Using the tools of science and psychology to deepen your spiritual growth.
Please Note: These newsletters are meant to be read in order.
10: The Nature of The Mind: Part II The Function and Limits of the Ego
Edition #10: Inside the Invisible
Let’s pause for a moment and look again at the nature of the mind. We find ourselves in quite a pickle. On the one hand, we need our sense of self, our ego, to function in the world. On the other hand, that sense of self becomes an obstacle in our spiritual journey. How could this possibly be?
I hope you will indulge me as I spin out the story that I think explains our predicament. While this story is a product of my imagination, I think it explains how we got to this place. In addition, this story incorporates the notion of evolution, and thus might properly be considered as an hypothesis rather than a totally imaginative story. So let me begin…
Life appears to have originated through a variety of means on this planet. The first form of life that was able to spread widely was based on photosynthesis. The early one-celled organisms like algae developed photosynthesis to extract energy from the sun, which they used to power their microscopic lives. This form of life spread widely over the planet and, as it proliferated, developed into the many forms of plant life we see today.
The next significant development in this process was the development of critters that got their energy by eating those organisms that relied on photosynthesis. These critters were unable to utilize the sun’s energy directly, so they used it indirectly by consuming those organisms that employed photosynthesis. From here, there was a proliferation of lifeforms and we see their progeny today around the world.
There was an essential and little-noticed change that occurred when those critters that ate other critters began to develop. The animals that were successful developed rudimentary forms of an ego. They developed a drive to succeed. Actually, this may be an overstatement – they developed a drive to fill their little bellies. After hundreds of thousands of years, this drive morphed into what we now identify as the ego – the sense of self.
What this means is rather intriguing. If these hypotheses are correct, it means that God was responsible for creating the ego. That unitive consciousness we call God brought the components necessary for life together in one-celled organisms that used psychosynthesis for energy. In a later development, the Divine brought into being other organisms that consumed the photosynthesis–dependent critters. Life continued to evolve into more and more complex forms, and human beings are the current result. We have here an example of one form of life being superceded by another, more complex form. That process continues to this day.
We human critters have used our egos, first to feed our bellies, and now to drive ourselves to whatever we think constitutes ‘success.’ Our definitions of success have given us the modern world, with all of its wonderful complexity: with its extraordinary quantities of food, complex transportation systems, worldwide communications systems, medical miracles, and all the rest. Our egos have also given us pollution, inequitable distribution of food and other resources, and complex political systems that are constantly at war. What a bargain!
We are at an interesting inflection point. It appears that our egos, while giving us unimaginable successes, have also driven us to the brink of extinction. We are at a point where we need to look beyond the satisfaction of our personal, ego-driven desires. To do otherwise is to risk catastrophic breakdowns.
I think it no coincidence that there is a resurgence of interest in spirituality around the globe at just this point. Humanity as a whole seems to intuit that we cannot continue as we have in the past. We need to do something radically different – something that does not take us into World War III or ecological collapse. To do so, we need to find ways of functioning that are not ego-driven.
This is a significant challenge for all of humanity. Our egos appear to have taken us as far as they can. To go forward from here, we need to find ways to progress that go beyond the Me-Me-Me selfishness that has driven our massive accomplishments. You may think that I am in error on this point but imagine the alternative. Imagine some eight billion ego-driven individuals, each trying to assert “My Way” and “Me First!” It’s simply a recipe for disaster and enormous pain for all of us. It is a classic “no-win” situation.
Contemplative spirituality in all of the world’s religions presents a doable alternative. In my understanding, contemplative spirituality offers the only possible alternative to our present ego-driven society. While recognizing the importance of the ego, contemplative spirituality also recognizes the limitations of the ego. It offers a clear alternative to our ego-driven cultures – an alternative that can actually be implemented. It is not an easy alternative. It is not easy to trust that there is anything beyond the ego when all we have known to date is our ego-driven structures. I can’t think of any alternatives to this. Can you?
* * *
This week, let’s begin to push one of our spiritual exercises and take it further. This is exercise provides a way that we can take our spiritual practice into every part of our daily lives. By extending our practice in this way, we intensify its effectiveness. If you will, it provides a kind of turbocharging for your spiritual work.
To date, we have introduced our spiritual exercises as if they were something to be done as a kind of formal sitting meditation. Now we will extend our practice into our ordinary daily activities. In Week 7, we introduced you to heart-centered meditation. You learned to let your attention drift down from your head until it came to rest in the center of your chest. There you opened yourself to the Presence of God. You practiced here for a time, then left your meditation and went about your other activities. Now I want you to explore carrying your heart-centered focus with you throughout your day.
Extending Your Heart-Centered Meditation
Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Turn off your cell phone and deal with other potential distractions.
Be seated, close your eyes, and simply observe, while refraining from judging what you experience here.
Notice the flow of your thoughts and emotions. No need to chase after them or elaborate. Just observe.
Notice the flow of sensations through your body. No need to get caught up in them. Again, just observe what is.
Now, gently bring your attention to the region of your heart. Most start with feeling their attention in their head, where we think the self or ego lives. Gently feel your attention move slowly down through your neck, your shoulders, letting your attention come to rest in the region of your heart.
When you feel it resting here, open your heart to the Presence of the Divine.
Rest here without moving for the period of your meditation.
When you are distracted, bring your attention back to your heart and rest here with God.
When you are ready, let the feeling come back into your feet, your hands, and your face. Take a deep breath and open your eyes.
As you leave your formal meditation, carry your heart-centered awareness into your usual activities. Instead of operating from your head (your ego), let your heart guide you. Listen for its guidance. Remember that it is a still, small voice within you.
There is no need to strain yourself here; just be aware of what is happening in your chest and listen closely. As a friend told me once, ‘Learn to listen with your third ear, the one in your chest.’
If you feel a prompting to do something, experiment with it and see what happens.
Go through your day with your attention centered in your heart, listening for the Spirit’s promptings. When you lose focus, if it seems appropriate, come back to your heart and open yourself to God’s holy Presence again.
Remember, our goal here is not just to do these practices. Our goal is to use these practices to let go of our self-centered behavior so that we can enter into the fullness of God’s love. To overcome the constraints of our limiting egos so that we can realize the joy and bliss for which we were created.
* * *
Well, that’s all for now. I had two goals today. My first goal was to give you something to think about. As you see from the narrative above, it turns out that you are not just following these newsletters for your own benefit; you are also pioneering new structures for human beings that go beyond the limitations of our egos.
