Living in the Soul

The following is part of a message that I gave to my Unitarian Fellowship here in Hot Springs last month. Parts of this talk are taken from various sermons given by my good friend, Ellen Grace O'Brian, at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment in San Jose, CA.


Good Morning.
Happy First Day of Summer (last week), Celebration of the Summer Solstice....
And Gay Pride Day, which is happening today all over the country.

I want to talk with you today about God—a difficult topic for many of us in this fellowship.  
I was raised with the same God as many of you were.  The God in my life was a loving God who, I was told, loved me, as did his son Jesus.  No hellfire and damnation, or scary nuns, as some of you experienced.  But for all of us, God was a cosmic person, a guy in the sky, who somehow created the earth, created us, and knew everything we did,  When I got a little older, I learned that he somehow impregnated Mary.  Being a literal child, as most are, none of this washed with me, but for many years, I pretended it did.  Ultimately, the only way I knew to deal with this contradiction with reality, as I knew it, was to reject God, although I COULD accept Jesus as a special man with an important message.  Jesus has always been a positive presence in my heart.  As a know-it-all college student studying Old and New Testament in a small Methodist University, I chose to reject religion completely.  An unintended consequence of that course of study.

Sometime in my 40s, I was introduced to “New Thought” and began to become acquainted with other ways of thinking about God and about the universe.  As I psychologist, I studied transpersonal psychology and more importantly, I had a number of what I might call mystical, or spiritual experiences, which began to change my thinking.  I also had the good fortune to come to meet, and study with a number of people who had something,  who knew something, who emanated love and spirit and light so obviously, who were special somehow, Self-realized, God-realized are the only words I can find to describe these people,  I came to learn that they were deeply acquainted with their inner higher self, their divine center, and knew that they were one with all of life. They live in and from the soul.  They emanate a divinity that I can only long for and they all have accomplished significant social change or influence driven by their spirituality.  This is more than charisma.because the people I am thinking of are incorruptible, and we all know of charismatic religious leaders who are ultimately corruptible.

If we grew up as part of an Eastern religious tradition, we would not be having this conversation, nor these troubling doubts about God, nor would be be talking about whether we believe in God or not.  We would not be divided into believers, atheists, agnostics.   Eastern traditions don’t present God as a cosmic being.  God is commonly understood to be both the higher true self. and that connection with the universe, with everything and and everyone around us.  If we grew up in India, we wouldn’t think of ourselves as being separate and alone, but as a drop of water in the ocean of spirit.  This commonly accepted God is prayed to and thought about, addressed as Beloved, Lord, Master, all of which refer to the same presence,in us and around us.   Much of the language circles back to the Christian language of the Bible, but I hear it very differently and wonder if that’s how it was intended in the first place, at least, by Jesus, before the church got hold of him.

When we read the Tao de Ching together, in our Wisdom Seeker's book discussion, we didn’t talk about whether we believed in the Tao or not,  We looked openly to learn from it’s wisdom.  The Tao, or the way, is a way of thinking about life, about spirit, about wisdom and about living from the highest true self, living in the soul.  For me, it’s the same thing as God.  It’s much easier to accept the Tao because it is a new idea, whereas it took me many years, about 10 , to get over the literal Christian God of my upbringing and discover God as that which resides in me, and connects me with spirit, that is, the essence of everything and everyone in the universe.  It is accessible anytime I can stop and pay attention.  And that, of course, is the hard part.  

When we have some experience of God in our lives, as I know you all have had, whether in nature, in relationship or in moments of silence, we are ready to stop looking for god or rejecting God and start living in god.  A shift in our awareness can occur, a sudden recognition of that infinite reality I’m calling God, and a letting go of our sense of separation, which leads to such pain and loneliness.

It is a turning to that which we are—love itself.  And learning to trust life as we live in it.

So the dedicated life, the God-inspired life, is about learning to live in the heart, in unity with life itself.  To work in conscious cooperation with God, our own higher self.  

I think of people I know of, and have met who truly live in the heart, people who inspire me.  I would call them divine, divine beings.  We are all divine beings, but these folks are truly enlightened divine beings. Many are modern day saints.

