The Gospel of

Civilization Z

An Open Source  spirituality for the 21st century

Just updated my Civilization Z presentation. 

The Possibility of Civilization Z (Click to Enlarge)

Chi Force & Holy Spirit:
Only One or the Same?

Theologue by Alex Gray

In my visits to Christian mega churches and Buddhist sanghas, I've been seeking a way to reconcile the open source orientation of East with the closed platform nature of the West. And I've also tried to reconcile their fantastical claims about the supernatural from a more logical bias, choosing Scientific skepticism over definitive proclamations of faith in the miraculous favoring one over the other.

Although, I must admit that more of me is drawn to the Eastern perspective and a world view open to the infinite possibilities that sees us all scratching only the tip of an iceberg of what the human body is truly capable of. Who in the East or West, wouldn't want to live in a universe of magical potentialities, where we can posses super human powers and perform miraculous abilities we only witness in popular films like Star Wars and stories such as the Bible? Who wouldn't want to be initiated into a secret world of communion with God or beloved dead masters, to shoot energy out of your hands for immobilizing people and spontaneously combusting objects into flames at will?

I've run into a lot of people who have already made their commitment to one side or the other, offering up anecdotal evidence of their personal experience witnessing miraculous power from God or at the hands of Tai Chi masters. The closed platform response from many fundamentalist Christians will have you believe that what they experienced was unique only to their faith and that if the same phenomena is experienced through Eastern modalities, it is suspect; corrupted by Satanic powers and all because they refuse to declare Jesus Christ their lord and savior. On the other hand, the open source platform response from many practitioners of Eastern spirituality will have you believe that what they experienced is something available to every human being and we all have the potential in harnessing Chi energy to benefit our lives. 

In my own personal experience, I have never been slain in the spirit at a Christian church because I would never just devote my life to Jesus Christ and not pay homage to the great things I see in other religions. I have a very visceral aversion to a closed platform theology that sees the world through a black and white lens of good vs. evil. It is easier for me to feel at home with practitioners of Eastern spirituality and religion where they reflect a more realistic reality of many shades of gray where yin and yang can connect in balance. And I also hit it off well with atheists and agnostics, seeing great value in their strict adherence to scientific skepticism. 

Whenever I have come into contact with extreme woo-woo perspectives of supernatural claims by Eastern practitioners, I greet them with a great deal of skepticism. I very much love a lot of things about Buddhism, but I am also wary of supernatural claims and especially ritualistic superstition I've seen exhibited by Tibetan Buddhists and within Hindu spirituality in general. At the same time, there are also some very compelling profound possibilities existing that stretch the limits of what we understand as being the true nature of reality. The chakra / chi energy system of Tibetan, Indian and Chinese philosophy have been especially compelling to me ever since I learned more of the idea behind them from books, documentaries and teachers.

I have also experienced interesting phenomena from energy healers that would assert the validity of claims often rejected by skeptics. It is interesting though how science is trying to work with Eastern practitioners in order to understand what exactly is going on when something considered miraculous is witnessed.

Tibetan Buddhist Monks - Meditation and Science

Because I have chronic Lyme disease and my symptoms keep worsening even in the presence of the best of what Western science has to offer for treating them, I am compelled to look outside the box for an alternative. This has lead me to practitioners of Eastern medicine and energy healers. One most recent energy healer I was being treated by, works with pets and I decided to introduce her to my dog Murphy. After she said hello, she offered an energy healing on him. From just the light touch of her hand, she was able to drop Murphy to the ground without any resistance. It was something I've never seen before first hand, and have only heard about through second hand sources. 

