Tag Archives: Meaning

It’s better to focus on where you are going than how you are feeling

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By Christian Jarrett

Source: aeon

The notion that emotional pain and suffering reflect a deviation from a default happy baseline has been referred to as the ‘assumption of healthy normality’. But it’s a mistaken assumption. Estimates of the lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders indicate that around one in two adults will meet the criteria for a mental-health condition at some point in their lives. Given that psychological pain is so ubiquitous, we should focus less on what might make us happy, and more on achieving a sense of meaning, regardless of how we’re feeling. Psychotherapy should help people manage effective functioning while they are distressed, above and beyond aiming to reduce symptoms such as difficult thoughts, emotions and sensations. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) takes this approach, using mindfulness, acceptance and other behavioural strategies to promote more flexible and value-driven behaviours. The goals in ACT are not necessarily to change or reduce one’s problematic thoughts or emotions, but to foster meaningful and effective behaviours regardless of mood, motivation or thinking. In other words, the primary goal is to promote what therapists call ‘valued living’.

Think of valued living as going about your daily life in the service of values that you find important, whereby engaging in these actions creates a sense of meaning and purpose. From an ACT perspective, symptoms of psychiatric disorders, and psychological suffering more broadly, are problematic when they are linked to rigid behaviours that pull us away from valued living. We might not have any control over the pain we experience – in fact, our emotional pain is profoundly human – but one area where we can exert some control is what we do in response to that suffering. Many common responses to difficult thoughts and emotions – such as avoidance, substance abuse, withdrawal and aggression – can alleviate distress in the short term, but also lead to long-term damage in our relationships, our jobs, our freedom and our personal growth – the very areas that provide that sense of meaning and purpose. By letting go of an agenda guided by minimising pain, and recalibrating toward a more value-driven agenda, our choices can be based on who we want to be, rather than how we want to feel.

In their 2013 study, the psychologists Todd Kashdan and Patrick McKnight of George Mason University in Virginia examined the day-to-day relationships between valued living and wellbeing in a sample of individuals with social anxiety disorder. This is a common but debilitating condition that’s marked by intense fear of social situations that might involve being negatively judged by others. People with social anxiety disorder often want and value positive relationships but considerable distress makes them avoid social interactions, so this is an excellent group in which to examine values and meaning.

In the study, participants began by identifying their central aim or purpose in life (eg, ‘trying to be a good role model to others’). Then, each day over the next two weeks, they rated their daily efforts and progress toward this goal, and provided daily ratings of their self-esteem, meaning in life, and experience of positive and negative emotions. On days when they reported investing greater effort toward their main life goal, they also tended to enjoy greater wellbeing: they said their life had more meaning, and they scored higher on self-esteem and the experience of positive emotions. Importantly, support was not found for the reverse path – greater wellbeing did not predict greater effort or progress toward strivings. This study highlights that sometimes we need to make the value-guided choice, regardless of how we feel.

If only it were so easy, though. For this reason, in ACT-based treatments, there is substantial focus on skills and techniques that can assist one in cultivating a more aware, willing and tolerant stance toward difficult feelings and other internal experiences. This stands in explicit contrast to a ‘do X and your distress will alleviate’ approach. The ACT techniques are not in the service of changing emotional states – they are in the service of facilitating valued action.

The effectiveness of ACT across different diagnoses and problem areas shows that committing to the benefits of valued living transcends traditional diagnostic categories. In addition to anxiety disorders, in studies of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and resilience, chronic pain, suicidal ideation and many more, engaging in behaviours consistent with personally held values has been linked to a range of positive outcomes.

Which brings me back to my work as a therapist. While the breadth of exercises and techniques employed in ACT is beyond the scope of this article, there is one exercise I’d like to share that has helped some of my clients see the inextricable link between valued living and painful experiences. In this activity (of which there are different variations), the therapist first asks the client to write on an index card some of the internal experiences they are struggling with most – difficult thoughts and judgments, emotions, memories.

I ask them, what do you notice when you read that index card? I feel awful, I don’t want this. What do you want to do with the card? I want to throw it in the trash. Then the client flips the card over, and I ask them to write out some of the things that are most important, most meaningful to them – being a parent, caring and supporting others, learning, growing, etc. What do you notice when you read this side? Warmth, it feels right, this is who I want to be. Where is the pain, where is the other stuff? Still here, on the other side of the card. What happens if you push that pain away, escape or avoid it? I push the meaningful stuff away too. In your heart of hearts, what does your experience tell you right now? If I’m going to do the things that are important to me, be the person that I want to be, I also have to make room for the painful stuff.

In my experience, this is both an emotionally difficult exercise and also one that helps a person grasp that it’s impossible to disentangle pain and valued living. Sometimes it is hard to engage with those struggles in session, but we regularly return to the rationale of the approach – that maybe a different stance toward pain is necessary. And that is the crux of the work in ACT – opening up to the demons, judgments and suffering that lie underneath, all for the purpose of moving toward that which is meaningful.

The valued path is not necessarily the happy path. Social connectedness sometimes brings us in contact with memories of abuse and trauma. Being a parent stirs up doubts, uncertainty and feelings of anxiety, fear, anger and shame. Advocating for social justice requires repeated exposure to the inequities in our societies and the feelings of helplessness that can come from fighting for an equality that might not exist until after you’re gone. But a growing body of psychological research suggests that the valued path is the more workable one, whereas the happy path can be more of an illusion.

For readers who would like to find out more, I recommend the book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life (2005) co-authored by the founder of ACT, Steven Hayes, and also Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong (2010) co-authored by another ACT pioneer, Kelly Wilson. And here is the international directory of ACT therapists, maintained by the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science.

A Metaphysical Malaise?

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By Kingsley L. Dennis

Source: Waking Times

‘The real tragedy of our time lies not so much in the unprecedented external events themselves as in the unprecedented ethical destitution and spiritual infirmity which they glaringly reveal.’

