50: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Inside The Invisible has now been in existence for a little over a year.  During that time, we have produced a weekly email newsletter focused on the topics of spiritual growth.  We have grown from my initial list of 438 friends and colleagues to a subscriber list of over 7700.  In this newsletter, I want to pause and take stock of what we have accomplished and give you a preview of where we are going. 

The Enso.  As you can see, our newsletter now has a fancy masthead and (to my eye) a nice professional look.  The graphic on the left, which looks like the capital C, is actually an Enso, the Japanese symbol for Enlightenment.  It symbolizes the ability to see ourselves and the world around us from a non-dual, or unitive, perspective, something that is very much needed today.  As a symbol of unity, the Enso seems particularly appropriate for the content of our newsletter. 

Over this last year, I have had the privilege of writing essays on the topics of spirituality and spiritual growth.  These essays started off, kind of willy-nilly, as I addressed topics that I saw as spiritually confusing.  My intent was to clarify some of the strange elements that have made their home under the umbrella of “spirituality.”  The problem, as I saw it, was a jumble of often contradictory ideas which typically lead people to stuck places.  Stuckness, though, is the opposite of the freedom that genuine spirituality promises us. 

*  *  *

About three months ago I began to look at this collection of essays in a different way.  It was as if my writing had surfaced many of the major components that are necessary for genuine spiritual development.  Once these pieces were clearly identified, I began to see the patterns that connected them.  This was hugely exciting! 

These emerging patterns suggested that we could create a graduated program for spiritual development.  Something that was beyond the capabilities of our weekly newsletter.  Thinking on this further, and after talking with several spiritual friends about this matter, we decided that the most productive pathway would be through a website.  Using a web-based platform, we could offer clear sequenced instruction on the elements of the spiritual life.  The more we explored this, the more exciting this opportunity appeared.   

This is what we are working on now.  We hope to have the website ready for an initial release sometime around early May this year.  (If history is any guide, that means we will open sometime after July 4!  LOL) Kasey Leedom is collaborating with us and is designing this beautiful new site.  As the pieces get put in place, one after another, the pattern is clarifying even further.  The freedom that Jesus and all of the great spiritual avatars have promised us seems increasingly in reach.  

*  *  *

To date, I have asked nothing of you, my subscribers.  My wife and I have paid for the production and distribution of the Invisible newsletter from our retirement savings, and we are happy to do so.  The costs of creating and maintaining the website, however, are beyond our financial capabilities. 

While I intend to keep producing the Invisible newsletter free of charge, I will need to charge for access to the Invisible website.  I don’t need to make any money from this endeavor.  I do, however, need the website to pay for its own expenses. 

We are working now on a preview site, to give you an idea of exactly what we are offering.  You will be the first to find out when that site is ready and I think you’ll find two things.  First, the beauty of the site will take your breath away and may well move you to tears.  (The first time I saw it, I burst out crying!) Second, the sequencing of instruction is intuitively compelling.  It is as if we have hit upon a heretofore hidden algorithm that opens the wonders of the spiritual world to us. 

Now mind you, I am not Enlightened.  I do not have the personal experiential knowledge necessary to bring you into full union with the Divine.  I do, however, have some 70 years of discerning the path and then following where it leads.  Along the way, I have found a number of methods for spiritual transformation that are very effective.  It is these methods – taught step by step – that I will be able to share in our new website. 

What this can do for you is clear away the fog, the superstitions, and the authoritarian nonsense offered by traditional religions.  It also cuts through a lot of the nonsense offered by spiritual groups that have an incomplete understanding of the Way.  I can show you how to reach the Presence of God within yourself.  I can show you how to make your home there. 

In an ideal world, each spiritual aspirant would find a teacher who could work with them individually, carefully guiding them directly and surely into the depths of Divine Love.  Sadly, in the world in which we find ourselves, such spiritual elders are extremely difficult to find.  What is worse, there is a proliferation of voices claiming to be this kind of wise elder.  How can you tell the difference?  And once you can discern the difference, how do you find such an elder? 

The Invisible website will offer you an intensive course in the elements of spiritual development.  Because we come to this endeavor at different levels of spiritual maturity, there will be several tracks to accommodate beginners all the way through those who are expert in these areas. 

The study will be self-paced, which means there is no pressure on you to complete the coursework in any particular timeframe.  In fact, because this kind of work is different from what you learned in school, the pacing is deliberately slow.  The coursework revolves around learning with and through your heart, and this simply is not taught in the schools you have attended up to this point. 

Finally, we plan to offer group spiritual direction over a zoom – like platform.  This will allow for more individualized instruction, and will provide a platform to address the questions you might have. 

So, I hope I have piqued your interest and generated some excitement. 

*  *  *

And now I have something to ask of you.  I have given freely to you for the past year by producing the Invisible newsletter.  Here are two things you can do to help with our efforts.   

First, could you send us a donation to help defray the expenses of setting up this website?  You can send money through PayPal or Zelle using the codes below.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

PayPal 

Zelle:  send to Ken at the tag:  inside-the-invisible 

Second, could you send us the email addresses for one or two (or even more) of your friends and family who might enjoy our newsletter?  If you have found these scribblings helpful, I suspect you have friends who are dear to you who would find the same benefit.  So please, share what you yourself have enjoyed this past year with those you love.  

You can send the addresses to: Ken123Kaisch@Google.com

*  *  *

That’s all for now.  Remember to keep up your daily meditation practice and even more importantly, remember that you are blessed in every way, today and always!

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

49: Are You a Material Girl (or Boy)?

A couple of weeks ago, I received an interesting question from Marianne.  She asked what I thought about near death experiences.  Specifically, she wondered if NDE’s were proof that our consciousness can exist without connection to the physical body, which is highly suggestive of life after death.  It is even suggestive of immortality.  As you can see, this is a profound question, and to answer it I’ve needed to take a couple of weeks to explore the subject more deeply.

For those of you who might not be familiar with the term, a near-death experience occurs, typically in an operating room or a hospital, when the patient “flat lines.”  Because our medical technology has advanced so much in the last 50 years or so, we now have had many reports of these kinds of occurrences.  During a surgery, or sometimes after some sort of extreme physical trauma, all of the patient’s vital signs disappear.  In a word, these individuals physically die.

Dr. Raymond Moody was the first to recognize the importance of these phenomena, and he began the efforts to document cases and to explore them scientifically in the 1970s.  We now have tens of thousands of reports from countries around the world.  As a result, we can no longer dismiss these phenomena.  There is just too much consistency between reports for any kind of dismissal to ring true.

Patients experiencing an NDE frequently report that they leave their body and find their conscious awareness floating above it.  They are able to perceive what occurs to the body during their apparent ‘death:’ what the doctors and nurses are saying and doing, and even what is happening to family members in the building.  Investigators of these experiences are often amazed at the wealth of detail that these so-called ‘dead’ people report.

While these reports are fascinating, the behavior changes that occur as a result of an NDE are even more extraordinary.  Patients report losing any fear of dying – certainly a wonderful effect since many are so deeply afraid of dying!  

More significantly, they also report (and are observed by others to experience) an increase in compassion, a decrease in materialism, a heightened moral sensitivity, a reduced ego reactivity, and a long-term value reorientation.  These effects appear across cultures and persist for decades.  Of note, these changes mirror the results of contemplative maturation.

  *  *  *

Here’s what we actually know about NDE’s.  First, they are not due to a single cause, but rather a result of many factors coming together.  NDE’s reliably occur when the brain is under extreme stress, typically involving:

– Oxygen deprivation, either through hypoxia or ischemia.

– CO2 spikes.

– A disruption in the default mode network.

– A massive endogenous neurotransmitter release (including endorphins,                       serotonin, and possibly DMT.)

– A breakdown of multisensory integration (especially in the temporoparietal junction)

All of this produces the following experiences:

– Ego dissolution.

– Time distortion.

– A life review.

– Hyper meaning attribution.

– Perceived nonlocal awareness.

While these experiences are similar to those experiences developed from mystical contemplation, scientists have also shown that many of these NDE elements can be induced without imminent death.  These include G–LOC in pilots, ketamine, meditation, and seizures.

  *  *  *

So, what does all this mean?  These data indicate that ordinary waking consciousness is a constrained operating mode.  It does not encompass the full bandwidth of human awareness.  You can think of this as a set of phenomena that parallels our experience of light.  With light, we see only part of the full bandwidth; we are unable to see both the infrared and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.  (Not to mention x-rays, gamma rays, and the full array of other wildly exotic phenomena.)

Across cultures and across the many events that trigger NDE’s, they consistently show:

– The self is experienced as something other than the body.

– Identity can persist without a narrative continuity.

– Meaning can be perceived as intrinsic, not constructed.

– Fear of death is dramatically reduced over the long term.

– Ethical orientation shifts towards compassion and truthfulness.

These effects are structural rather than transient and emotional.  Something significant happens that radically changes the person’s behavior.  Longitudinal studies show that NDE’s result in long term stable personality change.

One criticism of this research is the claim that NDE’s are somehow an end-of-life hallucination and have no actual objective reality.  If there were no long-term aftereffects from an NDE, this would be a plausible hypothesis.  However, the data strongly suggest otherwise, because the long-term after-effects are disproportionate to the hallucination models.  (Just ask any psychotherapy patient how easy it is to effect a long-term personality change!)

We may not fully understand what is happening with an NDE.  But the data show us that something of utmost significance has happened, and the individuals who experience an NDE have their lives permanently changed for the better.

  *  *  *

Here’s what I would like to believe: that NDE’s prove that human consciousness exists apart from our physical bodies.  Unfortunately, NDE’s do not prove this.  On the other hand, they do point very clearly to the fact that there is a lot more going on with consciousness than we are able to understand using the scientific tools at our disposal.

Perhaps the most interesting question that arises from the scientific study of NDE’s is:  Why does consciousness become more coherent, meaningful, and structured when the brain is failing?  Typically, one would expect the opposite: that when the brain fails, consciousness would become chaotic and unstructured, and there would be no positive long-term consequences should that failure somehow be arrested.

There are three hypotheses that are currently being explored to address this.  In the first, the extreme-brain model, it is believed that the brain creates this state while it collapses.  This model however does not explain the internal coherence of the phenomena that the dying person perceives, nor does it explain the long-term behavioral transformations that occur when the person survives.

The second model, called the filter-receiver model, states that the brain normally limits consciousness, but the crisis of dying loosens this filter so that the individual experiences more of the actual bandwidth of consciousness.  The problem with this hypothesis is that it’s hard to test experimentally.

The third model might be termed the metaphysical model.  Here the understanding is that consciousness is the fundamental substrate of reality and our brains function simply to localize consciousness to a particular place, namely the body.  As you might imagine, this is my preferred hypothesis.  That said, how do you test it?  One of the criteria for true scientific advance is that your hypothesis must be (potentially) disprovable.  Sadly, the metaphysical model cannot be disproved at this point.

  *  *  *

So where does all of this leave us?  When you sit with these data for a while, what comes up is a rather startling conclusion, at least to my mind.  The conclusion is this: that human identity is not as tightly bound to the ego, or to the internal narratives we create for ourselves, or to our physical/bodily self-representations as we have thought.  In addition, the loosening of these three methods of binding reliably produces both ethical and spiritual maturation.

These conclusions are totally consonant with our spiritual work here.  The great religious traditions agree that our sense of self, our ego, is a very limiting construct.  Indeed, there comes a time when that ego-construct holds us back and keeps us from developing our full potential.

There is a further implication in these data.  While we cannot prove this with the scientific tools we have available, it seems highly likely that consciousness is far more primary than we have thought.  We have thought that matter and energy were the building blocks of our perceived reality.  These data suggest rather strongly, in my view, that consciousness is the fundamental “stuff” of which reality is made.

  *  *  *

Well, I think I will leave you here to ponder.  I have about come to an end of being able to wrap my mind around these data.  In a word, I need a break!  Please continue your daily meditation practice and your own personal explorations of consciousness.  Who knows?  Maybe one day soon you will wake up to Reality and be able to give us the definitive answers the rest of us are searching for.

Remember that you are blessed in every way, today and always!

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

48: What Enlightenment Is Not

Today, I would like to conclude our exploration of Enlightenment.  For the past three weeks, we have looked at both the nature and the attributes of the Enlightenment, focusing especially on the formulation described by David Hawkins, a 21st-century American physician who wrote extensively about the spiritual journey.  We have contrasted Hawkins' views with those of Theravadan Buddhists to arrive at a clear understanding of this important concept.

On the face of it, it would seem reasonable to focus our inquiry just around the Theravadan view.  After all, this is the earliest description of Enlightenment that we possess, and it appears to come directly from the words of Gautama, the Buddha himself.  Ahh… if only life were so simple!

The problem with the Theravadan descriptions is that they are all but incomprehensible to the contemporary American reader.  For example, the Visuddhimagga describes the first Enlightenment state, Change-of-lineage Knowledge, as “the state where the object of awareness is the signless, no-occurrence, no-formation, cessation that is Nirvana.”  

Could someone please explain to me what these words mean?  I know the lexical meaning of each of these words, but taken together they are incomprehensible.  Or how about this description of the next Enlightenment state: “The base consisting of neither perception-nor-non-perception, which has the function of exploding all greed, hate, and illusion and extinguishing all suffering.”  I have no clue what “perception-nor-non-perception” means, and I have absolutely no idea how it explodes greed, hate, and suffering.

As we explored in previous weeks, there appear to be multiple points of contact between the Theravadan view and the view that Hawkins presents.  There are also significant differences: while they both describe an inward journey that leads to the establishment of non-dual consciousness, Buddhism describes the process as freeing the self from desire.  Hawkins, on the other hand, describes the process as one of surrender or letting go.  From my point of view, this sounds like a difference of perspective rather than a substantive difference.  In either case, from both perspectives, the sense of self or ego is relinquished.

I often find it helpful to clarify what a new term or concept is not.  Typically, this deepens my understanding and helps me place the new concept in relation to other things I know.  So, our task for today is to explore what Enlightenment is not.

~~~

The first thing Enlightenment is not is a state of emotional ecstasy or bliss.  There are, in fact, blissful states leading up to Enlightenment, but Enlightenment itself does not result in such a blissful state.  In fact, in many cases, the enlightened one returns to ordinary functioning in the world, albeit from a vastly different perspective than our ordinary consciousness allows.

Important for American Christians to understand, Enlightenment does not entail moral superiority.  Evangelical Christians, for example, tend to equate a spiritual life with moral perfection.  While both Buddhists and Hawkins discuss the importance of ethical behavior, neither understands Enlightenment in moral terms.  For both, moral behavior provides a stable base for spiritual advancement.  While a stable moral base is useful, it is not a sufficient condition for Enlightenment.  

Many of the great teachers of our present age seem to be ordinary people who come from ordinary families.  It appears that Enlightenment does not bestow on them a sense of constant happiness.  It does not confer business or commercial success.  As far as I know, no enlightened person has ever achieved the kind of financial success enjoyed by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or others like them.

In fact, one of the most profound enlightened beings of the 20th century, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, was a petty shopkeeper in Bombay.  Maharajah was a heavy smoker and died of throat cancer in 1981 at the age of 84.  From his experience, it seems clear then that Enlightenment does not confer business success, the habits of clean living, or the avoidance of death.  

Neither does Enlightenment free people from the sorts of psychological trauma that develop in ordinary families.  They are just like us: ordinary human beings with all of the frailties that that implies.  While some may find this disappointing, I am quite encouraged by it.  I, too, come from an ordinary family, and I, too, have experienced the same kind of psychological trauma that everyone else has.  The good news is that people like me are not shut out from these deep states of spiritual realization.

Finally, Enlightenment does not confer some special sort of social functioning.  Enlightened beings are not necessarily graceful socially.  Often, they are quite awkward in social situations.  From my perspective, this is to be expected.  Given the deference that tends to be accorded to enlightened individuals, e.g., the Dalai Lama, I would expect them to behave in socially awkward or maladaptive ways.  If a crowd of people surrounded you, waiting on you hand and foot, you would be socially awkward, too.

~~~

I would like to conclude this essay by discussing how Enlightenment comes about.  In this, I am following the writings of Hawkins.  From Hawkins’ perspective, Enlightenment is not an action that we take.  It is not something that we can do.  It is not something to be achieved.

Instead, Enlightenment occurs with a radical letting go, a profound surrender.  This surrender entails releasing our habit of positional thinking and letting go of our ego.  As we have explored in previous essays, our ego-based, positional way of thinking occurs when the mind attaches itself to beliefs, opinions, and identities, and then defends these positions as if they were the self.  To be enlightened, one must forgo the dubious pleasures of judgment.  In practice, this means letting go of concepts such as ‘good and bad,’ ‘right and wrong,’ etc.

In Hawkins’ framework, positional thinking has several defining characteristics.  First, there is an identification with a particular viewpoint. The person somehow magically becomestheir position rather than holding a position provisionally.  We see examples of this every time someone says, “I am right” or “This is who I am.”

A second characteristic of positional thinking is the use of binaryframing, which is totally consonant with a dualistic worldview.  Reality, here, is reduced to right/wrong, true/false, us/them.  By employing this maneuver, all nuance is lost; everything is reduced to a ‘this’ or a ‘that.’  The tragedy inherent in this maneuver is that the person thinks they fully understand the situation.  However, by eliminating all nuance, they have precluded any possibility of real understanding.

A third characteristic of positional thinking is its emotional charge. Positions are energized by pride, fear, anger, or desire for control.  Disagreement feels like a personal threat.  In response to perceived threats, we characteristically become defensive.  When this occurs, we become resistant to reality-based evidence.  New information is filtered or rejected if it destabilizes the position.

Finally, positional thinking becomes a great source of suffering.  Our attachment to positions generates both internal tension and interpersonal conflict.  For some reason, we seem unable to identify our positional thinking as a major source of our discomfort and suffering.  As a result, we often feel trapped in a hamster cage, running faster and faster until the momentum finally overtakes us and we collapse.

Hawkins contrasts positional thinking with non-positional awareness, which emerges at higher levels of consciousness and is characterized by openness, humility, and the capacity to see multiple perspectives without defensiveness.