These accounts describe Tai Chi masters able to scatter people to the ground like bowling pins without them even making physical contact. And in a debate I was having with one of my friends about Chi, he was able to supply me with a video documenting this phenomena from a more skeptical source:

Phony Karate Master - No Touch KO Debunked

And after watching this, I was able to come across some other videos documenting chi practitioners in action:

Chi Energy Amazing Footage

(I thought it was interesting at the end what he says about his dead master reprimanding him. It's like Obi Wan Kanobi in Star Wars coming back from the netherworld.  :-P)

No Touch Knockout with Chi

It's quite easy to find videos of Christian evangelists initiating something quite similar in their religious crusades:

Even if science is able to debunk the Chi energy / slain in the spirit phenomena as a psychological gimmick of weak minds succumbing to the powers of suggestibility, it still doesn't make sense to me how it would work on my dog, who has no concept of what's going on in the first place. And what of the strange things I've witnessed? Are they all magic tricks? I once traveled to China in 2000 and participated in a demonstration at a Chinese medicine clinic. There I saw a Chi master do the same light bulb trick done in the second video above; where he touches the bottom causing it to light up. I'm still skeptical of what went on, but at the same time, maybe there is something to this stuff. I can't explain the electrical heat like energy I felt from the hands of energy healers or what they were able to do to my dog. So what the heck is going on? Is it some elaborate deception?

In the debate I had with my friend about Chi, I can definitely relate to the good points he makes about why he is skeptical, 

"Call me an arrogant Westerner, but I highly doubt that ancient peoples could have this esoteric knowledge that us moderns with our advanced science and machines haven't been able to detect. I really think the answer is something more simple than the vitalism of Chi. I think it has something to do with psychology (maybe even the psychology of animals), and is perhaps more akin to the magic tricks that talented magicians like Penn and Teller perform every day. Or, perhaps it is purely physiological, and these Chi masters are really doing something akin to the "Vulcan Nerve Pinch"? No Chi necessary, just good knowledge of the human body."

And my friend makes some other great points I agree with:

"How come this stuff is not completely, utterly, well documented, instead of the odd candid video here and there. It seems that if this stuff were true, we would be seeing it happen all the time, and there would be news reports all over the place, and scientists would have ample documentation. But no, its all just on the level of magic tricks. How come no one has ever taken James Randi's famous one million dollar challenge to prove claims of the supernatural? And don't tell me that everyone who has had this power, has a conscience about using it for public view, as the guy in the video says. SOMEONE would eventually come forward and show their power."

My reaction to what he says here reminds me of the elitist nature of those who supposedly master the material and spiritual domains. Those who master the material, represent a very small percentage of our population. And there are the conspiracy theories about how only a handful of the richest families (billionaires) on the planet, control the course of Western governments, pulling political strings like master puppeteers. And then the accounts of those who master the spiritual, are just as murky as those on their opposite side. It is almost always some story of a hermit yogi living in the Himalayas and has mastered the spiritual realm to such a degree that they can vanish from thin air, walk through walls and manifest objects to appear straight from their imagination.

Read my blog post about Yogananda here

And then we have the ancient religious scriptures, chalk full of miraculous stories that nobody ever witnesses in person, but must believe through blind faith. 

And of those living people who claim super human powers, they never openly reveal their ability to the masses. As my friend alludes to, it's always revealed in the dimly lit room used by magicians or in grainy videos whose source is always in question due to easily accessible computer generated special effects. 

This reality we are all too familiar with brings to mind the world George Lucas imagined in his Star Wars films. In it, the Force is a very exclusive power wielded by only an elite group of people gifted by genetic blessedness through an elevated level of Midi-Chlorians.



If you think about it, this sounds a lot like our world. In a material sense, the same can be said for the tiny percentage of our populace that controls the majority of all wealth on the planet. And most of them will bluntly tell you that they are special and the wealth they come by isn't something that everyone can have. On the other hand, in a spiritual sense, the same can be said for the tiny percentage of our populace who has the so called spiritual power, wielding the kind of miracles we usually only hear about in holy scriptures. 

Interestingly though, the spiritual world has a tradition of throwing a wrench in the gears of the material world view. Even if the reality of spiritual elitism mirrors the exclusive nature of material elitism, many on the spiritual side try to sell an idea foreign to what we are used to, and that is their power isn't unique to them, but available to everyone. And often times we will see people in our world born with elite gifts: Michael Jordan who can jump 49 inches off the ground from a stand still, Steve Jobs with the intelligence to rewrite the entire social fabric of our world with hand held machines, super models whose external beauty provokes the lust and envy of millions, idiot savants with photographic memories and capability of drawing in exact detail a scene they saw a day before. 