I also wanted to give you something concrete to do. Hence this powerful extension of our heart-centered meditation. Next week, we will deepen our discussion even further and examine what is necessary for each of us to move forward in our spiritual life. As you are no doubt noticing by now, this is not an easy journey. It is, however, a journey where the future of humanity and our planet are at stake. So, practice your meditation diligently, because you’re doing it for more than just yourself. You’re doing it for your children and your neighbors, and for people on the other side of the globe that you will never meet in this life.
With love,
P.S. Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class. If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web. If you have an interest, please write me at ken123Kaisch@gmail.com.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
9: The Results of Meditating from Your Heart
Edition #9: Inside the Invisible
By now, you may be wondering what meditation will do for you. The concept of sitting and doing nothing is about as foreign to the modern American consciousness as anything we might imagine. For most of us, we have been exhorted since childhood to do do do. Perform! Produce! And now produce even more! These have been the Montrose mantras driven into our brains since childhood. And while these exhortations may result in an abundance of material wealth, they are not likely to enhance our closest relationships, and they certainly do not help our search for God.
Our material success depends on our drivenness, and our drivenness depends on our ego. As a result, we have created an internal structure that we call the “self”. In its most basic terms, our “self” is a tool. This tool has been refined by generations of our forebearers to garner success, however, you might measure success. But every tool has its limitations. The limitation of the ego is that it can start us on our journey to God, but it cannot take us to the goal of union with God.
Here is why. The ego is about boundaries. This is mine, and that stuff over there is not mine; it’s yours. There is a very clear boundary between my stuff and everything else. The ego defines the dimensions of success for us: getting into this favored school, obtaining this special job, advancing up the corporate ladder, and getting this particular partner. The ego defines what it wants and then drives us to obtain the desired objects. It is a highly effective tool that has been developed over many millennia. Its roots are found deep in the animal kingdom, and those species with the strongest egos (also read, the strongest drive to success) are the ones that have survived.
So here’s the good part. The ego was originally created by God, and it functioned to help creatures survive and thrive. It is a fabulous tool for that purpose. But all tools have their limits. For example, I could use a hammer to chop down a tree. If I hit the head of the hammer in the same spot, over and over again, for a very long period of time, I would eventually break all of the wood fibers and the tree would fall over. It would be a very inefficient use of my time and a very poor use of the hammer. The hammer is much more effective pounding nails, but it could be used to chop down a tree.
In the same way, the ego is a very effective tool for creating boundaries and pushing us toward success. It is not at all effective in bringing us to God. While it can start us on the journey, it cannot bring us Home.
For spiritual purposes, the ego is a tool that can be employed during the start in the middle of the journey. It can set the goal and it can help us as we start. For example, it can help us start a meditation practice. Starting meditation goes against much of what we have learned as necessary for success in our culture. I mean, really, sitting down with your eyes closed and doing “nothing” – what benefit could that possibly bring?
So, let us look at it now from the other side, the spiritual side. While the ego is about setting boundaries, the spiritual journey is about transcending boundaries and entering into union with the Divine. So you see, the ego can get you started, but it cannot take you to the end of the journey. The ego sets boundaries, it doesn’t transcend or dissolve them. It’s the wrong tool for the job.
The spiritual journey is about entering into successively deeper experiences of union. For our journey to be successful, we need to find ways to overcome the very boundaries that our ego erects.
When stated this clearly, it’s likely to bring up fear for you. Our egos are about maintaining control, and the spiritual journey is about giving control over to God. In fact, I have heard some of my Christian friends rail against meditation for just this reason. They fear that if you empty your mind, demonic forces might come in and take over. Their fear is unfounded, and no one has ever shown any evidence that this sort of thing occurs. As a matter of fact, the opposite occurs. Abundant research verifies that those who have meditated for a long time show more significant levels of happiness and inner peace. Besides, imagine how nice it would be to have that constant chatter in your head be still for a change!
Let me illustrate this by means of the poem. This poem was written by the 13th century Islamic mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. It is to my mind, one of the most lovely of poems, for it speaks of entering into the mystery that is God. In the words of Rumi:
The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my loving now.
I’ve heard it said
there is a window
from one soul to another.
But if there is no wall,
there is no need for the window
Or the latch.
The clear bead of which Rumi speaks is the heart, that spiritual center in your chest. He says poetically that when the heart is clear – when it has been purified from sin and is no longer cloudy or opaque – there is no need for our ego boundaries. He speaks here of a heart that is united with the Unseen. When our hearts are clarified and purified like this, when they are in union with God, our boundaries disappear. And it’s not just the boundary between us and God that disappears; it’s the boundary between us and each other, and the boundaries between us and the natural world.
In a word, it is freedom. Freedom to live from our deepest nature which is and always has been in union with the Divine.
How different this is from our normal ego-driven state. We have boundaries all over the place. We like this one and that one and that one over there, but we don’t like these others. And those strange ones over there, we don’t even see or acknowledge them. They don’t exist for us. And with all of these boundaries, we often find ourselves alone. Utterly by ourselves. And this state is so hideous that human beings cannot survive it. They find ways to check out and end their lives.
Rumi goes on to say, “If there is no wall, there is no need for the window or the latch.” There is no need to be alone. When we find ourselves alone, it is because we have erected walls and closed the latches. And our Lord tells us that all of this is a lie. The gospel of Matthew tells us, just before Jesus ascends into heaven at the end of the book, “Know that I will be with you always, even to the end of time.” This is the promise of Christianity and the promise of all of the major religions. God is not some strange being, far, far away. God is right here, with us, in our hearts, an abiding Presence. And there is nothing that we can do that can possibly separate us from the love of God.
The spiritual journey is to realize and experience that holy Presence within us. The most amazing thing about this journey, in my understanding, is that we have already succeeded. We're just not aware of it yet! The focus of our spiritual work is to remove the artificial boundaries that separate us, one from another, and from God.
6
That’s all for this week. I hope you spend some time thinking about how your ego functions. Watch what you feel attracted to and repulsed by. Notice when you feel you have to do something and delay the doing of it for just 30 seconds or so. Instead of blindly doing what your ego directs, push back a little. See what happens when you do. Remember, it is just a tool, nothing more. And like all tools, it has a proper function and use, and a much wider range of inappropriate uses. And keep up your meditation practice. Especially when it seems difficult. (That’s when the ego is pushing back at you! LOL)
Next week, we will continue exploring the nature of the mind. In addition, we will show you a way to turbocharge your practice. So stay tuned…
With deep affection,
P.S. Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class. If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web. If you have an interest, please write me at ken123Kaisch@gmail.com.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
8: The Nature of Mind: Part I
Edition #8: Inside the Invisible
By now, if you are practicing the spiritual exercises of the past weeks, you are coming to see the nature of your own mind. I find it fascinating to watch these mental processes – talk about ‘streaming!’ The internet and Netflix are pikers compared to my restless, ever-moving, mind. There is a ceaseless stream of chatter about everything and nothing, and for years it seemed impossible to get it to stop.
