Fire and Water: Cosmic Powers and Cosmic Clues

Posted on December 22, 2017 by admin

It has been a devastating year for local natural disasters. First was Hurricane Harvey flooding Houston in August, followed in September by hurricanes Irma and Maria leveling much of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other parts of the Caribbean and a major earthquake in Mexico. When October brought the most destructive wildfire in California to Napa, Sonoma and Santa Rosa, I was thinking enough is enough. Mother Nature had other ideas.

The ability to empathize with another’s suffering usually begins with the personal and the familiar. Our capacity to feel our own pain, grief and loss awakens the possibility to feel the same in another. When it comes to large scale tragedies, we need to awaken a new dimension of our being that can hold the immensity of grief and loss without being overwhelmed. This level also seems to begin personally. I felt sadness at the situation in Houston and Mexico, but because I didn’t know those areas, or anyone in them personally, the grief didn’t penetrate very deeply. But the destruction of St John was personal and visceral and my whole organism went into shock. Anger, helplessness, and guilt intermingled with the grief. But I wasn’t there on the ground, and my safety or comfort wasn’t threatened.

The Thomas Fire, still burning in the back-country, heading toward the condor sanctuary in the Sespe Wilderness took this to a new level. After seven years of drought, the land is devoid of water, bone dry and ripe for fire to run wild. As you can see on the fire map above, the Ojai valley was surrounded by the inferno. The fire, with the help of high winds, did its best to descend upon us, but an extraordinary effort by the firefighting team, (at one point, 8500 firefighters engaging all the fronts) saved most of the town. As of today, 154 Ojai families lost everything. Our neighborhood, just down the hill from the fires edge, and the core of the town was saved. The siege of Ojai, with non-stop flames and smoke, lasted from Tuesday Dec 5 through the morning of the ninth, when it was finally clear Ojai was safe. Much fear, anxiety and surrender poured through us.

After Friday, what will soon be the largest wildfire in California history continued to burn in the neighboring towns of Ventura and Santa Paula and headed to Carpinteria and Santa Barbara, home to many dear friends and their families. It appears that as of today, December 22, the inhabited regions are safe, but the wilderness continues to burn.

Given my highly repressed Irish Catholic background, I have become very good at stuffing all the bad feelings into some deep inner room, but with this wildfire event, those doors have burst open and the stuffers are scrambling about in confusion. The wild side of my psyche has been aroused to a new level and it is both exhilarating and exhausting. It is probably not ironic that my primary response to the fire has been the water of cleansing tears.

I was at a Whole Foods in LA the other day grabbing a sandwich for lunch when I saw my first firefighter since this whole journey began. The tears I had been holding in for two weeks burst through the dam. I wanted to go up and thank him as a representative of all his brothers and sisters who laid their lives on the line for everyone else, but I couldn’t compose myself. The intensity of the gratitude was so overwhelming the stuffers were unable to help. I walked around for 10 minutes and tried again. Fortunately he was still in the store and I somehow managed to mumble a few words about being from Ojai and how thankful I was for our home and the town being saved. Turns out he was from Ojai, his family lived a few streets away from us, and although he was fighting another fire in LA, his family kept him abreast of the local developments. It was a cosmic moment. I know there are still more tears to come for those who lost everything, and the devastation of our wilderness environment, but at least the healing has begun.

A major mentor of mine, geologian and visionary Thomas Berry, articulated 12 principles to help guide the human in coming to terms with their relationship to the Cosmos, and I always return to him for a cosmic perspective. Principle 5 speaks directly to the events of this year. “The universe has a violent as well as a harmonious aspect, but is consistently creative in the larger arc of its development.”

The violence of creation is a given. Stars explode to create the elements that allow life. Our sun consumes itself to provide energy for our planet. Mother Earth periodically balances the energies of the planet by unfolding the macro-phase powers of the four elements, earth (quakes and volcanoes; water as flooding, wild fires and air/hurricanes; all natural, all part of the larger dynamic, but none the less, usually sources of deep suffering for the humans. Attachments are painful, and it is ok to have attachments, as long as we can feel the depths of loss when they are gone, allowing life to flow though us in all her power and magnificence. It is ok for our small selves to feel lost in the immensity because this opens the door for our Cosmic Self’, Atman, to awaken.

