during the existential alienation...

O spiritual soul, when thou seest thy desire obscured, thy Will arid and constrained, and thy faculties incapable of any interior act, be not grieved at this but look upon it rather as a great good, for God is delivering thee from thyself, taking the matter out of thy hands; for however strenuously thou mayest exert thyself, thou will never do anything so faultlessly, perfectly, and secure as now -- because of the impurity and torpor of thy faculties -- when God, taking thee by the hand, is guiding thee in the dark as one that is blind, along a road ... and to an end thou knowest not, and whither thou couldst never travel by the help of thine own eyes and thine own feet, however strong thou mayest be...

Extract from The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross of the Order of Mount Carmel

Emergence from the dark night?

"The dark night is a certain inflowing of God into the soul which cleanses it of its ignorance’s and imperfections, habitual, natural and spiritual..."

26 June 2008

The medication is working: thank you psychiatrist. The therapy is working: thank you psycho-therapist, the divine healing energy is working: thank you guides, gods and angels.

Life is more or less working once again.

I have emerged from the dark of night. While I was in it I was otherwise unaware, literally nothing; no-one. The detoxification from drugs, the predisposition, the former depression and the new anxiety all made the break-down weeks so complicated as to what was happening. Losing all sense of self and reality is a very scary event, terrifying even. This text will be a reminder for later.

Now I am clambering upwards with great optimism, sometimes not daring to believe I am secure again, sometimes doubting if I am really stable. The medication is making me believe. At any rate I needn’t worry whether or not I am fully recovered because I trust. I believe (mirtazapine or not).

22 June 2008

They say you first need to know the darkness in order to know the light, and in order to appreciate the duality and to rise above it into unity you must go through it. Well I am in that darkness now and although I thought before that I had known it, I reckoned that I had been through the worst and defined that darkness, I know now I had only flirted with it and stayed somehow safe all the past while.

Now I am plunged into the abyss of hell residing inside me, this desert of human malice, and every cruel twisted thing within my psyche. My subconscious plays tricks on my conscious, torments it gradually and this is where the battle is being fought out, I say battle in order to illustrate the struggle and I give it some poetic, heroic feel as I must if I would stay sane. It is torture but even greater the reward right? It’s as if I am being shown what I could become, what evil is, what the duality entails.

28 June 2008

I am seeking to define and interpret the recent events in my life from a spiritual perspective and today I came across these extracts describing the so called ‘dark night of the soul’ and I find the similarity with my experience these past weeks rather uncanny:

http://www.nor.com.au/community/spiritualemergence/page5.html

Expanding and Dissolving the Self: Dark Night and Rebirth

The Dark Night can arise as a stage in a particular spiritual practice or as a result of life circumstances that challenge one's sense of identity, self-image or status. These might include illness, death of a loved one, divorce or separation, loss of job or financial status, mid-life crisis, or an existential crisis triggered by the growing discrepancy between one's inner spiritual needs and the prevailing materialistic emphasis of our society.

"The description of death and rebirth as a "dark night" comes from the writings of the great mystic St. John of the Cross. In an eloquent way, he describes the dark night as a long period of unknowing, loss, and despair that must be traversed by spiritual seekers in order to empty and humble themselves enough to receive divine inspiration... Traditionally the dark night arises only after we have had some initial spiritual opening."

Extracts from The Stormy Search for the Self, by C.Grof and S. Grof:

"During the existential crisis, one feels cut off from the deeper self, higher power, or God -- whatever one depends on beyond personal resources to provide strength and inspiration. The result is a most devastating kind of loneliness, a total and complete existential alienation that penetrates one's entire being ... This deep sense of isolation appears to be available to many human beings, regardless of their history, and is often a central ingredient of spiritual transformation. Irina Tweedy, a Russian woman who studied with a Sufi master in India, wrote in The Chasm of Fire:

"The Great Separation was here ... a peculiar, special feeling of utter loneliness ... it cannot be compared to any feeling of loneliness we all experience sometimes in our lives. All seems dark and lifeless. There is no purpose anywhere or in anything. No God to pray to. No hope. Nothing at all...

"This sense of extreme isolation is reflected in the desolate prayer of Jesus on the cross: "My God, my God. Why hast Thou forsaken me?" People who are lost in this place frequently cite the example of Christ's darkest hour in an attempt to explain the extent of this monumental feeling…"

Extracts from Spiritual Emergency, by C. Grof and S. Grof:

The preceding conflicts and sufferings, with the psychological and physical symptoms which they generated, vanish sometimes with amazing suddenness, thus confirming the fact that they were not due to any physical cause but were the direct outcome of the inner strife. In such cases the spiritual awakening amounts to a real resolution.

