new site

I have started a new website called OneWord.

I am very happy with how Eternal Awareness evolved from its modest beginnings on Blogspot/Blogger to its modest place here on WordPress. And I also like that my very first post is still here, because it helps give me perspective. I can go back and see how I’ve changed or improved, whether in terms of self development, writing style or focus.

It’s funny, because in starting another site, I found myself wondering if I had abandoned Eternal Awareness. Eternal awareness is not, however, something that stops or goes away.

Eternal awareness is something that grows. In the beginning it is like starting a fire by hand - you get a few sparks going and then carefully nurture those first, timid embers into a warm flame.

My awareness fire began with very small sparks, so small I swore they weren’t there. But they were, and as they grew I realized a flame called deeper awareness was actually coming into view.

I have never presented myself or this site as an authority on eternal awareness. The name came about from a class I took. My original blog was inspired by my teacher, but the name was changed after I took a class on the Bhagavad Gita.

In the Gita, Krishna tells the forlorn Arjuna that he simply doesn’t understand the nature of what’s going on. Arjuna is faced with a terrible dilemma: his small army is facing a larger army whose ranks are filled with old friends and relatives. In awful despair, Arjuna is caught in a spot where he is powerless to fight. Krishna reprimands him, telling Arjuna it is not only his duty to fight, but his eternal duty to fight - that there is something of a higher perspective that he is supposed to kill.

To paraphrase Krishna, “Arjuna, you need a change in perspective. And the first thing you have to do is to become aware that you are an eternal being.”

I started thinking about that, and decided to try to do my small piece out of respect for Krishna and Arjuna’s great story. So, one of the things I did was to change the name of my site to Eternal Awareness. It’s funny how something small like that can help focus you. Eternal Awareness became a daily, weekly and monthly meditation - a working, everyday life mantra.

This site will stay up, and it is likely that I will become active here again. In the meantime, and through all of time and beyond, I hope your sparks grow into deeper and deeper awareness.

the tiny, little door

I certainly understand the frustration with blogging and the compulsion to give it up. I gave it up for seven months, resumed with renewed vigor for several months, and lately have been very sporadic. However, I am not ready to give up on blogging. I still believe blogging has potential, although not in its current form.

Understanding the limitations, less then a week ago my teacher made some comments about blogging. He had previously commented that it seems everyone is very eager to state their understanding, and often state it as if it is THE understanding. His more recent comment was a continuation of his earlier observations. “What I see happening is something I see everyone doing. “

“First, some people will come on and state that they do not understand the issue being discussed. Then, after saying that, they will give their opinion, but the opinion is stated in a tone of being factual. Now, I do not have a problem with someone saying they don’t understand; nor do I have a problem with someone saying they don’t understand, and then giving an opinion from the perspective of being someone who does not understand. But, I do have a problem with someone who doesn’t understand, who then gives an opinion as though they do understand.”

“Second, sometimes someone will be right on the point, but then they lose it, or it drifts away, with no one picking up on it. People will connect to the point for a moment, and then they will drift off course.”

Maybe we don’t see the problem this way, but my teacher’s insights suggest that discouragement with the medium is because we either don’t know what the point is, or we don’t recognize it when we see it, or we lose it once we have it. Of course, it is very easy to apply this to our own lives and frustrations with how to make a deeper connection, the one we are yearning to make. So why all the frustration? It is because we don’t understand the next step.

The reason we are having a problem is because we are cutting into the unknown. Last night I heard a teacher describe the door into understanding as being very tiny. He said it is the teacher’s job to show us that tiny, little door.

Two nights ago I personally met a fellow blogger for the first time, Jon Zuck. I have known Jon for a couple of years and it was great to finally meet him. After a night of getting acquainted face to face over dinner, we agreed to get together the next night so that I could attend a class with Jon’s teacher. This master is dedicated to the Way; it is his profession and life’s work. Born in 1948, Kitabu Roshi is an author, teacher and martial arts master. He recently started a new website. After the evening class, in which he discussed the importance of a teacher and the importance of learning how to ‘get out of the way’ and let the ‘One’ come through, there were refreshments and informal chats. Among other things, we briefly discussed the web as a teaching medium. While I sensed in Roshi a hopeful optimism, he also sees its limitations.

E.R. Spruiell and Kitabu Roshi

As bloggers we are touching people, but we are sometimes hitting barriers within our blogging and within ourselves. Spiritual blogs and websites can help and inform us, but words only take us so far. Using our intellect only gets us to a certain point and then we start regressing or at best doing lateral development. Essential to deeper development is the need for actual deeper experiences. How is the web going to get us to the next point? How is the web going to give us deeper experiences? We don’t know the answer to that.

If we want to open up, in a truly meaningful and substantial way, we need a teacher (in whatever form that takes) to guide us through the unknown. Yet, we are often way too quick to define what the unknown thing looks and feels like.

