Great Throughts Treasury

"There is an aliveness in people who are living life and not merely observing or intellectualizing it... During the time of catastrophic change, each individual has the opportunity to feel fully alive and resource-filled-awake far beyond the daily soporific states of consciousness in which most of us reside. Living on an edge heightens the human awareness. It does not dull it."

"The great spiritual and political viewpoint of the West is that we are all equal and are all capable of developing into the same end product. Anybody who bothers to examine the facts can easily see we are not all equal. What we really are is not so much equal as unique. None of us is the same as anybody else. In this uniqueness is a profound Spiritual Realization: Life is infinitely creative and requires uniqueness for creativity."

"Let life teach you what spirit it... By conforming to spiritual ideals imposed from the outside through the force of tradition, people often channel themselves into models of behavior that violate their inner essence. We are all guaranteed realization when we strip away our pre-conceived notions about spiritual perfection, give up striving form some idealized end-point called 'enlightenment,' and discover the magnificence of what we already are and live that fully."

"A Human relationship can begin when the projection collapses."

"All of your senses of self reflect the Divine Radiance, and you begin to realize that your dream world, your outer world, the various personalities that come forward, your fantasies, all of it is giving an indication of the radiance that you are living, not just your preferential mysteries, or the surface mysteries. More importantly, that which we conquer conquers us over and over again, so essentially you become the very thing you try to conquer. It’s an important consideration, because the ego thinks it has conquered it – it doesn’t realize that in the conquest that energy has been taken on at an unconscious level and will eventually show itself. This is the suchness – that’s part of a dynamic, an unfolding pattern. The surface ego immediately goes in and says, “I don’t like this, I want it to be something else, I don´t want to know that if I try to conquer an impulse I will eventually be turned into that impulse at a later point in time”, yet this is the rhythm of the Mystery in its full ranges."

"As if in a school for gods, we learn the consequences of thought."

"Birth is an initiation into the ability to carry pain. We resist pain, but it has a transcendental nature."

"Do not superimpose a value system on the wonderment of being"

"Each person’s unconscious uses symbols quite universally when addressing the Trans-personal aspects of one’s Being. Everyone will project his or her own unconscious material into such material (including me) which makes for an even richer process for each dream interpreter and dreamer. We want to project into a dream to catch glimpses of what wants to become conscious in the interpreter and in the dreamer. The vast majority of dreams address the Soul and Its journey through life and not the Ego’s perception of the journey."

"Experience the mystery of pain, open to it, allow it. When you do, the experience shifts. What basically generates pain is the defense against it."

"I believe that if you put fine food into a body with a crummy mind, you get a crummy body, but if you put crummy food into a body with expanded awareness, you get a fine body."

"If the ego and the power drive are still in charge, loss is seen as a further challenge to rectify the process. Once we have tasted success and we know what it feels like to have the withdrawal and the abandonment and the rejection through failure, we may sell our souls for the success. We have to deal with the loss of power – we are not the process that is transforming – these phenomena are created by Shiva. In those periods of time when our power is swept away to a degree, we need to accommodate to the dance. In the deepest most mysterious process, one is powerless – one is a product of something else, and you can run around and create all sorts of things around you to give you a sense that that is not the truth, or at some point you are willing to let it all go and enter that extreme mystery of powerlessness. The powerlessness is what transforms the infantile power drive - which is the one that gets panicky when things start to go - into one’s natural being, not one’s ego compensations and power drives, which are primitive Transcendental forces. The key is, how do you reach your natural being? It´s probably when the thing that we revere the most, that which we have placed the most value in, is either threatened or it goes. The fundamental inadequacy mystery, the vulnerability, the powerlessness are what bring us to the Transcendent, and one can be annihilated by the Transcendent, and/or one awakens and comes to a new realization through it."

"If we are to appreciate the inner dynamics we don't need to change them or judge them. There is wisdom in each of the dynamics observed. To determine what you think should happen is placing the ego in charge of the show. When the deep beingness seeks a change you will know it. Otherwise the wisdom is to put oneself in accord with the Mystery. This is hard for anyone with degrees of control issues."

"If you try to go into the unconscious with your ordinary awareness and your value system as you have known them to be, you will quickly either be pushed out, or you will stampede out, because you are holding the wrong vehicle to engage the authentic beingness. This is not necessarily the preferential view we often have of spiritually developed people. In fact, if anything, that is a compensation to a lot of hidden material. The art of being present for another individual is an extremely valuable resource when you are working with others or with yourself – how to bring as much of your awareness to experience whoever and whatever the other being is. When we go into the inner universe we have access to all the revelatory material, the psychic material, the intuitive material. When we open all the ranges, see what begins to stir you – it might be in the form of images, voices, sudden knowing, and this is the material you swim in when you connect with someone. Otherwise, you are just looking at surface masks."

