 wide; (or about 350 miles by 200, which is about the size of Ireland), whereas the priests spoke of Atlantis as a continent vast as “all Asia and Lybia” put together. But, however altered in its general aspect, Plato’s narrative bears the impress of truth upon it. It was not he who invented it, at any rate, since Homer, who preceded him by many centuries, also speaks of the Atlantes (who are our Atlanteans) and of their island in his Odyssey. Therefore the tradition was older than the bard of Ulysses. (S.D. 2, p. 760, 761)

Blavatsky also connects Chinese and Indian mythology to the story (p. 326, 332, 365) and biological and geological evidence of her time (p. 778 etc.) The whole continent of Atlantis was submerged in water, or so the story goes. Blavatsky claims this cataclysm was the source of all stories of Deluges in mythology – including the Bible (idem p. 751).

Harder to believe is Blavatsky’s claim that the inhabitants of Atlantis were giants (p. 753). No physical remains survive, not only because the continent is gone beneath the sea, but also because they practiced cremation.

The reason for all the secrecy surrounding the topic was, again according to Blavatsky, the great spiritual knowledge and power of the Atlanteans (p. 764). In theosophical terminology the Atlanteans were the fourth root-race (p. 353). Now the concepts of races, rounds, root-races and so on are very hard to keep track of. Let’s for now just add that the present humanity is mostly of the 5th root-race and that the whole concept is more sociological and spiritual than physical and genetic.

Blavatsky compared her figures with those of geologists, but could not find agreement. She says:

This event, the destruction of the famous island of Ruta and the smaller one Daitya, which occurred 850,000 years ago in the later Pliocene times, must not be confounded with the submersion of the main continent of Atlantis during the Miocene period. Geologists cannot place the Miocene only so short a way back as 850,000 years; whatever they do, it is several million years ago that the main Atlantis perished. [fn, p. 314]

In this case Blavatsky was closer to the mark than the geologists of her time, about the Miocene period anyhow. Wikipedia has it that: “The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.33 million years before the present.”

One of the more curious aspects of the story of Atlantis is its name. Though Blavatsky makes it clear in The Secret Doctrine that this is not the original name of the continent, she still quotes a curious fact of linguistics associated with it:

how could the name of Atlanta itself originate with Plato at all? Atlante is not a Greek name, and its construction has nothing of the Grecian element in it. Brasseur de Bourbourg tried to demonstrate it years ago, and Baldwin, in his Prehistoric Nations and Ancient America, cites the former, who declares that “the words Atlas and Atlantic have no satisfactory etymology in any language known in Europe. They are not Greek, and cannot be referred to any known language of the Old World. But in the Nahuatl (or Toltec) language we find immediately the radical a, atl, which signifies water, war, and the top of the head. From this comes a series of words, such as atlan, or the border of or amid the water; from which we have the adjective Atlantic. We have also atlaca, to combat. . . . A city named Atlan existed when the continent was discovered by Columbus, at the entrance of the Gulf of Uraha, in Darien, with a good harbor. It is now reduced to an unimportant pueblo (village) named Aclo.” (Isis Unveiled, Vol. 1, p. 591; Baldwin: “Prehistoric Nations,” p. 179)

After all this evidence, though most of it more than a century old, a word about the spiritual story of Atlantis. Again, in the words of Blavatsky:

To continue the tradition, we have to add that the class of hierophants was divided into two distinct categories: those who were instructed by the “Sons of God,” of the island, and who were initiated in the divine doctrine of pure revelation, and others who inhabited the lost Atlantis — if such must be its name — and who, being of another race, were born with a sight which embraced all hidden things, and was independent of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were the fourth race of men mentioned in the Popol-Vuh, whose sight was unlimited and who knew all things at once. They were, perhaps, what we would now term “natural-born mediums,” who neither struggled nor suffered to obtain their knowledge, nor did they acquire it at the price of any sacrifice. Therefore, while the former walked in the path of their divine instructors, and acquiring their knowledge by degrees, learned at the same time to discern the evil from the good, the born adepts of the Atlantis blindly followed the insinuations of the great and invisible “Dragon,” the King Thevetat (the Serpent of Genesis?). Thevetat had neither learned nor acquired knowledge, but, to borrow an expression of Dr. Wilder in relation to the tempting Serpent, he was “a sort of Socrates who knew without being initiated.” Thus, under the evil insinuations of their demon, Thevetat, the Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked magicians. In consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of the Atlantis; which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood: The giants and magicians “. . . and all flesh died . . . and every man.” All except Xisuthrus and Noah, who are substantially identical with the great Father of the Thlinkithians in the Popol-Vuh, or the sacred book of the Guatemaleans, which also tells of his escaping in a large boat, like the Hindu Noah — Vaiswasvata.
If we believe the tradition at all, we have to credit the further story that from the intermarrying of the progeny of the hierophants of the island and the descendants of the Atlantian Noah, sprang up a mixed race of righteous and wicked. On the one side the world had its Enochs, Moseses, Gautama-Buddhas, its numerous “Saviours,” and great hierophants; on the other hand, its “natural magicians” who, through lack of the restraining power of proper spiritual enlightenment, and because of weakness of physical and mental organizations, unintentionally perverted their gifts to evil purposes. Moses had no word of rebuke for those adepts in prophecy and other powers who had been instructed in the colleges of esoteric wisdom* mentioned in the Bible. His denunciations were reserved for such as either wittingly or otherwise debased the powers inherited from their Atlantian ancestors to the service of evil spirits, to the injury of humanity. His wrath was kindled against the spirit of Ob, not that of OD.

* 2 Kings, xxii. 14; 2 Chronicles, xxxiv. 22

[Isis Unveiled, Vol. 1, p. 592-594]

This is the start of a whole other theme in the work of Blavatsky: the difference between white and black magic. Or the difference between (unconsciously) selfish use of spiritual ability and consciously unselfish use of the same. Note that in this early work she believes that it is moral training combined with spiritual teachings that make for ‘son of God’, while mere following of natural mediumship is likely to lead to evil.

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