Life is about itself and we are part of that eternal flow! That is enough reason to live today with gusto and yielding to what the moment brings. People so often say that they don't know why they are alive or what life is all about. Life is about itself and we are part of that eternal flow!
"Art borrows nothing and has no other source than the soul in the midst of the world surrounding it. Its essence is unknown and its goal is art itself." These words of French twentieth century artist, Odilon Redon, in his manuscript, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art, and Artists, inspire us to consider that life and soul are one reality. The goal of now, this moment in which we abide, is none other than knowing the pure art of soulful living in the now, the eternal flow of whatever comes our way in the moment. It is part of what is and that is life, the eternal flow of soul.
When we flop ourselves onto dry land, get out the eternal flow of soul, we lose contact with our source. Energy loss, unhappiness, a sense of moving through the day grudgingly, happen when we've flopped ourselves out of that eternal flow that is soul. Up to half of our population suffers from regular depression. Making our way back into the waters of soul bodes well for healing from depression. We know we're getting close or are there when the symptoms begin to clear and we experience ourselves back in our own depths, once again content and well.
There is no merit in suffering for sufferings sake. Misery in this life won't get us to bliss in the sweet bye and bye, as is promised in some religions. However, unhappiness, if heeded as a message of longing for return to one's source, to soul, can motivate us to look within, discover how it is that we need to set our lives right. Thus, the purpose of life is not some religiously bent suffering for sufferings sake, but is about living soulfully, participating in the eternal flow of soul, moving into the pure art of soulful living. Again, in the words of Redon, to include the art of life, "Art borrows nothing and has no other source than the soul in the midst of the world surrounding it."
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Prison of Belief!
Healthily, the way it's supposed to go is that belief is to supposed to set us free. When it doesn't then it makes sense that reconsidering things is in order. Guilt, fear, force, shame can't be the way to make lives better and people more loving, creative, and conscious.
Religion, psychology, art, all manner of spiritual practice, and sexuality are charged with numinous energy that can compel people to either find themselves, or else (horror of horrors!), lose themselves. Loss of self takes place when we no longer think for ourselves. We can end up thinking like everyone else, whether they are artistic geniuses, Jungian or Freudian therapists, yogic gurus, or passionate lovers unless we rather fastidiously take into account the guarding of our own mind.
New York Times article, Going Clear (12.20.13) , explores the power of belief within an organized religion and how it literally corrupts human nature. Rather than engaging in spiritual encounter that heals and transforms, individuals find themselves succumbing to group think, a terrible loss of self and mind. A professional colleague on hearing of my upcoming novel, The Unholy (release date Spring 2013), said ".....the dark side of religion?.....Paul.....it's all dark." I went on to say, "Even saying that is too much. People need to have their own experience of what works for them and what does not. That leaves us free, or else we run the risk of dictating that all manner of one thing or another is bad." We want to encourage exploration, experience, psychic freedom.
Prisons of belief are built when all manner of this thing or that are judged all good or all bad. Excluding obviously destructive ideologies and actions, ideas and practices are in large part neither good or bad. It depends on what we do with what we have and what life has dealt us to deal with. Healthily, it is the nurturance of inner truth, what sets you and me as individuals on the path of a free mind lived without knuckling under to threat from external forces that demand compliance, that ultimately unbinds the human psyche and lets loose consciousness!
Religion, psychology, art, all manner of spiritual practice, and sexuality are charged with numinous energy that can compel people to either find themselves, or else (horror of horrors!), lose themselves. Loss of self takes place when we no longer think for ourselves. We can end up thinking like everyone else, whether they are artistic geniuses, Jungian or Freudian therapists, yogic gurus, or passionate lovers unless we rather fastidiously take into account the guarding of our own mind.
New York Times article, Going Clear (12.20.13) , explores the power of belief within an organized religion and how it literally corrupts human nature. Rather than engaging in spiritual encounter that heals and transforms, individuals find themselves succumbing to group think, a terrible loss of self and mind. A professional colleague on hearing of my upcoming novel, The Unholy (release date Spring 2013), said ".....the dark side of religion?.....Paul.....it's all dark." I went on to say, "Even saying that is too much. People need to have their own experience of what works for them and what does not. That leaves us free, or else we run the risk of dictating that all manner of one thing or another is bad." We want to encourage exploration, experience, psychic freedom.
Prisons of belief are built when all manner of this thing or that are judged all good or all bad. Excluding obviously destructive ideologies and actions, ideas and practices are in large part neither good or bad. It depends on what we do with what we have and what life has dealt us to deal with. Healthily, it is the nurturance of inner truth, what sets you and me as individuals on the path of a free mind lived without knuckling under to threat from external forces that demand compliance, that ultimately unbinds the human psyche and lets loose consciousness!
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