"Illness comes from living too small a process or too large a process."

"It is not you living your life. It is you witnessing your life."

"Life itself teaches dramatically and powerfully through events centered around crisis, loss, and death. When such events are not embraced-when the dark, the demonic, and the destructive are not integrated-the conscious mind partitions itself from total consciousness and creates a reality reflecting only that which is acceptable to one’s awareness. That which is unacceptable simply disappears from awareness, though it certainly does not go away."

"Many people profess unconditional love, and yet below they are still working the mystery of the ego and attempting to compensate inadequacy and powerlessness. Crises are often the first opportunity of coming into wholeness – they are not what we think they are at the level of loss and humiliation. You think there’s nothing left, just a devastation, our eyes are so close to the problem that we can’t see the overview – to me, that’s why we pay attention to dreams, since the dream will reveal the dynamic if we can bring ourselves into accord with it, and we can let go of what we think we need, to move to “What does Life seek from us at this point, and how do we put ourselves into accord with that larger process?"

"May I suggest that the deepest experience in vulnerability is to completely accept its Suchness as the ego/Ego coming into fuller relationship with the Divine. Thought forms of past, present, and future are simply too ego indulgent in the later stages of life. Variations on this theme are Masochism/Sadism and Pleasers/InyourFaceers. They are legitimate paths unless arrested by the ego too frightened to see what actually lurks under the drive to power."

"Most of us who know silence at the starting stages; know it as just not talking. The mind is going a mile a minute but you are not talking and you are writing notes too. That’s your definition of silence. I’ve had a lot of experience over the years watching people in silence and appreciation and note that each person has to struggle with what it actually means to dissolve out of conceptual layers of the psyche and to find the ability to begin to be quiet enough so that not only are you back into tune with nature but you can dissolve on into deeper and deeper places. To be functionally a vehicle that can hear what is called the wee small voice and/or the music of the spheres and/or Divine council and/or visions."

"Seeking world peace is not about peace, it is power and control all under the guise of service to humanity."

"Snakes and spiders symbolize the underworld Feminine, a symbol of the sensate world and the physical body. They are associated with the mystery of the creation of the world. This is viewed negatively in the West, yet if one has only known the Divine Mother in its beautific state, its caring, nurturing aspect, at some point you are going to have to encounter its wrathful side, that devours, that enmeshes and consumes, and to honor those forces. Every great thing is birthed out of its counterpart. When you are going through a descent mystery, there is a difference between being dragged into it, and consciously going through the descent. When you are going through a descent, you need to remember you have to submit to its forces, not yours, and unless you are willing to submit to it, which means even dismemberment and death in the process, don’t bother."

"Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego."

"Terrible things that happen to us force the transformation of consciousness from the attachment to the ego and its boundaries and bring us – without any guarantee – to the Promised Land, the vaster possibilities. Deceptions, betrayals, sometimes illness, natural disasters, these are the forces that break up our little self-centered processes and till the soil, and the more you try to cling to a previous process or step into any kind of deception or deceit at this stage, you are torn apart, because it is inconsistent with what the deeper yearning is, which is to come to wholeness. Your very being, your soul, is at stake, and it requires a conscious process. When we’ve been living a small life and there is expansion, we all love it, but when it comes time for contraction, to let go of what one has identified with, this is when the soul is tested."

"The Ego is not the primary center of Awareness….the Self is. The Shadow is not the primary center of awareness…the Self is. The ego is the reflecting witness. The unfoldment of a life is driven by the unconscious dynamics between Self...the Shadow…and the Ego. What the ego is aware of is mostly socialization attitudes, biases, preferences, and filtered perceptions. The Self is the only responsible agent for the entire mystery of one’s life. Free will of the Shadow or of the Ego is an illusion generated out of a limited awareness. When witnessing the Divine Play of one’s Life…best not to appropriate any of what is seen, revealed, or experienced as personal."

"The Ego is not the source of the Shadow and the Shadow is not the source of Ego. The Shadow does not have to be made conscious to the Ego to effect its Holy Mission. The Ego does not have to be conscious to the Shadow to effect its Holy Mission. Both Ego and Shadow are completely under the egis of the Self. The Shadow modulates…the Ego orients. The unconscious forces that make up the Ego and the Shadow are Transpersonal and Holy. They must not be appropriated by either the Ego or the Shadow and certainly not by the ego….the surface awareness. Shadow formation is never a conscious process nor does it need to be made conscious. It functions best unconsciously….just as the forces of the Ego operate best unconsciously. The Shadow can live through an individual, a family, a clan, a tribe, a community, a nation, and all of Humanity as a function of the intrinsic nature of Temporality/Manifestation/Time/Space. It is a part of Divinity’s (Self’s) Homeostasis or the Holy Love mystery of Balance. It is innate to the Wholeness or Holiness of Self."