In short, positional thinking is the ego mistaking its opinions for reality – and then fighting to survive through them.

~~~

I suspect I have given you more than enough to chew on for the week.  The point of these essays is to prepare you for the actual work of perceiving our bare, unvarnished awareness.  By exploring spiritual concepts such as Enlightenment, positional thinking, and related ideas, we are developing the vocabulary we need to engage in our actual spiritual work.  It’s important, therefore, not to mistake these intellectual formulations as our main task.  If you will, these essays are like prerequisites to a college course.  They won’t give you the “real stuff,” but they will prepare you for understanding the real material when you experience it.

I hope that you continue with your daily meditations, and that your reflections on the matters presented here continue to deepen.  You’ll find, I think, that reading and rereading these essays will significantly deepen your understanding of these spiritual matters.  Together, we will find our hearts opening.  Together, we will find ourselves enfolded in God’s most marvelous Love.

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

47: The Attributes of Enlightenment

For the past several weeks, we have focused on that mysterious end point of the spiritual journey – Enlightenment.  This term was first introduced into the spiritual literature by Gautama, the Buddha.  The term ‘Buddha’ literally means “the Awakened One.”  We began our conversation by comparing the original formulation of Enlightenment with that of the contemporary American spiritual writer, Dr. David Hawkins.  Last week, we looked at the nature of Enlightenment, and this week, we will focus on some of its attributes.

~~~

In my mind, the most striking attribute of Enlightenment is the perception of the underlying unity of Creation through non-dual awareness.  Because all language is built on the subject–object duality, non-dual awareness is, of necessity, an awareness without words.  This means that an enlightened person’s perception is immediate, direct, and unmediated by language.  In this frame of reference, the observer and the observed are identical.  While the enlightened one is still able to perceive separate entities, the deeper perception is one of underlying unity.

~~~

This brings us to the second attribute of Enlightenment, which is the absence of a sense of self, the absence of an ego.  The very idea of this is frightening to many in our current culture.  The question always seems to arise, “Who would I be if I were not myself?”  It seems clear that stepping out of our customary personal frame of reference is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to imagine.

From our earliest memories, our personal self has organized all of our experiences.  Our self is the glue that holds together our thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and memories.  Taken together, these elements of our personal experience result in a sense of ourselves as the ‘doer’ of our actions.  In addition to this sense of ourselves as agents, able to cause a variety of things to happen, there is also an internal narrative of ‘me.’  But, when the causal structure underlying the ego has been dismantled, the ego is seen for what it is – an illusion.

Our personal self is clearly limited.  We are limited in our sensory abilities; for example, we can only experience our surrounding environment through our five senses.  In ordinary consciousness, we have no direct access to the thoughts, emotions, or sensations of another person.  Enlightenment appears to erase many, if not all, of these boundaries.  There are many examples in the spiritual literature of holy people who can perceive the thoughts and emotions of others. 

~~~

With Enlightenment, the person is consciously participating in a unitive consciousness, in the awareness of All-That-Is.  Our usual perceptual boundaries appear to be erased, and consciousness extends far beyond our ordinary limits.  Of note, this consciousness extension appears to be effortless.  The enlightened person is not trying or striving at this point; rather, these extensions appear to fall into the category that C.G.Jung described as synchronicities. Whatever the enlightened one needs at the moment – information, healing, or whatever – is spontaneously supplied through participation in this extended Awareness.

This attribute of effortlessness is important for the spiritual aspirant to understand.  Enlightenment is not attained by striving, by seeking, or by effort.  This understanding is directly opposed to the understanding of almost every spiritual aspirant who has ever existed!  But when you think it through, it makes perfect sense.

From the perspective of unitive consciousness, the perspective of All-That-Is, there is nothing to learn – everything is already known, so learning is a meaningless concept.  From the perspective of All-That-Is, there is nothing to strive for – it has already been achieved.  

Right now, as I write this, the words of a long-forgotten Zen teacher whose lecture I attended some fifty years ago are rambling through my head.  He said, “There is nothing to attain.”  When I heard this, I remember thinking, “Hogwash!  If there is nothing to attain, what’s the point of your teaching and my being here?”  Oops!  Once again, it looks like the joke is on me.

Back to our point.  If there is nothing to achieve, then our spiritual practice does not ever reach a final culmination, some great “A-ha” moment.  This is not to say that Enlightenment is never reached, or that the various spiritual practices we employ have no value.  

Clearly, our disciplined practice changes our lives in many important ways.  We become more focused, more loving, more compassionate, and more engaged with what is actually real rather than our projections and fantasies.  A whole host of important benefits!  But while our practice prepares us for the spiritual transformation of Enlightenment, it can never actually result in our Enlightenment.  Why?  Because there is nothing to attain.  Because, in the non-dual environment, there is no cause-and-effectas we expect.  Because the Kingdom of Heaven is already inside of us.  

From the non-dual perspective, the universe is a continuous, self–unfolding, self-revealing unity.  From this perspective, it seems clear that the universe did not come into being with a Big Bang.  While the Big Bang makes sense from our conventional, linear perspective, it makes no sense at all from a non-dual perspective.  (Rather than address this now, I will come back to this point in the future newsletter.)

Of note, the perception that there is nothing to attain is congruent with the teachings of every advanced spiritual teacher I have ever met.  From the perspective of unitive consciousness, we are already there.  We are already Enlightened.  From our perspective, however, we have yet to experience this.  Talk about the ultimate in frustrating experiences!  It’s like having a billion dollars in a secret bank account that we know nothing about, while we scramble about to put food on the table.  But I digress…

~~~

Along with the idea that there is nothing to attain, there is an end to the internal struggles we typically have.  To my mind, this is one of the more significant attributes of Enlightenment.  Because the enlightened one is in touch with All-That-Is, there is no internal conflict.  In the face of Enlightenment, all moral struggles dissolve because the individual understands completely why something happens.  Instead of choosing between two options, the enlightened one's actions arise spontaneously in complete harmony with Reality.  Thus, there is no ‘decision-making’ in the conventional sense.

~~~

Another attribute of Enlightenment is the absence of fear.  Our fears are rooted in our sense of vulnerability.  We have an image of ourselves that we work hard to protect.  We want others to see us as strong or smart or pretty or powerful or… you fill in the blank.  When someone challenges our self-perception, we typically get defensive very quickly.  This defensiveness is rooted in our fear – our fear that we won’t belong, that we won’t fit in, that we won’t be connected.  So we get angry to protect ourselves, and this anger often results in the too-frequent wars we engage in.

But, if there is no sense of an individual self, then there is nothing that can be afraid.  There is no conflict in All-That-Is; there is simply a spontaneous self-unfolding.  The apparent conflicts we see – between individuals, groups, and countries – are the result of past karma working itself out.  (More on this in another newsletter.)

~~~

This brings us to another attribute of Enlightenment, the sense of inviolability.  Because the enlightened one finds herself connected with all of Reality, nothing can threaten or diminish such a one.  There is no loss, there is no illness, and there is no death that has any existential impact.

The individual self can experience loss, and frequently does.  But when the self recognizes its true nature, not as an individual unit, but as participating fully in the greater whole, in All That Is, how can there possibly be any loss?

To make this point, let’s walk through an example.  Let’s say a person you dearly love dies.  From the dualistic perspective – the perspective of an individual self – you have incurred a terrible loss.  Your beloved is no longer here; he is no longer accessible.  You feel a terrible emptiness as a result.  

From an awareness of the underlying unity, however, there has been no significant change.  The form of your beloved has changed, of course, but this is simply part of the spontaneous unfolding of Creation.  (In actual fact, all of our forms are constantly changing as our cells in our bodies die and are replaced – spontaneously.)  Your beloved's underlying awareness – their loving presence – is still present and available to you.  As a result, the enlightened one experiences no sense of loss.

~~~

This brings us to what is perhaps the most important attribute of Enlightenment.  Dr. Hawkins describes the fundamental quality of Reality as Love.  This seems to align with the teachings of many other great spiritual teachers.  But Hawkins' understanding of love is significantly different from our conventional understanding.

Conventionally, love is considered an emotion.  This emotion is directed here or there, and is limited and circumscribed by boundaries.  For example, we love this one and that one, but the ones over there, we despise.  Hawkins' view is quite different.  He states that Love is the nature of Reality itself.  It is not directed at certain individuals and withheld from others.  Rather, it is an impersonal field of positive, beneficent regard.  It does not imply either warmth or kindness.  It is simply the nature of Reality.  It is what Is.

~~~

Well, enough for today.  I don’t know how you feel after reading this, but I am exhausted by the effort of trying to think through what Enlightenment actually means, and the various aspects and implications surrounding this topic.  Next week, I will focus on what Enlightenment is not.  I often find it helpful, when trying to understand something, to explore what that something is not.

Thank you for bearing with me in this process.  I feel a sense of your presence and your interest in these topics, and that perception supports me as I try to dive deeper and deeper.  I’m deeply grateful for your continued interest and would ask that you keep me in your prayers.

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

46: The Nature of Enlightenment

Last week, we addressed the question, ‘What is Enlightenment?’  We explored the origins of this term as described by its originator, Gautama, the Buddha.  We then contrasted the Buddha's understanding of Enlightenment with that of David Hawkins, an American physician who wrote extensively about spiritual matters.

I chose Hawkins’ work for comparison because his understanding of Enlightenment seems to take the Buddha’s understanding, formulated some 2500 years ago in a different culture, and updated it using a modern conceptual framework.  The Buddhist formulation is all but incomprehensible to us.  What does it really mean, saying that “Nirvana (is) the signless, no-occurrence, no-formation, cessation?”  Hawkins appears, in my mind, to have described Enlightenment in terms that are more accessible to contemporary readers.  Since my purpose in these scribblings is to make explicit the spiritual nature that underlies our observable reality, Hawkins’s work seemed like a natural fit for our purposes.

So, this week, I would like to drill down into the nature of Enlightenment.  I would like to use this opportunity to explore the defining attributes of Enlightenment as Hawkins understands them.  This, I believe, will shine a spotlight on what the Enlightenment is and illuminate what is necessary to experience this state.

~~~

There are a number of assumptions that underlie Hawkins' understanding of Enlightenment.  Foremost among them, he sees consciousness as the primary “stuff” out of which all else comes to be.  This is the opposite of our commonly accepted worldview.  Almost everyone sees matter as ontologically primary.  The common view is that somehow consciousness emerges from non-conscious, inert matter.  This is referred to in scientific circles as “the hard problem of consciousness.”  Holders of this view are, to date, unable to explain how consciousness is derived from inert matter.

What is fascinating about Hawkins’ view is that quantum physics seems to be quietly exploring this hypothesis.  Beginning with Max Planck and other notable physicists in the 20th century, the notion has been floated that the universe is more like “an idea in the mind of God” than a physical structure built from small bits of material stuff.  To my ears, “an idea in the mind of God” sounds suspiciously like consciousness.  It does not sound at all like the Newtonian model of the world that most of us have learned in school.

A second assumption underlying Hawkins’ view is that Enlightenment is a permanent ontological shift, not a psychological state or a peak experience.  This perception is based on Hawkins' own personal experience.  On this point, Hawkins' view appears to be exactly the same as the Theravadin view.

The Buddhists describe several differentiated Enlightenment states.  They describe a Change–of–lineage state in which Nirvana, the “signless, no-occurrence, no-formation, cessation” is experienced.  A further development is the second Enlightenment state, where there is “neither perception-nor-non-perception, and which has the function of exploding all greed, hate, and delusions, and the extinguishing of all suffering.”  This third Enlightenment state, Fruition Consciousness, is a state of full Enlightenment, and it is marked by the complete cessation of consciousness.  The attainment of this state marks a permanent change in the consciousness of the enlightened one.

Of note, Theravadan Buddhists do not define Enlightenment as a “state.”  They would never say, “You have entered into a permanent altered state of consciousness.”  Instead, they would say that a causal structure (i.e., seeing the world as a series of cause-and-effect relationships) has been dismantled, meaning that certain mental processes, such as identification with the ego or a sense of self, can no longer occur.  Thus, Enlightenment is not a state that has to be maintained.  It is permanent.

On this point, both Hawkins and the Buddhists agree: the shift to Enlightenment is permanent.  There is no going back to a lesser or more primitive state of consciousness.  There is an important implication hidden in these data.  It means that Enlightenment is not a psychological state or a peak experience, as some have surmised.  Psychological states and peak experiences come and go; Enlightenment is permanent.

Moreover, after the final Enlightenment state, it requires no further effort on the practitioner's part.  In other words, Enlightenment doesn’t have to be maintained.  As mentioned above, Enlightenment is permanent, meaning it goes far beyond the variability of states and experiences.

~~~

In Hawkins’ understanding, Enlightenment is the collapse of the identification with the personal ego, the sense of “I” or “me.”  In its place, the individual opens to a universal Awareness – an awareness of All-That-Is.  From the perspective of this universal Awareness, there is no longer a distinction between subjects and objects.  The dualistic world collapses as one perceives the underlying unity, which binds everything together.  Instead of the separation implied by dualism, Reality is experienced as self-luminous, complete, and impersonal.

Again, this is very similar to the Theravadan formulation, which speaks about the dismantling of the causal structure of the ego.  While the ego develops in every human being from birth, it structures the world as a series of dualities.  Inherent in these dualities is the notion of causality – that “something” causes this other “something” to happen.  With the removal of the ego and its inherent perception of duality, the underlying unity stands revealed.

Here, both Hawkins and the Buddhists appear to depart somewhat from a traditional Christian perspective.  While the Christian notion of theosis is very similar to that of Hawkins, Christians see this union as highly personal.  It is the unification of the individual with the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Hawkins’ notion of uniting with an impersonal Unity is clearly different.

Despite these apparent differences, there may be an underlying unity between these two views.  At this point, we have no way of controlling for the differences between the worldviews of Jesus’s time and those of contemporary America.  It seems within the realm of possibility that this difference – the difference between a personal and an impersonal conclusion to the spiritual quest – is simply a matter of culture or point of view.

While we are trying to describe what Enlightenment is, it’s also helpful to be clear about what Enlightenment is not.  Enlightenment is not a state of emotional bliss or ecstasy.  While there are blissful states that occur during the spiritual journey, bliss is not a notable part of its conclusion.

In the same way, Enlightenment is not a particular set of cognitive insights.  While a cognitive understanding of the spiritual journey is typically very helpful during the process, changing one’s ideas does not bring one to Enlightenment.  This understanding is particularly helpful at the present time.  With the wide accessibility of the Internet, there are thousands of “ideas” about Enlightenment floating around.  For our purposes, it’s enough to understand that none of these ideas will bring us to that blessed state.

Finally, Enlightenment is not a state of moral perfection.  Given the traditional Christian emphasis on moral behavior, this is a very important distinction.  While moral behavior facilitates the spiritual journey, it is neither its driver nor its end state.

~~~

I think I will stop here; I have probably given you enough to think about for this week.  Next week, I will continue this conversation by focusing on the attributes of the Enlightenment.  Until then, I hope you keep up with your meditation practice.  I have come to believe that we practice not just for ourselves, but for each other as well.  None of us travels the spiritual path by ourselves.  Just knowing that you are meditating and going deeper encourages me to keep going too.  I look forward to realizing, with all of you, that wonderful moment of union with the Divine.

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

45: What Is Enlightenment?

One of the terms widely bandied about in spiritual circles is ‘Enlightenment.’  The term seems self-explanatory, and from the perspective of the ordinary listener, it concerns the attainment of knowledge.  In the past, you might have been in darkness, but with enlightenment, you are now able to see the truth clearly, free from ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.  When used in a spiritual sense, however, Enlightenment is a technical term with a very specific meaning, depending on the authority to which you might appeal.

In my understanding, the term ‘Enlightenment’ came into the spiritual vocabulary through the teachings of Gautama, the Buddha.  There are at least four major schools of Buddhism, but for the purposes of our exploration, we will use the writings of the earliest school, Theravada, to return to the understanding of this process that is likely closest to the Buddha’s original meaning. Theravadin Buddhism understands Enlightenment as the progressive dismantling of the causes of suffering and the awakening to Nirvana.

The key to understanding this Theravadin concept lies in the Buddha's proclamation of the Four Noble Truths. 

This is an absolutely stunning analysis of our common human dilemma, the problem of suffering.  The Four Noble Truths are:

1.  What is the Holy Truth of Ill?  Birth is ill, decay is ill, sickness is ill, death is ill.  To be conjoined with what one dislikes means suffering.  To be disjoined from what one likes means suffering.  Not getting what one wants also means suffering.  In short, all grasping at any of the five scandals (i.e., the aggregates from which the phenomenal world is formed) involves suffering.

2.  What, then, is the Holy Truth of the Origination of Ill?  It is that craving that leads to rebirth, accompanied by delight and greed, seeking its own delight, now, here, now there, i.e., craving for sensuous experience, craving to perpetuate oneself, craving for extinction.

3.  What, then, is the Holy Truth of the Stopping of Ill?  It is the complete stopping of that craving, the withdrawal from it, the renunciation of it, throwing it back, liberation from, non-attachment to it.

4.  What, then, is the Holy Truth of the steps that lead to the stopping of Ill?  It is the holy eight–fold Path, which consists of: right views, right intentions, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

As you can see from this extensive definition, for the Theravada, Enlightenment is a comprehensive program that involves reprogramming your view of the world, your intentions, along with a variety of behavioral changes, and learning specific spiritual practices to focus your attention.  This process is said to result in the extinction of the ‘fires that drive suffering.’  It involves the eradication of specific ‘defilements and fetters,’ which obscure the perception of Reality.

In contrast with theistic religions, this process does not necessitate prayer or an appeal to the Divine.  It is focused on the cessation of suffering and an escape from conditioned existence.  It understands the ego as a major obstacle because it binds us to our self-imposed suffering.  It uses vipassana, a form of insight meditation, to see the impermanence of the phenomenal world, including the ultimate nonexistence of the self (or ego).

In the Theravadin view, only when the practitioner can cut off his desires will he be able to escape the delusions of the phenomenal world.  At this point, the sense of self or ego will dissolve, and the person will perceive Reality directly.  This is the state of Enlightenment and final liberation.

~~~

Now, one of my failings (or strengths) is that I’m something of a skeptic.  When someone tells me something, especially something important, I typically look for evidence that will either confirm or disprove whatever it is that is being presented.  In the case of Enlightenment, my skepticism is somewhat problematic, since I am not enlightened myself.  As a result, I cannot verify the Theravadin understanding of Enlightenment with my own experience.

To address this, I find it useful to contrast the Theravadin view with that of David R. Hawkins (1927-2012).  Hawkins, a physician, psychoanalyst, and psychologist, has written extensively about a series of major shifts of consciousness over the course of his life.  In Hawkins' understanding, Enlightenment is an advancement of consciousness, such that one’s sense of separateness is transcended and the personal self or ego is no longer taken as the locus of identity.  It is a state of “perfection, bliss, effortlessness, and oneness,” a “state of non-duality beyond separateness and beyond the intellect.”  

For Hawkins, Enlightenment is realized through the pathway of surrender or letting go.  The practitioner progressively relinquishes her inner resistance, which includes her attachments, aversions, and prideful control.  As this occurs, there is a progressive release from dualistic thinking.  As the dualistic lens through which all data is filtered slowly dissolves, one is able to discern the Divine more and more clearly.  Hawkins uses a variety of synonyms for God, including Truth, Reality, and Love, which I find convenient labels for different aspects of the Divine.