When confronting the wilds of nature, we are also reminded of our own energy fields and their needs to balance. One of the great realizations of the Tao’sts, and indigenous cultures everywhere was that life processes of the human, and life here on Mother Earth, are a microcosmic expressions of the large scale dynamics of the Universe. We acknowledge this relationship in our solstice celebrations. As we are now passing through the winter solstice, those of us in the northern hemisphere celebrate both the darkness and spark of life still present, at the fullness of the yin, when the days are the shortest, the nights the longest. In June, we will honor the fullness of yang with the deep support of the yin in the background, ready to continue the endless rhythmic cycle.

In both Chinese Medicine and yoga, the dynamic balance of the elements fire and water determine our indvidual health and well being. In Chinese Medicine, the heart governs the fire and the kidneys govern water. The passionate heart does not want to become a hot-headed fool. The cool kidneys don’t want to become depressed. With the support of the kidneys, the heart is able to feel the intensity of being alive, from ecstatic joy to deep grief, because the kidneys are their to provide cooling and grounding in the background. With the support of the heart, the kidneys can can allow a dropping into a deep stillness because the heart offers a spark of light in the depths of the darkness.

In Light on Pranayama, B. K. S. Iyengar describes Prana, the Sanskrit equivalent of Qi, as the union of two ‘anti-elements’, fire and water. Fire is the yang heating, rising and expanding aspect of creation, whereas water is the yin cooling, descending and condensing dimension. Pranayama practice explores and balances these vital elements. When the two are in a dynamic balance, magic happens. When they are out of balance, disease and disruption occur. Practice that balance Prana is important for healing.

This Yin/Yang non-dual model of reality posited by the Tao’ists offers many more fascinating explorations in growth, awakening and healing for the curious and adventurous. The basic principle is that yin is never separate from yang and yang never separate from yin, but both are very easily differentiated. The dynamic relationship between them is the qi or energy that drives all levels of creation, from atoms to galaxies. Patanjali recognizes masters of qi in the Samadhi Pada:

I-40 paramaanu-parama-mahattvaanto’sya vashikaarah
Mastery (of one who has refined their sensitivities) extends from the smallest particle to the totality of creation.

As humans, mastery is not a onetime achievement, but an endless pursuit, continuously supported by the depths of mystery that is our Source, our True Nature, Brahman to the Vedantans. As stated so eloquently in this non-dual Vedic mantra from the Upanishads:

”Om Purnamadah Purnamidam Purnat Purnamudachyate

Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamevavashisyate

Om, shanti, shanti, shanti.”

That is fullness: (the infinite unchanging Purusha) This is fullness. (Creation/the world of change, impermanence, Prakriti.)
When creation emerges from mystery, fullness remains: When creation dissolves back into mystery, fullness remains.

Even in our suffering and confusion, we are always, full, whole and complete.

Om, shanti shanti shantih.

Adyashanti: “Taking the One Seat”

Posted on September 22, 2017 by admin

Adyashanti continues to astound me with the depth and clarity of his realization and his ability to give a voice to the most profound dimensions of our historical moment. My far less articulate teaching flows from the same source, so it is always exciting for me to see his latest insights. This quote comes from an introduction to an on-line course he is offering in November and I have included information on this below. If you click on the link that follows, you will also find a ten minute introductory talk. The bold typeface comes from Adya. The word for seat in Sanskrit is ‘asana’, so ‘Taking the One Seat’, to me, describes the ultimate expression of asana; not just doing postures, but fully inhabiting this incarnation, at every level and layer of reality.

“Deep spiritual experience is characterized by an apparent, and at times baffling, paradox. While realization reveals the unity and non-separation of all existence, we simultaneously experience ourselves as individuals leading particular human lives. Ultimately the experience of reality lies at the dynamic confluence of the universal One and the human one, the experience of no separate self and what I call spiritual autonomy.

Spiritual autonomy, or what might be described as the soul (if understood more as a function than as a thing), is not a given. The spiritual autonomy that the soul affords is generally hard won and comes at the expense of many deeply ingrained ideas and beliefs about what life is and how it works. It must be nurtured and developed in the grist of daily living, which is to say that it must be lived, not simply realized. Spiritual autonomy is an invitation to step up to our incarnation, to say yes to it, and to realize our own potential, both for ourselves and for the sake of all beings.

But before the soul can be realized and lived, it must be brought to the surface of consciousness, nurtured, and chosen to be one’s own. Only then does it begin to reveal a deeper sense of meaning and direction in one’s life. While the ground of being may be completely beyond both meaning and purpose, the individual expression of that ground is given direction and oriented to the world through the prism of meaning. By bringing to light how the ground of being functions through the individual, we discover a degree of spiritual autonomy that allows and challenges us to what in Zen is called “Take the one seat.” Taking the one seat is to fully occupy this very life — our individual life and all of life — as the ultimate ground of being. To do so is the expression of enlightenment itself.”