Aren't these miraculous gifts just as remarkable as Chi masters who can throw people to the ground without touching them? And if those gifted with such remarkable power are more in tune with the spiritual side, they will try to pass these powers off as unremarkable; available to anyone serious enough to pursue them. 

Within the spectrum of any kind of power, we can see that its application is neutral. As in Star Wars, the Force is available for Jedi and Sith alike to wield. The material side seems more Sith in orientation; more of a top down approach where the elites of government, finance and military power laugh at the expectation of a day near at hand where the playing field will be leveled, and every human will possess the same privileges and powers they enjoy. 

The spiritual side on the other hand seems to be more Jedi in orientation with a bottom up approach. Even though the so called spiritual gifts of miraculous powers seem just as exclusively wielded by a handful of elites as the mass sums of wealth and political power that are wielded by their material counterpart, both sides seem to hold only a tiny percentage of people able to enjoy their benefits. But as a striking contrast, it is often taught in spiritual circles of an Eastern open source persuasion, that these powers are available to every human seeking them and should be used to liberate all beings. And even in closed source persuasions of the West, they have theologies imagining a day where all humanity lives in a heavenly abode of a classless divine kingdom of perfect equality, with the exception of a God running the elite government and shepherding his children to bliss. 

Because the spiritual realm seems just as elitist as the material while being ineffectual turning the tables on a top down approach in our world, the skeptical assessment from my friend makes more sense.

"And don't forget that there are layers to this kind of thing...meaning how do we know that the TV producers aren't in on the ruse? It's possible. And, if you ask me, it's more probable. And James Randi, and Penn & Teller, would argue that the ability to trick people knows no limits. After all they are well experienced in these things. Look at David Copperfield."

I must admit that it is entirely possible these spiritual miracles are just slight of hand tricks. And if they are real, there may be another possibility; perhaps they are alien beings using superior technologies to wow us. I know this sounds nutty, but just as our presence toying with ants on an ant hill, would baffle and confound those small creatures living within, might not superior beings be toying around with our planet? Isn't the tendency of many humans of our past, to elevate people with special powers to Godlike status? In one of my sessions with the energy healer, I jokingly asked her if she was an alien. Of course she laughed, but to a conspiracy theorist, this would all be part of the charade. 

I like what my friend had to say about finding an explanation for such things:

"My final comment is that, true, I have no explanation for these things, BUT just because I can't think of how they were done, doesn't mean that the explanations given by the people who did them are correct. Obviously, both Benny Hinn and these Chi masters can't both be right about the nature of this phenomena!"

And because Benny Hinn and Chi masters can't both be right, it seems much more likely to me that the open source, spiritual, bottom up, non dual approach of the East is far more likely even if it flies in the face of the top down, closed source, good vs. evil ways dominating our world. My friend remains skeptical and I will too, unless I experience some kind of breakthrough propelling me into the spiritual circle of elites, able to harness Chi energy for miraculous ability. At the end of his message to me, my friend expresses the same open source sentiment:

"But I must remind myself to keep an open mind. Show me REAL evidence, and I will change my worldview!"

When I shared this debate with another friend who was female, this is what she had to offer:

"That is a very interesting topic. I do not doubt that there are other types of energies that we are not completely aware of. I personally had a lot of interesting experiences with dreams and during REM periods. However, it is when these are offer for a price and to give someone power to manipulate others that I do not buy them. I believe that one has to be really in touch with the higher source in order to discover and feel these energies. The problem with this is that the more one is concern with money, material things, and fame the less this is possible. I have my reservations about anyone that offers this kind of service ($) per a pay to be honest." 

I think she expresses what most of us feel about the possibility of these wondrous powers. Part of us want to live a world where this kind of thing is possible, but we shudder at the idea that it could be used for commercial and material exploitation. 

Everyday Joe's Service

Everyday Joe's is located near Old Town in Ft. Collins and housed inside a large coffee shop with a lot of character. I enjoyed the music performed at the start of the service by the church's very own rock band. Some of the lyrics were interesting and I recorded some of them to analyze. One of the songs went something like this:

"Skeleton bones stand at the sound of eternity, on the lips of the found, gravestones float through the river running sound in you. Separate those doors and let the son of resurrection in." 