"The four sacred arts require the leaving aside of the personal psyche and being taken or vastly influenced by the Transcendent process. Information appears and response patterns appear that you know are not your ordinary dynamics. Patriarchy has brought us to consciousness, discernment, differentiation, and it has appreciated what the Feminine cannot appreciate. It provides meaning, purpose, understanding how things work, it provided technology, it is form, structure – it is not to be resented – it is the law. The law is always resented, but, what is the function of the law? It establishes boundaries, and it sets up a demeanor that actually transforms certain very primitive images and contains them in some way. The shadow content of the Masculine is rigidity, tyranny, alienation, indifference to relationships, extreme impersonality. The Feminine is connection, wholeness, nurturing as a primary process, giving substance of itself to create a life, to be involved in the production of feeling and wisdom. Knowledge is an aspect of the Masculine. It´s very important to know the difference between information/knowledge, and wisdom. No matter how much knowledge you have in your life, it will never lead you to wholeness – that requires wisdom, awareness of rhythms and cycles. The Feminine is involved in the creation of time and space, rhythms and movement. If you want to get in touch with and experience time and space, you don’t go to the Masculine psyche, you go to the Feminine. If you want information about time and space, you go to the Masculine side – information, conceptualizations, distinctions, discernment. The shadow of the Feminine involves chaos, destruction, devouring. When either side is devalued, it indicates a defense at an unconscious level because it has power over you. The whole idea of what is Feminine is really quite an adventure at this point in time. It was mistaken for warrior-like qualities – these are all in defense to what is really one of its most powerful attributes: the vulnerability, the chaos, the non-rational. The Women’s movement failed because it was involved with the Feminine, but in reaction, with a masculine kind of energetic, so they masculinized women. To get vulnerable again and discover what these forces are means to let go of collective images, and rediscover them for ourselves."

"The Heart Center is a transpersonal dimension or level. The Initiation forces are conducted in the dimension of Sacred Space, not in time and space, so we enter another dimension to access those forces. Through the daily attunement to the Heart Center there is a long-term transformation of the ego which then begins not only to orient to the Transcendent, to be responsive to the Transcendent, but there is also a birth into the dedicated ego, which is a transcendent kind of development which is neither the vast Deity itself, nor is it the ego-self – it is someplace in between, and has access to all the richness of compassion and healing."

"The key statement about anyone's life is the redemption of the manifestation, through depth understanding that bypasses social conditioning, spiritual materialism, defenses and preferences."

"The most important initiations occur in dreams. The most important interactions with other's are not verbal but energetic. When somebody expresses too much love for somebody else: there are denied destructive impulses. To engage the unconscious you need to sacrifice reactivity to discover the energies that are really present. We’re conditioned not to wound, but conscious death and resurrection are necessary to evolve – death of innocence must occur in order to evolve."

"The other facet that I am particularly interested in at this staging, is the shift from the old priest/priestess model, which is the individual who, for whatever reason, has found the pathway in, and then returns and, essentially, guides a gathering of people and spends the rest of his or her life doing that – where the individuals are not really brought into the ability to guide, they’re really the recipient of a divine image. And that’s essentially what has been played out for thousands of years. I feel what is, transpiring at this point is what this work is all based in. Which is that individuals are being brought into the ability to tap the resource individually and will be endowed, endowed individually so that when we come together it’s no longer the process of the have and have-nots. It now is a gathering of individuals who know how to find the inner center and when they come to join with others, they’re ready to share those resources in…in a wonderful sense of human camaraderie and, and enjoyment of gathering rather than the idea of taking an inspiration from an inspired one. And there is the process of the mystery training, which a lot of this work is, which is preparing you for such a possibility. So although I am using an old model (which is the teaching model) my intent is to bring you to the bridge from which you will self-discover. You will come to a unique experience of the divine mystery. And when we gather, one is awed by the range in which the mystery reveals itself – very creative and very I find…inspiring. And I believe this is the difference between the Piscean Age and the Aquarian Age that we’re embarking on. Ah…wonderful form prior to, which is One serving the Many. In the next phase the Many serve the One. Which is the Many serve the One inside."