"But in other cases, not infrequent, the personality is unable to rightly assimilate the inflow of light and energy. This happens, for instance, when the intellect is not well coordinated and developed; when the nervous system is too sensitive; or when the inrush of spiritual energy is overwhelming in its suddenness and intensity. In extreme cases, the reaction can be so intense as to become pathological, producing a state of depression and even despair, with suicidal impulses. This state bears a close resemblance to psychotic depression -- once called "melancholia" -- characterized by an acute sense of unworthiness, a systematic self-depreciation and self-accusation, which may become so vivid as to produce the delusion that one is in hell, irretrievably damned. There is also an acute and painful sense of intellectual incompetence; a paralysis of the will-power accompanied by indecision and inability to act.

"But in the case of those who have had an inner awakening or a measure of spiritual realization, the disturbances should not be considered as a mere pathological condition, they have different, far deeper causes, as has been indicated by both Plato and St. John of the Cross with similar analogies."

i need not (2)

The future seems so uncertain, because I am alone, because I am one that must be shown. I can trust that you will walk beside me, sit beside me, watch over me while I sleep and teach me as I dream.

I can think of nothing better to do than voice my thoughts in words, while I write I take delight in you: that I have you, that I need not worry about getting, I need not be anxious about being, I need not be fearful about leaving. I need not.

i need not

Are you the blackbird high in the tree?

I look around at all the abundance

How can it be that I doubt?

Evening falls. I listen to the singing. I rejoice

Is this not what life is about?

Even though I am without a companion

I can share my happiness with you

They may think me mad

As I converse with the angels

Dancing to the music of nature

Comfortable for the hours of silence

When they come with the night

The NF Empathy Shift

Why I (INFJ) sometimes feel so restless, why I sometimes feel like people are sucking me dry, clinging to me, hooked on to me and why sometimes people have such high expectations of me?
This piece of writing explains why!

Although NFs (intuitive feeling) especially the male NF, become restless if others (including mates, children, or parents) are dependant, NFs have in their own personalities characteristics that promote this dependancy. They pride themselves on being sensitive to others and caring about them. It is almost impossible for NFs to be unaware of others psychological needs. Yet the NF becomes restless when these ties begin to bind, as they do when the amount of emotional input becomes a psychological overload for the NF. At this point the NF can seem cruel, insisting unexpectedly that the other "stand on his own two feet." This shift in attitude is usually abrubt and the person who heretofore believed that he was very special in the eyes of the NF now finds himself apparently rejected. The NF does not mean to be unkind; he or she is simply disconnecting a relationship which can no longer be handled - in spite of the reality that the NF created this dependant relationship through expressions of empathy and unique understanding. Building empathic relationships is second nature to this temperament, a master of the art of intimacy. But as those around the NF want more and more attention, more and more expressions of this unusual appreciation, more and more signals of deep affection, the NF becomes restless and resentful of pressures to deliver what had seemed promised: the ideal love, the perfect friendship, complete understanding, and total acceptance.

The NF is vulnerable to this kind of misunderstanding because of his extraordinary capabilities to introject. He can take into himself the point of view, the emotions, and the psychological state of another so completely that the other feels totally recieved. The other person may not realize that the NF does this in most relationships, and may be hurt on discovering that he is not valued as uniquely as he first thought. When the NF leaves each person, the NF no longer resonates to that person but relates to the person now present.

The Apollonian (NF) Mate

Please Understand Me - Character and Temperament Types - David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates

there is something quite wrong upstairs now

08-06-08

I am in the ‘waiting room’. I feel disconnected from the usual things, estranged from the usual worldliness, now inspired by the leaving behind of those people that once seemed so glorious and fulfilling, the land that seemed so bewitching, enticing, glamour-drama.

I would want to be alone if that meant not being in confusion or anxiety, I would like to be solitary if that meant not having to fit in, I would like to be lost if that meant not having to conform and be disappointed.

I know that I am meant to be surrounded by all these people all the time and live in this world, live in this city, throw off the self-pity and acclaim the right to be who I am even if it is irregular, never before displayed around here, never before heard of in this place.

I dream about leaving and starting anew in a foreign place, in a far wilderness. Today these have been my thoughts, slowly gaining enthusiasm and sometimes contemplating the end; the termination. God though gives me determination; I read the bible and prayed. I know that even a wretch like me can be saved.

