My Philosophy of Life Begins with “Awake-ness”

11.05.2012 By
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What's my philosophy of life? Being awake, alive, and aware. This is a tricky topic to talk about in our contemporary world because the way we use language around philosophy, spirituality, and belief systems has become so confusing. Nevertheless, it is a good jumping off point for a conversation about some awfully important matters. Today I want to talk about awake-ness. For starters, the dictionary definition of "awake" implies a rousing from sleep which stirs us into action and cognizance. As a philosophy of life, it's clear I'm saying something more than that I get out of bed in the morning. I'm saying that all my life I have blessed or cursed with a desire to know things and to live according to what is true. As a precocious child raised Roman Catholic, I thought that life is a great school, God is the teacher, and we are all pupils who will be graded on how well we performed on life's test after we die. Not every philosophy of life values the intellect, and there are even … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Integral Practice, Integral Theory and Methodology, Spirituality

A Conscious View of Bin Laden’s Death

05.11.2011 By
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When some people hear  the word “consciousness” they think of the inconvenient time between naps. Is consciousness just the state of being awake, or is it more than that? There are many theories about what consciousness is and where it is located. It remains a mystery. But there is much to be gained from considering consciousness from multiple perspectives, and finding the partial truths in all of them. In this article I will consider consciousness in the context of personal experience and cultural transformation, as a sample of the many approaches to a complex issue. As a way to illustrate the personal dimension of consciousness, I recall my first experience with miracle fruit. I tried it a few years back while on vacation in Panama with my family. The miracle fruit is an amazing berry. It doesn’t claim to be a weight loss marvel or to increase antioxidants like some other wonder fruits. It’s more fun than that. It’s a miracle because for several hours after eating … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Current Events, Psychology, Religion, Spirituality Tagged With: , , , , ,

Heaven and Earth

04.20.2011 By
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Oscar Wilde wrote, “In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures.” It’s a common aspect of the human journey, inside and outside of religion, that we seek things that endure. Within religion, the afterlife is often seen as the enduring hope. Grand Rapids pastor Rob Bell has caused a stir with his new book Love Wins. He begins the book by hinting that there is no hell and goes on to outline a Christian universalist perspective that everyone is saved by the sacrifice of Jesus and ends up in heaven, no matter what it turns out that heaven is. Of course it’s not a new theory, but it’s significant that a prominent evangelical pastor has gone on record and landed the lead story in this week’s Time magazine. Even though I came to this perspective many years ago, and have now gone much further than universalism, I am encouraged by the development. Kudos to Rob for helping to expose large numbers of people to a more expansive belief about God and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Religion, Spirituality, Worldviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Law of Attraction – You Get What You Give

03.02.2011 By
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The Eighteenth Century Jewish master, Tzemech Tzedek, was once asked to pray for a seriously ill child. He said to the family, “Tracht gut vet zain gut,” a Yiddish phrase which means “Think good, and it will be good.” The child recovered. The Rabbi asked the family when the child began to turn around. They told him it was the minute they began to think positive thoughts. Stories such as this appear in many spiritual traditions. Jesus described a similar situation with the phrase, “your faith has made you well.” What is the power of the mind? Is it the ability to bend spoons, a la Uri Geller, or is it the presence of mind to reframe thoughts and take a larger perspective? The mind is certainly powerful and I’m sure that we don’t even know the full extent of the mind’s untapped powers if you take into account our subconscious mind. Either way, the ability to frame your experiences and beliefs in a healthy perspective is potentially more powerful than any magic … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Psychology, Religion, Spirituality Tagged With: , , , ,

Freedom and Responsibility

10.28.2010 By
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Freedom without responsibility is often lazy, and responsibility without freedom is often mindless obligation. Freedom doesn’t exist just for its own pleasure. Freedom is the basis for responsibility. Did you know that there is a project underway to build a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast? In order to balance the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast, a group is attempting to build a three hundred foot high monument to freedom’s close cousin, responsibility. The vision came from famous psychologist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl. Frankl said, “Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. How can our lives mean anything if we don’t take responsibility for our actions?” Responsibility is your ability to respond. Your life to this point is what it is. But you choose what happens next. You craft your own worldview, and choose your responses in each moment. The other side of that freedom coin is … [Read more...]

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The Fine Art of Surrender

10.28.2010 By

The window of discernment that opens straight before making a big decision is transformative. This is where character is formed, with a heart-shaped lump in your throat, as you contemplate a leap of epic proportions. This is the school house of experience where you learn patience, urgency, courage and surrender. It is the moment after all the homework has been done, all the pro and con lists have been written, and advisers have been consulted. All that is left to do is follow that gut feeling. Jump! Do it! You know its right! But do you? What if you’re wrong? So often at this point we doubt ourselves. We mistrust our intuition, and instead of surrendering to our destiny we close the window on possibility, draw the shades on opportunity and confine ourselves to a dark room called fear. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can relearn the art of surrender, trusting yourself but now with the added benefit of years of hard knocks in the school of life. What can you do to train … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spirituality

Control and Inner Peace

10.27.2010 By

Control and Inner Peace Do you ever wonder if your experience is wildly different from other people? If I could just get inside someone else’s head, I would know where I land on a scale of anxious to peaceful. Do other people have the same inner dialogue that goes on in my head? I see people who give the impression of having it all together. Everything seems to come easily for them. But does it? I suspect we all have our struggles in different areas. Some of us just do a better job of keeping it private. You have your own inner control panel. If you push its buttons, it can generate daytime drama to rival any soap opera. Some of the panelists on your control panel are there at your invitation, like the protector who reminds you to look before you cross the street and the chair of social etiquette who tells you to wear clothes to work and not blurt out whatever comes into your head at a given moment. Aside from these elected trustees, there are some interlopers who turn up at … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spirituality

Bringing Heaven to Earth

10.27.2010 By

In spiritual circles, we talk a lot about living in the present. It’s an important principle. So what is the relevance of learning from the past? While there are many pitfalls to living by memory, there are some ways in which it’s important, and one of them is gratitude. I’ve been reflecting on memory and gratitude as a path to loving service. How can looking back help me to live with deeper gratitude and greater compassion? The life you live is, to a great extent, built on the efforts of others. Pause and feel the significance of that statement. It has huge implications in terms of the way you live your life. Think of reality as a broad set of shoulders that includes everything, I mean everything, that came before you. You are standing on them, which offers you a bird’s eye view of all that led to this moment. This broad set of shoulders includes humans and non humans, things known and unknown. It includes soldiers who fought and died in wars that you agreed with and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spirituality

One With the Sun—Taking an Evolutionary Perspective

10.27.2010 By
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“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?” The above quote, from Richard Dawkins, invites thoughtful readers to take a very long-term view of time. It occurs to me that you know you’re getting a little long in the tooth when you describe your life in decades. “I did such and such in the 80s, the 90s were a blur and the noughties were all diapers and Hop on Pop.” A decade feels like a long time. But when you think about time from an evolutionary perspective, a decade is a blink of an eye. As mortal human beings, we have only brief decades on this Earth. How do we make them meaningful? Is there a meaning in life or is there only the meaning that we make? The cranky Old … [Read more...]

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