Recently, I read a fascinating book by a Harvard neuroscientist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. She had a massive stroke in her 30s that destroyed her ability to use words. As a result, she could neither speak nor think. She remarked, much later, on the marvelous interior stillness that she experienced during those years. Can you imagine – to live a life where you are not beset by the constant chattering in your head?
In effect, we have been captured by our chatter. It owns us, not the other way around. We have come to believe that our “I,” our self, is reality. Our sense of self is maintained by our constant internal chatter. We talk about everything; it is a never-ending stream of words, often full of ‘sound and thunder, but signifying nothing.’ When I began trying to control this inner blather, it seemed like an impossible task. No matter what I did to try to contain it, the chattering monkey in my head eventually seduced me, and I began to listen to it even though I knew it would lead me nowhere. I felt helpless.
I tried suppressing this mentation. That sometimes worked for a few minutes, but I always felt this oppressive weight when I did so. After a time, I realized that this was a dead end. I was replacing my inner stream of chatter with this oppressive weight. I tried meditating for long periods, but all that did was make me the hapless victim of my thinking for longer periods. I finally decided to stop resisting this chatter and simply look at what was going on.
Here is what I found. My mind – and by that I mean my ability to reason and think – appears to have two primary functions: analysis and synthesis. When we analyze something, we focus our attention and break down what we observe into its component parts. Synthesis, on the other hand, is the process of combining those parts together, often in new and unusual ways. That’s it. That’s all my mind does. Everything else is just entertainment.
Entertainment? Yes, when you look at it dispassionately, it is just one of my ways of entertaining myself. I comment about everything around me. I gossip to myself. I make snide comments, and nasty ones, too. I make value judgments and criticize constantly. And on and on – you know this because you do it too.
To what end? What is the purpose of all this chatter? Very little actually escapes my head with a verbal comment, so why am I doing this? What is actually going on? Basically, I am talking to hear myself talk. And with every comment, I am reasserting my place as the center of the known universe. Ahh… our common fantasy, this. I am the center of all I survey. In effect, I am assuming God’s place as ruler of the universe. As Bill Cosby used to say, to great effect, “Righttttttt…”
Our ego steps in and starts proclaiming, “Me-me-me!” All of our interior self-talk has the function of reinforcing this ego position of superiority. It reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. The wizard speaks with a thunderous voice and proclaims himself to be the All-Powerful Oz, the great and wonderful Oz. The magnificent bull-shitter, Oz. That’s me, and I suspect it may be you as well.
Most of the time, we don’t notice the amazing self-centeredness of our self-talk. We simply accept it as normal and natural, since it has been with us for all of our conscious existence. And then, something different happens. We are silenced by the beauty of a sunset. We are awed by the courage of someone rushing into a burning building to save a little girl. Our inner chatter is stilled, and in the sudden silence, we find ourselves open in a startling new way.
It is in this inner stillness, in this silence, that our hearts open to the Divine.
Which brings me to our third spiritual exercise. This practice will help you quiet your mind and the ceaseless production of (often useless) thoughts. In this exercise, you will use your imagination, a faculty of the mind, to still the mind.
This is a process that you can employ frequently and to great advantage. In effect, you are giving yourself a specific target to aim at. This practice allows us to focus our attention, and to pull it away from the trivial chatter that is too often our most frequent companion.
So, use this stilling exercise multiple times a day. It prepares you for a much deeper meditation experience. Underneath all of our chatter is a perfect Stillness, and in this place, our hearts will find their rest. In that Stillness, we find our deepest Self, and our true home.
That’s it for this week, folks. Next week, we will use a deep poem by a 13th- century spiritual master to explore what being still looks like, and what we can expect from this practice. So, keep up with your daily practice. If you are new to this, try meditating multiple times a day for just five minutes or so. See you next week…
With deep affection,
P.S. Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class. If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web. If you have an interest, please write me at ken123Kaisch@gmail.com.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
7: Heart-centered Meditation
Edition #7: Inside the Invisible
Perhaps the most significant difficulty with our first spiritual exercise is the lack of a clear target. If there was a clear ‘X-marks-the-spot’ target for your meditation, you could focus your attention there, and you probably would have felt more successful. At the very least, you could tell when you stayed on the target and when it eluded you. But what kind of target does the Presence of God present to you? Is it some image of the Divine? Is it a particular kind of inner feeling? Or something else entirely?
There was actually a good reason behind this lack of specificity. If you had some kind of clear target, instead of pursuing the actual real Presence, you would likely imagine something. Something that you thought fulfilled the parameters of your search. The only thing that could be said of such an imagining is that it is a fantasy – something that does not exist in reality. What a terrible way to start your journey toward that which Is, the ultimate Reality behind all our apparent observable reality.
The truth is, we humans have this marvelous ability to perceive patterns – to fill in the blanks, so to speak, with what we believe completes the pattern. Let me give you a simple numerical example: 1, 2, 3, __. Now, fill in the blank.
Most probably inserted a ‘4’, but how did you come to that number? You guessed, right? You assumed it was an ascending numerical sequence, and the single space indicated a single digit, so you assumed ‘4’. But maybe I was giving the last four digits of my phone number, or my social security number, or something else. There was no way of knowing without more information, so you hallucinated a number to fit.
While this ability to make and perceive patterns is helpful in many situations, it becomes a liability in our search for the Divine. It is, I believe, the primary reason why there are so many radically different ideas about God. Sadly, almost all of these ideas tend to lead us astray. If nothing else, none of our thoughts begin to encompass the vastness and majesty of God.
That being said, we humans have trouble with vagueness. I remember working with a woman who had wrestled with an unidentified chronic illness for years. She was terribly depressed because her doctors could not find a diagnosis. One day she
came into my office all smiles, just glowing with happiness. “They finally figured it out,” she said with a grin. “I have stage four pancreatic cancer!”
This was a virtual death sentence, yet it made her very happy. Finally, she had something concrete and real. Never mind that it meant her death; the certainty made her happy.
So how can we use our need for certainty in our quest? How can we create a target that is easier to work with, but one that doesn’t compromise our search right at the get-go?
