Spirituality for Living

It is safe to say that both mortification of the flesh and the stock market crash are manifestations of something. We learn by testing. We learn by trial, and in the past there have been trials of all kinds. Now we are putting our trade on trial. People want to feel safe and will create risk to test and see if they are safe. When you test the flesh you can see that there is more beyond flesh. For me it was my juvenile seizures, for others it may be something very different. It is like the wounded healer phenomenon, often we don’t know how strong something is until it falls apart.

If we want to feel safe, why test the limits when we already know we are safe? We don’t already know we are safe, and we teach each other endlessly that an ally can become an enemy. That resources [...] Continue to Seek…

Example of a modern mortification of the flesh: caffeine. It tends to make us feel very alert, but also uncomfy.  However, it is so taken for granted that it is little questioned in general and we schedule our time and lives around an unnatural rhythm. It has a positive affect for some and isn’t an evil. I use it to still my nerves, and the Buddha recommended tea.  But we aren’t using it to understand a natural rhythm or to feed a natural desire, not normally.

Can you define natural rhythms and desires? Biologically it has been found that we are naturally grazing animals. We biologically want small amounts of food throughout the day, but are conditioned to eat larger amounts and at set times. There is no beneficial reason, but it is to serve an idea that most still adhere to. Just fits the 9 to 5 life.

Perhaps it [...] Continue to Seek…

So, are you advocating for self-mortification? No. I am advocating experience. No one practice. When you are impassioned, and begin cleaning house despite physical fatigue, you restructure your whole living space. You ache miserably after pushing yourself so hard, but from somewhere not explained by your body something moved you. Experience of this I see as valuable. Some say that everything is subjective, that the spiritual and moral forces have no impact on our physical life. What of those who have exceeded human limitation to protect a loved one?

I also acknowledge that after you are done that it is a good exhaustion. One that is fulfilling. Suffering is a subjective notion. I may experience something and for me it’s suffering, a stumbling block on my spiritual path. For another it may be exciting or uplifting. The old rites and practices had a purpose, well considered or not. Our ancestors [...] Continue to Seek…

So to speak more on mortification of the flesh practices, they often show that there is more to us than our desires. Practices served as rights of passage, much like tribal ritual scarification. It still is practiced in the Opus Dei. They are flagellates if I recall. Opus dei, work of god in Latin. Some say work of crazies? Well, in fact we will touch on that. Some form of mortification of the flesh is even practiced in non mystical sectors. It can be argued that whenever you ignore the biological needs of the body you are practicing mortification of the flesh. According to the scientific understanding of thought and mind, there should be no natural motivation for ignoring biological needs, but it seems a very wide spread behaviour.  It is as if some part of ourselves prioritizes something else much higher.

So you’re saying that many of the practices during [...] Continue to Seek…

Mortification of the flesh to what purpose, disidentification? Yes indeed.  When people still undertook it with the proper intent, but it has no merit if it’s merely a self destructive act.

Are there not other ways less destructive to disidentify? Yes, and ’destructiveness’ is a key concept. It is not the key concept of self mortification. It is the red flag. In a sense when you meditate you destroy something, if only your normal routine. Your thought patterns stagger when you start watching them. Destruction isn’t by itself an evil. When we still ourselves it is like a little death, if only of a rhythm or pattern. To what degree you need to test yourself is largely individual, and most people push themselves to an extreme.  It’s funny, if you seek punishment for atonement it will fail.

How many of us feel awful about what we do, and somehow atone for [...] Continue to Seek…

Mortification of the flesh means putting the flesh to death. It has been and is still practiced in all cultures in some way across the world, though the exact intention and result is often different. There is a lot of speculation in today’s world about what motivates it. Meditation is an act of mortification, yet it is a very gentle way for some. It tends to create an impassioned response either of pain or resistance, or in the Tantric case of pleasure and frustration. Though all mortification of the body seems to have a similar impact, it’s the awareness of the individual that ultimately determines the worth of these trying practices.

Life and death are inevitably linked. When one considers life you inevitably consider its change or abnegation, and for most they fully embrace neither. I chose this topic not for the sake of baseless morbidity, but quite the opposite [...] Continue to Seek…

There are things that inhabit graveyards, and just not the spirits of the dead. Though the dead aren’t hedged from graveyards either. I once saw one of the dead arguing with a lemure. Lemure is a Roman term, refered to the forsaken dead. They change. This was in a graveyard and the lemure was there to feed. The recently deceased wasn’t having it.

When I see them do they look like what would be physical to you? The dead no, they are in a sort of dream like state usually. A lemure maybe, if its been feeding really well. They don’t have the power of speech though.  Do I see through them? Potentially not, that is a movie trick. If you saw a lemure and then tried to do anything with it, it would seem to vanish like a hallucinatory presence but more consistent that a hallucination and persistent. Also usually distorted in [...] Continue to Seek…

I know I may seem like the stereotypical sex obsessed male, but when you give your body place, and sex is the most powerful force to encourage that (that or strife), then your consciousness changes. Your engagement with all of life changes. I’m using it not from obsession, but from its actual primacy in consciousness, and I am using it on purpose. It is in a sense freeing it from its commercial use.

They say sex sells. They are right, but people don’t think that through. They just see female eye-candy and dismiss that with sex sells, not thinking any more deeply. But in fact it does sell. Men seek prestige symbols for it, women seek health and beauty tricks for it, clothing is picked for public image, the “sexy” person is magnetic and influential. What doesn’t it influence in life? And it runs most to root. The biggest block [...] Continue to Seek…

The ‘Working with Chakras’ series of posts is an interview of a conversation on the chakras. What they are, and how you can work with them. We hope you find it of value in furthering your understanding of energy and personal growth. Working with Chakras: Part I starts with an overview, Part II begins to use the ‘assemblage point’ in working with your lower chakras, Part III moves to the heart and also explores the concept of a dominant chakra, and Part IV explores a blocked chakra and how to work with that, finishing at the upper chakras.

Travis: So next chakra, move your assemblage point to the space just at the top of your sternum and at the base of your neck.

Dragon Intuitive (DI): Yes, I always feel tightness there.
Travis: Ok, this is a blocked chakra. Is another thinking chakra, but it expresses the lower ones and tries to tie [...] Continue to Seek…

The ‘Working with Chakras’ series of posts is an interview of a conversation on the chakras. What they are, and how you can work with them. We hope you find it of value in furthering your understanding of energy and personal growth. Working with Chakras: Part I starts with an overview, Part II begins to use the ‘assemblage point’ in working with your lower chakras, Part III moves to the heart and also explores the concept of a dominant chakra, and Part IV explores a blocked chakra and how to work with that, finishing at the upper chakras.

Travis: So move your assemblage point to the base of your chest, just inside your arms as if you would be carrying something.
Dragon Intuitive (DI): Feels like a stable point.
Travis: For you it likely is. What else do you feel? Find yourself thinking?

DI: Just stable…confident..
Travis: Interesting you say confident, this is the [...] Continue to Seek…