Kundalini Splendor

NOTE: I WILL BE OFFLINE UNTIL SOMETIME AFTER THE 4TH. I AM OFF TO SEE THE GLACIERS OF ALASKA ON THE INLAND PASSAGE. HAPPY FOURTH TO ALL. KEEP ON DANCING WITH THE BELOVED.

Dancing with the Great Lion

I keep circling you,

pacing, checking

my watch.

You keep eyeing me,

growling in your throat,

saying, hurry, it’s time.

How long have we been

doing this dance?

How many lifetimes

have we moved like this

together?

You suggesting,

me nodding,

both of us

waiting

to see what will happen.

Dorothy Walters

June 24, 2011

If you go to the above site, you will discover an amazing array of archived presentations from many of the major spiritual teachers of our time. I particularly recommend that of Sally Kempton, once a disciple of Muktananda, who studied to become a monk under his direction, now a respected workshop teacher whose wisdom shines through her recording.

One of the points that impressed me in her discussion of spiritual awakening was her description of the first stage of awakening as the "honeymoon," a period which is frequently followed by a "fall" later. After that, progress continues, but not in a linear progression, but rather as a back and forth, advance and regress pattern. This describes my own experience and also that of many I have encountered. This erratic pattern is contrary to what many of the texts describe, for they imply that awakening occurs and then continues in a straight line smooth progression thereafter.

Some of the other speakers represented are Ken Wilber, Thomas Hubl, Gangaji, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Lama Surya Das, Jean Houston, Ram Das, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Adyashanti,

Carter Phipps, Andrew Harvey, Sharon Salzberg, Byron Katie, and many, many others. This site offers a golden opportunity to hear the words of living luminaries who together present key ideas fueling the spiritual shift we are now in. They are free and available for the asking. You can listen at your own preferred time, stopping and starting as you please.

This is an invaluable resource, a chance to sample the teachings of famous spiritual teachers without the need to travel to far away workshops or buy expensive CD's.

Dr. Larry Dossey is well known in both medical and spiritual circles for his unorthodox views on medicine and healing over many years. He has long promoted prayer as a major healing modality, and has insisted that medical practitioners frequently encounter “anomalous events,” things which simply do not fit the expected patterns (as, for example, seeming “miracle cures.”)

Recently he presented a paper here at the national conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration, a group consisting primarily of scientists and other researchers who investigate unusual phenomena, such as remote viewing, human energy fields, the effect of the experimenter on the results of experiments and the like. Larry’s topic was precognition as a healing modality. He has just published a book on this subject, and he recounted several of the stories of precognition included in this book.

Here is one of the stories he related:

A new mother has her baby sleeping in a crib in another room where a chandelier hangs above the crib. The night is calm. Suddenly, she wakes up and tells her husband she has had a nightmare in which, during a storm, the chandelier has fallen on the crib and killed the baby. The clock at that time reads 4:35. Her husband tells her not to be worried since it is only a bad dream and to go back to sleep. But she does not go back to sleep. Instead, she brings the baby back to sleep with her and her husband. About two hours later, there is a fierce storm, during which the chandelier crashes on the crib below. Had the baby been sleeping there, it would doubtless have been killed. The clock reads 4:35.

Now, I am a bit of a skeptic, so I immediately began to challenge this account in my mind. Quite possibly the mother had subconsciously picked up on the fact that the chandelier over the crib posed a possible threat, and had woven this apprehension into a dream of disaster. However, this anxiety did not explain the clock with the exact time as in the dream, nor did it explain how the weather turned from calm to fierce.

If you would like to read other similar accounts, go to his website, where he offers other narratives included in his new book.

Actually, when I reflected on the topic of precognition I realized that I also had had several similar incidents in my life, and, in talking with a friend, found that she likewise knew of such related “coincidences” in her circle of family and friends. One had to do with a friend who refused at the last minute to make a plane trip to Europe on a plane which subsequently crashed. It has been discovered that the planes involved in the 9/11 disaster were only about a third full, a most unusual circumstance. Did some prospective passengers simply choose not to fly in those fated planes? And apparently many thousands of persons had premonitions of the 9/11 disaster through dreams and visions.