To answer this, we need to look at our spiritual forebears. All of the great religions talk about a spiritual center in our bodies in the region of our heart. They say that the place where the Divine is most accessible to us is in this spiritual heart center. Several Christian mystics have stated that the veils which separate us from God are most transparent in the spiritual center of our heart.
St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), an Eastern Orthodox saint, taught that we can experience the Divine directly, in the region of the heart. He was working from a very ancient practice, the Jesus Prayer, which originated with the Desert Fathers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. (More on the Jesus Prayer in later editions of this newsletter.) In Western Christendom, the anonymous English author of The Cloud of Unknowing also describes the heart as the primary focal point of contemplative prayer.
Of specific interest to us, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing invites his reader to put “a cloud of forgetting” beneath him – letting go of everything that might distract him from the love of God. Then, he invites us to put a “cloud of unknowing” between ourselves and God. He rightly says that we can never ‘know’ God like we can know the objects around us. Better to not speculate, then, and to place one’s self in the presence of God and rest there, without fabricating ideas or emotions about the experience. And that, of course, was the point of our first spiritual exercise.
Moving forward, we can make our spiritual journey easier, quicker, and more productive by centering our attention in our hearts. So, let me introduce you to the practice of heart-centered meditation.
If you have difficulty moving your attention out of your head, first feel the sphere of energy around your head. Then imagine that sphere descending about an inch or so with every breath you take. When that sphere reaches the center of your chest, imagine reaching out from your heart to someone you love. Then reach out to another and another. This tends to anchor your attention in your spiritual heart center.
I have had people say they can’t move their attention out of their head because that is where it is supposed to be. That’s a common misperception. If you have ever stubbed your toe, barked your shin on something, or hit your fingers while hammering a nail, you know this is just not true. When you stub your toe, ALL of your attention is suddenly focused on the hurt toe. There isn’t even a particle of attention left to think about anything else. It’s just that we don’t pay much attention to what is actually going on inside of us. When you start noticing what is happening inside of yourself, you start to see some amazing things.
With practice, you will come to know your inner world. As you get more and more familiar with your heart center, your ability to focus without interruption will gradually increase. As you let go of your thoughts and emotions, you will experience a certain stillness in your inner world, a stillness that is free from your ego driving this thought and that one. This is not something you can force. You can’t say to yourself, ‘Stop chasing that thought,’ and expect to be successful. Why not? Well, stop and observe what part of you is doing the talking. It’s your ego that is attempting to exert power and direct your mental traffic here. And guess what – your ego is not likely to participate in its own demise.
This is the paradox of spiritual work. You have to find a way to go deeper inside to find the Divine dwelling within, but the tool you have always used to get things done – your ego – is not effective here. Remember what happens with seeds that are planted? The seed has to die in order for the new growth to occur. The same happens in the spiritual realm as well.
That’s all for this week, folks. Next week, we will start looking more deeply into the nature of the mind because the more you know about your inner world, the easier it is to negotiate your way home. Keep up with your daily practice. If you are new to this, try meditating multiple times a day for just five minutes or so. See you next week…
With deep affection,
P.S. Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class. If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web. If you have an interest, please write me at ken123Kaisch@gmail.com.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
6: The Importance of Intention
Edition #6: Inside the Invisible
The goal of the spiritual life is union with the Divine. The early church had a term for this process – they called it theosis. This goal is summarized in the words of St. Athanasius, “God became man that man might become God.” Pretty wild, isn’t it? I will bet you never heard that in Sunday School!
As seekers of this spiritual union, we are involved in the process of changing our perceptions: our perceptions of ourselves, each other, and God. If you will, we are engaged in opening our eyes so that we can see all of Reality, not just a narrow slice of it. Instead of being satisfied with the partial loaf we have grown up with, we now want the whole enchilada. We will not achieve this by spiritual exercises alone.
This brings us to the importance of intention. At least half of the value of our first spiritual exercise lies in our intention to draw closer to the Divine. For the few minutes of your practice, your intention was fully concentrated on God. You didn’t know what to expect. You had no idea what would happen. Perhaps the skies would split open, trumpets would sound, and angels would appear. Who knows?
These expectations, however they manifest for you, are important. They are the result of your past conditioning. For example, if you are Christian, you may have expected Jesus; if you were of another faith, you expected something else. More than just old conditioning, your expectations are evidence of your desires, which are always driven by your ego.
Imagine your ego for a moment. Every ego has boundaries: you are okay with this, you are not okay with that, and those over there you don’t even see. These boundaries are invisible until you bump into them, and then they make themselves known. While boundaries are useful in negotiating our way through the world around us, they are the primary obstacle to our spiritual growth. These boundaries keep us from experiencing the living God.
Look what happened during your work with your spiritual exercise this past week. You sat down, closed your eyes, went inside, and then opened yourself to the Divine. This was driven by your intention to sit with your Lord.
You didn’t know what to expect, so you were wide open to receive whatever might happen. For a moment, you managed to step outside your ego boundaries. Then what happened? Your mind was still – at least for a moment or two – and you experienced some quiet. That quiet felt good, so you probably said something like, “I think I’m getting the hang of this,” which pulled you back inside your ego boundaries. Then it was off to the races, with your mind thinking this and that and everything under the sun.
When you noticed this, it was your intention that brought you back. You realized you had set out to open yourself to God, got sidetracked into your usual jumble of thoughts, and then did your best to pull out of that jumble. Your intention had been violated by you, yourself. That may have been a bit upsetting, so you came back to your practice.
Your intention to know and experience the Divine is what started you on this journey, and it constantly helps you keep on course. It is a precious gift from God, for without our intention, we would never start, and if by chance we started, we would immediately derail and fail.
So, cultivate your intention to realize God. Spend some time within focused on your intention. Nourish it. Cherish it, for without it, we are lost.
Questions and Answers
I received a bunch of questions this week that all asked the same thing: ‘Hey, Doc! What am I supposed to feel?’ so I am going to attempt to answer them all together. Here goes…
There is no ‘supposed to’ here. As you clear away your internal obstacles, you willexperience the Presence of your Lord. In fact, the Divine is within you right now – you just have not perceived that holy Presence. Now you get the joy of experiencing the obstacles that are in the way. These obstacles are revealed in your thoughts and emotions, and even in the itchy sensations you experienced.
Maybe your mind went to some pressing problem, and you began to think about that. Maybe you realized that you need to pick up some milk and bread from the store. Maybe you notice a kind of strange sensation on your skin somewhere. You tried to ignore it, but it grew and grew until you just had to scratch it to make it go away.