I think of Mother Teresa, of MLK, of the Dalai Lama, Sai Baba, whom many of my friends visit in India, Yogananda, who brought Kriya Yoga to this country in the 1920s,  I think of Ghandi, of course whose story is a wonderful example of radical transformation from an arrogant young lawyer to a dedicated servant of peace and love.

I think of Coleman Barks, an American Poet who began translating the poems of the mystic Sufi poet Rumi.  His translations have made Rumi the best know poet in the world.  This obscure Sufi mystic of centuries ago Coleman Barks followed his bliss, and this poetry, written by an obscure Sufi mystic 700 years ago took off like wildfire.  The words of Rumi touched a chord in the hearts and minds of people everywhere, bring peace and unity and comfort. 

I personally have had the good fortune to sit with Yogis Hariharinandi, who recently died in Florida, Baba Hari Dass (Mt. Madonna), Gangaji, (a California woman who became a yogi, and who has greatly influenced my thinking.)  I wrote about Gangaji in my book, Travels With Annie.

I think of Ram Dass, who was a Stanford Ph.D. and Harvard professor named Richard Alpert.  He began dropping acid in the 60s with Timothy Leary, ostensibly to explore and understand altered states of consciousness.  They were both tenured, and both fired outright over this use of LSD.  Ram Dass later decided he wanted to have that experience of God, of oneness, without the LSD, and went to India and found his teacher, Maharaji, and began his spiritual journey.  He devoted his life then to serving people and to feeding the hungry, and wrote a book “Be Here Now,” that inspired millions.  I just finished watching “Fierce Grace,” a documentary about Ram Dass.  He suffered a stroke several years ago and now struggles with words from his wheel chair.  “I was stroked,” he says, and sees that event as a divine gift.  The first time I saw Ram Dass in San Jose, I felt like I had been stroked.  I was in a kind of trance throughout his presentation, and was changed in some small way.  Ram Dass later wrote Still Here, a lesson on aging and finding God through disability, which he refers to as Fierce Grace.

During my first bout with cancer in 1997, I had the good fortune to be treated by Yeshi Dhonden, the personal physician to the Dalai Lama, who sat knee to knee with me. looked into my eyes, and spoke, through a translator about every discomfort in my body.  

Aminah Raheem, originator of Process Acupressure, was my mentor, therapist, and healer,  I would leave a session with Aminah with light flowing down through my chakras, so radiant it seemed to lift me from the table and float me to my car where I would have to sit for 20 minutes until the fire settled.  

And most especially, I think of my dear friend, Ellen Grace O’Brian, my spiritual mentor and Minister of CSE in CA, with whom I have experienced many small miracles and states of grace.  These are people who are clearly God realized beings, who live in the soul naturally and comfortably.  I aspire to be like them.

There are two things I have noticed in these transformed lives and which I propose to you today. One is to remain open, To live a God inspired life is to remain open.  To keep letting go of what we know, so that our current understanding may be replaced by a broadening and deepening of our conscious awareness.  So that we can live in that awesome presence of God, our highest self, that cannot be contained by what we think or what we know.

Joseph Campbell said,  “We must be willing to let go of the live that we had so that the one that is waiting for us may be experienced.”

Living in the soul requires us to live in the way of “not knowing,” being awake and aware to what is arising moment to moment.  Beginner’s Mind is the only way we can make room for God, and the graceful way in which our life might be directed.  Have you ever watched how we cant wait to attaching meaning to events, into making up stories about the way things are and then believing them.  

Or judging others as if who they are is some thing that is fixed, rather than the expression of the God within them that is continually in motion. unfolding, What would our community be like if we could open to that in each other? If we could live the meaning of the greeting, Namaste, I acknowledge and honor the divine in you.

We continually insist on directing the play of our lives.
What a challenge it is to allow God , the higher self. to be the director,

The second thing that seems to be necessary to attaining enlightenment.......is SILENCE.  Kriya Yoga, and other traditions say that meditating and silence ore the doorways to God, to Buddha-mind, to the higher true self.  Actually, the only door.