Paul Brunton

There is little doubt that we are living in an age of extreme contradictions where opposing trends appear to exist side by side. It is a time when individuals take greater care of their bodies and are obsessed by diet and health fads, while obesity is an epidemic. We live amidst a paradoxical combination of playfulness and fear, of fun and anxiety, of euphoria and unease. It has been said that ‘When a materialistic civilization becomes outwardly impressive but remains inwardly impoverished, when political relations become an elaborate façade for hiding the spiritually empty rooms behind them, menacing problems are sure to appear on every side.’1 This quote adequately describes our current situation and yet the author, Paul Brunton, published this in 1952.  However, it remains as starkly correct in its analysis for today as it was for his own time.

The current situation is that ‘menacing problems’ are indeed appearing on every side: political corruption and ineptitude; economic manipulations; national aggression and politically-motivated warfare; refugee crises; human torture and suffering; capitalist greed; corporate corruption; aggravated social unrest; religious and moral intolerance; increased displays of psychopathic behaviour (private individuals and authority figures); blatant propaganda; environmental degradation; ecological ignorance; spiritual destitution, and the rest.

The result is that many people have become ‘spiritually numbed’ by what they see occurring in the world, and feel that only a similar harsh, physical response can be effective. The words ‘mystical’ and ‘spiritual’ remain vague and ethereal. People have always depended on language to bring guidance and nourishment. Yet in this mental environment, words are but skeletal traces of the real flesh. The crisis of our times has clarified little and succeeds in confusing almost everything for the rest of us. There is nowhere to turn in public for finding the truth – seemingly little to believe in for the present and too much uncertainty for the future. The result of this is that many people have doubts that they don’t know how to deal with, and these are building up within their minds like a pathological infection.

An Absence of Meaning

In these current times there is a sense, a feeling, of something lacking or missing within many people’s lives. Unfortunately, this need has been met by the consumerist marketplace. There is a great deal of compensation for this lack through ‘quick fix’ guruism; that is, costly paid retreats, so-called spiritual counselling, and ‘life coaching’ mentorship. Yet these are like fast-food remedies for a deeper hunger. The real struggle today is rather between the material perspective on life and that of the inner, developmental state. Many of the events occurring in the world are manifestations of issues existing within ourselves. The anger and negativity we see so much of in the world is a projection from the collective interior state of humanity. We can manifest both the dream or the nightmare, and we share in its waking state. Being physically mature is not enough; we also need to be emotionally, intellectually, and inwardly mature.

Our cultures and societies are in disequilibrium because they seek to be governed by artificial laws that ignore the timeless wisdom that corresponds to human development. It is a dominant mentality that promotes a short-sighted, myopic worldview that is largely concerned only with physical gains and material power. It is a mentality that promotes fear, defence and attack – rather than a welcoming, embracing vision.

Our societies do not consider human purpose and the deeper meaning of human existence. They drive us to live by working; to enjoy through distractions; and to eventually die with debt and taxes. The world is governed not by fairness or equity, but by a lopsided arrangement of elite power. Conferences of peace are based on compromise and not compassion. Trade is based on strength rather than collaboration. Power and politics are at war with the world and do so beyond the reach of accountability. There is a resurgence of the illegitimate, surging through black markets, offshores, and dark networks. Dark pathways will always emerge and grow in the places where the light is flickering without focus or intent.

Today’s so-called modern cultures are increasingly fragmented, or like liquid streams, that can no longer be accurately identified or navigated by the old signs, symbols, and meanings. Modern life has, to some degree, started to dissolve in order to re-assemble. This may indeed be a part of the needed cathartic process that humanity has to pass through before circumstances will improve. A feature of the current times is that new ways of thinking and behaviour have not yet fully materialized into the present order of things. That which now constitutes ‘daily life’ is void of the questions of metaphysical meaning. Any notion of the developmental, or the metaphysical, is deemed outside of daily life, and people are continually programmed against such deeper truths. In other words, we should not let anything that is ‘other’ – otherworldly or transcendental – replace the responsibility of our social daily grind.

Human societies often make political declarations to promote what they decide to be ‘social happiness.’ Yet political institutions have no genuine models for this, for the dominant political mindset is overruled by a form of psychosis. Social ‘happiness’ is whatever fits into the particular dominant belief system of the age. And as can be seen, this dominant belief, or narrative, has been hijacked by a collective psychosis that I have termed the wounded mind. It appears that as a collective society we have no lasting image of happiness. As a consequence, personal lives are in danger of becoming now less about actual experience and more about the data trails left behind. We have entered another struggle – another social fray – where the battle is between the transparency of our private, inner lives and our public identity.

Identity & Self

These days people are being encouraged to expose their inner demons onto the public stage, especially online. The human shadow is wanting to come out and be revealed. According to Jung, the psychological ‘shadow’ is the underdeveloped and undesirable aspects of ourselves that we try to keep hidden away. And yet there are times when we are unable to hold it at bay, or unconsciously wish for it to manifest. Humanity possesses a tremendous imagination for doing good as well as evil, and this can be a finer line than is realized. As the aphorism states, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Each person needs to exercise the capacity to detect and acknowledge those unconscious desires, feelings, and thoughts that exist within. American psychologist Rollo May once wrote – ‘Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daemonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daemonic is expressed in its most destructive form’2

In short, we need to be extremely mindful in these times about what’s inside of us. Our minds – our thinking and consciousness – is a target and has been for a long time. In the last century this has become more evident, more public. We have become increasingly stuck in modern times within our stories around psychological need and a ‘loss of self.’ Perhaps what is needed is to acknowledge that some people are suffering from what is termed as ‘soul loss.’

People who experience ‘soul loss’ frequently have the feeling of being fragmented, not whole or completely ‘in’ themselves. They feel as if an essential part of them is missing. They may clinically be diagnosed as ‘dissociated.’ Depression is another symptom of soul loss. Soul loss can be associated with the traumas of modern life – fear, terror (warfare), incest or rape, domestic abuse. These are all the external stresses that modern life creates. Counselor and educator John Bradshaw uses the term toxic shame which he sees as a form of alienation from the self, causing it to be ‘otherated.’ In response, people may turn to external sources to fill this internal void.