Another story my friend told me was this: a relative’s family was literally packing the car to go on a trip, when the mother announced that they must unpack and forego their plans, for something was wrong with the car. Actually the car had just been checked and proclaimed safe. With reluctance, the family unpacked and canceled their plans. Next day, when the husband was driving to work, the brakes failed on the car and he was seriously injured in an accident.

In the vocabulary of the scientists, such events strongly suggest that consciousness is not “local.” That is to say, our awareness is not bounded by ordinary space and time, but can function well outside the “norms” of our daily experience.

And indeed, when we experience Kundalini bliss, it is as if we too were wafted out of ordinary space/time realms and carried into other regions where only timelessness prevails. We exist solely within awareness itself, which is unbounded.

(picture by N. M. Rai)

For the Beloved (Once More)

Do not think

that because I say words

to another,

that I have forsaken you

love like ours

does not begin

or end

never fades

or disappears

it is ours forever,

bound in the net

of eternal longing

no matter whose face

it may wear

Dorothy Walters

May 28, 2011

I AM The Documentary

The shift is about to hit the fan.

I AM is an utterly engaging and entertaining non-fiction film that poses two practical and provocative questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better? The filmmaker behind the inquiry is Tom Shadyac, one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners and the creative force behind such blockbusters as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.” However, in I AM, Shadyac steps in front of the camera to recount what happened to him after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged with a new sense of purpose, determined to share his own awakening to his prior life of excess and greed, and to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve the way we live and walk in the world.

Armed with nothing but his innate curiosity and a small crew to film his adventures, Shadyac set out on a twenty-first century quest for enlightenment. Meeting with a variety of thinkers and doers–remarkable men and women from the worlds of science, philosophy, academia, and faith–including such luminaries as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch – Shadyac appears on-screen as character, commentator, guide, and even, at times, guinea pig. An irrepressible “Everyman” who asks tough questions, but offers no easy answers, he takes the audience to places it has never been before, and presents even familiar phenomena in completely new and different ways. The result is a fresh, energetic, and life-affirming film that challenges our preconceptions about human behavior while simultaneously celebrating the indomitable human spirit.

The pursuit of truth has been a lifelong passion for Shadyac. “As early as I can remember I simply wanted to know what was true,” he recalls, “and somehow I perceived at a very early age that what I was being taught was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” He humorously describes himself as “questioning and searching and stumbling and fumbling toward the light.” The “truth” may have been elusive, but success wasn’t. Shadyac’s films grossed nearly two billion dollars and afforded him the glamorous and extravagent A-List lifestyle of the Hollywood blockbuster filmmaker. Yet Shadyac found that more – in his case, a 17,000-square foot art-filled mansion, exotic antiques, and private jets — was definitely less. “What I discovered, when I began to look deeply, was that the world I was living in was a lie,” he explains. “Much to my surprise, the accumulation of material wealth was a neutral phenomenon, neither good or bad, and certainly did not buy happiness.” Gradually, with much consideration and contemplation, he changed his lifestyle. He sold his house, moved to a mobile home community, and started life—a simpler and more responsible life – anew.

But, at this critical juncture, Shadyac suffered an injury that changed everything. “In 2007, I got into a bike accident which left me with Post Concussion Syndrome, a condition where the symptoms of the original concussion don’t go away.” These symptoms include intense and painful reactions to light and sound, severe mood swings, and a constant ringing sound in the head. Shadyac tried every manner of treatment, traditional and alternative, but nothing worked. He suffered months of isolation and pain, and finally reached a point where he welcomed death as a release. “I simply didn’t think I was going to make it,” he admits.

But, as Shadyac wisely points out, “Death can be a very powerful motivator.” Confronting his own mortality, he asked himself, “If this is it for me – if I really am going to die – what do I want to say before I go? What will be my last testament?” It was Shadyac’s modern day dark night of soul and out of it, I AM was born. Thankfully, almost miraculously, his PCS symptoms began to recede, allowing him to travel and use his movie-making skills to explore the philosophical questions that inhabited him, and to communicate his findings in a lively, humorous, intellectually-challenging, and emotionally-charged film.