At the beginning of the song, they seem to refer to the resurrection many Christians believe will bring them into eternal life. The Western perspective has held the ancient idea that the material body is important to preserve, so the bones will be assembled on the judgement day and you can be reborn inside the body you depart with upon death. It is this form you will experience for eternity in heaven. 

I remember around the summer of 2000, I had a plane flight next a Muslim man from the Middle East and we had a very interesting conversation on the flight back East. He continually drilled me throughout the trip, trying to figure out what I was. At first he wanted to know if I was Jewish. When I said no, he wanted to know if I was Christian. He obviously didn't think I was Muslim. After telling him about my attraction to Buddhism and spirituality, he had it out with me expressing his disdain for Eastern thought. 

At one point he told me the reason Buddhists cremate their bodies after death, is because they fear the judgement of God and want to try and make it impossible for him to reassemble their bodies for the resurrection. As bizarre as this idea was to me, what I was hearing from the Muslim was an expression of the dual perspectives dividing East and West. One side is very material oriented, thinking that this form is what defines who we are. The other side sees this form as impermanent; the body as inconsequential as an outfit of clothing, something to burn at death after it has been worn out and outlived its usefulness, because it's not who we really are. 

The idea of resurrection is not entirely out of the question as far as what is possible in the future, but it seems much more likely to me that if we will be resurrected, it will be at the hands of a being who has evolved in the universe like us, to a level of consciousness many today would recognize as God-like. I think Richard Dawkins describes the thought behind this idea that makes much more sense:

The next part of the band's song describes the born again transformation they believe takes place when opening one's heart to invite Christ inside:

"Oh let us adore the son of glory, drenched in love. Open up your gates before him."

In another song, the lyrics describe the good side of Christianity, the part I look at and feel no aversion to by describing the highest form of God consciousness as someone sent to love, heal and forgive. 

"God sent his son. They called him Jesus. He came to love, heal and forgive."

The lyrics continue to describe what I view as the evolution of the cosmos towards a more Godlike consciousness. It is this evolved state beings move towards, that holds the future with a different paradigm than our own, where most of nature is still dominated by cruelty and survival of the fittest. 

"Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he loves, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. That life is worth the living just because he lives. And then one day, I'll cross that river. I'll fight life's fight, no more with pain. And then this doubt, gives way to victory, I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know he lives."

The very end of these lyrics describe the universal journey into death, and finding not darkness but "lights of glory." This is the near death experience many people have come back to describe, where they enter a dark tunnel to find a bright light shining at the end. What is interesting is that this experience is universally expressed even in cultures that are not Christian.

After the rock bands finished, Pastor Darren Fred gave the sermon on Psalm 139.  Fred began speaking about prayer. 

"When we pray, we pray to God. But have you ever thought that sometimes my prayers aren't just for God, but they're for me? Like I need to hear some of these things with my own ears so we say them and direct them for God. But they're also for us." 

This is something interesting I've observed in many Christian churches. I view their prayers as a means of communication opening up between them. If somebody prays in a church about the job they lost and how they need God to give them another job, another congregant who just lost an employee will see an answer to their problem and all while becoming an answer to a prayer for someone else.  

Pastor Fred continues; "You have searched me lord and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you Lord know it completely. You hem me in from behind and before. You lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." 

After hearing this, I immediately interpreted it from an Eastern perspective; God as the eternal emptiness holding all reality in place. On one level, I can see where Pastor Fred is coming from in describing God as knowing everything about reality, simply because all reality is sustained by a God-like emptiness. But knowledge about the entirety of this reality is withheld from us, because our perspective is just a fraction of the whole, not plugged into the near infinite data describing every state of all phenomena, coming into being at every particular moment across the stretches of near infinite space and time. And only when more and more perspectives are combined, recorded and analyzed by intelligent beings, can we approach a unifying whole nearing a more "God-like" perspective. But at this stage of our evolution, this will always be incomplete.  

Pastor Fred continues; "What I know about you blows my mind, but I just have the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more and it humbles me." 

What Pastor Fred describes here is a reality many scientists describe when talking about their study of the universe. The more they know, the more they realize they don't know and the appropriate response to the vastness of reality are feelings of awe and humility. 