~~~

There appear to be many commonalities between these two descriptions of Enlightenment.  They both speak of Enlightenment as a unitive or non-dual state – a perspective from which one perceives the unity which underlies our apparent separation, our apparent duality.  Both speak of an inward journey, which culminates in this non-dual perspective.  While the Buddhist works at freeing the self from desire, Hawkins describes the process as “letting go.”  As I reflect on this, it sounds like two different perspectives on the same phenomenon.

Both perspectives view the ego as an obstacle because it necessarily divides the world into a series of dualities.  That is, it takes the underlying unity of existence and chops it into ‘this’ and ‘that,’ into ‘good’ and ‘bad.’

Both perspectives describe what happens as the self is relinquished.  The Buddhists describe it as a ‘liberation’ from the sense of self.  Specifically, the Buddhist view sees our notion of a separate self as a fetter, a chain, which binds us to a delusional understanding of ourselves and the world around us.  This liberation from the ego and its desires arises from insight (vipassana), which is grounded in the direct experience of impermanence and non-self (anatta).

Hawkins, through his process of letting go, describes the ego as dissolving into Oneness.  That is, one’s identity shifts from ‘Me–Me–Me’ and moves into a union with the Divine, which is described as an impersonal consciousness.  Of note, Hawkins' many descriptions of this process are clearly theistic and explicitly point to God.

In both perspectives, the practitioner enters a profound stability of consciousness.  The customary turbulence of our desires no longer moves us.  In this enlightened state, one appears to enter into union with all that is.  As a result, there can be no duality, no good or bad, right or wrong.  Everything that is …  is just what it is.  As a result, there is no striving and no goals to reach.  For Hawkins, the practitioner perceives the world as organically moving in synch with itself.  Rather than progressing through time or space, the world simply unfolds itself to itself.

Of interest, both the Buddhist and the Hawkins’ perspective are based on a profound ethical transformation.  The understanding that appears to underlie this perspective is that only a deeply ethical person will develop the inner stability necessary to sustain the deep concentration necessary for meditation.  To this end, the Buddhists have developed a formal path for ethical transformation.  

Hawkins, on the other hand, views this ethical transformation as a continuum.  He has mapped an emotional continuum that describes this transformation.  At the lowest state of consciousness, the individual is overwhelmed by guilt and shame.  This gradually transforms into the courage necessary to face one’s difficulties, the acceptance of those difficulties, and the transformation of these difficulties through love, peace, and joy.  Through this progression, practitioners let go of the ego's separation and find their true identity with the Divine.  

~~~

Both points of view describe a profound awakening that involves deep peace, less grasping for one’s desires, and a radical shift in identification away from the reactive self.  Hawkins describes this inner peace as arising from an effortless non-duality.  The Buddhist view describes a series of discrete inner states as one progressively releases their grip on desire.  As we relinquish our desires, the ego becomes less and less necessary.  As a result, the ego's dualistic perception dissolves, and one enters into a state of unity, both within oneself and with the surrounding world.

This state of Enlightenment is, I believe, the ultimate goal for every human being.

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

44: Our Unreal Reality

Over the past month or so, we have enjoyed some fascinating excursions.  We have explored our awareness, discovering through our own experience that our awareness extends into the Awareness of God.  We have examined that splendid survival tool, the ego, the Swiss Army knife of all survival tools.  This week, I would like to bring us back to earth and firmly anchor our feet on the ground.

So, take off your shoes and socks, and put your feet directly on the floor.  If it’s warm enough, go outside and dig your feet into the earth.  You’re touching the ground, right?

We think we're touching the ground, but we're not.  To explain this is going to take a little while, so please bear with me.  It is actually very important.  Let’s start by looking at whatever you managed to learn about matter in high school or college.  Let me start by saying that everything you learned there is wrong.  It’s a lie.  You were misled.

We were taught that matter is composed of atoms, tiny, discrete particles of stuff, commonly known as protons, electrons, and neutrons.  These assertions are a pack of lies.  When you actually look at these so-called particles, you find that they are actually vibrating packets of energy.

You can drill down even farther if you wish, and the farther you go, the smaller these packets of energy get.  At this point in our understanding of the nature of matter, scientists have labeled the smallest packets of energy as quarks and gluons.  Physicists hypothesize that there are even smaller packets of energy, but for our purposes, there’s no need to go any further.

So, let’s look at what this all means.  When we put our bare feet on the floor, we think we're touching the floor.  In actual fact, our feet are composed of vibrating packets of energy, and the floor is composed of another set of vibrating packets.  These energetic forces actually push against each other, repelling one another.  The sensations that we identify as “touch” are actually the sensations associated with being repelled.  How’s that for a head twister?  And that’s just for starters!

Let’s look at Time.  We all take time for granted.  There was yesterday, there is right now, and there will probably be a future tomorrow.  And all of this is simply misguided nonsense.  Let me show you how…

Let’s start with the present moment, because we know, through our own lived experience, that it exists.  We also know that the past no longer exists; it’s over and done with.  At best, we may have some memories of past events, but we know the past is over.  That means it no longer exists.

In a similar way, we know that the future doesn’t exist because the future hasn’t happened yet.  How could something exist if it hasn’t happened?

So, we commonly think that the only thing that's really real is the present moment.  But let me ask you this: if there is no past and no future, what does that mean about the present?  We define the present as that which exists between the past and the future.  If those don’t exist, then perhaps the present moment doesn’t exist either.  At the very least, it means that our understanding of the present is most likely false.

We commonly think of time as a kind of stately progression, almost like the slow movement of the Zodiac through the heavens.  There is a set of future possibilities that come into sight, that exist for a moment in the present, and then gradually recede into the past.  But if the past and future don’t exist, there is no stately procession.  In fact, there is no procession at all!

Instead, if we are to be faithful to the data, there is only right now!  If you will, a kind of Isness.  Without a past or a future, perhaps the idea of time is simply of fantasy – a fantasy that we have found useful for survival.  Just another tool, rather like the ego.  It is a fantasy with no objective reality, yet it is one shared by almost every human being.

Since time apparently does not exist, this impacts other fantasies we have – fantasies like distance.  In everyday language, time and distance are interconnected.  They are linked by the notion of speed, also known as velocity.  The equation that we learned in math and science classes looks like this: Distance = Time X Speed.  But if there is no Time, this equation doesn’t work.  

If Distance = Time X Speed, then Distance equals the value of Time (which is zero) multiplied by Speed.  When you multiply anything by zero, the result is zero.  By this logic, Distance doesn’t really exist.  Pushing this further, if distance doesn’t exist, then we must not be living in a three-dimensional world.  The three dimensions of height, width, and breadth apparently don’t really exist.  These three dimensions are labels for distance, but if distance doesn’t exist, then the commonly accepted three-dimensional world around us must not exist either.

It starts to make you wonder, doesn’t it?  These ideas we have held about the nature of reality begin to appear for what they really are: simple fabrications or fantasies.  At best, they are intellectual constructs fabricated to help us negotiate the rigors of daily life.  Yet, when you drill down into what actually constitutes the reality we live in, these ideas start to fall apart.

~~~

By now, I expect that you are thoroughly confused about what is real and what is not.  I raise these points about our physical reality because there are many parallels between our understanding of the physical and our understanding of the spiritual.

In both cases, we have accepted a false dualistic paradigm.  The most heart-wrenching consequence of this false paradigm is that we separate ourselves from the Divine.  We believe that we are right here and God is somewhere else, usually someplace far, far away.  We fantasize a vast abyss between God and us – an abyss that brings us infinite pain and suffering.

In the same way, we have fantasized about the nature of the material world around us.  We have fantasized about the nature of matter, about the nature of time, and about the nature of distance.  We have fantasized about our own human nature.  And all of these fantasies, while intertwined, are erroneous.

If these errors were inconsequential, I wouldn’t bother to talk about them, but they are not.  In both the physical and the spiritual realms, these errors have led us into dead ends.  We cannot move forward until we learn to base our actions on the Truth.

So, let's look at that weirdo who refers to himself as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14.6)  Just after Jesus says this, he goes on to say, “Just as I am in the Father and the Father is in me, so also, I am in you, and you are in me.” (John 14.20).  This, among many other similar statements made by Jesus and the saints who followed him, clearly shows this most important spiritual understanding.

The Divine lives deep inside of each one of us!  It doesn’t matter whether you are Christian or not.  As far as we know, Jesus did not come to found the Christian church.  He never talks about an organizational structure.  He never talks about a creed or having to believe in a certain way.  Rather, he came as ‘Rabbi,’ which means Teacher in Hebrew.  

Furthermore, Jesus came to set us free – free from our too-narrow ideas about ourselves, free from the guilt and shame that we heap upon ourselves and each other.  He invited us to follow him; he didn’t force us.  And he didn’t force us to believe any of the deep spiritual truths that he revealed to us.  Rather, he shared his truth – the Truth – and invited us to trust him.

St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, invites his readers to “put aside your childish ways and beliefs.”  We are invited to look deeply within, where we will find that magnificent Presence we call God.  We are invited to step away from the unreal reality that we have hallucinated:

• To step away from the passage of time and to step into Eternity.

• To step away from the distance we imagine that separates us from God.

• To step away from the meager protections that our ego offers.

Instead, we are invited to step into our full stature as children of the Most High.

This “stepping into who we really are” is not dropping one set of beliefs for another.  It’s not a matter of trying to hallucinate this Reality.  Instead, it involves learning about the dimensions of the spiritual reality that underlies the physical reality we ordinarily perceive.  As we learn about the beauty and awesome wonder of this deep reality, we learn to trust the teachings of the one who points it out to us.  As our trust grows, we find ourselves walking this holy Way, just as the many others before us did.  This Way involves learning to go deeply within ourselves so that we can actually experience the Reality that Jesus points to.

~~~

I think I should probably stop here.  I am beginning to pontificate, and that is always a warning sign that I should just shut up.  So let me encourage you to continue with your daily meditation.  Go deeply inside, that is our spiritual destiny.

In a bit of good news for you.  Several of us are working to put together a website that will allow for more graduated instruction in the spiritual life than a newsletter format allows.  I plan to continue this free newsletter as long as I am able, but many of you have asked for more systematic instruction.  A team has gathered around this possibility, and we hope to have an operating website early in 2026.

This website will focus on what we need to do to enter more fully into the Being of God.  It will contain a full program for spiritual transformation.  Specifically, it will provide a course of study that equips you with the intellectual knowledge you need to understand the spiritual life.  This knowledge will provide the basis for specific life changes in yourself that will facilitate your inner transformation.  As these transformations unfold, you will be introduced to deeper forms of meditation and contemplative prayer.  

Taken together, we believe these are the necessary components for a deeply spiritual way of being.  If you will, the graduated exercises we are preparing will move you into the Being of God.

That’s all for now.  May God continue to bless you in every way!

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

43: Further Explorations Into the Ego

In past newsletters, we have explored the idea that our egos are actually just tools – tools for our survival.  We never think of them like this because they’ve always been around; we simply accept our sense of self, our ego, as a given.  To understand this idea of the ego as a tool, we have to scrutinize its origins.  So, let’s begin at the beginning.

Newborn babies don’t appear to have egos; they don’t have a discrete sense of self like you and I do.  That sense of self is developed, bit by bit, in response to the social environment in which the child is raised.  As a result, no two of us are alike.

Newborns are literally like sponges – they are immersed in an ocean of sensory data, and they soak up every bit of it.  For example, they notice every little nuance on their parents' faces.  They see muscles tightening and relaxing; they notice the flush or pallor in their skin – no detail escapes them.

They see these things because their survival depends upon it.  They are stacking up piles of data, which they later use to make their way in the world.  Did you know that the focal distance of a newborn's eyes is about 12 inches?  That is exactly the distance between a nursing baby and her mother’s face.

As a child nurses, she focuses with great intensity and notices every little change on her mother’s face.  These data are then correlated with the taste of mother’s milk and the tension or relaxation in the mother’s arms, and many other factors.  Later in life, as the child gains greater autonomy, these data will be used to manipulate poor mom.  The child will learn that a particular whiny tone gets one result, while another, less whiny tone produces something else, and a big smile gets still another kind of response.

An interesting and often overlooked consequence of this gradual construction of the ego is that it is present in some form or other from the child’s earliest memories.  While every child begins with a simple, open awareness of what is, her gradually constructed ego starts to manifest from almost her first experiences.  Because most of our memories are formulated after we acquire language, her earliest memories – most of which are composed through language – always entail a sense of self.  In our memories, then, there has never been a time when the almighty “I” has not been present.

Think about this for a moment.  Just like a fish doesn’t notice the water it’s swimming in, so too we don’t notice the ego that we are using.  We don’t notice it because, in our memories, there has never been a time when we have been without our egos.  We assume that having an ego is “natural,” and that everyone has a similar construct that appears to guide their behavior.

Another consequence of this kind of construction is that we typically have great difficulty imagining living without the ego.  In effect, when I talk about going beyond the ego, it sounds like I’m suggesting that we live without our single most important survival tool.  And that, sadly, sounds pretty scary for most of us.

And speaking of scary, how about the notion of death?  Most of us have even greater difficulty imagining our self, our ego, ceasing to be.  As a response to these deep fears, our culture hides from death by pushing elders into old folks' homes and making them disappear.  We have funeral rituals in which the bodies of the deceased are dressed up and painted to look like they are still alive.  We seemingly cannot bear the notion of our own ‘disappearance,’ so we have viewings of the dead body and talk amongst ourselves about “how natural he looks.”

And yet most of us disappear at least once a day!  We even look forward to disappearing!  We lay down on our beds every evening and go to sleep.  Where does your sense of self go when you are asleep?  What happens to it?  It’s strange, isn’t it, because most of us enjoy going to bed and disappearing into sleep.  Isn’t this the very same thing that happens at the end of life, when the body is no longer useful or effective?  We even euphemistically refer to death as “going to sleep” or “resting.”  So, what’s the big deal?

~ ~ ~

The spiritual journey we are exploring will take you to the point where you no longer need your survival tools.  In effect, as we open to the Self that lies within, we are able to lay down the tools that the little self needed to survive.  By gradually letting go of our litt\\

]And part of that destiny is recognizing the limitations of our egos.  Part of it, then, involves letting go of the things that hold us back.

This constant cycle of learning something and then letting it go is one we are all familiar with.  As infants, we first learned to roll and then to crawl.  As we gained control of our bodies, we learned how to walk.  Then came that great day when we learn to ride a tricycle or Hot Wheels.  And then came a bicycle!  And then came driving the family automobile!  With each step, we gratefully relinquished the skill we had previously learned.  And with each step, we gained more and more freedom and autonomy.

Now God is inviting you to step into even more freedom.  The problem is, to do that, you have to let go of the ego, your sense of self.  There comes a time when you recognize that your marvelous self has become a hindrance to your spiritual growth.

While this notion of letting go of who you are seems very frightening at the start of the journey, as you progress, you will find that it holds less and less fear for you.

~ ~ ~

This brings us to a critical question: How do we let go of our sense of self?  It should be clear by now that this is not an easy or straightforward task.  It is a task that will take most of us years to achieve, and perhaps several lifetimes if the Hindus and Buddhists are correct.

Thankfully, letting go is driven by a simple process we have used since birth.  The process is one of meticulous observation.  The spiritual path invites us to observe our ego, to watch it in all of its particulars.  It invites us, as we observe, to notice the limits of our ego, and to notice how it constrains and limits our spiritual progress.

The ego was created to help us survive.  It is a tool – nothing more and nothing less.  That means that our sense of self, our precious “I,” is just a survival tool.  It’s not special or precious.  It’s just a tool like the screwdrivers and wrenches stored in your garage.

I know, this sounds shocking, doesn’t it?  My precious “Me” is just a tool?  Yup, that is all it is.  But because we believe our sense of self is a possession, something that is “mine,” it takes on a sense of specialness, a sense of preciousness.  Most of us have no idea what it would be like to live without this sense of self.  And all of us are just a little bit afraid of what a life without self would be like.

Would it be safe?  Would I be taken advantage of?  Would I be able to jump out of the way if a car came careening down the sidewalk?  These fears and many more arise as we begin our spiritual work.  There are, however, several factors that give me confidence in going forward.

First of all, there is no force involved in letting go.  God doesn’t demand that we let go, and he doesn’t force it upon anyone.  This is one of the principles that you begin to notice as you explore a truly spiritual life.  We start to see that God invites us, but always gives us the freedom to choose.  In fact, this sense of freedom pervades every aspect of the spiritual life.  The best example of this is found in the life of Jesus. Even Jesus, the son of God, was free to choose whether to go forward with the crucifixion or to back away.

Like Jesus, we too are God’s children, and we enjoy the same freedom of choice.  Have you ever wondered why freedom is so important to human beings?  Men and women throughout recorded history have been willing to lay down their lives for freedom.  There is no higher price anyone can pay, but it is a price willingly paid by generation after generation.  I believe freedom is so important to us because it reflects the Divine order.  As a result, God gives us perfect freedom to choose what we want to do, and we naturally rebel when someone tries to take our freedom away.

As you begin this process of observing the ego, notice that all of your judgments and all of your positional thinking are driven by your ego.  Have you ever wondered why we are constantly judging?  Take a moment and look at the conversations you are having in your head.  All of our judgments are somehow related to our survival.  There is a constant stream of them, and it’s driven by our nonstop worrying.  When you start to notice, you realize that all this mental activity is driven by the ego.  What is more, most of it is totally unnecessary.  Someday, you should try an experiment with yourself.  Count up the number of worries that you have during any given day.  At the end of the day, ask yourself how many of those worries actually came true.  You’ll be shocked by your answer!  

The next element necessary for letting go of our ego is learning to cultivate a radical kind of humility.  Because we see our self as special and exceptional, we tend to think our thoughts are equally special.  I don’t know about you, but around 98% of my thoughts are simply gossip and drivel!  My sense of self vomits up a continual stream of thoughts that, for the most part, are unnecessary commentary and nonsense.  The only value I see in most of my thinking is that it is a special kind of streaming format I find entertaining.  

There is nothing whatsoever that is precious or exceptional about most of my thinking.  When I do have a profound thought, it seems quite clear that it is not generated by my ego.  While my survival thoughts are ego-driven, my deeper thoughts seem to come from the Self.  I cannot, in honesty, claim them as my own.

Notice those times when you seem to transcend your ego.  Those odd “synchronicities” that appear more and more frequently as you cultivate your spiritual knowing.  Those times when you enter into the Zone, either in sports, in business, or in deep conversations with someone – conversations where you surprise yourself with the wisdom that comes from your lips.  These are the times when you speak the most profound truths.  I find myself surprised at what I’m saying during these times.  I’m surprised because I recognize that it is not “me” who is doing the talking.  It comes from that deeper Being who lives within us all.

We learn to let go as we accumulate more and more information about the Divine and about the spiritual dimension of life.  This accumulation of data lets us know it’s okay to let go, that it’s safe to release our death-grip on safety.  It’s always helpful to remember that God is on our side.  The Divine has always been with us and has always been there to encourage and guide us.  It is through humility and our willing submission to the extraordinary love of God that we find our way home.

Have a blessed day, and remember to enfold yourself in God’s love until we meet again.

Faithfully yours,

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

42: The Second Deepening of Awareness

Last week we focused on our habit of positional thinking.  We explored how our judging creates fixed positions. As a result, we label things constantly – “this is good and that is bad,” “this is right and that is wrong.”  It all seems so normal, doesn’t it?

Sadly, our positional thinking harms us in at least three ways.  First, this kind of thinking gives us the illusion that we have some sort of power over the object of our judgment.  For example, when I judge and say that a particular politician is acting badly, I place myself in a position over that person.  This gives me the illusion that I have some kind of power in the situation.  On reflection, it’s clear that this is just a fantasy.

Second, our positional thinking gives us a sense that we fully understand the situation that were judging.  Yet, how often have any of us ever fully understood even the simplest situation?  We rarely know all of the historical antecedents which give rise to a particular situation.  We almost never understand the full results or consequences of a situation.  Yet, we happily proceed in the fantasy that we understand things perfectly and that our judgment is the correct one.  What amazing delusions we inhabit!

From my perspective, the most important and damaging consequence of our dualistic perception and positional way of thinking that it entails, is that it cuts us off from our Creator.  It has the unintended consequence of creating an abyss between us and the Divine.  Our positional thinking has us believe that we are ` here, and God is somewhere else, often conceived of as someplace very far from where we are.

What a wretched situation!  What an intolerable price to pay!  