But this would not be a high-octane Hollywood production. The director whose last film had a crew of 400, assembled a streamlined crew of four, and set out to find, and film, the thinkers who had helped to change his life, and to seek a better understanding of the world, its inhabitants, their past, and their future. Thus, Shadyac interviews scientists, psychologists, artists, environmentalists, authors, activists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, and others in his quest for truth. Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Noam Chomsky, historian Dr. Howard Zinn, physicist Lynne McTaggart, and poet Coleman Banks are some of the subjects who engage in fascinating dialogue with Shadyac.

Shadyac was very specific about what he was after, wanting I AM to identify the underlying cause of the world’s ills – “I didn’t want to hear the usual answers, like war, hunger, poverty, the environmental crisis, or even greed,” he explains. “These are not the problems, they are the symptoms of a larger endemic problem. In I AM, I wanted to talk about the root cause of the ills of the world, because if there is a common cause, and we can talk about it, air it out in a public forum, then we have a chance to solve it.”

Ironically, in the process of trying to figure out what’s wrong with the world, Shadyac discovered there’s more right than he ever imagined. He learned that the heart, not the brain, may be man’s primary organ of intelligence, and that human consciousness and emotions can actually affect the physical world, a point Shadyac makes with great humor by demonstrating the impact of his feelings on a bowl of yogurt. And, as Shadyac’s own story illustrates, money is not a pathway to happiness. In fact, he even learns that in some native cultures, gross materialism is equated with insanity.

Shadyac also discovers that, contrary to conventional thinking, cooperation and not competition, may be nature’s most fundamental operating principle. Thus, I AM shows consensus decision-making is the norm amongst many species, from insects and birds to deer and primates. The film further discovers that humans actually function better and remain healthier when expressing positive emotions, such as love, care, compassion, and gratitude, versus their negative counterparts, anxiety, frustration, anger and fear. Charles Darwin may be best known for popularizing the notion that nature is red in tooth and claw, but, as Shadyac points out, he used the word love 95 times in The Descent of Man, while his most famous phrase,survival of the fittest, appears only twice.

“It was a revelation to me that for tens of thousands of years, indigenous cultures taught a very different story about our inherent goodness,” Shadyac marvels. “Now, following this ancient wisdom, science is discovering a plethora of evidence about our hardwiring for connection and compassion, from the Vagus Nerve which releases oxytocin at simply witnessing a compassionate act, to the Mirror Neuron which causes us to literally feel another person’s pain. Darwin himself, who was misunderstood to believe exclusively in our competitiveness, actually noted that humankind’s real power comes in their ability to perform complex tasks together, to sympathize and cooperate.”

Shadyac’s enthusiastic depiction of the brighter side of human nature and reality, itself, is what distinguishes I AM from so many well-intentioned, yet ultimately pessimistic, non-fiction films. And while he does explore what’s wrong with the world, the film’s overwhelming emphasis is focused on what we can do to make it better. Watching I AM is ultimately, for many, a transformative experience, yet Shadyac is reluctant to give specific steps for viewers who have been energized by the film. “What can I do?” “I get asked that a lot,” he says. “But the solution begins with a deeper transformation that must occur in each of us. I AM isn’t as much about what you can do, as who you can be. And from that transformation of being, action will naturally follow.”

Shadyac’s transformation remains in process. He still lives simply, is back on his bicycle, riding to work, and teaching at a local college, another venue for sharing his life-affirming discoveries. Reflecting Shadyac’s philosophy is the economic structure of the film’s release; all proceeds from I AM will go to The Foundation for I AM, a non-profit established by Shadyac to fund various worthy causes and to educate the next generation about the issues and challenges explored in the film. When he directs another Hollywood movie, the bulk of his usual eight-figure fee will be deposited into a charitable account, as well. “St. Augustine said, ‘Determine what God has given you, and take from it what you need; the remainder is needed by others.’ That’s my philosophy in a nutshell,” Shadyac says, “Or as Gandhi put it, ‘Live simply, so others may simply live.’”

Shadyac’s enthusiasm and optimism are contagious. Whether conducting an interview with an intellectual giant, or offering himself as a flawed character in the narrative of the film, Shadyac is an engaging and persuasive guide as we experience the remarkable journey that is I AM. With great wit, warmth, curiosity, and masterful storytelling skills, he reveals what science now tells us is one of the principal truths of the universe, a message that is as simple as it is significant: We are all connected – connected to each other and to everything around us. “My hope is that I AM is a window into Truth, a glimpse into the miracle, the mystery and magic of who we really are, and of the basic nature of the connection and unity of all things. In a way,” says Shadyac, a seasoned Hollywood professional who has retained his unerring eye for a great story, “I think of I AM as the ultimate reality show.”