All of these results are simply ploys by the ego to get us to STOP. At a deep level, your ego understands your spiritual practice is a threat. As a result, it will throw at you whatever it needs to trip up your practice. In short, we all get suckered. We stop what we are doing – our spiritual practice – and follow the direction of our ego, the same old round of ceaseless thoughts that have always been there.
What is worse, this ego-driven process is insidious. As you develop your practice, you will find it happening again and again, to the point that many give up their spiritual work as a result. There is, of course, a remedy. It's kind of a clever remedy, actually, since it uses the force of the ego to thwart its drives. In that way, it is like ju-jitsu – using the opponent's own force to defeat him.
This remedy is most explicitly developed in the Buddhist practice of vipassana. When you have a thought, simply label it. Say “thought” and let it go. If you try to fight it, you have already lost the battle, and your ego has succeeded in derailing your intention. Likewise, if you feel an emotion, don’t pursue it, just say “emotion” and let it go. For physical sensations, say “sensation.” You can think of this as a ‘catch and release’ program.
The critical point here is not to wrestle with your ego because you will lose. Your ego is always in survival mode, and it is ferocious! Instead, step aside and let it pass through you.
That’s all for this week, folks. Next week we will refine your spiritual practice by showing you how to increase both the focus and the power of your meditation. So keep up with your daily practice. If you are new to this, try meditating multiple times a day for just five minutes or so, and we will meet again next week.
With deep affection,
P.S. Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class. If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web. If you have an interest, please write me at ken123Kaisch@gmail.com.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
5: The Foundational Spiritual Exercise
Edition #5: Inside the Invisible
Consider with me the difficulty of pursuing spiritual goals with our selfish egos, always chanting ‘me-me-me.’ We want God’s embrace while holding on to the very thing that precludes that embrace – our tiny egos. There is such a clear irony here. Jesus says, in multiple places, that he is already here, with us. He has always been, and will always be here.
Let me give you some examples. In John’s gospel, Jesus says, “I am in my Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 14.20). A chapter later, he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you” (John 15:4). How about in Matthew, when he says, just before ascending into heaven, “Know that I will be with you always, even to the end of time” (Matt 28.20). One of his names, Emanuel, actually means “God with us.” We just don’t notice. Worse, we don’t know how to notice.
So how do we open ourselves to that holy Presence? We conceptualize the issue as needing to do something different. That’s our ego talking. Often, our religious institutions echo our ego and exhort us to do all kinds of things: we need to behave better, to do this and not that, we need-need-need. Starts to sound like the ego talking, doesn’t it? Me-me-me all over again.
But let’s face it. We have followed the dictates of our ego in our pursuit of the Divine, and we have come up mostly empty. The ego gets us started, but it can’t take us very far down the path. Following the wonderful work of David Hawkins, it is not our doing that will bring us into God’s embrace; it is our letting go that is the ticket.
What!?! The ego starts screaming right about now. “Letting go diminishes us. Letting go makes us less. Letting go is scary!”
I am reminded of an old cartoon, in which a man falls off a cliff during the night but manages to grab hold of a bush growing out of the hillside on his way down. He calls out, ‘God, help me!’ A Voice answers, ‘Let go.’ ‘I can’t let go, I’ll fall to my death.’ ‘Let go,’ comes the reply. Finally, in desperate agony, because he can’t hold on anymore, the man lets go. And drops six inches to the ground. Pretty scary fall, isn’t it?
We are afraid to trust, because we have lived in a world with so much untruth. We have learned from repeated experiences not to trust. So, we hold on to what we think we know. Sadly, our holding on keeps us from opening to God’s embrace.
To find the Divine, we need to shift from relying on ourselves and our egos. The central core of spiritual work “is aligned with undoing and the unloading of the mind rather than its enrichment.” We need to change our programming from ‘getting’ to ‘allowing.’ In a word, we need to let go.
And this brings us to our first spiritual exercise. You can practice this anywhere, at any time, and it is always beneficial. You don’t need to adopt a particular posture, although I have found it helpful at the start to close your eyes and sit quietly in a quiet place. Then, simply open your awareness. This is not so much an action of getting as it is a letting go.It involves going inside of yourself: letting go so that you can move into your deepest being. There, Jesus promises us, we will find that we are already in union with Him.
This spiritual practice can be found under various names in all of the major religions. In Zen Buddhism, it is known as “just sitting.” In Daoism, it is known as “sitting in oblivion.” In Hinduism, it is embodied in the phrase, ‘Thou art That,’ meaning that you are that for which you seek. In Christianity, it is known as the Practice of the Presence of God, and Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century monk of the Carmelite order, is one of its foremost exponents. Regardless of the name, the practice involves abandoning the getting activity of the ego so that you can see what is actually there, inside of you, at your deepest levels.
Like all forms of meditation, you will probably find this practice a bit difficult. It is extremely simple – there is literally nothing to do. But your ego is not likely to enjoy the experience, so it will throw up all kinds of barriers. These will likely take the form of distractions and ‘forgetting’ to do the practice. It helps, therefore, to give yourself a minimum time for practice and specific times to engage in it.
I would suggest practicing this several times during your day. I like to open myself this way after my morning coffee. I often practice for thirty minutes or more, but in the beginning, I had a hard time even stretching it to five minutes. So, I would suggest you start with five-minute practices. In addition to morning practice, I typically take short breaks with this throughout my day, and then again as I lay in bed before sleep comes.
Because it is difficult to read this material and do what it suggests, I have included an audio clip of this exercise. Use it a time or two, if you find it helpful, to facilitate your initial practice. After a while, you will probably find it more of a hinderance, so then just discard it.
Opening to the Divine: The Foundational Spiritual Practice
Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Turn off your cell phone and deal with other potential distractions that might interrupt your spiritual practice.
Be seated in a chair, with your spine upright and your feet flat on the floor, cradling your right hand in your left. Don’t cross your legs or ankles, and don’t interlace your fingers because they are likely to fall asleep, which will distract you from your practice.
We entertain ourselves with cascades of thoughts, one after another. For the time of your practice, let go of chasing after them. Just sit, let go, and be open to that Presence which the scriptures of all faiths say is always with us at all times.
Sit without moving, so that the distraction of movement doesn’t take you away from your intention, which is to sit in the Presence and experience what is Real and True.
Close your eyes and turn your attention inward.
Open yourself to the presence of God right here with you, around you, and within you. Don’t push yourself to imagine something – that is just more doing and your ego-driven thinking.
Simply let go of everything. Let go of your thoughts, and observe your interior world.
Rest here for a time.
When you are distracted, bring your attention back and observe the play of your thoughts and emotions without chasing after them.