Dad called me this morning with encouragement, it helped because I was feeling guilty and shamed.

I still have very dark, hopeless thoughts about myself and my future, so insecure at times. I desire to be the same, I desire to be heterosexual, I desire to be loved, I desire to be secure but these things are keeping me down.

Acceptance is still difficult when not stoned or drunk or abusing some other chemical. There is this forever plaguing sexual confusion and now twisted terrible thoughts assault me, I can only believe in God to lead me. I am like a blind beggar on a crowded boulevard, stumbling without a stick, mumbling without a tongue. I am hungry for meditation (medication) and my former ease, my former numbness to these things.

Closing my eyes to rest can cause distress, lying in on a Sunday morning can cause sin. I define sin as cruelty to self. Meditation now causes me to be fearful when before it was my tranquilizer, my work-out, my spiritual battery recharging mechanism. I cannot do that anymore.

I went jogging today and it felt good, it felt like a drug, I am really coming to appreciate the endorphin release. This must become my new substance.

Thank you for the music, thanks to all those praying for me, again I cannot comprehend this love from all these people, some unseen, many unknown. This must be the new love. My brain is close to being fixed, near to being restored to balance and rest. Today was not inside or outside, it was disconnected but not so bad. Tomorrow back to work, I am not thinking about the new job or this one I am leaving.

I still keep thinking that I don’t need anti-depressants because I sometimes feel o.k., sometimes I feel good and content for long periods of time. I am starting to accept that there is something quite wrong upstairs now, something needing repair.

????=God

Source: journal of my recent burn-out/psycho/depression/anxiety disorder /rediscovering God trip

A Forest Existence

By Tom Sterling

One day, on the upper Cuieiras, I saw a remarkable example of a man totally and successfully adapted to a forest existence. I came on the river-side shack of an old hunter. There are a number of these men living alone in the back tributaries. Usually, they are almost pure Indian, although they are completely detribalized. The few that I saw seemed to have dropped out of the human race altogether, and they were not very unhappy about their choice. They all had dogs, and this one had two. Both these animals had adapted so well to the life of their master that they looked like him; they were lean and hard, and there was something intensely placid about them. They obeyed the hunter’s every word, as more domesticated dogs never learn to do, but they never cringed or whined. Like their master, also, they were somehow neat and orderly, without seeming to be so. They had appointed places to sleep in the sun (or shade, depending on the time of day) and places to stand on the riverbank looking noble and precise positions to take in the hunter’s dugout canoe in order to balance it properly. I have never seen more contented dogs, though they were also highly keyed and immensely eager to hunt.

The man must have been in his middle fifties. He had brown, wrinkled knees and elbows of the aged, but he was tough as mahogany and could obviously have walked the legs off most men half his age. The muscles of his arms and thighs and belly were flat and unobtrusive, shaped for endurance. Quite obviously, his diet was protein, and he drove himself as hard as his pray to get it. We talked for a while; he was full of apologies because he had no coffee, an almost unforgivable sin for a Brazilian host. Aside from coffee, however, he appeared to want nothing. His little house was almost old-maidishly trim; a better word, perhaps, would be ship-shape – sailors can be old-maidish too.

Every few days this happy man would go into the jungle with his dogs to hunt. There he found sufficient food for himself, and for them, and once in a while he took a pelt which he sold (illegally) down river. It was enough. Indeed, as I could see with certain envy, it was more than enough; he was a very rich man with his neat house and his neat dogs and all the time in the world – which, I saw with another twinge of envy, did not weigh on his hands at all. Like the dogs, he was thoroughly enjoying himself, though he could have used some coffee.

I asked the hunter, then, if he had ever been married – clearly he lived alone here now. It seemed another thing that he might be missing even more than coffee, perhaps. No, he said, he had never lived with a woman and did not intend to. Women, he said, were too messy, and made too much noise. Anyway, he added, “I am married to her.” With this he pointed to the great forest behind him. On the surface, it was an ordinary remark, much as a man might say that he was married to his work. But I could see that he took the statement very seriously. That is to say, he took the gender of the forest very seriously. For him, it was a woman and not a virginal woman either. She was the guardian of the creatures he hunted. Indeed, when he spoke of hunting, he had the settled look of a happily married man. His wife was clean, efficient and reliable if treated with proper respect.

As we shoved off in our boat, the hunter stood on a spit of sand with his two proud dogs and waved goodbye. Then with apparent relief, he walked back into what he surely believed was the eternal forest.