Written & Directed by: Tom Shadyac

The Society for Scientific Exploration will hold its annual meeting in Boulder, Colorado, beginning June 9. For more information and program announcements, go to:

http://www.scientificexploration.org/

I am a member of this group and find its topics and listed presentations very interesting. Although it is designed for "scientific exploration," many of its members are not scientists but people interested in "anomalous" topics. Often these are subjects the mainstream ignores or simply denies. Our local chapter has offered presentations on channeling, quantum physics, UFO's and the like in recent months.

Beyond Awakening has made the following announcement:

Please join us for:

SUPRA-SEX

with special guest Barbara Marx Hubbard

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

at 10:00am Pacific; 1:00pm Eastern; UTC/GMT-7

Dear Friends,

Please join me for a lively dialog with my beloved friend and "telerotic" (telos + eros) evolutionary inspiraration, Barbara Marx Hubbard. According to her, "a third great human drive" is surfacing, due to the phase change on planet Earth. We have hit a limit to many forms of growth -- including population. The drive to be fruitful and multiply cannot continue much longer..."

Many of us are responding to this new, evolutionary pressure by feeling a yearning to express our creative potentials, and to do it with others--to find our evolutionary, co-creative partners. Such individuals are stimulated by what Barbara calls, "vocational arousal", a new form of the sexual drive that is moving upward toward the suprasexual drive -- a massive awakening of human creativity and the desire to join together to express our unique potentials.

Have you felt something like this? I have had the privilege to dialog actively with Barbara, and I've experienced this kind of ecstatic activation -- a totally sexy (and at the same time chaste) enlivenment through co-creative visioning. She has pioneered many leading-edge perceptions for decades, and with SupraSex, she's expressing another important emergent property of evolutionary culture.

Please join us for this conversation at the leading edge of our collective evolulution with one of the world's great visionary thinkers (and doers!) Barbara Marx Hubbard.

Co-Evolutionarily,

Terry Patten

How to Participate:

Barbara Marx Hubbard:

SUPRA-SEX

Sunday, June 5th at 10:00am Pacific*; 11:00am Mountain; 12:00pm Central; 1:00pm Eastern

*Find your local time

Listen live by phone or online, or download the recording anytime.

Access Instructions

To listen live by phone, dial: 216-258-0785

Then, enter Access Code: 272072#

To listen live online go to:

http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=20146926

To download the audio after the teleseminar is complete go to the Beyond Awakening Audio Page

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we'll open up the lines and you'll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via Instant Message. Here's what to do:

1. To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line and wait until we ask for questions

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Connect with us! You can always join the dialogue, before and after all the Beyond Awakening dialogues by posting your questions and comments on our Beyond Awakening blog.

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About Our Guest:

Barbara Marx Hubbard is a social innovator, speaker, author, educator, and visionary who has for decades led the process of articulating the new worldview of conscious evolution. She collaborated with Buckminster Fuller, Jonas Salk, and Abraham Maslow, among many others, and co-founded the World Future Society and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. Her name was placed in nomination for the Vice Presidency of the US at the 1984 Democratic convention, and in the years since she's led a whole series of newsletters, innovative public meetings, wonderful films, innumerable speaking engagements and now a series of acclaimed online courses. You can find out more about her and her work at evolve.org

To listen to all the Beyond Awakening dialogues, please visit our audio archive page, where you can browse, preview and download our complete collection of dialogues.

About Our Host:

Terry Patten is the host of Beyond Awakening and a leading voice in the emerging fields of integral evolutionary leadership and spirituality. In his cutting-edge writings, talks and teaching, he not only inspires transcendental awakening, love and freedom, but calls us to accept and incarnate our full humanity. In his current work, he is helping to articulate an authentic spirituality that illuminates the vital relationship between sincere care, discriminative intelligence, personal responsibility and spiritual awakening. A coach, consultant, teacher, and author of four books, Terry lives in Marin County near San Francisco, CA. He is the author, with Ken Wilber, of Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening. His personal web site is http://integralspiritualpractice.com.