Spirituality for Living

Everyone is insane to some extent and without an awareness of that “potential” insanity then people do unconscious things. Entropy affects everything. Order can be destructive. Chaos can be constructive.
Does our subconscious control our conscious? No. The subconscious and conscious stem from a root awareness, but the subconscious is not divided against itself. More holistic, [...]

Gnosis has many sources. It is one of those phenomenon like the preponderance of certain symbols that co-arose cross culturally. Like the presence of dragons in every world mythology.
The intuition that “god” is somehow indwelling the human soul has been expressed in many ways across all world cultures. The “gods” can be real even if [...]

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 [...]

Control is a human obsession. It’s a human endeavour, and it’s human nature. Control is very poorly understood at best. Control is how we kill ourselves. Control is what we do when we kill pain. Control is what we do when we kill time. Control is what we do when we medicate the mentally unfit. [...]

Control is human obsession and human nature. The idea of control that most people embrace is also a delusion. We control to keep things static. We control in denial of what is available to us. We abstain from embracing the now because it would deny us control. In denying the reality of our perception, we deny [...]

Rites of passage are very much a part of our lives and thinking. For any who are familiar with the popular massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft (WOW), we see benchmarks in our lives. We “level up”. Graduate from school, get promotions, get married, get divorced. There are rites of passage all through life, and [...]

Possession is a common theme for paranoid schizophrenics, but there is something real behind it and it isn’t what you see on TV or movies. We don’t exist in a world of matter and objects. We exist in systems of energy, and that idea that we are nicely self contained, is a half truth at [...]

Greed and generosity are pretty central “moral” issues in many peoples live. We are naturally motivated creatures, and greed and generosity are two sides of the same coin. One can be greedy for opportunities to be generous even, so first let’s focus on greed.
We are creatures of appetites, and this is abundantly evident. The cookie [...]

A Buddhist story. The monk says there are two wolves inside me. One is angry and fighting, the other is kind and gentle. He was asked which one will live, and his answer was the one I feed. The metaphor is apt. If your inner demon is a hateful wolf, you need not feed it. [...]

Can inner demons be channelled a good way? Yes. In eastern beliefs, the Oni, a.k.a. demons, were crude, sort of dim witted, and very violent. But they existed to enact the justice of heaven. They were moved when heaven recognized a wrong, and they were the active agents of correction. Now keep in mind they aren’t [...]

There are a lot of very strong opinions on ego. From what exactly it is, to how important it is, to what it means if anything, and how to deal with it.
We have a “self”. When you take a moment, and aren’t giving your attention to anything or anyone else at that moment, you are [...]

Too much like or dislike can be very narrowing and corrupting. It seems to lead to obsession, which certainly is unhealthy? A computer metaphor is in order. Dichotomous thinking causes fragmentation, which causes loss of moral integrity. Obsession blocks adaptability, and nature and life are a flow. Flow and you live. Stagnate and you die.
Can there [...]