Taking the One Seat

Spiritual Autonomy and the Soul’s Discovery of Meaning

Early Bird Price (Sep 20 – Oct 10) $150 USD
Regular Price (Oct 11 – Nov 5) $175 USD

4-Week Online Course

November 8-29, 2017,

Wednesday Evening Live Video Broadcasts

6-8pm Pacific Time

Indra’s Web and You

Posted on July 24, 2017 by admin

Indra’s Web (or Net) is a metaphorical description of the structure of the Cosmos as an interconnected web of pearls extending in all directions and dimensions, where each of the pearls is both unique, and a microcosmic expression of the whole web. The pearls, or nodal points, receive and transmit energy and information throughout the whole net, adding and offering their own unique experience, and receiving that from others. Thus the whole process is alive, growing, learning and recreating itself moment to moment.

The ‘Fireworks Galaxy” (ngc 6946) above offers an entry point for the imagination to play with this fabulous vision. This galaxy, a nodal point in the web, is one of an estimated (as of January 2017) two trillion galaxies in the ‘known universe’. Our own ‘average size’ Milky Way Galaxy is estimated to have 200 to 250 billion stars, which gives us a rough approximation of 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Don’t try to wrap your mind around that number. Rather let your mind go, so it’s free to rest in infinity.

Now, imagine that each of these stars is also a nodal point in Indra’s web, a web within a web, radiant, vibrating, linked through the web to all the other stars, sending light energy throughout the cosmos. Our sun is one of those nodal points, providing the crucial life energy for Mother Earth, but as a node in the web, it is also transmitting information from all the other stars as well.

Lets add the cells in your body, all 35,000,000,000 of them, another web within a web. By the way, 80% of these are red blood cells, by number; by weight, because they are quite small as cells go, only 4%. More nodes in the web, all vibrating, communicating with the environment and the web as a whole. If you add in the 35,000,000,000 bacterial cells inhibiting your body, you have 70 trillion vibrating nodes of cellular consciousness in your somasphere. The bacterial cells are quite small, maybe 200 grams worth, or .3% of your mass, but crucial to your happiness.

Now, imagine the atoms in your body also as nodal points in Indra’s Web. There are 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them roughly, arranged in differing patterns like the DNA molecule, each vibrating with its own unique note, creating chords with other atoms to make molecules. And also vibrating, through and throughout the web, with the fundamental pulse of the Cosmos.

So we have the web within, the web without and now we add ourselves. Each of us, as a soul being, is also a node in the great web, connected to the whole, and transmitting energy in all directions. This is one of the great realizations of a yoga practice, as Patanjali states in the Samadhi Pada:

I-40 paramaanu-parama-mahattvaanto’sya vashikaarah
Mastery (of one who has refined the mind) extends from the smallest particle to the totality of creation

Patanjali the physicist describes how the mind of one who is fully stabilized extends from the sub-atomic realms of the quantum field all the way to the galaxies and beyond. The universe is the mahat, the great mind that is the mind of the yogi.

Feel this. Imagine this. Feel this. Let the primary frequency of your energy be love and compassion, as best you can as a human being. Find new connections, new relationships, new sources of learning and growth. Be a mentor, a mentee. From the depths of your soul ask what you need for healing and go for it. Ask where you creativity wants to take you and go for it. Be patient. Find a support system and take advantage of it. Cultivate your imagination more and more.

As nodal points in Indra’s Net, we have an amazing opportunity to learn and grow by using and refining our imagination and our external and internal sensitivity. External sensitivity involves opening to the relational fields of both human interaction and Mother Nature. By stepping outside, or beyond the confines of our skin, we open to all the ways in which the universe is informing us of wholeness, love, coherence, cooperation, and the infinite challenges involved in working as a community of cosmic nodes. My internal sensitivity takes me inside my skin, into the world of Qi and blood, of breath, emotions and thought, of imagination, dreams and deep stillness, where 4 billion years of evolutionary learning have primed me to awaken to the depths of the present moment, through my cells, senses and imagination.

There is no pose that takes you there, but every pose has the possibility. There is no special place that helps awaken you, but every place is a node in the web, if we can just learn to see. This is not something that will come in the future, but is always available now, in this moment, the only moment. You are the web, you are embedded in the web, and the web is embedded in you.