Carl Jung also made a reference to soul loss in his psychological work. According to psychotherapist Robert Francis Johnson,

‘This loss of soul Jung speaks of is manifested in our culture by the crises we are all facing (increased drug use, violence, moral and emotional numbness) and our attempt to solve moral and spiritual questions by electing wounded leaders who promise economic answers.’3

It is interesting that Johnson refers to ‘wounded leaders’ here who seek our compliance through the language of greed (‘economic answers’). Similarly, prominent Jungian analyst Marie von Franz writes that

‘Soul loss can be observed today as a psychological phenomenon in the everyday lives of the human beings around us. Loss of soul appears in the form of a sudden onset of apathy and listlessness; the joy has gone out of life, initiative is crippled, one feels empty, everything seems pointless.’4

Is this not a description of what faces many people today? Apathy, listlessness, a feeling of a pointless, joyless life? There is clearly a toxic social problem, and we are clearly in need of a metaphysical response.

Where is the Metaphysical?

Any society or civilization that does not recognize the human as a developmental being will fall short in its accomplishments. We simply cannot allow ourselves to fall short – not in the long run, at least. Yet recognition of the human as a developmental being will not come from the world first; and definitely not from social-cultural-political institutions. It will first only come from the individual. And it is from here that genuine change must be nurtured. Now is a crucial time for managing our psychological, emotional, and physical states. We may be uncertain about the future, yet we have the technologies to radically transform our age into something unprecedented. We have both external technologies as well as what may be called ‘technologies of the soul.’ What we are, we transmit to others. We are compelled not only to be mindful, but crucially to be both sensible and soul-ful.

On a practical level, the number of people around the world who have been awoken by the current crises to seek greater inner development is not in the majority. It can be said that at present there exists a metaphysical malaise. Those people who aspire for inner self-development are still all too few. However, a majority was never needed. There is enough.

Humanity is now engaged in a profound moment along its species path. Whether it is recognized or not, we are each living and participating in a reality that exists upon profound metaphysical principles. That’s the bottom line. We can choose to participate in this metaphysical reality, consciously and willingly, or to drift through our lives unbeknown to the forces that impel us. Right now, it is about recognizing this choice, and whether to act upon it. It will not be easy, for all the obstacles that the psychosis-ridden governing systems will throw at us. And yet it must be a force of unwavering inner commitment and genuine self-trust. Each person must choose their freedom from within. The real site of freedom can only be within the inner self – and it is to this we must place our trust.

Unsouling From the Wilderness

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By Kingsley L. Dennis

Source: Waking Times

“Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.” ~Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks

“Modern man, I dutifully noted, is in search of a soul, and the age is an age of longing.” ~Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends

Perhaps the reason some of us are feeling a sense of loss and longing is that we are, as Black Elk informs us, living in the shadow world. Our reality on this side may only be the fleeting ghosts of a place that is more real somewhere else. On this side we have broken our commitment to the earth and have unsouled ourselves from the wilderness. By the first century CE, the essayist Plutarch was asking, “Why is it that the gods are no longer speaking to us?”

For a long time now, we have been trying to create a new and different image of ourselves. It is an image where modern humanity is placed at the center of its own universe. We learn by observing, probing, experimenting, and finally dissecting and destroying the dynamic world we live within. From this, the modern mind started to develop a new reality for itself.

The collective reality in which we now reside does not take kindly to opposing perspectives. We have inherited an alienated consciousness that views the world as an outside entity – a world of objects that move in mechanical motion. This alienated consciousness has substituted the enchantment and mystery of living within a dynamic and animated world with a dream of the artificial, and ultimately the unreal. The modern landscape is now more scattered with administration than adventure. The central image of our modern age has been that of consumerism: the ability of the average person to buy the material goods they require in order to have a decent standard of living. A standard of living albeit promoted to us through our mainstream media and glamorous propaganda.

Only recently have some of us come to realize that consumerism has now become a contemporary form of crash therapy for unsatisfied people wanting to buy their way into happiness to escape from the very system they are simultaneously supporting. The easy acquisition of things has become more about trying to cover up anxiety as a substitute for contentment. Modern life, especially in the highly-developed West, is now rife with people parading their false selves in place of authenticity.

The modern history of the West has been about the removal of mystery, mind, and magic from the world around us. In the past there were realms of wilderness that existed outside of the social order, and each culture had these ‘wild zones’ where people danced with the little folk in the woods, undertook initiations in caves, circles, and hard-to-find corners. There were pagan rituals, crazy ecstasies, and unknown zones where primal energies were released. These were the places of wilderness, where dreamtime reigned, and clock-time was banned. And now these wild places are fewer and fewer as a new ‘reality order’ becomes the manifesto of the day. Now it is many of us who are feeling haunted. We have lost the presence of the ‘transcendent’ within our modern societies.

We must now recognize that something has happened – a break, a mutation, has occurred that has placed us in an ‘intermediate’ stage between eras. Modern life is being not so much rewritten as reconfigured. We are seeing odd things occurring in relation to time, speed, and distance. It’s as if right now the clock, and our sense of timing, is malfunctioning. This ahistorical period is out of time, until it resets itself. And here, the possibility of transcendence lingers like a phantasma.

We are in a time of carnivalesque distortion where ‘fast food’ is a parody of our normal food preparation and consumption; mediatized sport is a spectacle of its original form; and the music industry is one huge commercial carnival that mocks genuine creativity. In the pop music industry, the spectacle, the live show – the ‘carnival performance’ – is often more important than the actual merit of the song (even when the performer mimes, as they often do). We are in a different world right now – or at least a seemingly different reality.

In this new world of different relations, symbols, and meanings we have become unmoored from our harbors. We are talking about the fractal, the quantum, the molecular, the nano, the bots, artificial intelligence, and the singularity – yet we find we have no soulful connection with any of these terms or their significances. Perhaps we have entered a void-time.

The Sense of the Void

With human life having lost its reference to transcendence and the notion of the sacred, there is the ever-present danger that we may descend to a form of human morality that lacks any real meaning or higher principles. It is not hard to believe that a degree of inertia has crept into our modern societies. The result is that many of us may now be finding ourselves with a hollow space inside. This space becomes the perfect seedbed for the consuming desires, distractions, and attractions of modernity’s excesses. Within such an environment we wonder whether we may find ourselves waking up to a world where the dream is still dreaming itself and we can no longer distinguish what is real.