"I can go anywhere and you are there. What if I went to the darkest, darkest place. For you created my innermost being. you knit me together in my mother's womb. My frame was not hidden from you. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth."

Here, Pastor Fred describes again how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. At this stage, we literally have almost zero control over the movement of the cosmos. We are just simply observers going along for the ride set up by an intelligence incomprehensibly more vast than our own.

In the next part of his sermon, Pastor Fred begins describing one of the major problems with human beings; the arrogance of casting God in our image. Coming from a place of awe and humility, the problems arise when these are discarded for the conviction that one can commune with the great consciousness and find its image or will within our own before we have an evolved consciousness. The great emptiness sustaining and holding all beings in perfect patience and compassion, now becomes a projection of our own limited judgement and perspectives; "If only you God would slay the wicked."  "They speak of you with evil intent, your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you. I will defend you and hate those who you hate. The Psalmwriter is giving himself credit because he is on God's side." 

But could it be the Psalmist is only describing the natural aversion of those who deal with human beings who pass themselves off as being in communion with and knowing the mind of God. "You kill them, but if you take too long, I might have to kill them."  "Why don't we kill more people? "If you see it and you know it." And if God sees everything and knows everything, how can this be reconciled to all the horrendous things happing in the world. This is the frustration expressed by the Psalmist who describes God as being so great and good. And because he believes this, he can't understand what is going on. Pastor Fred describes this as "theodicy"; a problem with God. And this is why I think the Eastern perspective could enhance the Western.

The Western view of God tries to reconcile the impersonality of the universe with the all knowing benevolence of God running the show. But in the East, God isn't a personal omniscient being, but more of an impersonal emptiness; the vast space holding everything in place. From this perspective, personality only emerges in the particular beings within this vast emptiness that awaken to consciousness. When Jesus stated, "there is not a sparrow that falls that God doesn't see." perhaps he was speaking figuratively about the future, and the God-like beings who will evolve to greater and greater awareness, until they literally are connected to all the data passing through reality, recording and becoming aware of everything. The impersonality and unconscious emptiness knows how many hairs are on your head only when it awakens through its beings who arise in the future and attain a God-like consciousness, where curiosity to know itself as a plugged in component reality, processing the vast amounts of data available. Perhaps after evolving for trillions of years, can it gain the knowledge and power to rewind history in search of the meaning of it all. 

But when you don't find reconciliation between the two sides, East and West, you are left with the God problem that can lead to violent resistance to the impersonal emptiness thought to have personality,  causing men to project their own image of God towards that which has yet to evolve. And perhaps the subconscious awareness of this is described in Pastor Fred's longing for something transcendent of the horror in life; "love never fails." Is this what "holds the future" that the church rock band sang so passionately about at the beginning of the service?

"You are a great God so why don't you kill more people? (continued...)" 

"No matter what happens, if you love, you have won." This sounds like the same idea from the movie, Tree of Life, "Those who love by the way of grace, never come to a bad end." This is a topic I plan on blogging about extensively after I put together my notes I've taken on the first twenty minutes of the movie. 

Pastor Fred continues in regard to the Psalmist and God's knowledge. "You have searched me, and you know me. You know everything. Remember, he already said that the he believes that. So search me. We have the psalmist saying, you have searched me and know everything, so search me. But that just didn't make sense to me. Like I already searched you buddy, move on, next. No, and I thought and I thought about that. And then, search me and see. What does God need to see? You already saw it all. Doesn't he already know. And I thought about that. And then it hit me, you know but I don't. Is the Psalmist saying you know me, you've searched me but I don't, I don't get myself. You think you know yourself, but you don't. Not so much as we think we do.  And the Psalmist has got ahold of that. I know I hate the people you hate, but why? I know how I feel, I know what I want. I know what I think. That I pound the Bible about over people that it's true cause it's in there and I think I'm right. But I feel, I don't know my heart. And it's like the Psalmist is saying, you have been there, before my soul awoke. you know everything about me. you've been there. Now take me there. And the question, what will God find when he searches the Psalm writer's heart? Then the question, what will God find if we go with him on a trip to our own heart." 