~~~

As followers of Jesus, we cannot in good conscience allow this state of affairs to continue unchallenged.  So, to remedy this, we focus in meditation on the non-dual bridge which connects us with the Divine.  We focus on that lively awareness that undergirds all of our experience.

Let me explain what I mean here.  Right now, you are reading these words on your screen.  Your focus is “out there,” and you perceive these words of mine as having some kind of reality.  In a word, they exist.

You exist also – also as a reality.  You experience your physical sensations, and you notice your thoughts change as you read these words.  So now we have two different kinds of reality – the words on the screen and your experience of yourself.

Going deeper, notice what experiences all of this.  It is your awareness – that lively part of you that notices and experiences the multiple streams of experience that flow through your consciousness.  This awareness is non-dual in nature.  It holds everything that you are aware of in a unitive kind of experience.

Now, go deeper still.  When we release our dualistic thinking, when we let go of our dualistic perceptions, we discover that we are connected with everything that is.  We are connected with all the parts of ourselves – the many constituent elements that make us who we are.  As we dive into this internal unity, we find that we are connected with all of the people around us – the ones we hate and the ones we love, and even the ones we don’t see because of our judgments and positional thinking.

If we continue in this deep dive, we find that we are connected with Jesus, our blessed teacher who enjoins us, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”  We find, finally, our home, that place where we truly belong.  We find ourselves connected with the Divine and all that is.

~~~

Even with this knowledge – that our true home is in the Infinite – our habitual way of judging, our habitual style of positional thinking creeps in and separates us from the love of God.  When, from time to time, we slip into this deep state of non-dual awareness, our old habits slide in right behind it.  We begin to think of our awareness as somehow apart from us.  That is, we see ourselves as here, but our awareness is somehow over there.

To address this, we need to remember that we inhabit our awareness; it is our home.  Our awareness is never something “out there.”  Our awareness is the fundamental substrate of our Being.  It is never differentiated into parts; it is always a unitive whole.

When I first began exploring this, I would often find myself, at the start of the meditation, feeling that sense of being a whole – that is, a single vibrant being.  Very quickly, though, I would slip out of this awareness and back into my habitual way of thinking.  I would, once again, go looking for my “awareness” out there someplace, forgetting that it is always something within me.  Forgetting that it constitutes the very basis of my being.

As you can imagine, I found this very distressing.  And then, in the oddest sort of way, and image came to me which allowed me to release this dualism.  (When I have unbidden, unlooked for experiences like this, I have learned to pay close attention to them.)  You’ll probably laugh when you hear this, because it is peculiar and perhaps only works for me.  I suddenly imagined, during the course of this perceived ‘separation’ from my awareness, that I was swimming underwater in a lake and I shot up from underwater into the very center of the large inner tube.  As I came down, I spread my arms out, grasping the inner tube on both sides and feeling whole again.  There was a sense of merging with that inner tube and floating freely, safe and secure.

The Second Deepening of Awareness

1. Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.  Turn off your cell phone and deal with other potential distractions.

2. 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.  

3. Close your eyes and focus your attention within your body.  Simply observe, and refrain from judging what you experience there.

4. Notice the flow of your thoughts and emotions.  No need to chase after them or elaborate on them.  Be receptive to them and just observe.   

5. In this space, your mind will start telling you stories.  These stories may focus on your physical sensations, they may focus on some unfinished business you had prior to sitting in meditation, or on any number of other subjects.  

6. Experience these sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise in your awareness.  Acknowledge them, but don't go chasing after them.  Rest your focus in your awareness.  Refuse to engage with the distractions.  Acknowledge them, and then let them go.  

7. As you release these thoughts and the stories they want to distract you with, notice the progressive deepening that occurs, very gentle and slow at first.  As you open to this deepening, as you relinquish your focus on the various ‘objects of awareness,’ you will begin to notice your awareness itself.  

8. As you become aware of your awareness, you may find it a bit slippery – now you have it and then, very quickly, it slips away.  You will be tempted to go searching for it or to chase after it.  

9. Instead, return to being aware of your awareness.  It is not something apart from you.  It is you.  Rest here, in your awareness… without running after others things.  Let yourself rest in your inner stillness, the stillness that exists underneath the silence.  No need for thoughts.  No need for words.  

10.  Rest in this Stillness without moving for the period of your meditation.

11. 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.

I hope you find this deepening a rewarding process.  It is designed to move us from our surface perceptions and into the depths of our being.  It is here where we realize that our Lord is with us, indeed, he has always been with us.  As St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus!”  And to that, I say “Amen!”

That’s all for now.  Please remember your meditation practice daily.  And, in the early part of 2026, we have a special surprise coming.  We are working now on a website where we will be able to engage with each other as frequently as you might wish.  More on this in the weeks to come.

In the unity of God’s 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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

41: Deepening Our Awareness

As I sit here to write this morning, it is Thanksgiving Day.  As I reflect on this, I can feel my heart opening, and from this opening a flood of gratitude gushes forth.  Gratitude for the opportunity to share the important things in this life with you.  Gratitude for each of you who are reading this – my fellow travelers on this great path into ever deepening Awareness.  Gratitude that we are each held and cherished in God’s holy Presence. 

Have you ever stopped to wonder about the strangeness of our life?  I’m not sure I’ll be able to put this into words very clearly, but our daily round – our typical daily experiences – are dualistic.  We use positional thinking constantly: this is good, that’s bad, this is right, that’s not, and so on.  We divide our actual experience – our felt, lived experience – into parts.  This dividing is so natural to us that we never think about it.  For us, it is the normal and natural thing to do.  On reflection, however, it seems terribly misguided. 

We never stop to look at the consequences of our positioning.  While we learned positional thinking as infants in order to get along in the world, we didn’t notice the negative consequences that are a necessary part of positioning.  We didn’t notice that our positional thinking estranges us from All That Is, from God.  That’s a pretty high price to pay, isn’t it!  And neither did we notice that our positional thinking is the underlying process that creates all the problems we have either.   

~

Let me give you an immediate example of this.  I notice sensations in my body on this Thanksgiving morning, sensations that I interpret as a little bit of hunger.  From a unitive perspective, this bit of hunger just is.  It doesn’t require immediate attention, nor does it require diminishment.  In fact, if I were to go get a snack right now, I would have less room for the Thanksgiving feast that will follow this afternoon.  But typically, when I feel sensations like these, I run to the kitchen to make them go away. 

To be as explicit as possible – I label these sensations as a problem.  If I simply accepted them, there would be no problem.  But I language these sensations, and in the process, I have created a problem for myself – to eat or not to eat.  The dualistic conundrum in a nutshell!  If the languaging stopped here, at the domain of thought, it would be bad enough.  But no, I have to go and make it worse.  I attach my emotions to this wretched algorithm, thereby creating urgency.  Now I am starving and I absolutely have to find a snack right NOW.  Not only that, but it has to be just the right kind of snack – the very best tasty morsel that I can find. 

Do you see the craziness of this?  There was no problem initially; there were just some sensations in my belly.  But thinking about the sensations made the sensations appear larger and more important than they really were.  Connecting my emotions to this thinking process made it appear that it had to be addressed immediately.  I started with some ordinary sensations and then blew them up into an urgent problem! 

This process happens on a continual basis, every day of our lives.  We overlook our actual experiences, which are unitive in nature, and in their place, we substitute dualism.  It is extremely hard to recognize this.  It is much harder to recognize it on an ongoing basis.  But once you start to recognize it, the question then becomes: “How can we overcome our dualism and acquire real spiritual knowledge?” 

I hope you recognized the inherent dualism in the question that I just posed above.  The assumption is that we are over here, somehow lacking this special thing called “spiritual knowledge,” and that special entity of “spiritual knowledge” is over there somewhere else.  To even frame this question, we have to use the dualism inherent in language!  So how can we ever get past this? 

We get past it when we open our eyes to see what has always been there – the underlying non-dual, unitive experiences that we constantly experience.

~

The most spiritually rewarding perspective is when we come to understand that what we seek is already within us.  There is that beautiful saying in the Gospel of Thomas where Jesus says, “The Kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.” That is, the kingdom of God is inside of us and all around us.  There is no place that is apart from this kingdom.  There is no one who is not cherished by the Divine. 

Typically, we overlook our actual unitive experience of the world.  As Thomas says, just a little further on in his gospel, “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.  For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.” 

~

The most productive attitude for spiritual work is the attitude of receptivity, an attitude of just noticing without feeling compelled to go do something.  The typical attitude that people adopt is that they have to go do or get something.  This is dualism written large – we are somehow lacking and there is some special thing, some special knowledge, that we must obtain. 

Going deeper, the spiritual understandings we are seeking cannot be found.  The spiritual understandings we seek are actually self–revealing.  They are right in front of us.  The more we become aware of the ubiquity of our dualism and positional thinking, the more familiar we become with spiritual principles, the more conversant we are with spiritual disciplines, the more we open ourselves to self–realization. 

Why do I say self–realization?  Because the kingdom of heaven is not out there, apart from us.  The kingdom is within us and we ourselves are situated in the midst of the kingdom.  As a result, there is nothing to do.  There is no path that we must travel.  There is no result that we don’t already have.  And it is for this, on this beautiful Thanksgiving morning, that I am most grateful for! 

~

In keeping with these ideas, let me introduce you to a way of deepening your meditation from our last newsletter, deepening your awareness.  As you explore this, you will find that there is nothing to do.  We are moving, in this set of meditations, from doing towards Being.

It’s important to recognize how different this action is, compared to what most of us were taught in church.  In church, the message is we need to do things differently; that we are somehow lacking or deficient, and this deficiency needs to be remedied.  Briefly, we are sinners and we need to repent from our sinful ways. 

This perspective misses what may be the most important aspect of the Christian message.  It overlooks that Jesus came from God to us, to open the way of freedom and peace for each of us.  He didn’t make us come to him.  There were no preconditions put on us.  Jesus didn’t say that you had to become sinless in order to receive him.  In fact, our Lord spent his time with ordinary people – ordinary husbands and wives, ordinary fishermen, tax collectors, and farmers – in a word, with those who have come to be known by the Church as sinners.  He spent his precious time not with the powerful or wealthy.  He spent his time with anyone who was open to receive him. 

Hear these words because they are so very important.  We are not the ones doing the doing; it is our Lord Jesus Christ, who freely comes to us in the midst of our ignorance.  The only requirement, if you can even call it that, for those who wish to follow Jesus, is that we open our hearts, to the best of our ability, so that we can receive him. 

What this really means is that we cannot go beyond our self-imposed limits – the limits inherent in our judgment and our positional thinking.  If we try to rely on our own powers, we are stuck.  Trapped in our dualism.  Trapped in our reflexive pushing God away.   

Our deepening in the spiritual way that Jesus describes, occurs only by opening ourselves to the marvelous grace of God.  Our job, in this great endeavor, is to be receptive, because our doing only pushes God away. 

• Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.  Turn off your cell phone and deal with other potential distractions. 

• 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.   

• Close your eyes and focus your attention within your body.  Simply observe, and refrain from judging what you experience there. 

• Notice the flow of your thoughts and emotions.  No need to chase after them or elaborate on them.  Be receptive to them and just observe.    

• In this space, your mind will start telling you stories.  These stories may focus on your physical sensations, they may focus on some unfinished business you had prior to sitting in meditation, or on any number of other subjects.   

• Experience these sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise in your awareness.  Acknowledge them, but don't go chasing after them.  Rest your focus in your awareness.  Refuse to engage with these distractions.  Acknowledge them, and then let them go.   

• As you release these thoughts, and the stories they want to distract you with, notice the progressive deepening that is occurring, very gentle and slow at first.  Instead of the noise that’s generated from all of your competing thoughts, you will begin to sense a deepening silence. 

• As you open to this deepening, as you relinquish your focus on the various ‘objects of awareness,’ you will begin to notice your awareness itself.   

• As the internal silence grows, you will gradually begin to notice a stillness – a holy Stillness – that exists within the silence.  When you sense this, give yourself over to this Stillness; surrender to it.  No need for thoughts.  No need for words.  Rest in this Stillness for the period of your meditation. 

• Especially at the beginning of this practice, you will find your mind churning through thought after thought, through sensation after sensation.  When this occurs, simply release the distraction and move your attention back to your awareness. 

• Rest here without moving for the period of your meditation. 

• 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. 

That’s enough for now, I think.  I expect that you will find the meditation practice outlined in this newsletter to be very valuable on your inward journey.  Please remember to practice daily, if your time permits.   

In addition to your daily meditation, I would like to suggest a spiritual discipline that will facilitate your inward journey.  Start noticing the many unitive experiences that pervade your daily life.  Notice, for example, that there is no such entity as ‘darkness.’  There is only light and its absence.  Notice that there is no such entity as cold.  There is only heat and its absence.  Let yourself become aware of the underlying unity which is both within you, and all around you. 

Also, please remember that you are free to contact me if you have any questions about the practices I present or the experiences they yield.  I will do my best to address your concerns as time permits. Just email me at ken123kaisch@google.com. 

With great thanksgiving for the joy of walking with you,Start writing your email content here...

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 atken123Kaisch@gmail.com. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

40: Bridging the Abyss: A Non-dual Meditation

A number of years ago, I stumbled upon the insight that all language is inherently dualistic.  What I mean by this is that our language splits the world into subjects and objects.  Speaking with a friend from Lithuania, Zilvinas Svigaris, I learned that in the English language, this is especially pronounced.  English structures virtually every noun into either a subject or an object.  As a result, English speakers grow up with an invisible filter, the filter of dualism.  

As a result, our language ends up distorting what we perceive.  Let me give you an everyday example.  I am eating a delicious avocado half, with the center filled with a great balsamic vinegar.  My actual experience is composed of many discrete elements – the mouth-feel of the creamy avocado, the mild green taste of it, the bite of the balsamic, the tart smell of the vinegar, the feel of the metal spoon in my mouth, and so on.  To language my experience, I have to break it down into its component parts.  However, when I break it into small pieces like this, I distort the experience beyond recognition.  The avocado-in-my-mouth does not feel anything like this verbal description.  This is clearly a case where the whole is actually greater than the sum of its parts.

My actual experience is a unitive one.  All of these constituent parts and more combine and explode in my mouth and nose.  All and all, a most pleasant experience!

I believe that we have a great number of these unitive experiences on a daily basis.  We don’t notice the unitive quality because we are so quick to divide the experience into subjects and objects.  Let me give you another example – one which you have surely had multiple times.  

You experience a gorgeous sunset or sunrise.  The actual felt experience is, in itself, a unitive one.  Your eyes take in the visual splendor, there’s an emotion that rises up in your chest, you feel yourself expanding from being your little, finite self to something enormously huge, even vast.  You take in the entire visual space around you, and you feel yourself somehow ‘entering into’ the experience.  ‘You’ kind of ‘disappear’ for a long moment as you participate in this glory.  The experience, in its unitive form, is beyond breathtaking.

So, what do we do with this experience?  You might speak to your companion, “Isn’t that sunset just glorious,” even though you know that your words barely scratch the surface of what you are experiencing.  If you happen to have a camera, you probably snap a picture or two, thinking that you have captured the moment.  But later, when we look at the snapshot, it is always wanting, somehow less than that glorious unitive experience we have just had.

If I were to ask you, “Which would you prefer – the actual experience of the sunset or a photograph of that same sunset?” I’m sure that you would say you want the actual experience.  From some perspectives, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.  The actual experience is ephemeral – now it’s here and then, proof it’s gone.  The photograph, on the other hand, you can keep forever.  It captures the visual experience perfectly, so why would you not prefer the photo?  The answer is obvious, isn’t it?  The photo captures only a single element of this complex unitive experience.  And we, being greedy, want the whole thing!

~

We face a similar set of problems when attempting to deepen our relationship with the Divine through meditation.  Our languaging separates us from God.  In our minds, we place ourselves right here, but we place God somewhere else, somewhere ‘over there.’  You see the problem, don’t you?  Our languaging creates an abyss for which there is no known bridge.  What to do?  

For years, I have searched for a way to overcome this apparent separation.  On the one hand, our scriptures tell us, over and over again, that God is always with us, that the kingdom of heaven dwells inside of us.  On the other hand, we rarely seem to experience that holy Presence.  How can we address and resolve this apparent dilemma?

Trying to focus and be more precise in this matter, I asked myself, “What is there in the multiplicity of the many aspects of my existence that is already connected with God?”  This led me to a question that I should have asked before this one, namely: “How do I know I’m connected with the Divine?”  Or perhaps I should ask an even more basic question: “Am I connected with God?”

Considering these questions, a thought came unbidden to mind, one that I found hilarious.  How do I know that I’m connected with God?  Because (in a child’s singsong voice), “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”

You might wonder what I found hilarious about this.  Well, here I am, 77 years old, with four degrees, including an earned doctorate, in two different but complementary fields of study, and with many decades of devoting myself to exploring the spiritual life.  With all of the weight of this accumulated knowledge, I go to a child’s faith statement instead of some fancy theological or psychological exposition.  It makes me suspect that I may have taken a rather circuitous route to the Divine, rather than the direct one that I would prefer!  LOL

When you probe deeper into this faith statement – this description of the connection between God and ourselves – you find something both basic and intrinsically fascinating.  The bridge that connects us with the Divine is our awareness.

In fact, it is our awareness that connects us all with one another and with everything that is!  But, because our awareness is invisible, we don’t notice it.  While we use our awareness every waking moment, we take it for granted.  Yet, this element, which exists unnoticed in the background, appears to be the connective tissue that unites all living things.

In addition, our awareness takes us beyond our ordinary human connections and serves as the connecting bridge to the Divine.  The invisible part of me – the part that no one can ever see – is my awareness.  That same awareness is the vehicle that takes me into that greater Awareness that we conventionally call God.  In effect, the invisible part of me is actually the bridge to that invisible being we call the Divine!

Once you understand this, you realize that we have found a way to go beyond the inherent duality that posits me right here and God somewhere else.  You realize that we have found a tool – an already existing bridge – that circumvents the illusion of separation.