An age of the quantifiable has been ushered in and everyone, and everything, gets given a mark or a measurement. Ever since the industrial age brought in the points system – the marking scores – into mass education we’ve been carrying numbers around with us. Before then, students were known as apprentices and they spent time embedded in their discipline learning its skills. They either learnt great skills or they didn’t; now they get an 85, a 78, a 66, or a 45. Now all modern institutions think in numbers and our social status is quantified by such numbers, or grades, that allow us into other specialized zones – such as the members clubs, the elite institutions, or even into the ‘good credit’ rating books. The organic nature and capacity of a person has been stripped down to the quantifiable, and this measures the worth of an individual according to such grades. These associated numbers then follow the person around for the rest of their lives, influencing their careers, associations, and social freedoms. Society is now painting-by-numbers.

The mesmerizing void that is modern life tries to appease us with simulated pleasures. Through our unsouling from the greater transcendent wilderness we have become all too easily appeased by seeking inadequate answers to life’s meaning. By not seeking for the essential, we cannot hope to be anything other than temporary. Within the past century millions of people in developed parts of the world have distanced and divorced themselves from nature. We are negotiating how to adapt to a world structured within an increasingly artificial environment. The mutational shift is well underway, and new arrangements will need to be sought.

A potential lack of understanding can disconnect us from a world that is at the same time becoming increasingly connected. For thousands of years our ancestors lived alongside natural forces, learning from environmental cycles, and reading the world around them. This uncoupling from the wilderness is not only in favor of urban settings but eventually artificially constructed settings that will soon be made ‘smart.’ The profusion of what are called ‘mega-cities’ are set to implement ‘smart’ technologies which will be a combination of connected information and communication infrastructures.

A Moment of Reflection

We are, it is said, the most highly-developed and articulate species on planet Earth, and yet we live in a world of reflections. We are doomed never to be able to see directly our own faces. Our face, as well as our ‘true face’ as they say, is non-visible to us; and so we are guided by reflections and their appearances.

There is a short-story from Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges entitled ‘Fauna of Mirrors’ that tells of a time during the reign of the Yellow Emperor when the world of mirrors and the world of men were not, like today, cut off from one another.[i] Both kingdoms lived in harmony and each could come and go through the mirrors. Yet one night the mirror people invaded the earth and a mighty battle ensued until finally the magic arts of the Yellow Emperor prevailed. The mirror people were pushed back and imprisoned into their mirrors, and punished by being forced to repeat, as if in a dream, all the actions of the world of men. They were stripped of their power and their forms and reduced to mere reflections. A day will come, however, when the magic spell will be broken and little by little these reflections will awaken and will slowly differ from us. Then they will stop imitating the world of humans and eventually they will break through the glass once again to enter the earth.

They say that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. Upon reflection, every culture and society claim a portion of our private psyche as its own. With the narrowing of our sensibilities comes not only a much-diminished reality but also a contracted perspective whereby this condensed form of perception and visibility becomes as hyperreality to us. If it’s true that modern life has muffled the call of transcendental mystery, then it is equally true that it has made transcendence both a more needed and yet more difficult promise. The cry for the ‘death of the soul’ and the unsouling from the wilderness has helped to pave the slippery path toward a simplified hyperreality that is now stealing the show. Fasten seatbelts…

A Bardo Chat with: Aranyani, Hindu Goddess of the Forests 

Author (A): Hello Aranyani. Are you there?

Aranyani (Ai): (short pause) Hello…hello!

A: Hello Aranyani. How are you today?

Ai: Today? Why today? I don’t have days like you do.

A: Ah yes, sorry. I was thinking in my own terms of time. It’s a frequent trap!

Ai: That’s okay, we understand. Traps are there to break out of. I am good, thank you. I am well.

A: That is good to hear. I am glad to know you are well amidst all this disconnection going on right now.

Ai: Disconnection? I am gently strolling through my forests. There is no disconnection (another short pause). All is well here.

A: Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant disconnection between us, humans, and the natural world. It seems that we’ve done a terrible job of respecting Nature and our environment.

Ai: Mmm, yes, that is so. I am not fond of strolling too near to your civilizations. But why do you call it a job? You see, already you show a wrong way to look at things. Your way of words shows how your mind thinks. Looking after the natural world, as you put it, is not a ‘job.’ It is a recognition of respect, or mutual interdependence, and of compassion and love.

A: Sorry again. I know that I use my words too loosely. It is the way we use phrases here.

Ai: Yes, I know how your species is. For one thing, you don’t listen at all very well. You consider yourselves as a separate species. My dear, nothing is separate. You see space between bodies and you label this as separation. You think and behave like children, and Nature is your forgiving mother.

A: I know, we’ve got a lot of things back-to-front. Would you care to explain more on this relationship?

Ai: (a soft sigh) Maybe a little. Everything communicates here, it always has. You don’t necessarily need a mouth or words or letters to communicate. It all communicates energetically, and you humans are also attuned to this. Every part was supposed to work together. You are strange in that you forgot how to properly listen. And now you build devices outside of yourselves to wrap around the earth – but you don’t need them. And there will be a time when you shall know this, and learn to communicate correctly, as you were always meant to – and not with your machine things. All of nature is alive, don’t you know that?

A: Yes, some of us do; but not enough, unfortunately.

Ai: You knew better before, a long time ago.

A: Yes, I have a feeling we did. Yet we now need to learn how to know in a different way.

Ai: Well….. (long pause)

A: Hello, are you there Aranyani?

Ai: Oh yes, sorry, I was dancing. I have a tune in my head. It’s been given to me from the trees.

A: Wonderful! I was saying that we need to learn how to know in a different way.

Ai: That’s not really how it is. Learning, knowing, and all these things – it’s all head stuff. You live too much in your heads. You always think you need to grab onto something – to know better, and the like. I would say you have to open up more, and to remember everything that was placed inside you. You are coming to a different place now…

A: Yes, thank you. And what do you mean by ‘coming to a different place’?

Ai: I mean you are not in your little tribal units anymore. You are now all over the earth. You grew and connected as you should, and now you are coming to a time when you can really be of help to the earth.

A: You mean as a global species?

Ai: (laughs) You and your fancy words. Yes, you are connecting more strongly with the body of Gaia now. Soon you will find your minds being changed for you. That should be fun!

A: Ah, and what do you mean by that?