Wow! After hearing this commentary on the Psalmist, I could connect it perfectly to an Eastern perspective. The vast impersonal emptiness holding all reality in place, has omniscient data constantly flowing through it, but it has yet to be collected and recorded by conscious beings until they evolve into greater awareness. 

"And I thought about that. And then it hit me, you know but I don't. Is the Psalmist saying you know me, you've searched me but I don't, I don't get myself. You think you know yourself, but you don't. Not so much as we think we do." 

And perhaps the Psalmist metaphorically represents the evolution of conscious beings coming into existence, so that they may know themselves. All the omniscient data is already there, but we aren't aware of it until we observe and make sense of it. 

"And it's like the Psalmist is saying, you have been there, before my soul awoke. you know everything about me. you've been there. Now take me there." And perhaps this is the journey of the universe. Taking us into the knowledge that is already held in place by the great emptiness. 

"And the question, what will God find when he searches the Psalm writer's heart. Then the question, what will God find if we go with him on a trip to our own heart." Wow. Is this the course the cosmos? It is taking us on a trip to our own heart. And this journey follows primitive beings evolving into more God-like consciousness, eventually to become so advanced, we would see them today as Gods. Perhaps they will begin extracting the omniscient data embedded into the fabric of reality, as they rewind space and time on a journey to our own heart.  

Now Pastor Fred describes this journey in greater detail, as it relates to uncovering one's shadow; " Have you ever had to drive through ugliness to get somewhere nice?" Pastor Fred uses the metaphor of Nebraska as the shadow side that must be traversed to get to his favorite town in Iowa where his beloved family lived. It was a "terrible trip, but worth it." And this is like the journey into our hearts. "Search my heart God, would you show me. Yeah. It could get long, and hot and ugly. There are going to be some times on the way to your heart you'd want to turn around."

And this is a perfect metaphor for the journey of humankind at this momentous time in our history. We are at a crossroads where we must take the journey to our own heart. At this point in Pastor Fred's sermon, I was again reminded of the shadow side within Christianity. And confronting this shadow is the terrible trip humans in the West must take into the heart of what is more real; our true salvation transcending religious dogma through spirit; where we can finally be united together with all humanity. The Christians who have already taken this trip through their shadow, will speak about the true freedom and power found in spirit. And in this spirit, "love never fails." 

It is this transcendent and universal reality attained through overcoming the shadow which will stand as a striking contrast to dogmatic pronouncements, trying to restrict and deny access to the freedom of spirit. "Have you been saved? Have you thought about where you will spend eternity?" It is their dogmatic blindness that keeps them from seeing we are already saved and are already experiencing our being within eternity. There is an intuitive side of ourselves that transcends dogma, to realize that "love never fails." And the expression of this love will transcend our limited lives to evolve towards God-like beings, who "shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.” -- HG Wells

Pastor Fred continued: "Have you let your creator search your soul? Would you dare? I have come to find what was lost, things taken, things forfeited by ourselves. We love, we hate, we lust we crave, we fear, we tremble and we don't know why. Search our heart oh God, to know us and to help us know ourselves. Take us to a beautiful place. I just pray we will be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves."

This I thought was cool at the end. Pastor Fred speaks of the unifying polarity of two sides coming together for a more perfect union. Only when the Satanic symbol of the serpent, is reunited with the innocent symbolism of the dove, can the great war be stopped so that peace may reign. And within humanity, this is also true about East and West, the atheist and theist, the liberal and conservative, the communist and capitalist, the Democrat and Republican, the lion and the lamb, the left with the right, the rich and the poor. 

And Pastor Fred ends his sermon connecting with what I see happening on our Earth in the coming century, as humanity takes the journey through their shadow side, in search of the heart. "Do you really want your soul searched and riding shotgun on that search, because it's going to get ugly. but worth it because love never fails."

And this love finds expression in a new storyline, challenging the shadow side of Christianity as well as Western religion. It is a storyline where the East can be reconciled with the West; Christ with Buddha. 

It is through intuition, where we can find a much more beautiful story than that which has already been told, and finds its limits in materialistic dogma, trying to restrict freedom of access to the power of spirit. 