I have been working with this tool for the last six months in meditation.  I have experienced a series of what I call “deepenings.”  (I will explore these in future newsletters.)  What I would like to do today is to present my findings in the form of a meditation that is both accessible to all and practical.

To utilize this form of meditation, you will find it most helpful to be able to disengage from your thoughts and your thinking mind.  This is a skill like any other skill, and it can be learned with sufficient practice.  That being said, like many things, it is not particularly easy.  Thus, while someone new to meditation may practice this form, it is probably not suitable for everyone, since beginners can experience significant difficulty in focusing on their awareness.

The problem arises, I think, because your awareness is not a static element – it can shift and change quite rapidly.  A visual target, such as a simple cross, remains unchanged from one moment to the next.  The same applies to an auditory sequence like a mantra.  Your awareness, on the other hand, may shift from internal sensations, to a thought about your ‘to-do’ list, to an external sensation like an itch, and so on.  It makes sense, then, to practice some of the more focused meditations so that you can learn to hold your focus on this constantly moving target.

That’s enough for now, I think.  I expect that you will find the meditation practice outlined in this newsletter to be very valuable on your inward journey.  Please remember to practice daily, if your time permits.  

Fundamentally, I believe that our intention to draw near to the Divine is the most important element in our lives.  It is our intention that pushes us to meditate.  It was your intention to draw closer to our Lord that pushed you to read this newsletter and to consider practicing meditation.  I see this intention as one of the many gifts that our Lord so freely gives us.  We can rejoice because, despite all apparent difficulties, our God is with us and in us!

Also, please remember that you are free to contact me if you have any questions about the practices I present or the experiences they yield.  I will do my best to address your concerns as time permits. Just email me at ken123kaisch@google.com.

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. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

39: The Problem of Non-dual Meditation

Some months back, I promised you a new and exciting form of meditation.  After making the promise, I realized that I didn’t really know enough about this new form of meditation to share it with confidence.   So, I dithered and delayed. 

My general rule of thumb is to share only those meditation practices that I know are effective.  I typically rely on history and usage to determine this.  If a meditation practice has been developed by our forebearers and used over a longish period of time, I tend to feel more confident in putting my trust in that practice.  Then I realized, after promising this new form of meditation, that it didn’t have the historical antecedents that I usually use to guide my teaching.  As a result, I held off from sharing this with you.

So let me begin by addressing a central issue in all forms of meditation.  It is an invisible problem and a subtle one, one that is typically overlooked.  It is a problem inherent in the use of language – the problem of subjects and objects.  While the goal of meditation is union with the Divine, almost all meditation practices operate within the dualistic paradigm:  that is, we are here and God is somewhere else, apart from us.

This leaves us with the paradox.  We are seeking union, but we are using tools that reinforce the dualistic paradigm that rules our lives.

Let me try and put this in more concrete terms.  You no doubt remember the story of getting the donkey to pull the cart by dangling a carrot in front of its nose – a carrot that it can never reach.  In our case, however, by using dualism to try and overcome itself, it is more like you and me chasing an ice cream cone in the hot sun that is constantly three or four feet ahead of us.  We run and run and run, but still the ice cream cone stays ahead of us.  And should we ever manage to catch up with it, we will find that the ice cream has melted, leaving us a cone full of divine No – thing!  (Sorry, but I have a weird sense of humor!)

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the very best example.  But here is the dilemma: I am right here, and as I meditate, I postulate that God is somewhere over there, apart from myself.  Either I have set up a dualistic framework for my meditation, or I have simply participated in the dualism that guides most of our waking hours.

At issue is how to overcome this too-familiar dualism.  As long as we maintain this dualism, we will be unable to connect with the Divine.  As long as we postulate that God is out there somewhere, we can think and talk about the Divine, but we will be unable to enter into union with the Divine.

Let me walk you through this for a moment:

• When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray to our Father in heaven – a Being who is in a place – heaven – far apart from us.

• When we pray the Jesus Prayer, we ask Jesus, who we believe is apart from us, for mercy.

• When we pray with Centering Prayer, we still find ourselves in that dualistic framework – we are here and the Divine is elsewhere.

The logic of this is terrifying!  No matter what we try, we cannot draw closer to God.  We cannot use language – either in thought, or in written or spoken word – because language is built on the subject/object duality.  While this framework is quite handy for getting things done in our day-to-day life, it absolutely sabotages our attempts to draw closer to God.

This is a dilemma that haunts all forms of meditation and all forms of prayer.  It’s not the exclusive province of Christianity or Buddhism, or any of the major world religions.  It’s a dilemma that is faced by all.

~

When I was in college, I remember reading a science fiction story about a two-dimensional world.  While I remember neither the title nor the author, I do remember being struck by the dilemma of trying to describe experience using only two dimensions rather than our customary three.  This dilemma is very similar to the dilemma faced by all spiritual seekers.  How do we overcome the perceptual limitations imposed by our frame of reference?

As always, when I face a dilemma like this, I turn to the spiritual literature.  Our problem has been faced before, and with great success by a few.  So, what do our great saints have to say about this?  How did they resolve this problem?

Let’s start with the gospel of John.  In chapter 14, Jesus says, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”  In effect, Jesus says, ‘I am in my father and my father is in me; just as I am in you and you are in me.’  When we stop and truly listen to this passage, we realize that there is no distance between the Divine and ourselves.  Jesus already exists in us.  There is no abyss to cross; no distance to cover.  

We see from this that the dualism that besets us is just an artifact of our own minds.  We project this mental artifact onto the world and ‘discover’ that the world is inherently dualistic.  This is simply not true.

Other scriptural evidence suggests the same.  In the gospel of Luke, in chapter 17, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is within you.”  In our dualistic thinking, we project that the Kingdom is outside of ourselves.  We create a duality between the material and the spiritual worlds, but the creation of this duality traps us in the material.  The gospel of Luke indicates, according to Jesus, that this is a profound error.  The Kingdom is right here, within our deepest selves.  We only need to wake up, i.e., to drop our dualistic thinking, in order to experience this profound and marvelous Unity.

Moving outside of the canonical books of Scripture, we have the gospel of Thomas.  This book was found in 1945 near Nag Hammadi in Egypt, and it contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus.  The third saying in this collection states, “The kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.  When you know yourself, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the child of the Living Father.”

Here, Thomas asserts there is no boundary between the inner and the outer.  Drilling down into the meaning of this saying, Thomas states that the Divine has no boundaries.  The Divine is found everywhere: in subjective experience and in objective experience.  There is no place where God cannot be found.

Moving back into the canonical Scriptures, we have a passage from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  In chapter 3, Paul states, “Christ is all, and in all.”  This may be the most explicit non-dual affirmation in the New Testament.  There is nothing that can exist that is outside of Christ – “Christ is all.”  Not only can nothing exist outside of Christ, but Christ is “in all.”  In this passage, we hear echoes of Thomas, who stated that the kingdom is inside and outside of us.

So, what does this mean?  It means that we are inextricably part of the Divine.  Our pain comes from our failure to recognize our true nature – that Christ is within us and within all of Creation around us.  That there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God!

There are many more passages in the New Testament that point to the non-dual nature of Reality.  These passages are typically overlooked because they do not fit our typical frame of reference which is dualistic.  There is a massive tragedy hidden in this oversight.

Most Christians and most believers of all sorts adhere to this dualistic framework.  They have literally put connection with God out of reach.  In some ways, it’s like the gold held in Fort Knox.  We delude ourselves by saying that it belongs to all of us, but good luck trying to get your hands on a single bar of bullion!

~

In this edition of Invisible, I have tried to make clear the dangers of our commonly held dualistic frame of reference.  I believe that our dualism literally prevents us from seeing and experiencing the Divine – the Divine that is all around us and deeply within us, in our innermost depths.

Our dualism even extends to our meditation practice and our efforts to experience God.  In our next newsletter, I hope to introduce you to a meditation practice that transcends this pervasive dualism.  Until then, please don’t stop your meditation practice.  Even within the dualistic paradigm, meditation prepares us for the experience of God.  It trains our minds to focus and to maintain that focus over extended periods of time.  It calms our emotional turmoil, and it introduces us to that Great Silence in which we find our Lord.

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. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

38: Linearity and the Materialist Worldview

One of the challenges that we believers face today is how to respond to a scientific worldview that posits that God does not exist.  This worldview is pervasive; we find it everywhere we turn.  The computer on which you are likely reading this newsletter is one of thousands of examples of the technology that has come from this worldview.  Yet, this perspective denies the existence of God and denies anything that might be considered ‘spiritual.’  Prominent intellectuals have written best-selling books on the ‘foolishness’ of believing in God.  How are we, who are believers, to respond to these challenges?

From my perspective, it seems best to meet these challenges head-on and examine the commonly held components that underpin our prevailing scientific worldview.  To this end, I would like to explore some concepts that are likely unfamiliar to most of my readers.  While the read below may be a bit difficult to follow, I think you will find it helpful as you deepen your spiritual journey.

Linearity

Earlier this week, I got to thinking about the difference between linearity and non-linearity.  From our human perspective, most of the world appears to be linear; that is, one discrete object or experience is followed by the next, and then the next, in a linear fashion.  Briefly, linearity is characterized by observable data from which we can abstract verifiable rules that guide behavior.

In this linear world, we are able to identify causation because we repeatedly observe one thing causing something else to happen.  We have seen this from our infancy, over and over again, and there is very little that could make us believe in something else.  There are so many examples of linearity in our daily lives.  We use numbers in a linear fashion:  1… 2… 3… and so on.  We believe that if you take one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen, place them in the presence of a catalyst, they will form a molecule of water.  The examples seem endless.

Sir Isaac Newton developed the mathematics to describe our everyday experiences, and since then, we have trusted our scientists and mathematicians to describe and clarify the reality we see around us.  On balance, they have done a splendid job.  To verify this, all you need to do is look around you.  The car you drive, the dwelling you live in, your everyday experiences at work – they all support this linear perspective.

Linearity, for the most part, describes the world as we experience it.  However, when you look more closely, you begin to find an increasing number of things that cannot be described from this perspective.  When you leave the realm of our daily experiences and look at the macro-world, the cosmos, you find that linearity no longer works very well.  In parallel, when you look at the micro-world, at the level of subatomic particles and beyond, you find that they cannot be described with our linear perspective.  We have left the realm of our ‘normal’ and entered into a realm that appears fantastic, where all sorts of strange phenomena occur.

If you will, we appear to live in a three–part world.  At the cosmic level – including stars, galaxies, and so on – the perspective is nonlinear.  At the human level – our sensory experience of the day-to-day world around us – the rules of linearity appear to govern our experience.  At the micro level – the world of subatomic particles and beyond – the perspective again becomes nonlinear.  The subatomic particles just do not behave like we expect, given our linear frame of reference.  

These data suggest that our linear perspective may be incorrect.  Does it really make sense to have a three-part world like this?  Doesn’t it seem more likely that the apparent linearity of our everyday world is actually nonlinear?

Scientific Materialism

Our prevailing scientific paradigm has been one of scientific materialism.  This philosophy states that only matter and energy exist.  In this view, every phenomenon we experience is caused by matter and energy interacting in its several forms.  This perspective has been highly effective as a means for transforming our world.  Most of our technological progress has been driven by this paradigm.  The combination of linear thinking in the context of this materialist worldview has been responsible for pulling humanity from subsistence living to the relative luxury we enjoy today.

There are, however, phenomena that materialism cannot explain.  Scientific materialism postulates a Big Bang that started our cosmos, but it cannot explain what existed before the Big Bang or why the Big Bang occurred in the first place.  It cannot explain how the spectrum of vibrant life arose from nonliving elements.  It cannot explain what is called ‘the hard problem of consciousness,’ which is how our consciousness came into being from nonliving elements.

As you might suspect, scientific materialism is adamantly opposed to the notion of God or anything that might be termed ‘spiritual.’  Thus, there are serious limits to the explanatory power of this philosophy.  To date, it has been unable to explain many of our most important human experiences.  Experiences like our conscious awareness.  Experiences like love – that strange invisible force which binds us together and which allows us to endure unimaginable suffering, and can lift us to astounding heights.

Over the last 50 years, a large array of data has been collected which are inexplicable from the perspective of scientific materialism.  With the advances in medical science – advances which were created out of the materialistic perspective – we now have records of thousands of ‘near-death experiences.’  These are experiences of individuals who have died on the operating table, remained lifeless for a period of time, and then been restored to life.  Many individuals who have experienced this have reported that their conscious awareness left their body and observed what was happening while they were clinically dead.  These experiences indicate that the physical body is not necessary for conscious awareness.  How else can you explain a verifiably dead body and a person’s consciousness existing apart from that body?

Near-death experiences are not the only phenomena that give lie to the philosophy of materialism.  How do you explain the spiritual experiences of the great mystics?  They regularly describe seeing God, angels, and other spiritual beings.  So-called ‘miracles’ seem to occur in their presence with some regularity.  Because these phenomena cannot be ascribed to material causes, scientific materialists deny their existence.  To my mind, it would seem more reasonable to question the validity of the materialist perspective.  To simply deny the impact of the Divine seems like cheating.  Instead of taking these phenomena seriously, the way scientists take every other experience, they simply deny that these phenomena exist.  In my view, this is sloppy thinking.

God and the Nonlinear

The Divine, to our continued consternation, doesn’t seem bound by linearity.  The Burning Bush that Moses experienced will never be understood by observable rules.  The person of Jesus Christ, likewise, cannot be understood by observable rules.  How do you account for all of his miracles?  His coming to life again after being crucified?  How can it be that an ignorant peasant from a conquered Roman province, some 2,000 years ago, is the most famous person in the world today?  None of this makes sense from a linear perspective.  Yet, the facts are there, and they are incontrovertible.  

Of interest, we tend to expect God to act in a linear fashion.  For example, many believers pray for healing, either for themselves or for others.  In general, those who pray for healing seem to want God to respond in a very specific and linear way.  Their prayers go something like this: “Please, Lord, heal Aunt Mary of her cancer and restore her to health.”  In effect, they are asking God to respond in a linear fashion with a specific healing for a specific person, often within a specific timeframe.  Of note, these prayers are rarely answered in this manner.

As a believer, this constantly challenges our beliefs.  Why would the Divine not respond according to our petitions in the way we ask?  Perhaps it’s not a matter of a nonresponsive God.  Perhaps, instead, we are expecting a linear response – 1 leads to 2, which leads to 3, and so on – from a nonlinear Being.

And this brings us to yet another question.  How can we – creatures living in a linear framework – come to know the Divine?  It seems clear that approaching God with our linear expectations is likely to be problematic.  How can we move beyond these apparent limitations?  This, I think, is best left for another day and another newsletter.

~

Before we finish for the day, let’s look at the data we have compiled to see what conclusions we might draw:

1.  While scientific materialism has contributed greatly to our material well-being, it does not answer many of our deepest and most serious questions.

2.  While scientific materialism masquerades as objective truth, it is not.  It is simply one philosophy among many. That being said, in a conversation with a friend of mine, a quantum chemist, he stated that “scientific materialism actually does a pretty good job of (discerning) objective truth within the bounds of the scientific method, which requires that physical explanations of phenomena must be supportable by reproducible observations.”

3.  Many of the proponents of this materialist philosophy appear to be intellectually dishonest.  Rather than face the serious questions raised by their philosophy, they dismiss them out of hand.  These are questions like the hard problem of consciousness, what came before the Big Bang, and what precipitated the Big Bang, and many others.

~

Well, I think that this is enough for this week.  If you brain doesn’t feel all twisted around and upside down – well, I guess it means that I haven’t done my job well enough. LOL!  On a more serious note, I hope I have helped you sort through some of the conflicting information that we get on a daily basis about what is real and what is not.  The bottom line – we are all trying to get to the truth.  I believe that our ultimate truth will take us into a remarkable realization – that the Divine is within us and has never, ever been apart from us.  

In the certainty that we are firmly held in God’s love,

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. 

P.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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

37: Our Mistaken Notions of Sin

I would like to focus today on the notion of sin.  I have found that many run for the doors when a priest starts talking about sin.  Let’s face it, it's not the most appealing topic for many.  Now, I expect if I decided to categorize our many sins and went into lascivious and graphic details, perhaps that would probably attract listeners.  But I'm just not going to do that.  Instead, I want to talk about this most important Christian doctrine.

I want to talk about sin because it is so misunderstood.  Today, the only place we use the word "sin" is in a church setting.  When you greet your friends, you don't say, "Hey there, you old sinner.  How's it going today?" You don't go up to strangers and start talking about your own sins… or theirs.  We don't use the word, and as a result, it's meaning has drifted far from Jesus' original meaning.  What I mean is that our understanding of sin is radically different from that of our Lord.

Today, if you happen to be in a church where sin is being discussed, or if you tune into a church service being broadcast that talks about sin, the chances are the speaker will refer to sin as something morally repugnant, something disgusting, something that a good Christian wouldn't be caught dead doing.  Especially in public!

I expect that many of you were exposed in your youth to the sermon of that great colonial preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who spoke of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."  In this sermon, Edwards describes our wayward behaviors from God's point of view.  He talks about sinners being suspended over the fires of hell, held by a single strand of spider silk.  Just imagine flames leaping up around the poor tormented sinner – dangling from God's hand over the fires of hell – literally a nanosecond from being released into the flames to a horrid death.

It makes for a great image, doesn't it?  I guess this is what preachers had to do before movies and television – to make things so graphic and horrible that they captured everyone's attention.  But this understanding of sin is as far removed from Christ's understanding of sin as the East is from the West.

  *  *  *

The sad fact is that our understanding of sin has drifted away from its original meaning.  Our present-day understanding of sin is radically different from Jesus's understanding.  So, let's go back in history and find out what Jesus really meant, shall we?