Ai: (hums to herself) I don’t feel I should reveal too much just now. Not too many of you have realized that your minds are attuned to Gaia, your planet consciousness. Consciousness is not only those thoughts in your head, silly! (laughs). This is the true language, the natural language, and it is everywhere. This language flows through the trees, the plants, the animals, and through all of Gaia. There is a language that connects, and the humans are disconnected from this. Yes, that is the true disconnection. You talk about disconnect from Nature, but really it is disconnection from your shared language. You speak in tongues but only babble silly words.

A: Yes, true – we do babble a lot.

Ai: Babble, babble, yes you do! Like that story you tell yourselves. You call it the Tower of Babel, right?

A: Yes, that’s true. And it’s a perfect analogy. We tried to build a tower to our Creator and we ended up being divided in languages through our ignorance.

Ai: Yes, that’s it right there. You were disconnected through your ignorance.

A: Mm…yes (sighs)

Ai: Don’t worry, dear. You still have it all inside of you. Your connection to Origin and the universal language is still there. And you are not disconnected from us either. You are always with us, and you always have been.

A: Okay, sure. And thanks. But by being with you always are we not making the balance of Nature worse?

Ai: Oh, dear ones – it’s always about you, isn’t it!? Let me tell you that Nature is far more capable of taking care of herself than you are. Things change, yes. And you are making a mess and not clearing up your mess, like children. This is true too. Yet so many more things come to pass that are not in your hands – that is Nature. She is so far beyond your comprehension of her. You think of these separate things within Nature, like the trees and the forests, and the rivers. But you cannot yet see them as being all together as a wondrous Being. She is a Being far beyond your little minds. And she cares for you. Little children, wake up!

A: Yes, yes.

Ai: Be more joyful and love the things you have, and which surround you. The disconnection you speak of is less from Nature and more from yourselves (starts to sing)

A: That is so true – thank you.

Ai: I have to go now…byeee (voice fades into distance)

A: Yes, thank you Aranyani – bye!

 

About the Author

Kingsley L. Dennis is the author of The Phoenix Generation: A New Era of Connection, Compassion, and Consciousness, and The Sacred Revival: Magic, Mind & Meaning in a Technological Age, available at Amazon. Visit him on the web at http://www.kingsleydennis.com/.

References:

[i] See his short-story collection The Book of Imaginary Beings.

The Search for Meaning in Modern Life

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By Kingsley L. Dennis

Source: Waking Times

Every good story about a search begins with a tale. So, here’s one; it’s a tale about a magician who gave a dinner for his neighbours.

There was once a Magician who built a house near a large and prosperous village. One day he invited all the people of the village to dinner. ‘Before we eat,’ he said, ‘we have some entertainments.’

Everyone was pleased, and the Magician provided a first-class conjuring show, with rabbits coming out of hats, flags appearing from nowhere, and one thing turning into another. The people were delighted. Then the Magician asked: ‘Would you like dinner now, or more entertainments?’

Everyone called for entertainments, for they had never seen anything like it before; at home there was food, but never such excitement as this. So, the Magician changed himself into a pigeon, then into a hawk, and finally into a dragon. The people went wild with excitement.

He asked them again, and they wanted more. And they got it. Then he asked them if they wanted to eat, and they said that they did. So the Magician made them feel that they were eating, diverting their attention with a number of tricks, through his magical powers.

The imaginary eating and entertainments went on all night. When it was dawn, some of the people said, ‘We must go to work.’ So the Magician made those people imagine that they went home, got ready for work, and actually did a day’s work

In short, whenever anyone said that he had to do something, the Magician made him think first that he was going to do it, then, that he had done it and finally that he had come back to the Magician’s house.

Finally, the Magician had woven such spells over the people of the village that they worked only for him while they thought that they were carrying on with their ordinary lives. Whenever they felt a little restless he made them think that they were back at dinner at his house, and this gave them pleasure and made them forget.

And what happened to the Magician and the people, in the end? Do you know, I cannot tell you, because he is still busily doing it, and the people are still largely under his spell.

Modern life is much like this tale – we live under a magician’s spell – and the magician is called Modernity. Modernity, especially as it emerged in western, industrialized cultures, created a system that put a spell on us. And this spell is principally promoted through our mainstream medias. Whether rationally, instinctively, or deep in our hearts, most of us know that something is not right about how human societies are managed. Human life is not yet in balance. And too many people still live in fear.

We are manipulated by our mainstream medias at unprecedented levels, and constantly fed with a controlled flow of information. This process is the old mind of humanity, still operating through control, censorship, and consumerism. In this way our contemporary societies are increasingly centered around emotion to a degree that allows people to be entertained as well as manipulated like never before. What we may be less aware of is that the human being is driven by an evolutionary energy that manifests through mental, emotional, and physical/sexual processes. This energy can be used to develop and drive us forward, or it can be hampered, blocked, and manipulated into slowing down our development. Mental, emotional, and physical/sexual energies are all necessary components of the social human being. If we take just a casual look at our mainstream media, entertainment, and social attractions/distractions we will readily see that these are the very areas which are targeted by the ‘culture of spectacle’ that is modern society.

Ancient religious-spiritual traditions have long talked about such ‘energy predators’ that are said to feed off from unstable human mental and emotional states. The early gnostic Christians referred to some of these as the Archons; various North American Indian tribes refer to Wetiko/Wendigo; Don Juan in the Carlos Castenada books refers to the Predators; and South American shamans have long talked of spirits that feed off from and fragment the vulnerable human inner state/soul.

We must wonder why it is that our modern cultures promote entertainments that manipulate and play upon excessively distorted images of mental and emotional anguish as well as exaggerated portrayals of sexuality. Furthermore, we are bombarded daily with images of death. In fact, a recent study into western media announced that the most repeated word in media is ‘death.’ Further, it revealed that in the first twelve years of a child’s life they would have been subjected to around 20,000 murders through television news and programs, films, online content, and video games. These forms of stimulation directly target a person’s mental, emotional, and physical states, which in turn hampers the operation of harmonious, developmental energies.

Modern life is increasingly a life addicted to high stimulation. Yet by its very nature it also creates anxiety. Many people are forced, or seduced, into lives that are continually stressful and busy. There is no room for the spaces, the intervals, of internal reflection. Yet similar to how music is not music without the intervals, so is life not a life without those internal spaces.

We spend our days trying to grasp at life, trying to understand it, often with ways that are not adequate. It is like trying to capture the ocean with a bucket. The ocean stands magnificently before us, and yet so many of us in modern societies are running around anxiously with empty buckets in our hands. We’ve been told that only full buckets are of any use – full buckets represent usefulness and progress.

Here is another story:

A man had two large pots, each hung on an end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to his house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the man delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, feeling accepted and appreciated. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the man one day by the stream.

“I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.”

“Why?” asked the man. “What are you ashamed of?”

“I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts.” the pot said.

The man felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion, he said, “As we return to my house, I want you to look at the beautiful flowers along the path. It will make you feel better.”

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this made it feel a little happier. But at the end of the path, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again the Pot apologized to the man for its failure.

The man said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve been watering them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to take home to my wife. With you being just the way you are, you have given beauty and meaning to me every day.”

The way we are can give us beauty and meaning every day, and yet it seems we are living in a world of decreasing meaning. Our modern systems strive for perfection – for progress and efficiency – yet there is less and less happiness.

And the situation is worse in modern western cultures where so many people are seemingly dissatisfied even when they have acquired most things to keep them happy. Perhaps a society that provides superficial comfort produces conditions that do not develop people or cause them to turn an inward gaze or to question notions of their meaning and existence. It is important that other cultures do not follow this western model of superficial consumerism.

It is unfortunate that the meaning of life is often a meaningless question to so many people. Seeking the ‘unnamable’ might sound like madness to many people, and certainly there is little place for it in modern societies that prize themselves on progress. And yet a life that seeks meaning is its own adventure. The ‘unnamable’ does not need to be named – only recognized internally. The external world is not the only reality that exists for us.

The attitude of the modern-day person to the ‘world outside’ has largely been one of hostility – we have been conquering the external world for the most part of human history, instead of mastering our own inner nature. This hostile attitude ignores the reality that all life is interdependent and that our lives are a projection of our inner realities – that is, our fears, anxieties, and insecurities become projected into the world the same as our hopes, visions, and dreams. Whatever we project externally eventually becomes our sense of reality.

We all share a collective reality, despite our cultural differences. Although it alters depending upon where we were born and in which cultures we live, the methods each modern system uses are basically the same – we are provided with beliefs, cultural references, and norms and attitudes. The writer Doris Lessing referred to this as ‘The prisons we choose to live inside.’ And within these psychological prisons many people, as well as the institutions of the modern world, have rejected the wisdom of sages, mystics, philosophers, and even the voices of creative artists. They prefer instead the superficial trappings, entertainments, and technological distractions of the consumerist marketplace. Now, I wish to be clear here – I am not anti-technology. In fact, I am a great supporter of it; but not at the expense of the human vision. Despite the technological progress of the external world, there must always be a developed interior world to observe, reflect, and to question it. Without this, the exterior life is unleashed without values. Without an interior life to seek for significance, what gives meaning to our lives?

So, what is the ‘interior life’? There are no instruction sets for how to live a human life – and we live in a world where more and more people are at a loss to know either why they live or why they die. In life we must strive to examine the human condition.

Modernity has attempted to reinterpret the human condition – to see it as an external drive for progress – and this has resulted in a separation from our need to seek an essential inner self. This modern project has sought to divorce the human being from their imperative to find meaning in existence. The human project, if we wish to call it that, can never be ‘completed’ – it is an eternal quest to always be becoming. Here is a quote I would like to share:

‘When you have found yourself you can have knowledge. Until then you can only have opinions. Opinions are based on habit and what you conceive to be convenient to you. The study of the Interior Life requires self-encounter along the way. You have not met yourself yet. The only advantage of meeting others in the meantime is that one of them may present you to yourself. Before you do that, you will possibly imagine that you have met yourself many times. But the truth is that when you do meet yourself, you come into a permanent endowment and bequest of knowledge that is like no other experience on earth.’ ~TARIQAVI

What we are truly seeking for – and what the interior life can show us – is power over ourselves: not for power over others.

The world is in need of soulful healing, not power-seeking through corruption and manipulation. The world requires healed, integrated, and balanced people; for that which we lack in ourselves we shall always find lacking in the world outside. Also, there are many external forces in the world that are trying to make us live not according to our own sense but according to dominant social narratives. We are told that we must live according to certain social narratives that generally benefit those systems that have no interest in the human soul. And when we deny ourselves such essential nutrients we find that we have a discomfort within us. People are taking increasing amounts of antidepressants, or stimulants; as well as relaxants – we take drugs to bring us up and other drugs to take us down. We are open and vulnerable to the energies of discouragement. Here is a tale about the price of discouragement:

Once the word spread that the devil was pulling out of his business and was arranging to sell-off all his tools of the trade to the highest bidder. The night of the sale all the tools were arranged for the bidders to view. What a motley crew it was! There were sinister tools of hatred, jealousy, envy, malice, treachery, plus all the other elements of evil. Yet besides these there also was an instrument that seemed harmless, a wedge-shaped instrument that appeared worn out, shabby, and yet was priced so much higher than all others. Someone asked the devil what was the name of such a poor-looking instrument.

‘Discouragement,’ answered the Devil.

‘And why is the price so high for such a non-malicious sounding instrument? asked the bidder.

‘Because,’ spoke the Devil, ‘this instrument is more useful to me than any other. I can enter the consciousness of a human being when all other ways fail me and once inside through the discouragement of that person I can do whatever I please. The instrument is worn out because I use it almost everywhere and as very few people know about this I can continue to successfully achieve my goals.’

And as the price of discouragement was so very, very high even today it remains a tool in the property of the Devil.

The price of discouragement is a price too many people are paying – and it is a high price (as the devil knows!)

It is a common situation that we tell people at work we are happy when for much of the time we are not. We buy more and more items to feel happiness within ourselves or to buy happiness in others. People in modern cultures continue to accumulate goods and possessions whilst feeling empty within. Such consumerism empties our pockets and fails to fill our souls. And not only our physical lives become crowded with belongings but our psychological spaces too. We are crowded with those belongings that have accumulated as psychological attachments: the beliefs, ideologies, nationalisms, opinions, likes, dislikes, and all the rest. We are often cluttered in our minds by belonging to this and that and all the other things that we cling to or that cling to us. And this is where some of the disruptions are, and will continue to come from, because our belongings are now breaking apart. As our social, cultural, economic, and work lives go through change and transformation – as they are currently doing – then the clinging to old ‘belongings’ will only serve to cause greater confusion and disorientation. Already it seems as if we are living in a world that is displaying increasing outward signs of craziness and psychopathic tendencies. We must ensure that the world never has more critics than visionaries, or more complainers than positive doers. We must ensure that we do not lose sight of our frameworks for meaning.

Pre-modern societies, for example, lived within their own frameworks of meaning. Not all questions had their answers, yet mysteries and the mysterious at least had a home in which they could exist. We often live today within an atmosphere of meaningless questions and contradictory answers. The pursuit of meaning is being replaced by the pursuit of progress. Progress may alleviate some of our suffering and pains, yet it shall never compensate for the lack of fulfillment we feel inside, for this requires metaphysical or transcendental nourishment. Any notion of the spiritual, or the metaphysical, is often considered not essential to our daily life, and we are taught to dismiss it. Modernity’s task was thus seen as freeing us from the illusions of transcendence. And yet the desire, or the need, for some Absolute remains deep within us and can never be totally eradicated. Perhaps it is this contradiction that lies at the heart of our contemporary distress.

Modern life also tries to eradicate, or at least hide, all sense of enigma. Yet it is precisely these enigmas that make our lives rich in wonder and awe. To attempt to abolish them is an act of great ignorance and hubris. Unanswerable questions must be embraced and not rejected. Mystery and the mysterious must be allowed a space to thrive and enthrall us. It is this sense of mystery that keeps us curious, and curiosity is one of our driving, motivating forces.

Modern societies may well praise their sophisticated intellectual culture, yet it comes at the cost of having a deteriorated spiritual culture. That which belongs to the experience of the human soul is considered not only incommunicable, but rather dangerous to communicate. In the end, life’s mysteries are kept out of sight because they cannot be fully known and thus controlled. There is a spell upon us, and we are being distracted from the essential. Here is another tale:

A lion was captured and imprisoned in a reserve where, to his surprise, he found other lions that had been there for many years, some even their whole life having been born in captivity. The newcomer soon became familiar with the activities of the other lions, and observed how they were arranged in different groups.

One group was dedicated to socializing, another to show business, whilst yet another group was focused on preserving the customs, culture and history from the time the lions were free. There were church groups and others that had attracted the literary or artistic talent. There were also revolutionaries who devoted themselves to plot against their captors and against other revolutionary groups. Occasionally, a riot broke out and one group was removed or killed all the camp guards and so that they had to be replaced by another set of guards. However, the newcomer also noticed the presence of a lion that always seemed to be asleep. He did not belong to any group and was oblivious to them all. This lion appeared to arouse both admiration and hostility from the others. One day the newcomer approached this solitary lion and asked him which group he belonged to.

‘Do not join any group,’ said the lion. ‘Those poor ones deal with everything but the essential.’

‘And what is essential?’ asked the newcomer.

‘It is essential to study the nature of the fence’

A whole society can be distracted. There is a pertinent analogy here to how, in 256AD, the Persian army took Antioch from the Roman Empire. Many of the inhabitants were attending the roman theatre and were oblivious to the enemy archers who had climbed up behind them into the stands. The actors down below had seen the enemy archers and were desperately trying to warn them with hand signals…but the audience did not understand, thinking it part of the entertainment – until it was too late. They were amused up to the point of death. Perhaps we too, in the words of social critic Neil Postman, are ‘Amusing ourselves to Death.’

Understanding Our Place In The World

The only genuine freedom is to be found by turning within ourselves. The human being is naturally an imaginative and creative creature. Reality may be harsh and painful, yet it is also the realm of so much wonder and awe. We may live our lives playing in the mud, yet our minds can reach the stars. Our science can reach into the molecule as well as penetrate into the formation of the universe. Our mystics and sages can reach into the pulsating heart of the cosmos. The human being has an inner dimension that needs to be investigated and which, in turn, is timeless.

It is my view that the role of imagination – the interpenetration of the interior world – is crucial. It is what fuses together that which is above to that which is below. It is also a channel for intuition; and it is through intuition that we get closer to the essential. The inward gaze forever attempts to reveal the role of the human being, and what makes us human. It is about trying to understand our place in the world and our shifting views of the world. And right now, we find ourselves at a crucial point in human history.

Life on this planet is undergoing a great change. There is a revolution coming as people, especially the young people, develop their ways of communication, collaboration, and a new consciousness. We are seeing examples of empathy and compassion from young people around the world, as well as innovation, creativity, and inspired motivation. I have stated before that we are shifting into an epoch where new value sets will emerge as the dominant traits.

[1] And some of these values are already being expressed within our younger generations. I refer to these as the ‘C’ values of Connection – Communication – Collaboration – Consciousness – Compassion. Such changes will come into our lives, yet not overnight. It is not like flicking on a light switch. I expect it will be a process where much soul-searching and the questioning of our meanings and values will have to occur beforehand. However, it is not all about violence and thuggery, despite what our mainstream news may be showing us. There is a change emerging across the planet, and this change shall arise from within, through a new understanding of the human spirit, and of our place not only in our local cultures but also within a shared, planetary home. These are critical times of transition – and of momentous importance to us.It is important to recognize that we are undergoing a shift from localized cultures into a period of becoming planetary citizens. Nationalisms will need to become secondary, or put aside altogether, as we come closer together as a global species. And this significant transition is dissolving our securities, our belief systems, and our models of reality. Everything around us is beginning to shake – and so is the earth, literally. We can no longer remain within the old narratives. We are in need of new worldviews, both as individuals as well as within our communities and societies. What we now need is genuine and sincere far-reaching vision. And in our mainstream cultures we are also lacking hope and trust, especially in our socio-political systems. What is now essential is hope and trust in humanity, and in the richness and resilience of the human spirit. We are on the cusp of a different world coming into being, and at its centre shall be the human heart and soul. There can be no genuine, lasting future if it is based solely on the exterior life – it must be driven by the values that come from the interior of the human being.

To be prepared for the future world that is now emerging before us we must adapt our thinking and our consciousness to all possibilities. What we first need is a genuine change of mind:

God decided to come down to Earth for a quick look at how creation was coming along.

God approached Earth and happened to look at a big tree full of howling monkeys. As God looked down, one of the monkeys happened to look up and saw God.

The monkey became excited and started to shout: ‘I see God…..I see God!’

None of the other monkeys paid any attention. Some thought the monkey was crazy or perhaps just a religious fanatic. They went on about their daily lives of collecting food, taking care of their young, fighting with each other, etc., etc. Not getting any attention, our monkey decided to try to get attention from God, and said:

‘God, Almighty, You are the Beneficent, the Merciful, please help me!’

In an instant, the monkey was transformed into a man living in his own human community. Everything changed, except for one thing: the monkey’s mind. The monkey immediately realized that could be a problem.

‘Well, thank you God, but what about my mind?’

‘That,’ said God, ‘you will have to change yourself.’ 

As in this story, we have the human form. The next step is for us to assume the responsibility for the correct level of consciousness. It is as simple and as difficult as that.

We have to accept the responsibility for our own choices and actions; and also, how we choose to respond to events. Everything begins and ends with ourselves, and anything other than this is an excuse, no matter how plausible it may seem to us. As creative, imaginative beings we invent and innovate. At the same time, we are masters at inventing our own false stories and imaginings that self-deceive. In this regard we must choose carefully where we wish to put our attention, time, and efforts. After all, when we visit a beautiful garden do we choose to sit by the roses and savour their sweet smell, or to sit amidst the weeds that prick us? It is important to gift ourselves moments of joy, for joy is an infectious energy – and it shares easily too.

It is up to us to choose those moments, events, and circumstances to engrave upon our memories and heart. It is also about choosing what things to forget. Most of the things we encounter or accumulate we would be best to give up, or give away. We should only keep the few, thus ensuring the quality and integrity of those things we keep close to us. Here is another tale:

An Arabian legend tells of two friends who were travelling through the desert and at one point they fell into disagreement about the trip whereby one of the friends slaps the other across the face.

The friend who had been slapped said nothing, only wrote in the sand: ‘Today my best friend slapped me in the face.’

Both friends continued on their journey and eventually arrived at an oasis where there were baths to refresh themselves. The friend who had been slapped jumped into the large baths yet soon found himself starting to drown. The other friend immediately jumped in after him and saved him. After recovering the first man took a pen and wrote on a stone: ‘Today my best friend saved my life.’

Intrigued, the friend asked: ‘Why is it that after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now after saving you, you write on a stone?

Smiling, the other friend replied: ‘When a good friend offends us, we write in the sand where the wind of forgetfulness and forgiveness will be responsible for clearing it off; on the other hand, when something great happens to us, we burn it into stone in memory of the heart where no wind in the world can erase it.’

We build up and develop our own interior world by all the small things and moments we choose to engrave upon our heart, spirit, and soul. We can choose those things we wish to line our forward path with.

Choosing Our Path

We should not be afraid to talk about things of the spirit – to be present with spirit and to live with it in our everyday moments. As Bob Dylan says, those who are not busy being born are busy dying. We are representatives of the spirit, and so should seek to be present to this, without the urge for external showing-off. There is no need for acting weird or strange; to wear odd clothes or follow customs antagonistic to the culture in which we are living. We may think and feel differently, and have experiences that are beyond the accepted, normal ken. Yet to revert to odd external behavior only shows that we are unable to internalize and stabilize these experiences and energies. To all purposes, there is nothing wrong in appearing normal to the outside world. To engage with the spirit, we may have to first learn how to be still, without being bored. There are already enough active distractions in the world as it is – why add more?

It is a normal request to ask for ‘practical things.’ People want to find activities, acts, exercises, and rituals to help them along their own path of development. And the world offers many of these things, in varying degrees of genuineness, sincerity, and effectiveness. Yet sometimes being given an action to attend to belittles the process of the initial search. For me personally, I am unable to give specific remedies for the search for meaning, other than to say that a person must first experience what this longing, this need, feels like. We are catalysts for our own search for meaning, and each path is walked differently. To begin with, we must learn how to articulate this need. This will then begin the course of one’s life that will forever alter what comes after. We are compelled to trust our instincts, our intuition, and to take the appropriate response. We are not here in this life to live like ghosts amongst the phantasms of the world. We always have an internal choice, and this should not force us to surrender into the abyss of mass insanity. As the story goes,

There was once a wise and powerful king who ruled in a remote city of a far kingdom. And the king was feared for both his might and his love of wisdom. At the heart of the city was a well whose water was cool and crystalline, and all the inhabitants drank from this well, even the king and his courtiers, because there was no other well in the city. One night, while everyone was asleep, a witch entered the city and poured seven drops of a strange liquid into the well, and said:

‘From now on, anyone who drinks this water will go crazy.’

The next morning all the inhabitants drank the water from the well, except the king and his lord chamberlain, and very soon everyone went mad, as the witch had foretold. During that day, all people went through the narrow streets and public places whispering to each other:
‘The king is mad. Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason. Naturally, we cannot be ruled by a mad king. We must dethrone him!’

That night, the king ordered a golden cup of water from the well to be brought to him. And when they brought the cup the king and his lord chamberlain drank heavily from it. Soon after that there was great rejoicing in that distant city of a far kingdom because the king and his lord chamberlain had regained their reason.

We must be fearless in committing to the inner path we have chosen, so long as we harm no other. The genuine inner path is a subtle one. At times it can seem as if nothing is happening – as if we are going nowhere. Perhaps the path itself is a search for no-place and no-where. And yet we can rest assured that the inner path is active in each moment, in all times. And the search for this can bring meaning to us as we engage with the modern world. Amidst the distractions and entertainments on offer it is possible to remain focused with our own internal meaningful enjoyment. And this inner joy brings with it its own sacred moments.

It will do us good to remember that life lies beyond reason, and is a sacred thing. And we should allow this sacred presence into our lives, with joy, respect, and even a little humour. After all, just a little bit of joy, respect, and humour can go a long, long way – and we have far to travel.

 

 

References:

[1] See The Phoenix Generation: A New Era of Connection, Compassion & Consciousness