When you are ready, let the feeling come back into your feet, your hands, and your face. Take a deep breath and open your eyes.
With practice, you come to know your inner world. You will get more and more comfortable there, and the distractions will gradually cease. You will find yourself letting go more freely, thinking less, and going deeper and deeper. You will actually be able to feel the changes in yourself as you get more experienced here.
As you practice, you will find a deepening of peacefulness within yourself. This peacefulness arises because you are feeling more and more secure. Remember that security is the ego’s primary job, so as you relax into this practice, the ego has less and less to do. Your constant thinking will diminish, and your peace and joy will increase. What a bargain! LOL
If you have questions about your practice, please email them to me (Ken123Kaisch@Google.com) so that we can start a Q & A column.
Next week we will focus on the importance of intention to your spiritual practice. At first glance, your intention may not seem terribly important, but you will find that it is a crucial element in achieving the success you are looking for. Until then…
With deep affection,
P.S. Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class. If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web. If you have an interest, please write me at ken123Kaisch@gmail.com.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
4: The Behavior Changes Needed for a Spiritual Life
Edition #4: Inside the Invisible
Hey ! Welcome to today’s message:
The six major world religions all agree that four specific behavioral changes are necessary for a truly spiritual life. The failure to implement these changes will negatively impact your prayer and meditation and will result in significant barriers that impede the process of theosis or divinization. These four changes include:
No lying
No stealing
No sexual improprieties
No violence.
While this looks like standard religious fare, let’s look deeper so that we can understand why these particular behaviors have the potential to impede or even stop your spiritual progress.
Let’s take stealing, for example. Imagine that someone points a gun at your chest and says, “Give me your money, or I will blow you away.” The thief is saying that, in effect, his needs are more important than yours. This is the essence of self-centeredness, isn’t it? “My needs are more important than you or your life.” Me – me – me!
In effect, the thief has drawn an impenetrable boundary around himself, and that boundary blocks him from uniting with God. How can you be on a spiritual path, which is God-centered, while refusing to center your life on the Divine? Clearly, the me–me–me part in all of us gets in the way and blocks our spiritual progress.
The same holds for the other behavioral changes that are necessary for a truly spiritual life. When we lie, we do so for self-centered reasons. Once again, our self-centeredness blocks our spiritual movement. Furthermore, since the Divine is often referred to as the Truth, it seems obvious that telling untruths is harmful to us spiritually.
As for sexual improprieties, you might ask yourself, “What exactly are they?” The clearest answer is that they are what you think they are. We each have an inner knowingness about what is right and wrong, proper and improper. We need to listen to that inner knowingness and make our decisions accordingly. What is sexually improper for a twenty-something is quite different than what is improper for an older person committed to celibacy. What is important in this spiritual discipline is that you constantly ask yourself, “Am I doing this for selfish and egocentric reasons, or am I motivated by selflessness and love?”
Let’s see if I can make things clearer by using a couple of examples. Let’s start with something like affairs. If one of the partners in the affair is in a committed relationship, and the affair is hidden from the other partner, then clearly, this is a sexual impropriety. It is driven by selfishness, and selfishness blocks our spiritual progress. Even if the affair is not hidden and has the consent of the other partner, it is still driven by selfishness.
Now let’s look at something that may not be so clear, for example, masturbation. In my view, masturbation is normal and ordinary. It is either a means to relieve tension or a way to have a sexual fantasy. In both cases, it is ego-driven and self-centered. That being said, it is unlikely to cause as much damage as a secret affair. Again, the watershed question to ask is always, “Is this behavior driven by my selfish desires?” If you answer in the affirmative, then that behavior needs to be altered so that you can be more fully open to the embrace of Divine Love.
Let’s look at the last behavior that always inhibits our spiritual growth – violence. Violence comes in many forms, from rape and murder of another human being to swatting flies. In every case, violence comes from our egocentric and selfish needs. As such, violence impedes our spiritual progress.
But what about a righteous war, you might ask, like that against Hitler? Are you saying that’s bad? Yes, I would say that even a righteous war is bad, but I would also say that they are sometimes necessary. I also believe that the men and women who committed violence in those wars were all spiritually damaged by their experiences. That being said, I am extremely grateful for their sacrifices, and I believe their selflessness in service to others counteracts, to some considerable degree, the spiritual damage they sustained.
* * *
These are the four behaviors that need to be regulated for us to make spiritual progress. There are, of course, degrees in each of these behaviors. The critical part, in my view, is that at the beginning of your spiritual work, you are aware that these four behaviors can derail your progress. Being aware of these pitfalls, you can make your choices accordingly. Of note, the need for changing these behaviors is not negotiable. All six of the world’s great religions have agreed that these behaviors must be regulated for genuine spiritual progress.
So let’s take a look at what regulating these behaviors means. I’m not saying you have to change them now, at the start of your spiritual journey. I am saying that they need to be aware of them in order to make significant progress.
By regulation, I mean that these behaviors need to be brought under control. We need to be aware of the necessity of changing these behaviors, and we need to take steps to do so, starting now.
Let me give you a rather inconsequential example of this in my own life. Because I live in an agricultural area, we have a lot of flies in the summer. When I first moved here, I spent a lot of time swatting at them. After one particularly explosive incident, I realized I was engaging in violence and that this violence was undoubtedly impacting my spiritual life. As a result, I investigated other ways of controlling these pests. I found that if you plant certain varieties of salvia, a plant that has an odor that repels flies, you can keep those pesky critters out of your house. My next step in this ongoing process will be learning to ignore those few flies that still get into the house.
* * *
I hope you have found this helpful and that you are thinking about what you can start doing now to change these four behaviors in your own life. The direction of a truly spiritual life is one in which we identify and release our ego-driven, selfish desires. As we do so, we become more and more open to the love of God, which is always fully and deeply present to us.
I look forward to continuing next week with an exposition of our first spiritual practice. This practice is the foundation upon which you can open yourself fully to the Unseen. I hope you will invite your spiritual friends to join with us. Having others to meet with and talk about these things will accelerate your own transformation (and theirs).
P.S. If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence. 👇
Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch
3: Conventional Religion & The Inner Way
Edition #3: Inside the Invisible
Hey ! Welcome to today’s message:
In this newsletter, we will explore the differences between the approaches of conventional religion and what I call the Inner Way, which is also known as the mystical way, non-duality, and the unitive way. After some thought, I decided the simplest approach would be to present the data in a table format. All of the major world religions have an external, conventional side and a mystical, non-dualistic side.
