Me and my Shadow

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, 

but by making the darkness conscious...
Knowing your own darkness is the best method
for dealing with the darknesses of other people."

-- C.G. Jung

 

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments 

that teach us where it is that we’re holding back...
They’re like messengers that show us,
with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck."

 --  Pema Chödrön

Many folks experiencing a lot of stress in their lives are drawn to meditation.  It's only natural.  There appears to be a deep human yearning to just chill out.  

 

And, to be sure, Mindfulness Meditation Practice can provide many moments of calm and clarity.

Yet -- and this is generally not proclaimed in the slick internet ads  -- it is also true that a regular meditation practice can bring to the surface a lot of feelings that we have assiduously managed to repress, deny, or otherwise avoid, as we scurry along in our lives.

Conditioned to operate in the fast-paced materialistic society of our post-modern capitalist society, one that keeps us focused outwardly for fulfillment, we are programmed to keep moving.  Even our "downtime" is often stimulus rich entertainment or "recreation" in busy, noisy environments.  Day in, day out, we just bop until we drop.  

 

Yet, for many of us, a sense of deep disquiet continues to emerge.  There appears to us a deep yearning for something more.  Propelled by this yearning, and drawn to the peace and tranquility offered by mindfulness meditation, some of us chose meditate.  And, to be sure, once we slow down and begin to practice, most of us access a bit more calmness.  Yet, it is not uncommon to encounter "darker," more distressing energies as well.  

Contrary to what we might think, this is a Good Thing.  It's a sign that the Practice is working! Mindfulness meditation gives us the opportunity to bring our subconscious conditioning into mindful awareness.  The energetic patterns of thought and emotion that have subconsciously operated to create the way we see and react to the events of our lives are brought into the realm of our conscious awareness.  Ultimately, this will give us more freedom and agency in our lives.  (How often have you winced and thought "Damn.  Why did I say/do that!?  Wouldn't you like to know?)

 
Truth in Advertising

Adrift in momentary delusions of grandeur, I sometimes envision beginning a high profile advertising campaign for Monday Morning Mindfulness.  Full page bold print ads, billboards, and television commercials would proclaim something like:
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High Times and the Timeless

With A Bow to Stephen Gaskin

 

"There is a plane of experience, other than the three dimensional plane, which can be felt by a human being...If people never get above the merely signal level of communication, and don't become telepathic, they haven't explored their full human birthright."

-- Stephen Gaskin

"We are all parts of God.  Each one of us has an electrical body field that surrounds us, and a mind field that goes on to infinity."

--Stephen Gaskin

Stephen Gaskin (February 16, 1935 - July 1, 2014) and his wife, Ina May

In meditation, the subjective nature of Time passing becomes obvious. 

Sometimes, an hour zips by.  At other times, I've felt like a dazed prizefighter hanging onto the ropes of a painful existence waiting forever for the bell to ring.

Although modern science creates a "benchmark" for one second of objective time tied to the decay of a cesium atom, Einstein's theory of relativity already pointed out that it "ain't that simple."  

No shit, Sherlock. 

As I get older, it becomes increasingly impossible to grasp the nature of concepts like a second, a day, a decade.  In fact, at this stage of the journey, it's easier, at times, to directly sense the mysterious nature of the Timeless glowing in the boundless expanse of each moment.  I blame that on jumping heart first into Bodhisattva Practice years ago.  

I first came across the Bodhisattva Vow as it was expressed by Stephen Gaskin in Hey Beatnik!  The words resonated with something in my heart of hearts.  I was hooked. At that moment the vow took me. 

So, did Stephen Gaskin and the Farm.

Although I only had three conversations with him -- spread over a dozen years -- Stephen was a major influence in my life.  I'm not surprised that he came to mind for the first time in a long time during a conversation with an old friend a couple of days ago.  It was that time of year.  Gaskin passed away twelve years ago on July 1. 

In some traditions, the anniversary of a guru's passing is a high holy day.  I don't usually put a lot of weight on the "spooky" stuff.  Yet, Gaskin's "Mahasamadhi" brought about his mysterious "appearance" in my life twelve years ago -- a few days after he died.