Although, I was already a sometimes meditator, my own journey into silence probably really began in 1995 when I did a Vision Quest in Death Valley.  For 3 days, I walked  and walked and walked, slowly, mindfully, mostly up and down the washes.   You have to stay in the washes so as not to get lost, for if you follow the wash up the mountain, no matter what branches you follow, you will ultimately come down to the place you started, spot your blue tarp flapping in the wind, and know you are home.  This is a metaphor for something important, which I have yet to work out.  The silence day and night was ear-shattering, and my experience alone there in the desert was soul revealing and life changing,  I recommend it. 

The month before my Vision Quest, I was also required to do a Medicine Walk, a one day, fasting dawn-to dusk, silent, solo walk.  I did that one at the sacred Iwo Needle in Hawaii.  I did another on a birthday the following year, when I walked from Big Basin State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the sea, an 11 mile, mostly downhill walk. I thought how great to do one every year on my birthday, but a cancer diagnosis occurred just then, and later, I seem to lack the courage.  But I also recommend that as a way to get reacquainted with silence, and the soul.

I’d like to close with a story about my friend, Ellen.  A few years ago, she was invited to lead a silent pilgrimage into the desert which was to be part of an Association for Global New Thought Conference, representing hundreds of New Thought Communities through out the world.  People were coming together specifically. to consider the work of spiritually inspired social action in the world.  How it is that we “walk our talk” in the world.  How it is that our work of spiritual awakening is  then taken forth into the world. This was to be the pivotal point in the conference.  That moment when people could take the inspiration they had received, and in silence, begin to walk it. 

“For me, Ellen said, the pilgrimage into the desert signified the importance of silence in the spiritual life, spiritual awakening, self realization and its integral role in spiritually motivated social action in the world.” 

“For me," she continued, “ without the consciousness that comes from silence and self realization, one’s social action can be too driven, can be too ego-motivated, or motivated by frustration or anger, and can contribute more to the problem it is trying to solve  But I also see that our silence, our inner work without social action can simply be too narcissistic.  It not only holds back the gifts that the world needs, but holds back the full development of ourselves as human beings because THAT happens when we are walking the walk.”

The best part of this story is that, Ela Ghandi, the granddaughter of Mahatma Ghandi was at the conference and presenting the keynote address.   Ellen, who admits to dreaming great dreams, invited Mrs. G. to join her on the walk. 

“I want to be able to tell you what it was like for me to be able to walk side-by-side with Mrs. Ghandi.” said Ellen.  “I want to be able to put into words what it meant to me to be leading a silent walk with her.   I want to be able to tell you how I got there.  I don't know, I don’t know how I got there, except through the grace of God.
This is the way we are all walking.  This is what we must open to.
When I was walking with her, I could feel my heartbeat as the heartbeat of the world.  I noticed my breath.  I noticed her breath.  I was aware of her strong step and her bold pace.  A woman who has walked in the world.  

"Walking by her side I thought about her grandfather Gandhi walking . I thought about people all over the world walking
Refugees walking, people walking back to their homes in New Orleans. 
People walking across the border to get into the US.

"Gandhi said, "We must BE the change we want to see in the world." 
Significant to me that he didn’t say, although he did so much with his life, we must go do something to bring about change. He did not say that.
We must be that which we hope to see manifest.  We must first be that, access it from within. 
The action we want to do must arise from being.  If it is love we our  hoping to see in the world, then it is up to us, to access that love within us and to walk it into the world
If it is peace. we are praying for, and yearn for. We must find the peace within and walk it into the world.
If it is freedom we are dreaming of, we must find it within.  It is true for anything we want in our lives.
It is true for what we want for our families
It is true for the dreams we have for our community, our world.
We must be willing to give it, be it, walk it, to carry it forth.
  
"We also must let go of self doubt.  We must be willing to show up with the particular inspiration that is given to each of us.   You must be willing to trust that the divine idea that has come to you has come to you to be offered up.  We must be courageous, wild with our lives, to trust the divine without and through us, to truly live in the soul.

"If we can do this, Life opens doors  and we find ourselves walking in a sacred way.
In a vision far greater than we could have imagined.
We can be conscious participants in the awakening of love on the planet.
To live in the soul, we must embrace wholeness, and acknowledge all parts of ourselves, and turn to our highest true self, God within."

I invite you to join me on this walk.  

My old friend Jesus said “You are the light of the world.”

Namaste.