After rescuing spirituality from dysfunctional religion, its proponents have sometimes gone way to the other extreme, turning spirituality into a catch-all for anything mystical, metaphysical, magical and spoon-bending. In their rejection of religious tradition, institution, and orthodoxy, they “rescued” something of a shapeless blob of experience, which has been branded in countless ways and soldContinue reading “Living Religion”
Tag Archives: body
Checking In
“Hello, my name is Simon, and I like to do draw-rings.” It’s one of my favorite skits of Mike Meyers on Saturday Night Live. I like to do draw-rings, too, as my returning reader will attest. Sometimes just a seemingly minor tweak of a diagram can part the veil and show me something I hadn’tContinue reading “Checking In”
Meditation on a Tree
Sometimes it’s easier to understand ourselves by using something else as our lens. Let’s take that tree outside your window. As an analogy, this particular example is especially helpful given that a tree is rooted in the ground, growing up and out to participate in its local and regional ecosystem. Lots of fascinating connotations attachContinue reading “Meditation on a Tree”
Waiting in Line
The human journey through life has only recently been a topic of psychological study. For thousands of years before that, its exploration was mythological, carried out not by objective research but subjective experience. Our modern tools of psychology have made possible a rational precision that was not available all those centuries and millenniums, but evenContinue reading “Waiting in Line”
Beyond Happiness
The fact that happiness is such a dominant theme in modern life reveals two significant things about us: (1) that the progression threshold of human evolution at this point in time is firmly stationed on the pivotal questions of personal identity, meaning, and purpose; and (2) the probability that we are stuck in this stageContinue reading “Beyond Happiness”
Being Human
Our health, happiness, and fulfillment as human beings are based in, and therefore dependent on, how deeply we understand ourselves. By that I mean something more than what we think of ourselves, or what general theory of human nature we happen to hold. Understanding is by definition a deep (“under”) position (“standing”) that accommodates aContinue reading “Being Human”
Your Life In (Maybe) Five Steps
Just before you got going on this journey of life, you were whole and complete in your essential nature as a human being. Even though it would take a lot of experience and many years for you to really appreciate the dual capacity of your consciousness, in opening outward to the sensory-physical realm around youContinue reading “Your Life In (Maybe) Five Steps”
Alone in the Middle of Everything
Because the adventure of becoming somebody requires its own separate workspace, the entire project along with its product, a unique identity named “I” or ego, has prompted two very different judgments on the matter. Conventional religion typically regards the separate ego – conceived as estranged from its proper and original communion with god – asContinue reading “Alone in the Middle of Everything”
Your Triune Nature
Given that truth in mythology is not a matter of factual or historical accuracy but rather the degree in which its stories express and reveal to us the reality of what we are, I’ve been reflecting lately on a persistent fascination of Christian mythology: the triune nature of God. (I’m using the uppercase ‘G’ hereContinue reading “Your Triune Nature”
Wisdom’s Long Journey
The spiritual wisdom traditions teach that every human being is somewhere in the process of waking up, that we are each emerging from a long, deep sleep. We’re not yet fully awake, most of us, but a new way of being – what Paul Tillich named the New Being – is even now available, andContinue reading “Wisdom’s Long Journey”
Tracts of Revolution 