The conventional approach, which is all that most people have experienced, doesn’t, in my view, take you very far. It has to do with outward observances, and the inner changes necessary for a truly spiritual life are rarely talked about. As you have no doubt surmised, I am interested in exploring the Inner Way with you.
If you are exploring these data for the first time, it may seem a bit overwhelming. We have all been schooled in the conventional type of religion. Because no other form of spiritual observance was ever described, we either accepted or rejected the conventional view. When you are first exposed to the richness of the unitive way, it may surprise you, it may intrigue you, and it may simply seem like too much to deal with.
But the fact that you are receiving this newsletter rather strongly suggests that you are ready to go deeper in your spiritual journey. So, for this week I would encourage you to simply sit with the information in this table and just think about it. Notice where you feel a repulsion – the feeling that comes when you know intuitively that something is off.
Notice also where you feel an attraction – that feeling you get when you find yourself resonating with a statement, that knowingness that comes when you experience something that is true and real. You might realistically say that the mystical way begins with self-exploration and using the power of your inner knowingness to discern Reality. A discernment that is often subtle and hard to detect at the beginning, but one which grows stronger as you learn to use and rely on it.
Next week, we will explore the four spiritual disciplines necessary for further growth. (Yeah, I know no one likes to hear the word discipline, but these disciplines actually make a lot of sense!) The following week, we will introduce our first spiritual practice. This practice is foundational, and will serve as the basis for our further growth in the mystical way. So please invite your spiritual friends and fellow-travelers to come join us in this deep inner work.
P.S. If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence. 👇
Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch
2: The Goal of a Spiritual Life
Edition #2: Inside the Invisible
Hey ! Welcome to today’s message:
For most, the goal of the spiritual life is, at best, unclear. Many would say that the goal is to be a good person and to lead a moral life. Some translate this as an imperative to work for social justice. Others try to improve their personal lives, but many who do so are rather vague about what is necessary. All of these approaches remind me of the story of Jacob and his brother, Esau. Esau ‘sold’ his patrimony as the firstborn son for a bowl of gruel.
Our spiritual destiny has to do with behavior change – yes – but this kind of thinking is way too small. Do you really think that your Creator wants you to be ‘nice’? Do you really think that’s important?
What God wants from us is far more radical, so if you are standing, please sit down and hold onto something solid. Here it is, short and simple: The goal of the spiritual life is that you become God!
After you get over your shock, I hope you will give me a chance to explain. Let me start with examples from the holy writings of my own faith, Christianity. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14.20). Take a moment and let the meaning of these words resonate in your chest. God is in you. The Divine has always been in you and with you. The purpose of Christ’s Incarnation, and the purpose of all the great spiritual teachers, is to show us that God is right here, with us, every single moment of our existence, and to invite us to step into that holiness, into the Divine. In case you don’t believe St. John, let me refer you to 2 Peter 1.4 where the author states we should become “partakers of the Divine nature.”
The technical ‘church’ term for this is Theosis, and it is best summarized by St. Athanasius of Alexandria, who lived from 296-373 CE. He said, “(Jesus) was made man that we might be made God.” Again, let these words resonate in your heart: the reason Jesus took on his mortal body was for you, yourself, to let go of your felt limitations and realize that you are called to the fullness of Christ.
In the early Christian communities, this notion was clear and widespread. We hear it in the New Testament scriptures, in the early Church Fathers, beginning with St. Irenaeus of Lyon in the early 2nd century, and beyond. We hear it in mystics like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, and in the Eastern Orthodox theologians like Vladimir Lossky.
And this notion is not limited to Christianity alone; it is clearly present in the Eastern religions as well. Ramana Maharishi of Hinduism said, “The Self [the Source or God] is not reached. You are the Self. You are already That. The fact is that you are ignorant of your blissful state.” We find it in Buddhism as well, in the words of those Zen masters who say that we are all enlightened, we just don’t recognize it. In Islam, we hear the great mystic al-Hallaj, who said, "I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and I said: 'Who are You?' He said: 'You.'" (Of note, al-Hallaj was executed for blasphemy, just like Jesus, for saying “I am the Truth.”)
The deepest truth of all the great religions is this: the spiritual quest is one of recognizing we are already one with the Divine. Thus, there is no journey per se. Rather, there is a series of awakenings or realizations about the nature of Reality and the nature of Truth.
As you can well surmise, this is a mystical journey – a journey that takes you deeply into the nature of yourself, and thus into the nature of God. Think of the journey like an onion, with concentric layers. This journey is about moving through the layers until we reach the center. There, the great spiritual masters say we will find the Divine. Depending on your faith, you might describe it as the Kingdom of Heaven, Enlightenment, self-realization, or Fruition Consciousness. But who really cares what we call it! What is important is following the course of that Inward Way and realizing the fullness of the Unseen Presence.
While all of this might be interesting, it hides something even more important. Something I would say is of crucial importance. From our human perspective, we think we are trying to move towards God. We think we are the ones doing the work. What most of us do not yet realize is that God is the one doing the heavy lifting. God is working constantly in every moment of our lives to draw us closer and closer. What we call ‘our journey’ is simply a response to the Divine initiative.
As the great German theologian Karl Rahner once said, “In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God) or nothing at all."
* * *
Thank you for joining me today. Next week, you can expect a discussion of the mystical path and how it differs from more conventional understandings of religion. And coming in a few more weeks, we will explore our first spiritual practice, which will be the foundation of our work together.
P.S. If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence. 👇
Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch
1: Have you noticed our world seems to be coming apart?
Edition #1: Inside the Invisible
Hey ! Welcome to today’s message:
Have you noticed that our world seems to be coming apart?
Natural disasters like the LA fires… the looming threat of WW III… rampant crime… a hot war in Europe. It’s a mess, isn’t it?
And what kind of resources do you have to fall back on? Who do you trust when the going gets tough? Our politicians – they line their pockets while letting our cities burn and handcuffing the police. We have a media that sensationalizes everything and omits the truth. Social media? A million different lines of nonsense. The truth is, life is pretty shallow right now, and most of us don’t know where to turn.
So maybe you turn to God for help. But let’s be honest, what do you really know about God? Everyone seems to have an opinion about God: God is Jesus – God is Krishna – God is this – God is that – God doesn’t exist! – yes, She does! It’s a hot mess, isn’t it?
Everyone assumes their idea about God is the correct one. But what if it isn’t? How would you know? Do you know the truth about God just because somebody says, “This is the Truth?” We know that people lie all the time. They have hidden agendas and axes to grind, and sometimes, they just lie for the heck of it. And the wretched truth is, almost everything YOU know about God is something that someone else told you. How do you know if you got the right stuff or were sold a bill of goods? How can you sort through this mess to separate truth from somebody else’s fiction? How can you get to something you can RELY on?