Source: Time Life - The Amazon

Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil

One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

there is a giant bird

that underneath of its wings

received us

Brazil Social Photography - Label: Indigenous Peoples  

Enter Amazon World

By Tom Sterling

Storm clouds began to build up in the pale sky at about half-past three in the afternoon, like blocks of blue-grey ice. On either side of the river, the walls of green vegetation grew somber and forbidding. There were three of us in a small open boat – myself, a guide and a boy –setting out on a week’s exploration of the Amazon region’s vast maze of rivers and forests. Hoping to reach the cabin of a solitary rubber collector before the storm broke, the guide made time by taking short cuts. The low jungle banks were flooded to a depth of twelve or fifteen feet, and as long as the light lasted he explained, we could avoid a number of bends in the river by cutting between the trees. We did this twice, with batteries of thunder shaking the leaves down from the trees all around us, before the lowering sky reduced visibility to ten yards, and we had to return to open water.

The rain seemed seconds away. I was eager for it to come, if only because a storm is so much closer to its finish once it has started. We throttled back to half speed, feeling our way. The cold slate sky cracked with lightning, the bolts coming straight down on every side without their characteristic jagged shape. As the first few drops scattered around us like huge silver coins, the hut appeared through the gloom. We landed, safely tucked our gear away inside, and stood under the hatch and watched as the storm broke. The sky went purple. The jungle whitened the lightning, as if lit by the flicker of an ancient arc lamp. With a roar of thunder, the heavens opened and a sheet of water fell between us and the Amazon world. We could barely see in front of us, only hear the savage pounding of the rain and smell the curious satisfying stench of sodden leaves, logs and earth.

I had seen great storms before, but never one in which so many elements of nature rushed together in a primitive fusion of forces. The sky, the whipping forest, the river became parts of a single, untamable entity. The sight of it brought home the unchallenged supremacy of nature in this forest, and powerfully confirmed the impression I had formed during my first researches: that the Amazon – by which I mean both the river and its forest covered basin – should be approached with as few preconceptions as another planet.

Source: Time-Life The Amazon

Random Wide's Journal

clean sheet chillout

http://www.playlist.com/node/34875632

The Armageddon: A Cosmic Filtering Process

Many who hear the word Armageddon conger up pictures of the whole world blowing up in some kind of world conflict and becoming scattered pieces in an asteroid belt. Many born-again Christians believe that they will be lifted off the earth in a great rapture, leaving the sinners to battle it out until earth’s ultimate demise. Others, New Age hopefuls, have already proclaimed the arrival of the Age of Aquarius, even as we wallow in starvation, wars, and materialism. That earth’s problems should be so easily resolved and with such finality could only be the result of a profound misunderstanding of the whole process of human evolution, for as we noted in Chapter One, our journey of millions of years is far from over.

Our view of the Armageddon differs considerably from current thought in that we see it more as a filtering process—separating the tares from the wheat, the light from darkness—in every pore, level, and sector of human society, for the true objective of the Armageddon is a general, comprehensive housecleaning designed to rid the earth plane of all negative influences, those of the Dark Forces, so that the conditions necessary for the flowering of a new golden age, the Age of Aquarius, can prevail.

Read more about the filtering process, the acceleration of time and the current and coming world struggles leading up to 2012 from The Sanctus Germanus Prophecies Vol. 1 here.

List of Current Messages from the Great Brotherhood of Light

The Tower

Here I am emerged from this time of shifting earth; I do not claim it is over yet, the splitting, shaking and resettling.

I would have thought you gone from my thoughts. I reckoned on your disappearance from my heart. Still you are there,

You look at me now with those same sort eyes, holding a torment of love and an earthquake of longing.

Do you not see that my tower has crumbled?

For many years I hid inside its mighty walls, conducted lightning bolts into the earth and I glanced down scornfully at those who would rightfully judge me, including you.

I was pretending to be invincible, hiding behind smokescreens like only a magician can. I was in delusion but I have been crumbled, now in all things…humbled.

I expected no attention from you in the wreckage and debris; I thought you lost in the chaos. Still you are there and love is returned to me.

I cannot believe I am laughing, thinking myself to be depressed.

I surrender now to more tremors if they may come, expecting nothing, rejoicing in my newest deliverance.

Naked am I in simplicity and here I stand face to face with you (again).

They are not the Me myself

Trippers and askers surround me,

People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,

My dinner dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,

Battles, the horrors of fracticidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassioning, idle, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm in an impalpable certain rest,

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,

I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

- Walt Whitman - Song of myself (4) -