To understand this passage, you need to go back a couple of thousand years.  The term that was translated as sin is the Greek word, hamartia.Hamartia is a military term.  It refers to the distance between the center of the bull's-eye and where your arrow or spear hit.  So that distance was the hamartia.  The best one-word translation for hamartia would be the English word, separation.  But when the original Greek, which was the lingua franca of the day in the Mediterranean world, was translated into Latin, it came out as sin.  In the early 1500s, the word sin was lifted straightaway and plopped down into English.  So now we have sin as an English word.

What happened next is quite fascinating.  The meaning of sin in English began to drift.  A word keeps its original meaning when it's used in multiple contexts.  But when it's only used in one context, that meaning can drift – and that's what happened to sin.

For example, the word chair is used in multiple contexts, so it’s meaning stays fairly constant.  There is the dining room chair, the living room chair, the dentist’s chair, and so on.  The idea of chair is pretty constant throughout.  Even when we refer to the chair of a meeting, it refers back to the special chair that the chairperson is sitting in.

In contrast, because it is only used in church settings, the word sin has drifted from meaning separation to mean something morally reprehensible, even despicable.  Contrast these two flavors in your own mind:  separation versus something vile and despicable.

  *  *  *

So, let's go to a gospel story and see if this understanding of sin holds up.  Let’s use the story of the woman caught in adultery.  The scribes and Pharisees bring her to the town square and get ready to stone her.  Then they remember that the weirdo prophet Jesus is in town, so they send someone to fetch him.  Jesus arrives, and there are all the men standing around the accused woman with big rocks in their hands.  The Pharisees then say to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now, the law of Moses commanded us to stone such women.  What do you say?" 

Instead of responding immediately, Jesus bends down and begins writing with his finger on the ground.  The scribes and Pharisees kept questioning, and finally, he straightens up and says, "Let the one among you without sin cast the first stone." When they heard this, the crowd slowly melts away, one by one, beginning with the elders.  Jesus was left alone with the woman.  He asks, "Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more."

  *  *  *

There are two important transitions here.  The first is Jesus' comment to the scribes and Pharisees.  You'll notice he doesn't accuse them of sin.  He doesn't accuse them of being sexist creeps.  He makes a simple declarative statement – "Let the one among you without sin cast the first stone." What a simple and elegant way to handle these judgmental and bloodthirsty guys.

The second important transition occurs when he speaks to the accused woman.  He asks, "Is anyone here to accuse you?  If not, then go your way and sin no more." Let's drop our new English translation into his comments: "If no one is here to accuse you, then go your own way and be separated no more."

I find his restraint here amazing!  At the very least, I would have excoriated this woman – "Don't be stupid!  This is a small town, and everybody knows everybody else's business!" I would have lectured and gone on and on… and Jesus doesn't do that.  He didn't shame her.  He didn't excoriate her.  He simply said, "Go and sin no more."

Go, and don't be separated like this from your husband.  Don't be separated from your community by violating the rules and standards because it hurts the community.  It damages the fabric of agreement – that we act in these ways and not in those other ways.  And ultimately, "Don't be separated from your Father in heaven.  He constantly extends himself to you.  He invites you to participate in the riches of the world around you and the riches within yourself – the riches involved in that profoundly deep connection you already have with the Divine."

You see the vast difference between our current understanding of sin and the sin that Jesus spoke of.  He didn't speak to condemn sinners.  He doesn't speak to condemn you or me.  His admonitions, if you can even call them that, are to return to our relationship with God, our connection with the Divine.  He calls us with the deepest love to remember our true nature – to remember that Christ, the son of God, lives within us.  To remember that we, too, are his children.  His beloved children!

  *  *  *

Again, let's put a point on all of this.  Take a moment and reflect on your own sense of separation.  How do you find yourself separated from those closest to you?  Let me give you an example from my own life.  I'm married to a wonderful woman who, in my view, talks too much.  Checking in with my male friends, I find this is a common problem for us guys.  The women in our lives often chatter on and on and, "Frankly Scarlet, we just don't want to listen to all that!"  – at least most of the time.  I find my wife's constant chatter rather irritating.  What I mean by this is that I complain to myself that she's all the time blah blah blah.  Look at what I have done by means of my thoughts:  I have literally separated myself from the woman who loves me most in all the world.  Can you think of anything crazier than that?  Anything stupider than that?

When I reflect for a moment, I catch myself in my own stupid, grumpy thoughts.  And I remember, "She loves me more than anyone else in the world." And the irritation melts away.  The separation that I have put up – evaporates.  

  *  *  *

We find ourselves separated from our neighbors.  We find ourselves separated even from ourselves.  How many times have you caught yourself saying, "Maybe I should do this, but on the other hand, maybe I should do that." That's separation, isn't it?  So, we are separated not only from the people around us – we also separate ourselves from our very own selves.

And, of course, the most horrendous separation is our separation from God – our Father in heaven.  We forget that we are God's children.  We're like the Prodigal Son, wandering the world trying to find satisfaction and fulfillment – but no matter where we go, that fulfillment always seems to elude us.

  *  *  *

Here's an example of how it works for me.  I think I need to do something to please God, so I say to myself, "I need to be a better Ken.  I need to be a better psychologist.  I need to be a better writer.  I need to be a better husband.  I need to be more compassionate." You get the idea. 

I'm forgetting that our Lord loves us just as we are.  Instead, of being who God created us to be, we actively separate ourselves from ourselves.  We literally tear ourselves apart trying to be acceptable.

And in the process, we forget that Jesus is already dwelling in our hearts.  In the process, we forget that we are already home.  And if we're already home – if you and I are already home – then there is nothing we need to do to return home, is there?

As Christ uses the word, sin is not a condemnation.  He never says that we are despicable or awful or bad or any of the other things that we tell ourselves and each other.  When he uses the word sin, it's an invitation to attend to the multiple ways we have separated ourselves.  

It's an invitation to let loose of these separations and return home.  

It is an invitation to open our hearts in love – love for our broken, torn-apart selves, love for each other, and love for our Father in heaven.

  *  *  *

So, if I may be so bold to say, here at the end of our newsletter today, 'Go and sin no more.'  And take a moment to remember that you are deeply and truly held in the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord!

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

36: Does Meditation Lead to Passivity?

I had an interesting conversation recently with Father Ian, an Episcopal priest who serves a nearby community.  Father Ian carries on a significant social action ministry and is very committed to social justice.  As we talked about this newsletter and the Christian forms of meditation, he posed a significant question.  He asked, “Will your efforts to teach meditation lead to a withdrawal from the social problems we are currently facing?”

This question is especially important now, as our country and the world seem to be roiling with political and social turmoil.  The newspapers this morning are reporting that President Trump has been bragging about “taking away the freedom of speech.”  This is simply the latest of many elements in the political disruption caused by the new administration.  In the face of these kinds of challenges, Father Ian’s question must be taken very seriously.

  *  *  *

Father Ian’s concern is made more poignant when you understand the history behind it.  In the 17th century, in both the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions, two complementary movements arose and gained great traction with believers.  Pietism for the Protestants focused on devotional Bible reading in small groups for the purpose of deepening one’s personal relationship with God.  Inner transformation was valued here over theological precision.  The early Methodist movement, with its emphasis on small groups meeting with a spiritual elder, was an example of this Pietist movement.

Quietism was a similar movement within the Catholic Church, emphasizing inner stillness and contemplation.  The notion here was that the soul should remain passive and receptive, letting God do his work within each believer’s soul.  Here, especially, there was a focus on surrendering one’s personal, ego-driven desires, and contemplative prayer was seen as the highest form of Christian devotion.

With both Pietism and Quietism, followers tended to withdraw from the world and worldly activities.  In contrast with those around them at the time, their activities seemed passive.  Rather than actively participate in social or political controversies, these followers of Jesus withdrew from the events of their day.  Father Ian’s concern, if I understand him accurately, is a concern that the events of our day call forth a very different response from the faithful.

There is indeed some truth to the notion that the more one deepens in meditation, the more one withdraws from the events of this world.  That being said, the situation is far more nuanced, and these nuances cry out to be explored, given our current fragmented political situation.

The central teaching that permeates our Lord’s work on this earth is the centrality of love.  Jesus enjoins us to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  In case his followers didn’t understand exactly what he meant by love, he showed them by consorting with the most despised members of his society.  He broke bread with the poor.  He hung out with tax collectors, including the tax collector Matthew who is reputed to have written the gospel. 

Jesus appears to have avoided both the political and religious aristocracies of his time.  There are no accounts of Christ having dinner with the powerbrokers, the elite, or the wealthy.  In fact, he tells the story of a rich man wanting to throw a party and sending his servants to invite the powerful and well-to-do.  These so-called ‘fortunates’ all refuse his invitation, so he sends his servants out a second time to invite the poor and the destitute.  These are the people with whom Jesus typically rubs shoulders.

  *  *  *

So let’s bring this to the present day.  In virtually every newsletter I have written, I have encouraged you to meditate daily.  Given Jesus’s example, we need to look at what meditation does.  Does it, in fact, open our hearts to the kind of love that Jesus describes, or does it push us, willy-nilly, into an avoidance of the world around us?  Here is what I have found from my own experience of meditating for decades.

I started to meditate in the late 60s, another period of great political and social upheaval.  During those days, I saw myself as a revolutionary; I took part in marches and demonstrations, and I called for the violent overthrow of our government.  In addition to these political proclivities, I had the explicit of agenda of wanting to draw closer to God.  In my understanding at that time, this also meant withdrawing from the political agitation I had been involved with.  My pursuit of a closer relationship with God was clearly ego driven; I wanted that experience for my own selfish gratification.  As a result, I felt I had to turn my back on the world and the needs of others. 

This isn’t something I am proud of, but I suspect that this ego-centered approach probably underlies most people’s turning to God.  We simply find that the world is not satisfying, so we turn to God for our own self-satisfaction.  If you can step back a pace, it’s really kind of ironic.  You begin your spiritual journey to satisfy your ego’s drive to be special, but as you continue, you discover your connection with every other living thing.  You realize you’re not so special after all, and as a result, you end up relinquishing the ego.

As you continue to deepen your journey, you find your heart being opened in strange and unexpected ways.  You see a video clip on television of a building being bombed or a starving child with a distended belly and tears falling from his eyes, and you weep.  Slowly, and without noticeable markers, you find your heart being changed.  When you see someone else’s pain, you find yourself being touched more and more deeply.  You find that their pain has become your pain too.

Ultimately, this pain forces you to change your ego-driven ways.  You find yourself more and more concerned with the needs of others.  You begin to change your selfish behaviors, and sometimes you even surprise yourself with these changes.  It’s no longer enough to have your precious quiet time with God.  You have to DO something.  You feel called to make a difference in some way.

This is the result of your efforts to be more and more open to the Divine.  Your spiritual practice has opened you to an awareness of your ego’s domination over your behavior.  As you become aware of your extreme self-centeredness, you are naturally repulsed.  You find yourself backing away from these self-centered behaviors.  The love which has been engendered in your heart starts finding ways to express itself.  Maybe you find yourself signing a petition; maybe you find yourself donating money to alleviate someone’s pain.  Whatever the means that this love is expressed, you find yourself caring less about your own needs and more and more for the needs of others.

The central feature of all spiritual journeys is an increasing openness to the interconnection of all living beings.  That is to say, the central feature of the spiritual journey is the development of love – putting the satisfaction of our own personal needs aside so that we can address the needs of others.  As Jesus summed it up so concisely, “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for another.”

This kind of love is diametrically opposed to rock throwing and slogan shouting.  It’s diametrically opposed to masking your face and hiding.  It’s diametrically opposed to running away from confrontations with the authorities and those in power.  These behaviors are simply ego driven, and that’s clear for everyone to see.

The kind of love which Jesus describes is open and comes from the heart.  It’s slow to anger.  It is nonviolent, just as Gandhi and Martin Luther King have shown us.  And it’s far more difficult to love in this way, because it requires a change of heart.  It doesn’t find its origin in anger; its origins come from opening our hearts and receiving God’s love.

So, the bottom line as I understand it is that regular meditation will slowly and gently open your heart to God’s love.  This involves a twofold behavior change.  First, we change our behavior by incorporating meditation as a regular part of our daily life.  This change is typically driven by our desire to draw closer to God.  The important point to notice here is that we start meditation as a result of our egos’ desires.  

Second, as God gently opens our hearts, we find that there is more love in our lives.  This increase in love sensitizes us to the pain that others are experiencing.  The more we feel this pain, the more we are moved to address and resolve it.  We are moved in this way because it is no longer somebody else’s pain – somebody out there.  It has now become our own pain.  And, like Gandhi and Dr. King, we find that we cannot rest as long as others are being persecuted.

  *  *  *

Examining this process, we find that the love that Jesus speaks of is quite different from our popular conceptions of love.  The popular conception of love seems to revolve around butterflies and happiness, and looking at the world through rose- colored glasses.  It has nothing to do with self-sacrifice, and often revels in self-indulgence.  It is the opposite of Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross.

Going deeper, Christ’s most significant sacrifice was not so much the sacrifice of his body.  Rather, the deepest and most difficult sacrifice was that of his ego.  We see this in his prayers in the garden of Gethsemane, when he reportedly sweats blood and asks his father to take the cup he is about to drink, namely his looming crucifixion, away from him if possible.

It’s strange, isn’t it, that if we truly follow Jesus, we will need to submit to a crucifixion.  Ours is not a crucifixion on a visible cross; rather, our crucifixion happens, moment by moment, as we relinquish our selfishness and the demands of our ego.  As each of you know, this is a difficult road that we travel.  However difficult it may be, we can be confident in our Lord’s continued guidance and care.

I hope this addresses Father Ian’s concern, and any concerns that you might have had about the path that lies ahead and our ultimate destination.  We are the Lord’s people, and we are his possession, not our own.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

  *  *  *

That’s all for this week.  Again, I encourage you to continue with your daily meditation practice.  You will find instructions in this regard in some of our previous newsletters.  So, if you are one of our newer subscribers, you may want to dig into our archives.  In our past newsletters, specifically in #5, 7, 21, 27, and 33, you will find instruction in several of the traditional forms of Christian meditation.  All of the practices you’ll find in this newsletter have been developed by those spiritual elders who have come before us.  You can trust that their continued practice will ultimately bring you into union with God.

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

35: Clarifying the Idea of Karma

The notion of karma is widely accepted at present.  The problem is, our popular understanding is quite different from the notion of karma as it was originally conceived in Hinduism and Buddhism.  Additionally, while contemporary Christians may use the word karma, the traditional Christian conception is somewhat different.  Personally, I suspect there are elements of truth in both conceptions, and that neither the Hindu/Buddhist nor the Christian concepts are fully accurate.

The popular idea behind karma can be summarized in the familiar saying, “What goes around comes around.”  Basically, this refers to the everyday understanding that all actions have consequences.  Both the Hindu/Buddhist and the Christian concepts of karma agree on this point.  Beyond this agreement, they diverge.

The Sanskrit word, karma, literally means action, deed, or work.  Originally the word karmareferred to ritual actions, often without any hint of a moral dimension.  Over time, however, karma begin to carry both moral and causal connotations.  In addition, Hindus developed the notion of the transmigration of souls.  This meant that the consequences of one’s actions today might be played out in a future lifetime.  

Over time, the notion of karma evolved into a kind of cosmic accounting system.  Thus, when a person did something good, a mark was made in the ‘Plus’ column.  Conversely, when someone violated an ethical standard, a mark was made in the ‘Minus’ column.  

Over time, many of these Eastern schools developed this understanding further.  They posited the notion that intention is an important factor in this kind of accounting.  Thus, a negative or a positive action that was deliberate and intended carried more weight than an action which was incidental or inadvertent.  Of note, we find this principle embodied in our current laws.

In my experience talking with Buddhist teachers, they say that our popular understanding of karma is very different from its Eastern roots.  In their understanding, there is no self-existing soul that travels from lifetime to lifetime.  Instead, there is an ever-changing aggregation of karmic consequences without any personal memories or identity.  Thus, in their view, our present fascination with past-life regressions is simply fantasy.

Of note, I was a member of the Association for Past-Life Regression and Therapy for several years at the start of my psychological career.  Typically, the membership of that group acknowledged that their work could be explained by a number of very different hypotheses – including the fantasy hypothesis.  That being said, it was also quite clear that past-life regressions were very therapeutic for many of their clients.  What actually happens during these sessions is still an open question.

I suspect that we will develop more empirical information on these questions as our science explores these unknown depths in the human soul.  In my first class in seminary, our professor, Dr. Edward Hobbs, suggested that we create a box in our heads much like the inbox or outbox on an executive’s desk.  Instead of ‘In’ or ‘Out,’ he suggested that we label the box, “Awaiting Further Revelation.”  I put matters like this into such a box.  You might consider doing the same.

  *  *  *

Our contemporary Western experience with the idea of karma revolves around the notion of “cosmic justice.”  Typically, people use this idea without the implication of reincarnation or multiple lifetimes.  This, I think, shows the impact of traditional Christian thinking on these very Eastern ideas.

Christianity affirms the notion that our actions have consequences, and thus we all bear full responsibility for our actions.  This is embodied in both the Jewish and Christian scriptures in multiple places.  In Hosea 8.7, for example, we hear, “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”  In Galatians 6.7, we hear, “Whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”  These passages clearly affirm the moral principle that our deeds, both good and evil, have clear consequences.

That being said, traditional Christian theology qualifies this with several important additions.  First, there is no implication that the consequences of one’s deeds in this life carry over into future lives.  Christians typically do not believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls.

Second, there is the important qualification that it is God the Father who sits in the final judgment over all, not just some kind of impersonal accounting system.  While Christians acknowledge cause and effect, they add the notion of grace and forgiveness.  Thus, even monsters like Hitler may, at God’s discretion, be forgiven their many and horrible sins.

Third, traditional Christian theology understands our journey in this life, not as an accrual of merits and demerits in some sort of cosmic accounting, but rather as the transformation of our sinful nature through both works and God’s grace.  Thus, for many Christians, there is a very personal interaction between God and the soul that is quite different from the rather impersonal system of karma as it has been developed by the Eastern religions.

  *  *  *

So, what are we to believe?  Let’s start with the agreements between East and West.  It seems to me that when we find any agreement between these very different systems of belief, we can put a great deal of trust in them.

Both East and West agree in the notion that our actions have consequences.  In addition, they agree that our intentional actions, both for good and ill, have more weight than casual or incidental actions.  We do indeed reap what we sow!

