What are we seeking?

“In this visionary work, New York Times bestselling author (and key team member behind The Secret) John Assaraf teams up with business guru Murray Smith to offer special insights, specific tools, and surefire mental strategies that will help you leap ahead in any career or business venture and achieve major financial success.

“Are you ready to transform your life and live exceptionally? The home of your dreams, financial freedom—or whatever your aspiration is, is within your reach with this brilliant step-by-step process. Using cutting-edge research into brain science and quantum physics, Assaraf and Smith show you how it is possible to rewire your brain for success so that you can create the kind of extraordinary life you want.”

–One Spirit Book Club blurb about THE ANSWER

The editorial reviews displayed on Amazon.com call this book a “must read” and a “masterpiece.” Currently number 15 on Amazon, the book is attracting attention.

While I have no idea whether The Answer delivers the kind of answer that will transform readers’ lives, I’m curious about what the question might be. What, actually, are we seeking? Perhaps we’ll know when we hear the answer; or perhaps we’ll know another person’s version what we ought to be seeking.

One would have to be living in a closet not to have noticed that in recent years, there have been a seemingly infinite number of books, gurus, websites, channelers, teleconferences, seminars and retreats all claiming to have the answers we need. 

Some commentators say all this is happening because we are in, or approaching, a universal shift in consciousness. While the cynic within me wants to ask, “according to whom?” I still think that quantum leaps are not only wonderful, but probable.

Are these books the tip of the iceberg, examples of a world-wide wont for transformation? Perhaps so. Or, are they a knee-jerk response to the growing ills we see in the world? Possibly, though I hope not.

It must take a great deal of passion and belief on one’s part to be able to write a book called “The Answer.” I don’t think I could do it even if I thought I had the answer. If 10000000000 books, sites, gurus, etc. all claim to have the answer and/or the secret, is there some redundancy here? Are they all saying the same thing? Or are there 10000000000 parallel universes here with a different applicable answer for each?

This is all a puzzlement.

 

Absolution

“It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”  –Oscar Wilde

 

Where is our absolution hidden?

In the heavens, in the forest, in the sea? Behind trees or beneath rocks? In the words of a holy man or a friend? Not at all.

How could it be somewhere else when we are here and now in this moment wishing finally to say, “I shouldn’t have done that”?

Absolution is hidden within our hearts waiting for us to claim.  We must claim without looking back, or we’ll need to claim it again.

 

The sharing of the light

“And Moshe de Leon, the author of the ‘Zohar,’ figured out that knowing ultimate truth and giving yourself to your lover are effectively identical. You move from this World of Separation to the World of Unity by giving yourself away, and once you do that, new life is the reward.” –Lawrence Kushner in his novel Kabbalah, a Love Story.

Kabbalists will tell you that sharing connects you to the light and that hoarding that which you receive for yourself disconnects you from the light.

Discussions of “sharing’ often focus on money and objects–gifts to churches and charities, the donation of clothes and medicine to those in need.

True sharing is, however, wider in scope. It includes oneself. The world and all we know is created in each moment as two come together to create one, something new, right now. The two, as they “were,” dissolve and become a thing that is greater, energy transformed.

Marriages can be that way, so can friendships and best of all, the relationship with the God of your heart. Transformation is possible in every second, but we hesitate, lack certainty about our prospective lovers leap, and hold back, and though that makes rational sense, it’s rather like trying to light a house by shutting off the power at the breaker box in the garage.

Perhaps we start by asking the ego to step out of the way.

 

 

 

 

 

The ‘unimportant’ things

“More often than not, life’s most important lessons appear within the framework of the small details and conversations of our lives. Imagine how much more we can receive and how much more we can learn from these little insignificant actions we take for granted.” –Karen Berg in “Simple Light”

Why do we dream of places far away while mowing the lawn and of the important moments we’re expecting later in the day while we’re washing the breakfast dishes?

Quite simply, we’ve written off the present moment as inimportant and have chosen to be absent from it. What, one might ask, can I learn from following the lawn mover in even rows through the fescue? And what secrets can possibly lie within the soapy water?

Within the illusion of time, most of the moments of our lives are spent dealing with small details. Rather than spending both sides of every penny, as folks used to say, we often resign ourselves to simply getting through such tasks as yard work and house work in a zoned-out fashion expecting intellectual and spiritual sustance in larger pursuits.

If we are absent from most of what we do, we’re walking zombies and, perhaps, snobbish ones at that, who presume the clerk at the gas station has nothing to offer us, nor the glimpses of heaven within the soap bubbles of the kitchen sink, nor the bluebird singing in the tulip poplar in the back yard.

