APOCALIPSIS NOW
Dear reader,
On a remote island in Greece called Patmos, a man called
John of Patmos wrote about the coming of the end of the world as we know it. In
Greek he called it Apocalypsis. The actual meaning is Revelation.
Today, we seem to be coming back to those ancient times
where ‘gloom and doom’ was the theme of many so-called prophets. We can clearly
name our modern events as apocalyptic. Note the following events taking place
in the world today:
- MAUI VOLCANO
- FLOODS IN CHINA
- WAR IN UKRAINE
- INDIA HEATWAVES BY THE SUN
- STORMAS IN KOREA
- HURICANES IN THE NORTH
- MELTING SNOW IN ANTARICA
Michael
Meade, a brilliant mythologist today, speaks by way of his many podcasts,
the necessity for each human being to be awaken to purpose and meaning. The way
to find purpose and meaning today, he says, is to reveal to ourselves the
unfolding of soul. Each of us is born which soul that is very specific. It is
important then, for each person or Soul to continue revealing our uniqueness and
capacity to heal the world. Meade invites us to use our imagination both
individual and collective to bring forth healing of nature and culture.
This capacity for creative imagination has been largely
forgotten as many people in many countries, are faced with events that block
and try to delete this capacity. Yet, the Soul, or the big self within, is eternal
and forever available as we learn to be more present to this phenomenon and be aware
that the possibility to awaken is always possible.
Forgetting who we are (as soul), leads to despair and confusion
and conflict. The more dangerous reaction to loss of soul is addictions and attachments.
We come into the world from being fully at home and
feeling that place, we have a little shadow of it. For example, when we come
home at the end of the day and put your feet up or relax or have a cup of tea
or whatever, there is that feeling of coming to a safe space or feeling back at
peace. And when we get separated from that which is our home, that separation is
created by the mind. The mind seeks that emptiness by filling it with substances or actions that era addictive,
This basic ignorance in the mind, that is the root of suffering,that the Buddha keeps pointing out, is the basic root of all suffering. Once this separation has occurred, there is incredible pain. We can call it being thrown out of the garden of Eden, or we call it original sin, whatever you want to call it. When you're doing something like cooking, the way you turn it into just the joy of the process, or it could be any number of things that reinforces your behaviour and you start to do that behaviour more and more because it feels good, it takes away the pain of the separateness - then we eat more.
The use of drugs, the use of material possessions, the use of relationships. All of this, when you get busy and get upset with relationships and want to get closer and closer to somebody and trying to get to the place where you want to come back into that oneness. Then this becomes an addiction.
Dealing
with addictions is a journey of much pain and then a revelation that we can do
it! But first comes the self-rejection and dealing with self-esteem. So, I may
have some thoughts like:
“I am bad” and then that starts a reaction and then you come
down, then you feel guilty. “I must be bad I should have done something else,
why didn't I do the practises that would have allowed me to stay well rather
than the thing I did”. That may be a short-term solution.
You see your
predicament as it is: an immediate gratification. It is what is called in psychology the choice
of the ‘little candy bar’ now or the ‘big candy bar’ later. Children always
grab for the little candy bar now! Because they want what they can get now.
They do not have a delay of gratification.
Spiritual practises are
more like delayed gratification versus immediate gratification like coke or
alcohol. Observe your predicament and
see what you are doing. There is a way to stop addictions from a spiritual
perspective in which you begin without a slight bit of awareness. To extricate
yourself from the chain of reactivity you develop the spaciousness, a space of
free awareness, you start to look at where you can intervene in the process of
the sequence that goes on and as the awareness gets deeper, you intervene at
different places in the sequence. For example, the hunger begins, and if you felt
unloved as a child, you eat to fill this gap. You eat and get fat and then you hate yourself.
We usually understand the psychodynamics of that one level, but let's take it from the point of view of the mind. For example, I had eaten too much to reduce my anxiety because my mother fed me food when I was upset, and I learned that pattern. Instead of going into “I'm no good” I break the chain at that point and then I just go back into my spiritual practises. Developing deep awarenesss!
Spiritual practices do not require that we go to a monastery
or temple but require that we become deeply aware of our soul needs. The answer
of all difficulties is already inside us.
Copy this link for your computer to learn from THE GITA story about the meaning of life
FEAR IS A KILLER