In addition, both the East and West agree that the soul continues after the physical death of this body.  While the East believes in an almost endless progression of lifetimes, the West affirms that there is only this lifetime and we will be judged by God after our death.

Thus, we see that the major divergence between Eastern and Western thought has to do with the transmigration of souls.  So, what does science have to say about this difference?  Here is where things get very interesting…

We need to begin by acknowledging the many and conflicting points of view that science brings to this matter.  I have neither the time nor the inclination to explore all of these perspectives today.  That being said, I do want to share a scientific perspective that I find persuasive.  Quoting Joseph Selbie,

Over the span of the 20th and now 21st centuries, branches of physics have produced an astonishingly vast and predominantly nonmaterial view of the cosmos, a cosmos of which our enormous physical universe is only a tiny part.  Current theories in physics (and) quantum theory… relegate our physical universe – which is essentially organized energy held in stable patterns – to be a small, self-contained, three-dimensional energy “bubble” in a virtually infinite two-dimensional ocean of energy – what I like to call the energy-verse.

Physicists are not alone describing a much larger, nonmaterial cosmos beyond the physical universe.  Saints, sages, and near-death experiences have also described heavenly worlds of pure energy: luminous, nonphysical realms that permeate our physical universe.

The saints and sages arrived at this view through transcendent experience.  Physicists arrived at this view because they have been forced to conclude, for a variety of reasons (to be explored in future newsletters), that the measurable matter and energy in our universe cannot fully explain why the universe behaves as it does.  Any mathematical model that includes only the universe’s visible matter and measurable energy in its equations simply doesn’t “add up” to the actual behavior of the universe.

-If Joseph Selbie.  The Physics of God. New Page Books. 2021. p 51.

Selbie goes on to say:

We inhabit simultaneously our local three-dimensional physical bodies and our nonlocal inter-penetrating, two-dimensional energy bodies.  When we feel our life force, our vitality, we are feeling the subtle energies of our interpenetrating, nonlocal, two-dimensional energy bodies.  Our local, three-dimensional physical bodies are the holographic projections of our nonlocal, two-dimensional holographic energy bodies.  Our two-dimensional energy bodies are the source of most of what we experience as ourselves – our awareness, feelings, motivations, memories, and life energy.  -p 133

  *  *  *

I know that I am dumping quite a basketful of new ideas on you.  I promise, I will explore these ideas with you in future newsletters.  What Selbie is saying is that the best minds in science appear to be hypothesizing that we exist in two very different ways.  First, we exist as the three-dimensional physical person you know as yourself.  This apparently real person, however, is actually a holographic projection of a two-dimensional energy body, which is the second way we exist.  

Thus, if I understand this correctly, we exist as both a physical body and as an energy body.  The physical body dies, but the energy body does not; it continues to exist and manifests a long succession of physical bodies.  

If this is accurate, then both the Eastern and the Western spiritual traditions are both correct and incorrect.  They are both correct and agree that something – the self – persists after the death of the physical body.  The East misunderstood this as a transmigration:  apparently there is nothing that migrates – the ‘soul’ (aka energy body) has existed all along and continues to exist after the physical body dies.  The West’s misunderstanding revolves thinking that, in death, we are judged and then ‘sentenced’ (my word) to a relatively permanent place – heaven, hell, purgatory, limbo, etc.  

This is a lot to take in, isn’t it?  When I started writing about karma, I had no idea it would take us to this place.  For now, I would encourage you to sit with these data and just let them percolate for a while.  

I would also encourage you to read Selbie’s book, The Physics of God.  It provides a thorough summary of much of the recent research in physics and quantum physics.  I am always amazed when I read the recent research in these areas.  Basically, there seems to be a growing consensus among physicists that matches or integrates with the understanding of the great spiritual teachers from all of the major religions.

I find this convergence both exhilarating and validating.  For most of my life, 77 years to date, science has been in opposition to religion and spirituality.  Scientists have typically held that spiritual knowledge, which comes from interior exploration, in large part is vastly inferior because it is subjective.  Atheists and agnostics have hammered religious views by claiming they are based on subjective, rather than objective data.  Now we are seeing the physical scientists acknowledging the importance of these subjective data.

  *  *  *

I hope that this newsletter has answered some of the questions you might have had about karma and its implications.  I also hope that our brief foray into the physics of God has stretched your minds a bit and left you somewhat uncomfortable.  There is much that we still have to explore and I look forward to sharing with you in future newsletters.  For now, remember to meditate daily, for that is the clearest means for our spiritual transformation.  If you are new to our newsletter series, please refer back to our archives for traditional Christian methods of meditation.

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

34: Interior Movement During Centering Prayer

As you begin Centering Prayer, you may be disappointed as you become aware again of all the internal noise and distraction.  The inner noise, however, is to be expected.  You are loading the mind with less and less technique.  As a result, your mind tends to wander more.  Expect this, and gently bring the mind back to center with your sacred word.  

After a time of practice, you will find your mind growing calmer and less distracted.  The purpose of these deep forms of interior prayer is hesychia, or stillness.  You may enter into a profound stillness during the time of your Centering Prayer.  This is a place that has no words, thoughts, or images.  When this occurs, rest here at the center and enter the Mind of God.  What we are doing in our prayer is letting go of our mental constructs, letting go of our 'ideas' of ourselves and God, so that we can experience ourselves and our God directly.  This is the difference between experiencing the map and experiencing the territory it covers.  While the map is helpful in many respects, we can never truly know the territory from a map.

You will have noticed, as we progress in our description of different kinds of monologistic prayer, that Centering Prayer is a relatively advanced technique.  As we have sequenced the preceding prayers, from the Jesus Prayer to the Cloud to Centering Prayer, there is less and less to occupy the mind.  As you progress in your practice, you are able to hold your attention on the Divine with less and less loading.  

People usually expect to encounter fewer problems with interior prayer as they progress to more advanced techniques.  It rarely works out this way.  Indeed, it sometimes seems like we are constantly starting over.  In our subjective experience, it seems that the more we practice, the more aware we become of our wandering mind.  When we notice this at an advanced level, there may be some despair about making any real progress.  

We must understand this phenomenon of wandering mind in order to prevent despair.  Father Keating likens this process to shining a light of progressively greater intensity on the surface of a carpet.  Under dim light, the carpet looks clean.  As we increase the intensity of the light, we begin to see big specks of dirt.  When we put thousands of watts of light on a small patch of the same carpet, we see even the little tiny specks of dust.  

It is the same with the mind and meditation.  As we attempt to settle our wandering minds, at first, only gross interruptions interfere with our concentration.  The neighbor's dog barks, we compulsively think about an upsetting event:  these are the sorts of things that disturb us.  As we gain strength in our practice, we find that we no longer notice these things.  Instead, we notice a subtle flow of thought in the back of our minds.  This often seems like the same kind of interruption, but it is not.  

As you continue with your practice, you will find progressively finer flows of thought.  Each of these has always existed in you, flowing in steady streams.  However, due to your involvement with the larger, more significant events, you have just never noticed the more subtle streams.  When we can disengage from our obsessive self-absorption, only then are we free to engage with the Divine.

  *  *  *

The Results of Practice.  Intensive practice of Centering Prayer serves as a kind of divine therapy, allowing the false self to surface and the compulsive, destructive patterns to resolve.  While this process should never substitute for psychotherapy, it can have a remarkable impact in ways that are quite similar.  

The power of this divine therapy is illustrated in the story of a colleague of mine.  This woman, in her early forties, came from a dysfunctional family and was unable to affirm herself in any meaningful way.  She found herself compulsively attending to the needs of others and sacrificing her own well-being in the process.  Despite five years of psychotherapy with very skilled therapists, she was unable to resolve the false-self complexes that drove these behaviors in her.  While she obtained some relief, there was no lasting behavior change, despite her best efforts and those of her therapists.  

After learning meditation and practicing for some years, she went on a ten-day Centering Prayer Intensive under the direction of Father Keating.  During this time, she had a series of transformative experiences.  After four days of intensive Centering Prayer practice, this is what happened:

While chanting, I became aware that all I need to do is to say "yes" and God will be a part of my life forever.  It was so simple.  I said "yes" and was immediately flooded with an intense feeling of love and the gift of tears.  There are no words to describe what the tears are; they are not tears of grief, sorrow, pity.  Perhaps the best way to describe them would be to say that they are tears of coming home, similar to the tears one has when one has been away from home for a long time and returns to the bosom of his/her family.  They are not necessarily tears of joy or happiness, more a sense of overwhelming grace.

Later, while sitting in meditation, I felt as though God were gazing into my very being, flooding me with love.  I have never been so tenderly loved, so completely loved, so totally accepted.

I sat down one night, determined to ask God to make changes in my life.  I expected to wait quite a while before I got a sense of response, but this came instantaneously.  I was overcome by a spiritual vomiting.  One thing after another from my past came up.  I no sooner recognized it, then another thing came up.  These things that I was vomiting were the experiences of my false self:  my pride, my self-pity, my preconceptions, my ideas about myself and the world.  This kept up for hours, until I was exhausted.  I went to bed, fully expecting to sleep because I was so emotionally drained.  

Instead, as I lay there, I became engaged in wrestling with God.  I know now that I was wrestling with my true self, but then it felt as though I were wrestling God.  I kept holding onto all those things that I had vomited up earlier.  I would not let go of them.  They were how I defined and knew myself and my world.  I knew that if I let go of them, my 'I' would cease to be.  It seemed as though there was a soft being with me, urging me gently to let go of my vomit.  But I kept wrestling with that soft being, only I wasn't strong enough.  I wrestled and fought, but still that being held on.  I didn't sleep at all that night.

I was still wrestling as I walked to mass in the morning.  Along the road, I was 'debating' with God.  I was asking God what would happen if I let go of myself.  (As I write these words, now, the answer seems obvious.  But you must remember that I was totally engaged in this tremendous struggle for my very being.)  What would be left?  Then I had a waking 'vision.'  I'm still not sure what to call it.  I was aware of myself looking into a mirror and seeing no reflection.  I was aware of myself holding the mirror, but no reflection or anything else was coming back at me.  There was just nothing in the mirror.  

This, for some reason that I still don't understand, was very reassuring to me.  It was as though I was still there, but I was nothing.  So I said "Okay" to God and let go of myself.  The next sensation I had was the experience of free-floating.  Then I just was, with no more sense of falling or floating.  I did not know who I was.  I did know where I was and what I was doing.  But I had no sense of who I was.  This continued for a while.  It was not bothersome.  In fact, it was quite intriguing.  I knew I still existed, but I did not know who this 'I' was.  

I spent the next few days exploring aspects of this 'I', which was my true self, which had been hidden deep inside, below all the garbage that I had accumulated.  It was like listening to an inner voice, instead of my usual thinking about things.  My perception of reality shifted slightly.  I became aware of the unity of all people and all things in God.  This has stayed with me until today (a time period of several years).

This woman returned from the ten-day intensive as a changed person.  Not only has her perception of reality shifted, as she indicates above, but her behavior has undergone a radical change.  She no longer feels compelled to take care of others and to sacrifice herself for their needs.  Yet, paradoxically, she seems more effective in her interactions with others and is perceived as immensely compassionate.  This woman even looks different.  Her husband said that when he met her at the plane, he didn't recognize her at first.  

The account of this modern-day pilgrim describes what these forms of deep prayer are about.  They are transformative tools that enable us to discover our true nature as children of God.  The practice of meditation and contemplative prayer helps us to see ourselves as God sees us.  More importantly, these practices help us to be ourselves.  In the process, we come to know ourselves as participating in God's holy Presence.  Here is where we find our deepest, truest nature.

  *  *  *

Centering Prayer is rooted in the apophatic mysticism of the Western Church and is based on the prayer described in The Cloud of Unknowing.  Centering Prayer is rooted in a profoundly incarnational theology.  It rests on the understanding that God is always with us, that the Divine is always accessible to us in our deepest center.  In addition, with the work of Father Keating, there is an expansion of the Pauline doctrine of "putting on the armor of light."  This theological expansion provides words for describing and understanding the transformations that occur in meditation and contemplative prayer.  Thus, it enables greater precision in description and a deeper understanding of the process.

One of my concerns as a teacher and a psychologist is the applicability of different meditations for different people.  For example, there is a clear developmental sequence in these meditations, which I have tried to illustrate in these newsletters.  But are there certain meditations that would work better for one kind of person than another?  Since we all learn in different ways, it is likely that some people will learn more effectively from one type of technique than another.

Over the years, I have found some confirming evidence for this, as we compare the Jesus Prayer with Centering Prayer.  In my experience with these two techniques, I have found that their efficacy is related to personality styles.  For introverts, Centering Prayer appears to be a more suitable option.  Introverts work better when they don't have to 'talk', even when the talk is internal.  Extroverts, on the other hand, seem to find the Jesus Prayer more compatible.  The Jesus Prayer provides them with a way to go deeply into prayer, while still chatting away.  

Centering Prayer is a vital technique for spiritual transformation.  It is not, however, a tool for beginners.  The focus of Centering Prayer is too diffuse for most beginners.  They have difficulty concentrating their awareness on the inner center.  Thus, Centering Prayer is for those who have developed some ability to focus attention and to rest it in God.  The contemplative practices that we will describe later will further enhance our ability to focus attention.

  *  *  *

That’s it for this week.  Next week, I plan to delve deeply into the concept of karma.  The concept of karma is pretty straightforward – we are each responsible for all our actions.  This idea is found in all major religions, although each has developed its own terminology to describe the same phenomenon.

Please continue to meditate regularly.  You now have an array of meditative practices to choose from.  You will make the most progress if you pick one practice and stick with that for a time. 

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

33: The Practice of Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer is a modification of the prayer described in The Cloud of Unknowing.  In Centering Prayer, there is no creation of a cloud of unknowing above you or a cloud of forgetting below you.  These are mental creations; ideas that are artificial and not wholly real.  Instead, there is a resting of the attention in one's center, trusting that God is always present to us there.  There is no attempt made to 'feel' God's Presence.  Again, this would be just another 'mental' effort; something that ultimately distorts our approach to God rather than something that facilitates our approach.

Finally, there is a different use of the "sudden impulses toward God" which the author of The Cloud describes.  The author of The Cloud invites us to use a one-syllable word to help focus our attention, by "fasten[ing] the word to your heart" and saying it over and over again.  The authors of the Centering Prayer invite us to choose a word at the outset of our meditation, but to use it in a somewhat different way.  Instead of repeating it constantly, like in the Jesus Prayer, we are to say it only when we become aware of distractions.  We are to "touch distractions with the sacred word, like the light touch of a feather."  

Father Keating sums up this use of the sacred word with "the four R's."  These are:  

1)  Resist no thought.

2)  Retain no thought.

3)  React emotionally to no thought.

4)  Return to your sacred word when you notice you are thinking about some other thought."

Centering Prayer revolves around the use of a "sacred word."  Before we begin a period of practice, we must choose a word, a sound, or even a gesture.  This will serve as a symbol for us, a tool to remind us of what we are doing – sitting in God's holy Presence.  When distracted, we will use this word to bring us back to that central Reality.  

It is important to note that the sacred word is not sacred because of any intrinsic quality of the word itself.  It is sacred because it expresses our intention to be in God's Presence and to yield to His action.  Your sacred word may be one of the words used to refer to God:  Jesus, Lord, Kyrie (Greek for Lord), Abba, Amma (Aramaic for Father and Mother), etc.  It may refer to a divine quality:  Love, One, Still.  It may be a gesture, made silently within yourself, such as raising the distracting thought up to the Divine.  It may be totally devoid of intellectual content, such as the sound of a pure tone, or a sigh like, "Ahhh."  

Whatever you choose for your sacred word, it should be simple, short, and non-reflective.  That is, you shouldn't go off on a ten-minute remembrance of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount if you use the name "Jesus" as your sacred word.  Furthermore, after you have chosen your sacred word, do not change it for the period of your meditation.  Father Keating and the other leaders in the Centering Prayer movement recommend practicing this method for at least 20 minutes at a time.  They also recommend practicing twice a day: early in the morning when you arise, and in the afternoon or evening.

Keating describes Centering Prayer as "a discipline designed to withdraw our attention from the ordinary flow of our thoughts.  We tend to identify ourselves with that flow.  There is, however, a deeper part of ourselves.  This prayer opens our awareness to the spiritual level of our being....which is our participation in God's being."  

Centering Prayer is based upon cultivating a receptive attitude.  The entrance into deep quiet is a mark of the power of our developing receptivity.  We are not praying to achieve a spiritual 'high,' to have no thoughts, or to do or have anything at all.  Our purpose, in Centering Prayer as in all of the exercises presented here, is to be with the Lord, to be open to His Will, to be receptive to His movement in our hearts.

The reason this discipline is so crucial is simple.  "The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from Him.  We fail to believe that we are always with God and that He is part of every reality."  The obstacle that prevents us from understanding this fundamental reality is our own thinking and worldview.  "It needs to be exchanged for the mind of Christ, for His worldview."  Centering Prayer, then, can be best understood as an open-hearted consent to God.  

  *  *  *

This seems like a good stopping place for this week.  I would encourage you to practice Centering Prayer until we meet again.  I have found that Centering Prayer seems more natural for introverts, whereas the Jesus prayer, with all of its words, seems more natural for extroverts.  That being said, both of these forms of meditation will take you very deeply into the presence of God.  It really doesn’t matter which method you choose; what matters is that you find a method that is comfortable for you and that you practice with it regularly.

Next week, we will examine the interior movement that occurs during Centering Prayer in more detail.  I will be sharing the experiences of a colleague who went to a 10-day Centering Prayer Intensive Retreat.  In this account, my colleague shares with us a series of internal changes that occurred as a result of her meditation.  Her account is very moving, and it will give you a sense of what is possible as a result of practicing this prayer.

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

32: Centering Prayer

In past newsletters, we have explored a very special kind of prayer known as monologistic prayer.  This is a family of meditative exercises that has been developed within Christianity over the course of its 2,000-year history.  Then, in weeks 20 and 27, we explored the Jesus Prayer as one of the very first examples of this special way of connecting with God.  With the Jesus Prayer, you open yourself to the presence of God, move your attention into the region of your heart, and from your heart say the words of the Jesus Prayer.  This is a repetitive prayer and was developed as a way of following Paul’s injunction in 1 Thessalonians, to pray without ceasing.

Over the centuries, prayerful Christians have developed other forms of monologistic prayer – forms that seemed more in keeping with the tenor of their times.  This is exactly how Centering Prayer came into being.