As was my practice in those days, I would compose a blog post each week and send out an email "tickler" announcement.  (I'll do that for this post as well.)   As I sat at my laptop, struggling to write a commemorative post for a man that I revered, the iPhone dinged. 

When I opened the phone, I was amazed to find an announcement for Your MMM Courtesy Call: "Lighten Up!" -- with a quote from Stephen Gaskin staring me in the face! For some inexplicable reason, Google re-delivered the email announcement I'd sent six months before! (I'd only quoted Gaskin twice before in the epigram of a Your MMM Courtesy Wake Up Call post in hundreds of posts to that point.)  Google had never re-delivered an old email I sent before.  It hasn't done so since.

Wierd!?  Synchronicity? Coincidence?  All I know is that I lightened up.  I  found myself grinning from ear to ear.  I just wrote a brief intro about the experience -- and re-posted "Lighten Up."

Stephen Gaskin and the Farm

Stephen Gaskin always maintained he was more of a beatnik than a hippie.  Yet, wearing tie-dyes til the end, Gaskin was at the epicenter of the burst of spiritual energy that encircled the globe during the 1960's and 70's. A Marine Corp veteran of the Korean War, he was teaching in the English department at San Francisco State College when the hippies of Haight-Ashbury mushroomed into a worldwide counter-cultural phenomenon.  

What Gaskin started as an experimental evening discussion class with six students in 1968 grew into Monday Night Class which drew as many as 1500 people each week at a local rock venue.  They meditated together in silence.  Then Gaskin would deliver and extemporaneous talk on psychedelic spirituality before answering questions.  Within three years, Gaskin and those who considered him to be their spiritual teacher had established an intentional community called the Farm in rural Tennessee.  Their cottage industries included a midwifery clinic, soy diary, publishing company, trucking company, and construction firm.  At it's peak it had about 1600 residents and had generated several satellite communities spread across the country.  On the Farm, continuing in the tradition of Monday Night Class, the community met together for meditation and a talk by Stephen weekly at Sunday Morning Service.

This all, of course, gathered a lot of public attention.   It sure caught mine.  I devoured the books the Farm's publishing company distributed.  I visited it three times during its first 5 years, staying a month at a time twice. (When push came to shove though, I couldn't make the choice to live 700 miles away from my ex's and children.)

High Times -- With or Without Drugs

If the truth be told, I was a lightweight when it came to psychedelics.  Introduced to marijuana in the Spring of 1968, I went on to experience a number of trips on mushrooms, and on what was presented at the time as  "synthetic mescaline." (who knows what it was...)   Yet, as I began to explore Yoga and Meditation, I soon sensed that the drugs weren't the only means to accessing extraordinary qualities of consciousness.  Intrigued by these experiences, I read extensively about spirituality, religion, and mysticism.  I also met regularly with a small group of friends who were actively exploring spirituality in their lives.  (Two of them were being trained as peer support facilitators at a cutting edge psychiatric hospital.) 

Although I continued to pass a joint around once in awhile during those years, I actually avoided LSD out of concern that I wasn't "ready."

It didn't matter!!  

The Collective Consciousness was so energized as the 60's became the 70's, that I was swept up in a set of "paranormal" experiences.  I had a number of compelling out-of-body experiences, saw aura's, encountered ghosts and other "astral beings." I also experienced moments of synchronicity and telepathy that were absolutely mind-boggling -- without drugs in my system at the time!   

Then, in the spring of 1972, I had a direct experience of Perfect Oneness that fulfilled my deepest aspirations for Spiritual Connection at the time -- and dispelled a fear of death.  In those moments, I tasted the Real Deal.  The elements of the Perennial Philosophy were no longer merely conceptual.  I knew, in my bones: There is Sacred Oneness.  We are, individually and collectively, emanations of infinitude.  And as Saint John of Liverpool (and mystics through the ages) proclaimed, we all shine on!
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