Integrating Spiritual Experiences into the Personality

Integrating Spiritual Experiences into the Personality

Integrating Spiritual Awakenings into the Life of the Personality

Do you see what’s going on?  I mean really? There’s a burning desire within me to write about this maybe because until now I only partially understood what’s been going on.  Maybe that’s what you are (or have been) too and that’s why this post.  Let me give a few examples of what is intended.  Let’s say you watched all three Lord of the Ring movies.  But even if you haven’t, hang in there, okay?  Remember how Sam, Frodo, Pippin, and Merry came back from their adventures returning to the Shire and the looks they got from the hobbits from those who never left?  Remember how Frodo and the others looked at one another?  They had to find some way to come back now after their long journey and live normal lives.  Right.  See where I’m going here?  Integration back into the work-a-day world with others can be difficult.

My gosh, I’ve written about my difficulties with that for years but wasn’t fully aware that its a process now in which many others are also struggling.  Increased sensitivity to sound and noxious energy is one part of it. Yet the other part is continuing to meditate in the world of men and beasts after being in true solitude and withdrawal for an extended period.

Some people go on retreat, some for as long as a year.  For myself, it was a much longer period of time overall.  Not that I didn’t have to deal with real-world concerns in spurts but for the most part, I do recall at least 2 solid years of meditation throughout the bulk of the day.  I was, for all practical purposes, withdrawn from the world of the ego/personality and spent a good deal of time in states of . . . well, let’s just say in states in which the self that deals with earth living was out of the picture.

I pictured myself remaining in that state until the end of days.  Yet, the personality/ego needed to integrate all the spiritual meditative states and bring them right into the face of loud neighbors, barking dogs, mean humans and the whole gambit of aversions.

My meditations took on a new format at that point.  My mind was being critical, judgmental, aversive, impatient, intolerant—you name it.  Woah, my spiritual practice took a huge hit!

I began to really dislike myself and felt like all my spiritual work was destroyed.  My mind, in meditation, was running in 10 different directions and it wasn’t easy to pull myself together, so-to-speak.

At that point, thoughts of becoming a nun of some type or other or hiking the Appalachian Trail on a permanent basis were prominent.  I began to resent my family to whom I came down of the mountain (literally from the high Country of the Appalachians to the flatland) to serve.  I wanted to go back, desperately.  I didn’t want to integrate.

Many times when my energy tangled with a difficult human I’d find myself really angry at myself instead of realizing it’s okay to stand up for one’s self in a way that is direct and at the same time kind.

My point in writing this is that people who view themselves as on a spiritual path upon which they might have had profound spiritual experiences feeling great love, peace, and unification/oneness in meditation or on retreats should give themselves a break.  Like Frodo and the others and even like Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, it’s a path and may take a while to come back to this temporary earth home after having really gone HOME.  No matter if that going HOME was brief or for years, it is my current understanding that our job now is to apply what we experienced to our ego/personality and integrate that within the earth world.  It’s a journey and self-acceptance is a huge part of it now as we pull the mind back into the unity consciousness it once knew.

Memories will arise triggered by life experiences and people outside of times of spiritual withdrawal and we can watch the mind and learn about our patterns and tendencies.  In that awareness, we can diffuse their energy.  But it doesn’t mean we’ve lost our prior spiritual state, nor does it mean we have done anything wrong.

It’s just a deeper level of spiritual awakening and not a failure in any way.  That’s what I’m trying to convey.

I hope these views and opinions of mine will find their way to those who might be able to understand and benefit from this little post.

Patterns of Thought, Neurons, Psychic Development and Spiritual Evolution

Neurons Gossip

How do all those things relate?  Patterns that I’m referring to have to do with what sometime’s I’ve heard called “gossipy neurons” or “ground consciousness” — either way, karmic repetition.  I really appreciate how the Dalai Lama of Tibet has joined Buddhists theory with scientific theory to understand the mind and how it works.

So patterns of thought and neurons that react to stimuli (see What the Bleep Do we Know?) — gossipy neurons!  I love that image of neurons gossiping and we could then see how and why the work of Byron Katie has been helpful to so many–i.e. question that thought and who would you be without it?

Neurons gossip — stimulus happens (some life event or experience) and then old dialogue begins accompanied by old pictures.

In my work as a psychic I’ve learned how to listen to observe to create a space for information to come through and I can’t have any neurons gossiping in the background when i do this.   I think meditation and working in those areas with the mind enables one to recognize when ground or karmic consciousness takes over or said another way, when the neurons start gossiping and firing and kicking up those old connections.

When we notice those neurons gossiping we can become aware and break those old patterned connections through intention–creating a new pathway, one that includes compassion and love instead.

I often point out how psychic development (I offer an Online Course) is an aid to our personal spiritual evolution.  This is yet another example!  Awareness rocks!

Yogic Conduct, Entering the Action, Embracing Life

I do love the way Divine Mind operates–that’s just me talking to It!  A friend sent me that BUDDHA DOODLE [image above] moments ago via email (credit to Molly Hahn/Buddha Doodles).  This image correlates with the post I was thinking to make here relating to something I heard a Rinpoche (teacher) speak of the other day.  Before I get too complicated with it all–and I really don’t have to since the doodle says it all really–there is a term I heard that really rang those ‘Buddhist Bells’ with me!

Oh, by the way, I have tingsha bells and they are an economical substitute for singing bowls and gongs and other tools… they don’t take up much room either. But let me go to the point about this term or phrase used by the teacher.  I don’t know if this is the correct interpretation of exactly what Rinpoche was intending, but here’s what he said.  When a highly evolved yogi reaches a particular state of evolution it is said that they are in YOGIC CONDUCT.  Rinpoche’s translator said it means they have “Entered the Action”.

Interesting.  For this particular yogi they were referring to first studied at the university and then meditated in seclusion for a long time and then taught students and then following that he went into “Yogic Conduct” or “Entered the Action”.

Sounds a bit like going into battle doesn’t it?  I wonder if that means  (to do what we think of as ) “walking the talk” in a way that is more intense or “activated” or “active”–??

I thought of my own life since haven come down from the mountain into a densely populated area of sentient beings, including souls of blood relation, family.  It’s been totally intense, like I have “entered the action” in some way or another--fer’ sure!

Again, I have no idea of that’s what “yogic conduct” means or what the Tibetan Rinpoche and his translator were really talking about or it means something else entirely. But I thought the term to be interesting.  I tried to goggle it and found nothing.

But anyway; I am about to be putting all of my things in storage for a while and having one room for my personal space like a monk or yogi in a monastery–like a monk’s cell.

And further will be living with two family members, sharing half the rent in another apartment.  (My hope is that this is very temporary until space opens in other housing where I have made application–and also supplication!  ho-ho, hee-hee)

But the monastic cell is going to be awesome (compared to previous lifetimes!-Ha!) –live plants, big windows, TV, computer, desk, etc.  Heaven in comparison!  (And the company of fine family companionship…. I am most grateful to my kind sister for sharing with me temporarily so I don’t have to break a lease elsewhere and can be ready when the place to which was supplicated has an opening.)

Anyway… self-awareness, remaining mindful, allowing emotion to become the  path–that’s what the Buddha Doodle means to me.  Another recent blog post covered a good deal more about working with emotion as the spiritual path.

Entering the Action!  Yogic Conduct!  Om mani padme hum.

ASPIRATION:  May I be able to practice the genuine dharma!  

May I remain mindful and awake!  

May all beings, through their virtue, perfect the accumulations of merit and wisdom! 

May this blog post be helpful to someone in cyber world!