 

 

 

A Sacred Pause

I need to recover a rhythm in my heart that moves my body first and my mind second, that allows my soul to catch up with me. I need to take a sacred pause, as if I were a sun-warmed rock in the center of rushing river. —Dawna Markova in Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence

One might say it’s the pause that refreshes.

Not easy to do, though, for the TO DO list is endless, the cell phone is ringing, there are weeds in the garden and empty bird feeders hanging on tree limbs, nobody’s dusted the living room for a week, one or more litter boxes await fresh litter…

Even when time is found for taking a break, the mind whirls on thinking of the TO DO list, the busy calendar for the rest of the week, the afternoon trip to the grocery store, the topic for a new post, a book review not yet done…

The more we need that sacred pause, the harder it is to get it. One must relax and silence the chattering mind, literally or figuratively as far away as possible from the exterior racket of phones and ticking clocks. If it’s been a while, the pause may seem less than a pause and prospectively not quite quiet enough to be sacred. Nonetheless, we connect to the light, and as we work at it and make it better, our pauses become longer and more fulfilling.

Our first attempt, though, needs to be today. Not tomorrow after the chores are done or next week after the report has been turned in.

 

Tarot.com tells me ‘romance is in the air’

Romance is in the air … big time right now! After all, the first of May — known as May Day or Beltane — is an ancient Celtic festival celebrating fertility and love. To add to the excitement, Venus, Saturn and Pluto — all in the sensual Earth signs — are now forming a harmonious “grand trine.” Sensible Saturn and passionate Pluto are currently enhancing and empowering amorous Venus, offering cosmic support for manifesting relationships, love and all manner of sensual pleasures. –Tarot.com newsletter

When I started work this morning, I was oblivious to the impact of the “grand trine” on my life. Most of the people I spoke to were acting normal–as normal as they ever act. Nobody made a pass at me in the local coffee shop or next to the red lead lettuce at Kroger.

While checking e-mail, I was about to delete the Tarot.com newsletter, when I noticed that today is a day of “all manner of sensual pleasures.” So that’s why the coffee tasted better than usual, why the sun seemed hot to trot, and the birds and bees were, well, busier than usual.

I called up several trusted local officials and asked them if anyone had been arrested “on the street” for being Under the Influence of the Grand Trine (UIGT). “Frankly,” they said, “we don’t go in for all that grand trine nonsense but we’re sure there’s a law against it.”

“But what about Saturn and Pluto?” I asked. “According to informed sources, they’re having their way with Venus.”

“That’s outside of our jurisdiction,” I was told. I was also told not to call back.

I asked my wife if she wanted to go on a grand trine date and she reminded me that as of 2:41 pm (EDT) I hadn’t started mowing the lawn yet. So much for Saturn and Pluto in our neighborhood.

For the purposes of research, I contacted the local chapter of the Everleigh Ladies of the Evening Association (ELEA) and asked if they were offering a “grand trine special.” When they said it would cost $1,000 (via PayPal) to find out, I hung up and was so disgusted that I tore the ELEA refrigerator magnet off the door of our Kenmore Coldspot and rammed it down the garbage disposal.

Subsequently, my wife informed me that when I got done mowing the lawn, I could go out and buy a new garbage disposal and install it before we had remnants of the red leaf lettuce to grind up.

Had I not flunked out of Astrology 101, all of this grant trine stuff might make sense. Sad to say, May 1 is zooming by past my window at flank speed and I’ve been wasting it looking for romance in all the wrong places.

If you, dear reader, have had one or more grand trine experiences, please don’t tell me about them.

 

Copyright (c) 2008 with some hesitation by Malcolm R. Campbell. I invite you to take a look at my new book trailer for “The Sun Singer” and see if it isn’t more fun than speculating about Saturn and Pluto

Just Be

I  think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

–Walt Whitman in Earth My Likeness

 

I like thinking this is true.

If so, perhaps it’s better to be an osprey or an eagle and fling oneself into the wind with no worries about everything one lacks. To simply be–without reservations or doubt.

Not to worry about the old car or the old suit, some slur in the press, Congress, the sexiest Hollywood star this year (Megan Fox, apparently), the state of one’s bank account or one’s wardrobe.

Books and gurus without number provide recipes for attaining what the osprey and the eagle have without concerrn of chakras and energies and breath.

Ah, the irony of all our complexities and knowledge.