And what if this power gives us the freedom to avoid the nightmare, for a dream reborn; one in which we avoid the hate of our self destruction to find the promise in a love that never fails;  the completion of our potential as a united species on Earth, living at last in the peace and prosperity of a global country. 

View of Enlightened Society

A Talk With Shastri Dan Hessey

At the beginning of Hessey's talk, he spoke of the darkness of our age and the challenge of seeing basic goodness in ourselves. To me and other Shambhalan's, it makes much more sense to see the basic goodness within and outside ourselves rather than concluding we're all basically evil. Because if we are doomed to fail as a race, there's not much hope outside of a Deus ex machina ending for our species. 

A woman in the class brought up something Pema Chodrin said about basic goodness being like the sun. There might be clouds blocking it, hurricanes and even the shadow of the Earth covering the light, but like basic goodness, it is always there, shining within us if we can recognize it. 

Someone else in the class contrasted Hessey's statements about the dark age by bringing attention to the good things happening within our species and that there is always hope for our future. 

In regards to the promise of basic goodness, it was stated that the bad things we see happening in the news about the fall from grace of others isn't the same fate we have to endure. We always have the ground of basic goodness within which we can tap into even when things appear darkest. Those who get sucked in and lost, are the ones who lose sight of who we are at our most basic core. 

In describing the Shambhala vow, Hessey said that in taking it, we become citizens of the world or citizens of goodness. What is interesting about the Shambhala perspective, is that it is a major contrast from the perspectives in Western religion. Many Christians for example, don't see basic goodness as our core nature. They look upon humankind as fallen and stained by the curse of sin. Perhaps this is why their view is dominated by a future finding completion in an apocalyptic and violent conclusion where a God outside ourselves must come down and save us from ourselves.

The Shambhala vision of the future is more benevolent, where humanity discovers our basic goodness in time to end the nightmare and save the world. The scale of their vision is unlimited and all pervasive. Inclusive rather than exclusive. Everyone can tap into their basic goodness and unity doesn't imply uniformity, which means perfect freedom is the highest good.

Even if this is a more optimistic view of our future, the Shambhala perspective doesn't try to gloss over what is happening in the world. They acknowledge the degradation of spirit and the environmental distraction brought about through an acceleration of imbalanced materialism blocking the light of our basic goodness. The spiritual traditions of indigenous people are suffering because their spiritual view of the world is waning.

The hope for the materialistic orientation of our species is to reconnect with basic goodness and bare witness to unnecessary suffering. And someone in the class observed how the internet is helping the world bear witness to what's happening on a global scale. The whole world is awakening to a larger picture. What now happens thousands of miles away can effect all of us.

The Shambhala spiritual warrior will not turn their back on what is happening, but will acknowledge the sadness and suffering of our world. And the challenge is to avoid the temptation to build a cocoon to block yourself off from all the negativity. And within the Shambhala community, the spiritual warriors work to benefit the world; to be guided by basic goodness and trust that it can make a difference. And this is possible when sharing in the same journey together.

Within the Shambhala practice, when one starts to relate to basic goodness, you will find your connection to it. Having a community that acknowledges basic goodness provides the strength needed. Hessey then used the example of the Mycelium mushrooms, which are single organisms that can spread out for miles. Humanity finds some similarities to Mycelium when viewed as a single organism. When we look deeper than the surface of our species through meditation practice, we see our universal core connecting to all human beings; the spirit.

Hessey went on to say that humanity is coming to a crossroads. If we are to build a better world, we must acknowledge basic goodness in all beings. This is the task of the Shambhala practitioner, who is not a warrior of aggression, but a warrior of peace.

One of the students brought up 9-11 and how it had such a polarizing effect on the world. Hessey expanded on this observation by stating that every generation has something like their Pearl Harbor. At the time, Americans demonized the Japanese. And after 9-11, many have demonized the Arab. Hessey then asked what the root of this behavior was. "Are they fundamentally different?" Some of them want to kill us, and some Americans want to kill them. But if we don't look carefully at this question, the idea of the Shambhala warrior doesn't go very deep.