With respect to a person as a teacher, many people resist the notion of a spiritual teacher. They don’t want to give up their personal power, or they have been taught that everything is already in them. Everything is in us, but if we glibly dismiss the need for a teacher because ‘everything is already in me,’ we are denying our salvation. If everything is already in us, then why don’t we demonstrate and live the ‘everything’? This is one of those many paradoxes that can confound us when we are on the outside of the door looking in. Actually, we are not looking in the door, because we don’t even know what the door looks like. We wouldn’t recognize it if it was staring us right in the face.

Teacher’s who are genuinely capable of being a guide along the inner path are hard to find. But they are much easier to find than the point inside of us that we find to be so elusive. Meanwhile, the teacher stands patiently, ignored as he continuously, 24/7, points to the tiny, little door.

giving back to the source

 

 

Oops… that last post? My teacher came back to my blog today, called me and told me I had gotten off track with his comments. For the record, the main topic wasn’t about blogs; the blog topic was only a momentary aside. And what is interesting, and reflective of something I believe we all do, is that the main thing he was showing me yesterday? …well, I pretty much ignored it.

Read on and check it out. After a few introductory comments, you can read what he actually said to me today.

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Sensei was talking yesterday about the Art of Giving, and how these principles are in a certain order, and that inherent in the running of these principles, or (as we call it) ‘the loop’, there are elements that often get overlooked: including the order, that it is a sequential, dynamic loop, and that we should always give a portion of the proceeds or benefits back to the source. Not understanding these things, we end up practicing and living the individual principles of the Art of Giving, but never get the machine, so to speak, up and running.

What does that mean, giving back to the source? According to Sensei, this is an essential ingredient. It is something we may be doing in many parts of our lives and applications, but it is likely to be something we do not understand when viewed within the context of the formula for the Art of Giving. He reminded me that we keep missing that point.

One way to look at it is as a tithe - as we respect a value, and then appreciate it, we take part of that appreciation, and in gratitude for that increased value, we return some of it to the source of our understanding, bringing it, so to speak, into the temple of understanding, and placing it on the altar, that place which is the source of our understanding, guidance or improvement.

The ‘altar’ should be the thing or person in our lives who best represents that – within the context of our own individual applications. If it is a person, it isn’t necessarily the person delivering the message… since they may only be the messenger. Also, use of the word ‘altar’ is unimportant, as it is only being used to convey the idea of what is going on.

Anyway, after reading his insight about the principles being listed in an incorrect order - i.e., my last post - I didn’t think to ask (nor did anyone else) something like “Hmm, why would that be important?” We didn’t individually or collectively wonder why my teacher would say something like that. And he views that behavior as a problem. I have been studying with him long enough that I agree with his assessment, but I forget, slip, get distracted, etc. He doesn’t forget; that’s why he’s Sensei (teacher).

So, another perspective of giving back to the source is by asking a question, but not just a question for question’s sake - rather, a question that has emerged because we stopped and put a value on what was being said, found something there to respect, appreciated it and then took at least some of that increased value (resulting from the act of appreciation) and returned it to the source, in this case a question directed toward my teacher. This is only an example, but it makes the point.

Sensei told me today, “The principles of being a Giver allow you to continually improve your connection to the Divine, as giving becomes your reason for Being, and sharing that becomes your way of Being.”

Here is some more of what I captured, quoted directly (any errors are mine):

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I can see when people are giving [referring to some of us bloggers, and people in general] that it appears they are looking to give and share in ways that are significantly impacting. I definitely see that and respect that, and don’t take anything away from that.

But what I am trying to explain to you is in order to make this effort superconductive, there is a set of principles to do this by, and they have to be done in a certain order to make that happen. Superconductivity is something that improves as we improve our relationship to the source, or the current of a particular application. People don’t understand that, and don’t understand typically how to improve their coordination in that.

So the application to the Path of Understanding through the Art of Giving - where we are looking to improve our connection to the Divine, as a way of being, moment by moment, so that our lives become more conductive to what we are wanting them to be about - requires a particular form of principled application where we are looking to produce more of the value that will support that ideal, by cultivating a relationship with that ideal because we practice toward it, and then give a portion of our produced value and understanding back to the source or the current or to our connection to higher understanding.

We do this so that we can continue to grow that higher understanding in a more and more apparent way. This apparent growth takes something that is normally transparent and invisible, and brings it to become apparent and visible. As it becomes more apparent it is because it is using the creative force more conductively, and that’s what produces offspring. [He gave a nice big laugh here.]

I see this occurring, but the system only goes so far, because while the right principles are being used, the order and the formula for getting them in motion is not there. You are looking at principles as stand alone, versus a motor, a machine. This is a dynamic process involving a set of principles.

What people are doing is finding value in particular principles, and that is good, but they are losing sight of the dynamic process that these principles are a component of, and it is the process and your ability to have facility with that which allows you to become more purposeful and to improve your connection with the Divine, the current, the living thing.

This is the difference between static study and dynamic study. Both are important, but the static is only important in how it supports our understanding of the dynamic.