Living a path or talking about a path

“The Universe Abhors a Vacuum. When you create space, the universe will fill it with what serves your highest good. How do you use it? Commit to clean out the useless, confusing, energy-draining clutter (physical, technical and emotional) and it will be replaced with what you need.” –Tricia Molloy, Divine Wisdom at Work 

Carolyn Myss has written that talking about, reading about, and dabbling with a spiritual path does not constitute devotion and provides neither the joy nor the wisdom of chosing that path above all others.

While I believe a spiritual path as interpreted by one organisation or one author/guru/teacher may not represent truth for us, we often go to the opposite extreme and clutter our lives with bits and pieces of many paths. Perhaps the smorgasbord of techniques and ideas fascinates us. Perhaps we think that embracing all paths is a noble effort at diversity and respect. Perhaps we fear that a single approach might miss the mark and see that a little of this and a little of that will ensure we’re at least partly right.

Can we not, though, acknowledge that there are many roads for many people and then hold true to the one intended for us? It’s difficult to live that road if we’re not really on it and have no devotion to the ways and means of the journey that road provides.

Paulo Coelho has written that while there are many paths, trying to walk all of them is the same as walking none of them. While we feel comforted, perhaps, in a totally eclectic approach, we’re really stumbling through clutter, a clutter ot maps, recipes, steps and hallows.

Once we choose the path we want to live and clear away the rest, the universe will find the vacuum it’s been waiting for and will manifest our route more fully formed, radiant and filled with light.

-

Copyright (c) 2008 by Malcolm R. Campbell

On the figurative road

We’re on the road, literally or figuratively from the day we’re born. The journey of a lifetime, as Joseph Campbell called it. He was also fond of saying that no matter how chaotic that journey looks at the midpoint, it will–years later–appear as though in unfolded according to a cohesive plan.

Whether we think in mythic terms, consider ourselves to be seekers on the path, or speak of archetypes and our inner realities, we’re all more or less traveling along our own figurative roads. Perhaps one difference here between writers and nonwriters is that writers tend to put bits and pieces of their journeys into their blogs, articles, poems and books.

When friends of mine began reading my novel The Sun Singer,  more than one of them said, “this is really highly autobiographical isn’t it?”

They saw more of me in the book than I thought I had given away. While I’m more conscious of personal stuff this time out as I begin sending my new novel Garden of Heaven off to prospective agents, those who know me best will find secrets I didn’t intend to share about the figurative road I’m traveling on.

When we get to know people well, the cohesiveness of their lives becomes more clear even though it’s not part of a novel or a poem staring back at us from the page. So often, spiritual journeys remain private things because they sound grandiose when spoken of in casual conversation. As our highest dreams, we may feel putting them out in public will bring comments and suggestions we either don’t need or don’t want to handle so it’s easier to either shrug them off in the light of day or simply remain silent even within the safety of family and close friends.

It’s a shame, I think, that so many of us feel it’s so awkward talking about and sharing the primary focal points of our lives that we miss the commonality of the journey with everyone else.

Logic or Intuition?

I have always fought a battle within myself between using logic to solve problems and using intuition to solve them.

Needless to say, both have their uses. Whether it’s writing computer code or repairing a Lycoming aircraft engine, perhaps intuition and experience lead one to the right place and then logic takes over with the details.

While my intuition works very well when I let it, I often jump to the “safe domain” of logic more often than I should. Intuition brings me so many “ifs” and “maybes” and shades of grey and symbols, that I keep NOT wanting to put my trust in it.

I have plenty of evidence that intuition works, for when I “don’t care” about something, I tend to think up and/or blurt out all sorts of things that turn out later to be true. But can I use this ability, one that all of us have, to find my car keys or a publisher for my new novel? Naah, I go running back to logic again.

I wonder: do you fight this fight or do you just naturally use logic where logic serves best and use intuition where intuition serves best?

-

Personal Note

My intuition tells me it’s time to put my name on this blog. Since Round Tables are often associated with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, I couldn’t call it “Campbell’s Round Table,” so I’ve changed the title to “Malcolm’s Round Table.”

My first novel, The Sun Singer, was published in 2004 and is structured on Joseph Campbell’s (no relation) heropath scheme for myths and mythic stories.  It’s a mountain adventure story with a mix of magical realism and fantasy aimed at both adults and young adults. The novel takes its name from the famous Sun Singer statue at Allerton Park in Monticello, Illinois. The action scenes are set in Glacier Park Montana though, for the sake of fantasy fiction, I mention few real place names. My intention, though, was to make the magic as real as I knew how. The main character, Robert Adams, begins the novel running (like me) away from his psychic abilities.

–Malcolm Campbell