In the mid-1970s, monks at the Cistercian abbey of St. Joseph in Spencer, Massachusetts, began to talk together about the spiritual poverty of our times.  They viewed with concern the exodus of sincere spiritual seekers within Christendom who were unable to connect with their own contemplative tradition.  They wanted to find a way to make the riches of the contemplative life available to the lay person who could not spend a life in the monastery.  The result of their conversations is Centering Prayer, a contemporary revision of an earlier monologistic prayer, a technique that was first presented in the fourteenth century, in The Cloud of Unknowing.  

Because the development of Centering Prayer is contemporaneous, we have insight into how it was created and why.  This takes away the aura of “specialness” that surrounds many of the earlier forms of monologistic prayer.  We see, by talking with the originators of Centering Prayer, what they were trying to address and how the prayer seemed to develop stage by stage.

Responding to an invitation from Father Thomas Keating, abbot of the monastery in Spencer, Father William Meninger developed the initial form of Centering Prayer and taught it within the walls of the monastery.  Father Basil Pennington then began to offer classes outside the monastery, altering the prayer to fit in this 

new environment.  In 1981, Father Keating 'retired' as abbot at St. Joseph's and began to teach Centering Prayer full time to the spiritually hungry.  The practice was codified in 1984, with the publication of Open Mind, Open Heart.   

Like the Jesus Prayer, this form of prayer is not for the discursive intellect, and is not meant to be a forum for the creation of visual imagery or other forms of 'thinking.'  Rather, it is a technique that enables us to see what lies beneath the busyness of the modern mind.  It rests on the notion that, deep in our hearts, God is always with us.

The Theological Basis for Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer rests on a much more developed and sophisticated theological and psychological base than does the technique of The Cloud.  Centering Prayer focuses on the incarnation of God:  that God is always and everywhere present to us.  Father Keating has given us a thoroughly developed understanding of the Pauline teaching of "casting off the deeds of darkness and putting on the armor of light."  He not only explains the theology, he also incorporates contemporary psychological understandings as well.  As a result of these deeper understandings of the inner workings of the human mind, the authors of Centering Prayer revised several elements in the prayer technique.  

The basic theological underpinning on which Centering Prayer rests is that God is always with us.  We find this understanding in the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments.  In the Old Testament, we hear in the book of First Kings that Elijah finds God in the "still small voice within."  The stories of the prophets are filled with references to God being present, right in the midst of the people of Israel.  This God, while being Wholly Other, is also the burning bush right in front of Moses.  Not only is this God right here, He is named in the book of Isaiah, "Emmanuel", which means "God with us."   

In the New Testament, the incarnate aspect of God finds its fulfillment in the person of Jesus, God's Son, sent to redeem His people.  Jesus, himself, reaffirms this at crucial points in His ministry.  In the gospel of John, Christ states "I am the good shepherd."  The shepherd stands with his sheep; that is the nature of shepherding.  A bit later in the gospel of John, our Lord says, "I am the vine, you are the branches."  In case we didn't understand the inseparable nature of the shepherd with the sheep, Christ gives us an elaboration of this notion with His vine image.  There is no place in the vine where you can clearly say that the vine stops and the branches begin.  Not only is God with us, He is indistinguishable from us except in the most general of generalizations.  And at the very end of His incarnate time, in the last words of the book of Matthew, Jesus says, "know that I will be with you always, even to the end of time."  

The understanding which has come down to us through the Church, is that we are grafted onto Jesus by means of our baptism.  Jesus, then, is always present in the soul of the one baptized.  This theological understanding has been verified experientially by those who have devoted themselves to drawing closer to God.  Generations of Christian contemplatives, those who have traveled the spiritual path before us, have indicated that Christ lives in the soul, and the soul is found in our hearts.  Not the physical organ, but in our spiritual center which is located in the same general vicinity.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this grafting and the transformation it can bring is found in the story of Saul of Tarsus, at the very beginning of the Christian era.  Saul, the persecutor of Christians, the apostle who never knew Jesus in the flesh, was utterly transformed by his encounter with the risen Christ.  Jesus even gave him a new name, Paul, to mark this transformation.

While much is made of his visionary experience on the road to Damascus, little attention is given to the quiet, yet more profound part of Paul's journey.  Over the course of his remaining years, Paul changed and matured spiritually.  As he gained knowledge of God's indwelling Presence, his connection with the Christ strengthened immeasurably.  He was able to write from prison in Rome, just before his execution, "nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  He is writing here, not from faith.  His is not a strong hope in Christ.  He writes like a man who knows.  He knows that nothing can separate him from the Lord because that has been his daily experience in prayer.  Paul has 'seen' and 'felt' and 'listened to' the Christ who dwells in his heart.

This is the close connection with Christ that we all long for.  The basic understanding, which forms the foundation of Centering Prayer, is that God is already present with us, in our center.  We are already redeemed; we are already participating in the Divine.  We are already one with God, our Savior.  There is nothing we need to do to come to our Redeemer.   

We don't feel like this, though.  These assertions of closeness to God run counter to our felt experience.  Our felt experience of separation, however, is fundamentally untrue.  Our felt experience is a result of our dissociation – our disconnection from our true self.  The authors of Centering Prayer reiterate the same message that all the deepest mystics of the Church have given us: there is no fundamental separation between God and her people.  There is no abyss to cross, no journey that is necessary.  What we hear from our spiritual Fathers and Mothers is something radically different.  What they say is this:  "God is closer to you than you are to your very self."

Our Felt Separation.  Two thousand years ago, St. Paul struggled with the same profound sense of separation that we struggle with today.  He complained, "I do the things that I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I want to do.  What is wrong with me?"  

Modern psychological investigators have addressed the same phenomena using different language.  D.H. Winnecott uses the terms true self and false self to describe these experiences.  Father Keating has adopted these terms to explain the apparent contradictions within the human psyche.  From this perspective, each of us creates a false self – a socially adapted ego – in response to the pressures of growing up.  We learn very early that some parts of ourselves are not acceptable.  Boys learn that it is not acceptable to show emotions, such as crying.  Girls learn that it is not acceptable to be rowdy and loud.  As our egos develop, we often cut off these parts of ourselves because they are not socially acceptable.

The false self is our response to social pressure.  None of us develops 'naturally.'  That is, none of us is ever allowed to be just as we are.  Rather, the human infant undergoes a constant process of shaping and conditioning, during which we learn to be acceptable to others.  This socialization process is crucial for us if we are to get along with one another in groups.  However, it is achieved at a high cost.  Our Lord indicates that, to return to our true nature and to return home to God, we must become like little children. 

In addition to pruning away parts of ourselves, our socialization in childhood also entails the creation of a variety of emotional programs, many of which are dysfunctional.  As a culture, we are finally waking up to the social devastation in which we dwell.  As a clinical psychologist, I saw the horrid effect of these old emotional programs every day.  I saw women who were sexually abused as children internalize this abuse and seek out men who abuse them as adults.  I saw children who grew up with abusive parents develop clusters of dysfunctional personality traits that are the perfect complement to their early abuse.

So you see, our socialization literally programs us for unhappiness.  This happens in two ways:  1) by the pruning process of socialization, and 2) by the creation of dysfunctional emotional programs, which then act to 'control' the choices we make in our lives.  All of this is absolutely contrary to the words of our Creator!  

After creation, God looked at her work and said that it was good.  Indeed, it was very good.  We act, however, as if parts of that creation were not good and have to be cut off.  We have left that centered, balanced place where we are in tune with the Divine, with nature, with one another, and with our deepest selves.  We are like Esau; we have sold our birthright for next to nothing, for a mess of pottage.  We have abandoned our true self, created by God, and exchanged it for a maladaptive false self.

Father Keating rightly recognized that the meditation process is a direct attack upon this construct of the false self.  During meditation, we attempt to focus and concentrate our attention.  This is a process radically different from anything else we do.  Instead of being plugged into the old programming of the false self –  instead of listening to the thoughts and feelings that are governed by this old programming – we disengage from it.  We simply rest our attention in God.  

From the perspective of the false self, we are unaware of how to access the true self.  We simply cannot see it.  We are not even sure that it exists at the start.  We take its existence on faith and begin our attempt to shed our old skin.  Because we don't know how to get to the true self, we can't do anything other than unplug from the old.  Most attempts to dosomething to get away from this false self are actually directed by that same false self.  We cannot use it as a tool to cut itself.  

All that we can do is to disengage our attention from the old, sinful person and from the false self.  As we know from our experience in meditation, even this is incredibly difficult.  We rest our attention in God, and moments later, we become aware that we are once again wrapped up in our thinking.  So, once more, even in meditation, we find ourselves following the dictates of the ego, the false self.  Eventually, however, the false self will run out of fuel and die.  Then the true self, which has been obscured within our deepest interior, will emerge.  When the true self emerges, we become aware of our deep connection with God and with all of her Creation.

This description of the destruction of the old self and the emergence of the true self that God creates is taken from experience.  It is not something made up or imagined.  We first hear of this process in the letters of St. Paul.  Paul, through much prayer over many years, accomplished this process within himself.  With this perspective in mind, the lives of the saints become much clearer.  From this perspective, we see that the variety of disciplines that they used were attempts to disengage from the ego, the false self.  

It is only from this perspective that certain passages of the gospels make any sense.  Central to all the gospels is Jesus' command that we should love one another, even to the extent of loving our enemy.  From the perspective of the false self, however, we cannot love our enemy.  Our enemy, by definition, is one whom we hate.  Only from the perspective of the true self – the self which knows that it is deeply interconnected with all beings – can one have an enemy and love that enemy!

From this understanding of the deep psychological dynamics that are involved in our journey toward God, our Center, we begin to see why certain things are the way they are.  Because our false self readily adjusts to every social situation, we see this falseness played out in every church community.  From this perspective, we see that a conscious decision to choose Christ is not enough to lead a Christian life.  Any conscious decision, including those related to the spiritual life, does not really touch the deep unconscious programming of the false self.  These decisions, well-intentioned though they may be, are regularly subverted by the false self.  It is only through engagement in the regular disciplines of deep prayer and meditation that we can break free of the ego’s control over our lives.  The nondiscursive meditations, such as Centering Prayer, draw us into the realm of God's grace.  As we spend time in meditation, these ego–derived programs are gradually drained of their energy and finally discarded.

Thus, the deep forms of prayer function as a kind of divine therapy.  Father Keating states that the process of meditation and contemplative prayer allows our old emotional programs to come to the surface, where their energy can be discharged.  

In our meditation, at this point, there is a reduction of interior dialogue.  This reduction removes the constant reinforcers of the false self system.  This quieting of the thoughts, the gross movements of the mind, allows the more subtle attributes to be seen.  Ultimately, we disengage even from these.  The energy that previously fueled the false self is withdrawn.  As this occurs, the false self shrivels and the true self emerges.  Finally, we realize that this true self has been in union with God all along.  We simply could not be aware of this union from the perspective of the false self.

  *  *  *

I hope you have found this newsletter helpful in understanding what happens during the spiritual journey.  We are embarked upon this fascinating expedition into the dark unknown – the unknown that exists within each of us.  We are promised riches beyond all imagining if we persevere to the end.  As with the story of the Prodigal Son, God promises to throw us a party when we finally find our way back home.  So keep up with your meditation, even (or perhaps especially) when your meditations seem dry or pointless.  You know when that happens that your false self is fighting for its very existence – you have pressed it to the edge.  

God bless you in your inner work.  Next week, we will learn how to do Centering Prayer.

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC

31: Positional Thinking and Attachment

I really hope that your head hasn’t exploded after last week’s newsletter.  Writing it induced a number of cracks in my skull, and I felt a certain rumbling and agitation in my head this week.  Thankfully, my head didn’t come apart.  But I want to warn you, your head and mind may well explode with the newsletter on your screen right now.

Let’s start with the dualism inherent in positional thinking.  Positional thinking is so ordinary that we rarely give it a thought.  This kind of thinking involves having an opinion about something, and we do that all the time.  But we don’t realize, and we refuse to acknowledge, the simple fact that our positional thinking traps us.

That’s right, it traps us!  It locks us into a particular position, and then we find ourselves defending that particular position.  

I was noticing this as I was watching a college football game earlier today.  Two teams were playing that I really didn’t care about, but after a minute or three, I found myself rooting for one of the teams.  How did that come about?  I don’t know – it just seemed to happen.  When stuff like this happens ‘automatically,’ I start to wonder what’s really going on.  Why did I make this choice, and why did I need to make the act of choosing invisible to myself?

It’s such an automatic response, isn’t it?  We form opinions all the time, often out of thin air, based on little or no knowledge.  We think this is good and that’s bad; this is attractive and that is not.  After the opinion is formed, we then act as if our opinion is the right one.  If someone should happen to challenge our opinion, even if we know little or nothing about the subject, we step up to defend it.  Why?

At least part of the why is because it’s our opinion.  My opinion is special because it’s mine.  I have the fanciful illusion that I own that opinion.  In actual fact, the exact opposite is true.  Once I form an opinion, it owns me.  I find myself defending it, sometimes defending it as if it were the most important thing in the world.  But let’s be serious.  It’s just an opinion, right?  And we each have hundreds or thousands of opinions about virtually everything.  And all of those opinions, plus a couple of bucks, will get you a cup of coffee.

Understanding this about opinions leads us directly into the subject of attachment.  This is one of the most important concepts in all of spiritual thinking, and the Buddha appears to be the original thinker about these matters.  Gautama stated that attachment is the core problem that keeps us from realizing our true nature.  So, what is attachment, and where does it come from?

We often think our spiritual problems are caused by running after money, or chasing after pleasure, or pursuing any of the myriad objects that fascinate us so.  What we are noticing here is our attachments to these goals.

Here’s how it works.  We decide we like something.  Often this seems to occur of its own accord, as a consequence of our dualistic thinking.  Our desire then magically forms an attachment to the object of our desire, and then we chase after it, often spending all our time and energy in its pursuit.  But the problem is not really money or sex or pleasure or any of the attachments that we have created.  The problem lies in the attachment, as well as the illusion that if we grasp the object of our desire, we will be happy and fulfilled.

Stop and think for a minute.  In your life, you have chased many a goal, and you have no doubt achieved many of them.  But how often have these achievements given you any lasting happiness?  

In my experience, there is usually a brief moment of happiness when I accomplish something, but it never lasts for long.  When I compare the effort, the time, and the energy necessary to accomplish some of these goals, it definitely doesn’t seem worth it.  So why do we continue chasing our crazy goals, if, in the end, they are not really worth it?

The reason we chase our goals is for the pleasure and satisfaction we get when we accomplish them.  There is even a strange sort of pleasure in the negative positions we take.  While anger and hatred wouldn’t ordinarily be considered desirable, we often hold on to them.  That is, we attach ourselves to these positions.  Why?  Because when we are angry, we give ourselves a little shot of adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol – so even unpleasant things can be rewarding.  But is this what we really want?  Is the brief satisfaction we get worth the price we have to pay?

It comes down to a simple question:  do you want to know God or not?

If you do, then it will be necessary to give up our attachments to everything else.  Ultimately, we must even relinquish our egos, our sense of self, because in the last analysis, our egos are the final barrier to our union with the Divine.

I would invite you to join me in a simple thought experiment.  Sit back in your chair, position your body in a comfortable way, uncross your legs and ankles, and let your hands rest gently in your lap.  Close your eyes, and then start to let go of what you are presently experiencing. 

Let go of your thoughts.  Oh, they will continue to rattle on, but there is no need for you to pay attention to them for now.  So, for the purpose of our ‘thought’ experiment, let go of the mental part of your life.  For now, stop following them.

Let go of the physical sensations flowing through your body.  Again, your body will continue to exist, and it will continue to pump out sensation after sensation.  For now, however, there is no need to pay attention to those sensations.  Just let go…

Thoughts and sensations will continue to arise in your awareness.  Let them all go.  Notice instead the underlying awareness.  Rest in this contentless awareness for a time.

When your attention is disturbed, when it is caught by a passing thought or sensation, just let it go and refocus on the underlying awareness.  It is as if your awareness is the screen on which your thoughts and sensations are projected.  We don’t notice the screen on which movie images are projected when we go to the movies.  In the same way, we don’t typically notice our awareness as the screen on which our thoughts, emotions, and sensations are projected.  We notice what is projected on the screen of awareness, rather than the awareness itself.  

When you are ready, open your eyes.  Take a deep breath and let yourself be aware, once again, of the flood of thoughts and sensations streaming through you.

When I do this, I feel a sense of lightness, a sense of aliveness.  Everything seems fresh and bright.  My awareness is not all clogged up with stuff – with thoughts, objects-of-desire, sensations, etc.  In its pure form, there are no judgments, there is no duality.  There is just Is-ness…  Awareness.  

My ego is still there, but by letting go of the stuff it usually entertains me with – my thoughts, emotions, and sensations – it is hamstrung.  It can’t function like usual.  I am not facilitating my ego’s running after things, running after objects-of-desire.  And the space that is created by this maneuver allows me to sense what is hiding underneath the cover of the ego and its busyness.  

In doing this, we are relinquishing our judgments and our positional thinking.  We are letting go of our usual experiences so that we can go deeper.  Instead of surface-level thinking and sensation, we begin to experience the deeper parts of ourselves, the parts that are intimately connected with God.  If you will, we open ourselves to the Divine.

This is both our true heritage and our true home.  

By the way, don’t be upset if you have trouble with this.  Having trouble here simply shows us how strong our ego-functioning really is.  And yet, notice how fragile it is as well.  When we engage in this thought experiment in the early stages of our meditative development, the ego goes into overdrive, trying to regain control.  If it succeeds for now, don’t worry.  Our God loves us and is fighting for our freedom.  While the ego is necessary for us to get along socially, it is ultimately a tool that will be discarded.  Nobody bothers riding a tricycle once they learn to ride a bike.  And nobody stays with the training wheels on their bike once they have learned how to balance.  

  *  *  *

Well, I need to stop here and give my aching head a rest.  Over the next couple of weeks, we will explore Centering Prayer – one of the great additions to our contemplative toolkit.  So, keep up your daily meditations to the best of your ability.  And, from time to time, give yourself “the pause that refreshes” and revisit our thought experiment above.

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.👇

Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence by Dr. Ken Kaisch. Are you looking for clarity in these difficult times? Longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSV9XQSC