Our newsletter, Inside the Invisible, cuts through the fluff and nonsense that clutter our perceptions to bring you clarity that you can count on. The clarity we have found comes from applying scientific research methods to the writings of the spiritual masters from all of the major world religions – mystics who have actually experienced the Divine and whose lives have been transformed by their experiences. We want to bring these insights to your computer on a weekly basis. And the best part – you get this valuable information for FREE.
So who am I that I would make you such an offer? I have spent my life trying to discern fact from fiction. I am an ordained Episcopal priest and a clinical psychologist. At 76, I am now retired and can devote my remaining years to what I believe is our most important mission in this life – to learn about the Divine from our own personal experiences and to share the results with others. After all, if the scriptures of the world’s great religions are correct, our efforts here on this earth will determine our outcome for eternity.
A bit about my own spiritual journey. I attended seminary in the early 1970s, spending three years taking graduate courses in theology, church history, Old and New Testament studies (including learning New Testament Greek so that I could read our scriptures in their original language), liturgical worship, church music, and the like. For these efforts, I was awarded a Master of Divinity degree. To this day, I am not sure what that means. I was no more divine upon graduation than I was before I entered seminary.
Mind you, I am not complaining about what I learned there – it was valuable and shaped my spiritual life in many ways. But the one thing they did NOT teach was how to connect with the Divine. Curious, isn’t it? They taught everything they could about the Christian religion except how to forge a living connection with Christ.
I then served parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Utah for nine years. My last parish, St. John’s in Logan, Utah, was comprised mostly of college professors, their families, and their students. I once asked this very bright and articulate group what, for them, constituted a spiritual experience. The resulting silence was deafening, and the obvious discomfort in the room quickly became intolerable.
After the initial awkward silence, there were a few tentative answers. It was almost as if they were afraid of saying the wrong thing. And when they finally responded, all of their answers had to do with church-related activities like ‘feeling something when I receive communion.’ I was greatly surprised.
Nobody talked about their experiences in prayer and meditation. Why not? Didn’t they feel connected to God, then? And even though my congregation was composed of avid outdoors types, nobody talked about their experiences in nature – a beautiful sunset, the glorious snow-covered mountains. Just this awkward silence.
Later, when prompted, they began to describe the spiritual feelings that arose from their nature-based experiences. They talked about great feelings of awe at the overpowering majesty of a glorious sunset. They talked about feeling their hearts opening somehow in response to these experiences. And then, with some prodding, they began to describe their experiences of loving – seeing their babies being born, their children so innocent in their sleep, their love for their partners, their friends. It was as if a whole new world opened up as they considered these very personal experiences as spiritual ones. But even as the discussion deepened, no one risked talking about God, and Jesus was nowhere near the conversation.
The great news here was a kind of group heart-opening, as people looked outside of what is conventionally called ‘spiritual’ and realized they were actually having spiritual experiences frequently in their daily lives. Not only that, these experiences were enormous for them; they weren’t something trivial or inconsequential. The other side of the coin, however, also revealed itself. These good Christian people had no idea how to cultivate their lives so they could have more of these experiences. And the Church was not doing a very good job showing them how they could open to more of them!
While I pastored at St. John’s, I pursued graduate degrees in clinical psychology. I thought I was going to school to learn psychotherapy, and I did indeed learn those skills. Ironically, the courses I hated – statistics and research methods – turned out to be some of the most important ones for my spiritual formation. I realized later in life that these research skills could be applied to religion and spirituality. As I pursued this, I found amazing truths about the spiritual dimension of our being.
Perhaps the single most important concept of my graduate studies at Utah State was the idea that if your theory does not account for every single bit of data, then your theory is wrong. When I applied this concept to religion, I was appalled. Buddhism is a religion, and while it recognizes that gods exist, it doesn’t ascribe any significance to this. Hinduism, on the other hand, has a multiplicity of gods. Christianity has only one God but in three persons. Are these three religions talking about the same thing? How could they all possibly be true? Are other understandings of the spiritual life false because they don’t believe like I do? This was an important turning point for me: how do you distinguish between spiritual truth and falsehoods? How do you learn to see Reality?
God then moved me to Southern California, ostensibly to do my clinical internship at Patton State Hospital. On reflection, I think the real purpose was to connect me with Dr. Ron Jue, president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. I apprenticed under Ron, and through him, met many wonderful spiritual teachers from other traditions. I began to see, with my own eyes, that the followers of other spiritual traditions had access to the same spiritual experiences that were available in my own tradition.
In 1988, I chaired a panel discussion at an ATP conference that included a Hindu nun, Srimata Gayatri Devi, the Buddhist teacher, Jack Engler, and Father Tom Keating, who were instrumental in my deeper spiritual formation. The next year, Ron, I, and many others put on the Contemplative Congress, where we invited contemplative teachers from most of the major religions. It was here that I met Joseph Goldstein, Susan Saltzburg, Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, Maezumi Roshi, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man, and Nur al-Jerrahi, among others. We were fortunate that the Dalai Lama was our keynote speaker, but unfortunate in that he was announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize that Saturday morning and was whisked away by the press.
These experiences moved me to create a weekly group that taught the Christian forms of meditation and contemplative prayer. At our peak, we had twelve chapters throughout Southern California and we put on three international conferences that taught Christian meditative disciplines. I was also introduced to Bishop Kallistos Ware, a great soul from Orthodox Christianity who took my practice of the Jesus Prayer much deeper.
Each of these teachers showed me the validity of their tradition, both by means of their teachings and by their personal presence, as transformed souls. The richness that I have experienced with them is what I plan to share with you in these newsletters.
* * *
Here is what you can expect in future newsletters. First, we will describe the goals of spiritual practice because if you don’t have the clarity of a defined target, you are unlikely to make real progress. Second, we will describe the inner attitudes necessary to make quick progress. Third, we will introduce you to spiritual practices, taken from all the great religions, that will facilitate your inner transformation. To this, unlike many others, we will add the insights that can be gained from science, in particular, the discipline of psychology. Psychology is, after all, the science of behavior change, and we will apply the information developed here to the spiritual quest.
* * *
Tune in next week as we describe the ultimate goal of the spiritual journey and explore the differences between the established religions and the inner spiritual work that you must do if you wish to deepen your spiritual life.
I hope you will share this free weekly newsletter with your family and friends. Thank you for joining in this transformative journey!
P.S. If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence. 👇
Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch