Is Spirituality Spiritual?

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I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. ~ George Best

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[jimtzu]

it must have been a good night for layered dreams.  i had a similar experience last nite, getting woke up or seemingly woke up and each time the basic theme/scene was there  with the addition of a little more and the awareness of what happened before. there was no analysis, more of a feeling of a dream evolving.

[Jana]

Yea Denis that is progressive lucidity, most often people get woken up by the first taste of realizing lucidity..I have had this kind of thing happen during my most potent dream periods, but not to the duration of 6 times I don't think, that was really driving message home to you.

Today while walking I thought that meaning and maya, maya and meaning is contrived, constructed and construde. No matter how orthodox, or stamped with a badge of authentication, no matter what the credientals...maya, our psychosphere is always contrived, constructed and construde. Remembering this is hard unless one experiences the rapid session progressive lucidity that you had in your dream...or sharp perturbation in consciousness thru drugs or shock. That you gave up shows an acceptance of the infinite depths of mayas deception and mystery. Truly fascinating.

[Jana]

Uh Oh! Looks like we might have a crisis brewing in the integral world.
I heard this evening that Peter Russell, who practically coined the term "Global Brain" is no longer happy with that moniker.

Apparently now he just likes to use "consciousness" to describe the noosphere. This was told to me by the owner of Gaiam (Gaia-as in World Soul).

Apparently when boomers get at the top of the game, they no longer want to be included in the subset of riffraff that constitutes a collective humanity. It is too, well, transpersonal...all that prepersonal, well it just irritates the hell out of the personal ass.

So now Global Brain has been sanitized and depersonalized into a generic "consciousness." User beware of your own perspective, and do not take anything personally ok.

See these neo-vedantan Buddhists are kinda stepping down from their professions of Oneness, in order to not lose there sense of individual accomplishment in a messy Global brain, which sounds rather enmeshed and plenum-like to me, doesn't it, rather orgy of mediocrity.

Well this is what Jung was on about...the nondualist-samadhi brockers would have been better off if they had just stuck with Jung all along, then they wouldn't have to backtrack to their little piece of real estate...the ideals of youth all but smooshed in the tooth and nail catfight of life.

Anyways, I thought it hilariously funny
But we/they/it has to think up a better term, I mean come on...consciousness just doesn't cut it...it is not groovey and up to date enough, its been done too much before.

How about Global (But Differentiated) Brain...
My Global Brain is bigger than yours!
I am in the command station of the Global Brain and I see you are word up royally!
The rest of the Gaia soul is largely unconscious, except for me, that is why I am a millionaire and you are not!
I am the super aspect of the Superman, I am calling the shots!
Gnososphere is my permanent residence, and believe me it is empty!
Noo-sphere is empty too!


The Global Brain is only as sane as the differentiation/individation of the individual neurons, and their self-transparency in being able to commune with the other neurons. The pace of the emergence of the Superman and the refinement of the Global Brain is certainly increasing. There is certainly some progress. And once we pull out all the stops, the pretensions, exclusions and primate power games, then the miracle will be readily apparent in daily life. The pitfalls to spiritual progress describe interference patterns in the growth of the individual toward being a cosmic citizen.

http://biologyofkundalini.com/article.php?story=PitfallsonthePath

[henry]

i remember seeing peter russell at a 1990 "new  age expo"in new york where he was openly expressing horror to no one in particular at what he was seeing there. i too was shocked, but i sense most new agey has disappeared at this point. it started off well in the 70s with david spangler's book and eric utne's magazine. discernment don't come easy .....the expo was held at the new york hilton, where in 1961 your intrepid correspondent attended a reception for ex-vice president nixon and shook his hand. i know heartmind is proud of me ....henry

[Jana]

• Self-care Shortlist for Dealing with Social Stress—The way through blockage, resistance and opposition is to raise your energy level and presence till the miasma becomes transparent, disappears and can be released. Know that you cannot change another, but you can change yourself. Light a candle, put on some music (Koyasan - by Deuter) and take a long path with Epsom salts. Do this at least every second day for a while. Drink extra water, with a pinch of Himalayan salt in it...up to 5 qts a day. Do stretching daily, do spinal rolling with the Fitball Rollar (www.balldynamics.com) and hang if you can find something to hang on...lie on the grass 1/2 hour a day doing breathing, take long walks in nature if possible...do some feet stomping, wall pushing and do boxing motions coordinating the whole body...check out the Haka war chant videos on the web. Beat on your chest like a gorilla while making gorilla sounds. Social tension (especially shock) tends to get caught in the glut muscles, so bend your knees – stick your ass out and wiggle it like a duck; then while still slightly bent jump from foot to foot real fast as though you were warming up for a game of sports. Focus on rooting your energy into the ground through your feet, build the sense of a cord going through you and extending out the top your head to infinity and generate energy in your Hara. Eat extra greens and sprouts. Take 1/4 tsp of magnesium citrate with a large glass of water prior to bed if you are constipated...which often happens when we are under some form of persecution. Do drumming and go dancing, find someone to laugh with, check out new environs, a new movie and get some new positive stimulation. To learn how social stress is the most pernicious and pervasive form of stress watch Robert Sapolsky’s lecture on google video. He is also doing a documentary on primate social dynamics with National Geographic.
Joy is the main secret weapon in dealing with social adversion, because it opens up the throat chakra to allow positive self expression and prevents the cut-off of the brain and body (anaethization) that occurs when confronted with negative shadow.

[marianthi]

I recall that the enrichment of those who handed out ´The Truth´ or maps on ´The Way Things Are´ has happened ever since a band of humans looked up to someone in their midst for just such hand-outs.  No new-age trend on that - only now more visible.

Rabbis, priests, bishops, mullahs, shamans, brujos, palm readers … need their groceries too.  And sometimes a Mercedes Benz or two. 

Henry, I AM impressed with your historic handshake at the Hilton.  The closest I ever got to a U.S. president was a wave from Eisenhower as his limo drove by the streets of Salonika in the 1950´s.   My dad at that moment cried out to him some welcome words in the English language, which he did not expect, so I do think he gave me a very  special wave.   

Jana, do you mind if I add the reminder, about that bottom-wiggling de-stressing technique, that new stress factors might arise from it?

M. 

[Nickeson]

(Henry,
I’m putting this in parenthesis because for a few words at least this is entirely off topic; however, I believe it is our commonality of age that forms certain associations between us like Nashville and the Elliston Street Soda Shop. Now you raise the specter of Nixon. I never shook the hand of that particular entity, but in the early 70s when he was President, I wrangled a spot on the guest press list to the last performance of Country Music’s Most Venerable, “The Grand Ol’ Opry” in the Ryman Auditorium, the show’s home for decades. Nixon was there to help close down that venue and to open up the new home the next night at Opryland USA. He came on stage with Roy Acuff, probably the musician with the longest tenure on the Opry. Acuff had a shtick of playing with a yo-yo while the MC read commercials. And during one long break he taught Nixon how to manage a couple yo-yo basics.  A few old hands from the White House Press Corps watched in amazement and said (privately) it was the first time they had ever seen evidence that Nixon was anything more than an android.)

One of Acuff’s trademark songs was the ancient White Gospel piece, “The Great Speckled Bird,” which I doubt you had ever heard in 1961, but should still be a standard in your current neighborhood. Because this thread is about spiritualism (notice I’ve closed the parenthesis) I’m going to post the last verse of the song below even though I risk smudging the loftier cultural and aesthetic sensibilities of most on-line Integralites who might perceive the fact this song is mostly sung by Pentecostal Christians. Note too how it reminds one of the poetry of (oh horrors again!) Rudyard Kipling. So here is today’s little offering more in the spirit of integrated living than Integral Spirituality.

When He cometh descending from heaven
On the cloud that He writes in His Word
I'll be joyfully carried to meet Him
On the wings of that great speckled bird.

(Sung to the same tune as that other great grass-roots hymn: “I never knew God made honky-tonk angels.”

[Jana]

Hi M, yea, it is not as easy as it sounds. I will work on a better technique, massage works but not all of us have access to an expert mass-ass therapist. Tennis balls on the floor are good. It is the running impulse that is being fired up, so perhaps the best thing would be to go for a run

[henry]

i echo steven's regret about about being off topic, although some folks consider ryman auditorium a sacred site, and going to the opry a pilgrimage. think hillbilly tantra....my only visit was a taping of the johnny cash tv show.it was the last year of nixon's first term and the guests i think were neil young, james taylor, linda ronstadt and waylon jennings! i walked away with the same feelings for linda ronstadt that jana has for george clooney ...what topsey-turvey roller coaster years, except for which the "spiritual" conversation may have never begun, and the best of us (not henry ) begin to live that way. integrity before integral as nomali said...henry

[Jana]

Actually George is Cute, but I no longer have those kinds of feelings for men, kundi and age decline in hormones and all. Fortunately for me, cause I an't gunna get any anyway.

[Jana]

Hey G,

Been working on submission and victimhood… I saw recently in a dream that loss of sex hormones in a female and associated cortisol damage leads to submission to abuse, or to such “passive” energy that the female invites abuse. Thus the female that can hold her own in the pecking order and maintain her sexual powers is less likely to be abused, and less likely to accumulate cortisol damage to her brain tissue which would throw her into victim mode with its associated loss of sex hormones. The female that can hold her own, probably has higher testosterone levels or is less neurologically complicated than a female who can see too deeply into things, who is psychic, who reads social cues well and tends to worry or get anxious about future outcome will be disadvantaged by the brutality of the pack dynamics. In this way there is a force of elimination against the success of the sensitive more complex female, which might to a certain extent show up in genetic survival and genetic determination. Meaning that simple rules, and complex has a harder time of it. In this sense, when dealing with a bunch of primates, it is preferential to be slightly stupid and not second guess your neighbours…that way you are likely to maintain your sex hormones, have lower cortisol levels, do yourself less brain damage, and avoid abuse. In this sense, to be stupid is smart!

Also I thought today that females (me) tend to get weepy and whiney toward the end of heart expansions…heart expansions tend to blow your adaptive functioning so loss of left brain faculties does produce depression. But there must be some specific chemistry with the aftermath of excessive heart opening, perhaps to do with serotonin levels, the loss of dopamine and maybe reduction in norepinephrine…and perhaps after the long exposure to endorphins a tolerance point is reached and the neuron reuptake mechanism is overwhelmed with neurochemicals which creates a temporary neurotoxicity. And this produces the lack of brain function and the whining. Why females whine more than males I don’t know. Males must have different dopamine wiring, or be more efficient at clearing their brain chemicals….or perhaps they don’t have heart expansions? Or it could be that it is estrogen and testrosterone levels that determine whether one whines after a heart expansion or not. Opening is hard work, perhaps that is it, perhaps we just don't like to be opened beyond our comfort level when our adaptative faculties have gone offline. Anyway the moral of the story is that in order to maintain greater adaptivity and higher testosterone a female needs to be cardio-aerobically fit...then the exhaustive/depressive downside of a heart expansion will not be so extreme. You may not be able to run during a heart expansion, but run on those days which your heart is more normal in order to condition both the heart itself and the brain chemistry.

[Jana]

Astro-dating does not take into account the 22 sunspot cycle...this is perhaps the most prominent determiner of a persons psyche and life-drive.
The problem with astrology is that it is mythological, and perhaps acts more as psychological interference with the truth and deeper cosmic understandings.
People settle for illogical explainations from external and archaic sources to map their relationships, lives and destinys...these are "systems" derived over eons, largely to earn a buck from the gullable...magic systems of socalled divination.
When in reality people should be using insight, dreams, gnosis and logic to determine relationships and destinys.

I am surprised people are so lost that they allow themselves to be classified by an artifical device that doesn't take into account the parents psychosomatic-relationship, the zeitgeist, the stress level of the family of origin, their socioeconomic standing, the number of children, sequence of birth, the moral-spiritual-intellectual development of the parents,the eating habits of the family, whether there was war occuring at the time of pregnancy...etc...the list is endless and as such, looking to the stars while forgetting these real earthly influences which really DO determine the character and destiny is kinda, well, silly.

That people cannot see through astrology to a truer picture of the way things are, shows a general crisis in the human psyche...people are interested in learning about themselves from outside of themselves...they look everywhere but the source...this is why they are obsessed with themselves because they are "lonely". Having abandoned themselves and settled for externalized determinancy, they fear their destiny and so search all around for proof of their worth, and reassurance of  some kind of identity that they can tack on from the outside to prop up their self-definition...and so become temporarily secure. I am this, this and this, because this book told me so.

Sure cosmic bodies have a huge influence on biology...primarily the sun and moon, and to a lesser extent the planets, stars and galaxy...but who of us would really agree to the idea that our "soul" is determined by a bunch of foreign objects in space...and that we are going to base our earthly relationships on information from outside source which we really have no idea as to the truth of these things and the reliablity of the source. Gullibility all round I am afraid, because it is so much harder to think for yourself, find the answers within, and reclaim your own unique identity from the stew of human fiction.

See Cosmic Influences www.biologyofkundalini.com

[jimtzu]

Gullibility all round I am afraid, because it is so much harder to think for yourself, find the answers within, and reclaim your own unique identity from the stew of human fiction.

See Cosmic Influences www.biologyofkundalini.com

you have to remember that those systems were forged when the culture was at the mythologicial stages and had a little more bearing on the evolution out of them.  but i agree with all you said.  mentioning looking within to most people and they have no clue of what you're talking about. their persona driven mind is always looking outward, to make something "mine"...  i think if one is going to use those systems, astrology, i ching, etc... is to use them as a rorschach mirror when looking inside. it still clouds things but gets you headed in the right direction.

[Denis]

I think you point in the right direction here tzu. Everything is a tool for synergy. No thing is separate from any other thing. It may not be necessary to use tools to access deeper knowledge but the appropriate use of tools does not hinder either. The problem that you refer to Jana might be better expressed in terms of when tools are used to reinforced the invisible barrier of separateness, no?

d.

[Jana]

The problem lies in thinking that the tools themselves are onself...as though the reflection in your mirror was really you. Mythic tools are great for exploring the archetypal matrix, but to be "told" who you are, and what your destiny is going to be is really a misappropriation of a tool. As such it is like one "becomes" the tool, rather than "uses" it. The problem with divination systems, astrology, mythic religions, traditional practices etc...is that they are used to "fill" in the empty blank within, rather than spark the source of the potential bonfire of soul within, they merely serve as a candle blowing in the wind of the open window of the soul.