It was then acknowledged that the most difficult part of embracing basic goodness happens in the face of violent threats. "What if someone wants to kill my kid?" How do we deal with that? Is basic goodness always forgotten when it comes down to survival of the fittest? If we don't first understand the nature of fear, "we can't understand fearlessness." "We have to see if fear in our heart is lodged stronger than basic goodness." If we see the world in terms of our fears, it pervades every action. "What do we do with the fear?" When basic goodness is fully understood, there can be a paradigm shift.

Many struggle with the contrast of basic goodness and fear that it may be just wishful thinking. Every moment we have the choice to listen to basic goodness or follow our fear. And if we don't have confidence in basic goodness, everything turns into fight or flight and is based on self interest.

On other hand, if you experience directly, basic goodness as a child or through meditation practice, you can trust that. But one might say "it's so weak in all this competitive aggression, how can it possibly survive?"

And that is the brazen depths of Shambhala; that basic goodness has equally the strength as that survival fear, but expresses itself through kindness and goodness rather than through competitiveness and aggression. We don't' trust that right away but can trust a direct experience of basic goodness as the basis of our path. And that is what the vow is about.

Hessey went on to describe more about the vow, that it was about paying homage to the great lineage of Shambhala spiritual warriors along with acknowledging that basic goodness is always available. Also of great importance is being gentle and compassionate towards yourself and to delight in the details of life. The end result of the Shambhala practice is finding the ability to train and tame your mind like one does a wild horse.

Although the term kingdom in Shambhala is significant on a mythological level, it was spoken of more in spiritual terms, unlike the western concept where world powers go to war and defeat their opponent by capturing their enemy's king or conquering their capital. Kingdom in the Shambhala sense was more in alignment with the indigenous spiritual system, with no king or capital to conquer. Even though indigenous people's way of life has been changed forever, as a people they have survived and their convictions remain viable. In Shambhala, the word for King is Sakyong which means, "Earth protector."

What was interesting about the Shambhala vow ceremony; Hessey explained that not taking the vow was perfectly ok too. This sounds totally different than the perspective of many Christians, who make you feel as if there is something wrong with you if you don't subscribe to their formula for salvation.

Without the implications behind the vow that acknowledges basic goodness, many may instead view Western and Eastern culture as cursed and doomed to fail. But if we look deeper, we can see another perspective in the natural tendency of caring and connection that takes place in every society, leading to health and well being. Taking the vow is seeing the promise of this basic goodness in society to prevail over its alternative; for the potential of humanity to go beyond warfare and aggression.

The implications of the vow and choosing to see basic goodness overcome the alternative, will naturally lead one to drop fears of the worst case scenario unfolding and instead find the courage to believe the best in our nature will prevail. And on a national scale, we can see both these sides being nourished. In the end, which one will be favored over the other? We can see the fears people have about the right coast; becoming consumed by a materialistic and militaristic dogma, leading them to more competition of resources and using more aggression to preemptively strike at enemies. More and more energies are funneled into the creation of deadlier machines capable of more swiftly destroying humans by the millions.

This scenario makes real the fears of those who only see Empire. A battle over oil security throws the world into turmoil and great depression, as America turns into a war economy. The right coast breaks the great rebellions will with the right oppressing the left through force and violence as they seize control of the left coast, dictating complete domination over the internet, turning it into tool of persecution of those with a spiritual orientation. In the end game of this world view, the West is doomed to engage in a tragic clash of civilizations with an outcome leading towards the self destruction of our species.

As an alternative, the depth of spiritual courage to believe in basic goodness overcomes the fear afflicted racial divide of surfaces, as our nation turns its energies towards the left coast. The electronics industrial complex is consumed by a spiritual and artistic renaissance of reformation, as its essential beauty shines even brighter. Conflict minerals are abandoned, off shore workers treated more justly as new technologies bring down prices of the miraculous machines capable of educating humans by the millions.

 

The young and hopeful generation discovers alternative energies capable of transforming our civilization as America turns into a peace economy, dedicated to the spiritual mission of helping humanity fully realize the dream of world spirit. The materialistic and fear filled frenzy of the right coast is tamed by the beauty and power of a spiritual vision for a brighter world. The lion now dedicates its energies towards protecting the lamb and helping to realize its hopes. In this world view, the East and West are destined to fulfill their potential as the nightmare is eclipsed and the dream reborn.