It took a couple of centuries into the first Axial Age of the higher cultures (800-200 BCE) for the shocking realization to set in. In sixth-century Persia it came together in Zarathushtra’s idea of apocalypse, which regarded the world as a richly embroidered veil of illusion that must be pulled aside in our quest toContinue reading “All and Nothing”
Tag Archives: myth
Stuck in the Moral Frame
Do you remember when as a child you believed that god watched over you from the ceiling and monsters waited under your bed? When garden fairies enchanted the backyard and goblins lurked in the basement? These invisible beings “imaginated” your generalized intuition of Reality as imbued with conscious personality, agency, and intention. It didn’t matterContinue reading “Stuck in the Moral Frame”
Life in the Egg
Do you know why you’re here? Granted, ‘why’ questions can be notoriously difficult to answer, so let’s start even more basic: Do you know how you got here? Even that question assumes some understanding of what ‘you’ – or more properly “I” (Ego) – and ‘here’ refer to. For goodness sake, is there any pointContinue reading “Life in the Egg”
Relax, You Are Probably a Post-Theist
The transition from theism to post-theism is typically stressful and traumatic for someone who believes that god actually exists. Even though they have never observed or encountered a deity like the one represented in the sacred stories – and neither, by the way, has anyone else – the very idea that God is not whatContinue reading “Relax, You Are Probably a Post-Theist”
Becoming All That We Are
One of the most fascinating examples of creative change in nature is the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Genetically the two organisms at either end are identical, and yet they are so different from each other in every other way, that unless you watched the whole event with unblinking eyes, you’d never believeContinue reading “Becoming All That We Are”
Idols, Pacifiers, and Demons
In a post entitled Out of Depression I proposed a kind of psychospiritual developmental map, composed on the foundational theory of human intelligence as comprised of four distinct “threads” – visceral (VQ), emotional (EQ), rational (RQ), and spiritual (SQ). This “quadratic” (fourfold or four-dimensional) intelligence is complex in nature, with each thread engaged with itsContinue reading “Idols, Pacifiers, and Demons”
Waking Up As You
Let’s see how far you are willing to go with me here. Proposition 1: The physical universe emerged abruptly out of a singularity of quantum energy, in an event that cosmological science names the “Big Bang.” Proposition 2: After approximately 10 billion years, on a planet thrown into orbit around a medium sized yellow star,Continue reading “Waking Up As You”
An Open Letter to God
Dear God, When I was a young child and didn’t possess a clear sense of myself or the objective existence of the world around me, Your reality was something I couldn’t conceptualize but clearly felt in the provident support and loving care of my mother and father. Though imperfect, to some sufficient degree they bestowedContinue reading “An Open Letter to God”
Becoming Aware
To call something an “illusion” commonly assumes that it was somehow designed to deceive or mislead us into believing what isn’t true. To believe an illusion is to live in delusion, and no one wants that. What we want is the pure and simple meaning of things, without any spin or labels or partisan agendas.Continue reading “Becoming Aware”
What’s Really Going On
Each of us is rather caught up and fixated on our own personal life – making it through today, cleaning up from yesterday, and getting ready for tomorrow. There’s barely enough mental bandwidth to pay attention to all the details and passing concerns. Catching up on global events is out of the question, and thinkingContinue reading “What’s Really Going On”