"The Self, The Ego, and The Shadow operate in time and out of time. The ego operates almost exclusively in time. The Ego is the chief organ of Temporal Awareness."

"The Self….the Deepest Divine Mystery…may or may not elect to become conscious to the Ego."

"The Shadow is the Self’s reservoir of Unconsciously expressed aspects of the Self that operate to maintain the overall balance and intention of the Self in specific relationship to the Ego…of which the surface sense of self, the ego, is only part of the Ego. There is nothing in the Ego or the Shadow that determines whether or not the balancing forces of the Self are activated. The Self is the source and the implementer of both Ego and Shadow interaction. The Shadow must not integrate Ego. The Ego must not integrate Shadow. It is the Self…when both timing of maturation of developmental dynamics and the supporting forces of the Self are in alignment that will activate the dissolution of both the Ego and the Shadow into a full reflection of Itself."

"The supposedly solid human body turns out to be an intricate interweaving of energy fields; where disease is not an entity but rather a fixated warp of energy fields; where the experience of Unconditional Love transcends the limitations of personal love; where mortality itself dies-and becomes immortality-and where I accept the Divine nature of all life forms, simultaneously physical and nonphysical, structured and non-structured, existing and not existing in any particular form at any given moment."

"The surface mind is like a dinghy on a vast sea. Dreams are the dimension for initiation and awakenings. Revelations, healing, or the reflection of a potential healing show up in dreams. One puts oneself into a vulnerable position because one surrenders the surface mind’s preferential viewpoint and goes into letting the dream reveal what its forces might be, and what the intent of the vaster nature is. Denied aspects by the surface psyche are cast into the unconscious where they live their material and influence not only us but others as well, whether we are conscious of it or not. The ego can’t project, it can’t cast out, it is predominantly a witness. What you think are your resources, and who and what you think you are is really a mask, and it precludes your seeing the authentic being. The whole development in the second half of life is to discover the authentic being and to release the defenses, and the masks, and meeting other people’s expectations. We begin to explore the mystery of natural beingness which is a very strange things for human beings – we have to be trained back into it."

"The unconscious is composed of multiple, autonomous personalities. These personalities affect our state of health -- from allergic response to disease states such as diabetes and cancer. He suggests that the unconscious mind is far more extensive and powerful than is generally acknowledged, and that the normal conscious mind cannot hope to control the personalities within. Esoteric rites and initiations, he maintains, were designed to call forth particular personalities from the unconscious at appropriate stages of development."

"The words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of success and happiness: ONE WITH LIFE, being one with NOW. You don’t live your life, life lives you. Life is the dancer and you are the dance."

"There is a problem when the Ego decides it is going to integrate the Shadow and vice versa. Too soon a conscious realization of the Self’s Shadow by the Ego or the Shadow’s conscious realization of the Self’s Ego would disrupt either secondary center and rupture the primary integrity of the Self in Time and Place… in other words… in Temporality. The Shadow fulfills the wholeness of the Self... is modulated by the Self and only becomes a conscious part of self when the Self begins the Whole-ing or Holy task of uniting Shadow and Ego… a Soul Mystery of uncertain outcome. When the personality or ego begins to take charge of dreams and possesses the dynamics… a mishandling of the Holy Forces occurs. Really…the ego is the witness to the Self/Ego/Shadow development. Remember….The Self, The Ego, and The Shadow don’t really exist per se but appear as epiphenomena issuing out of interacting forces. The interacting forces express uniquely depending upon what primary combination of interacting forces are present in any given individual in any given place, and in any given time. Out of nothing all of this has come... into nothing all of this will go… Don’t be too concerned about the aberration of Light."

"Transformation always involves suffering."

"Unconditioned/Unconditional Love Transcends the Self and gives the Self the cohesiveness of a Center of Being that is Supernally Conscious of the vast and unpartitioned Whole, the Eternal Forces or the Holyland...the archetypal fixed that are universal, unchanging, concentrated in potency, that can, from time to time transcend the material forces of form and function. Within this Center of Self lie two other centers of Awareness. Although neither the Ego nor the Shadow are the same as the Awareness of the Self…they are intricately and intimately related to the Self and under its unfurling dynamic in Temporality. The Ego and Shadow are specialized and limited aspects of the Self and function primarily to engage the Three Pillars of Temporality…Mystery of Change….Mystery of Differences….Mystery of Creative Adaptation and unfoldment."

"Usually pain is not how you imagine."

"We are Beings, in a school for Gods, learning in slow motion, the consequences of thought."

"We are so involved in masks, and intensities, and inflations we can’t see the authentic in us. The primitive drives are Transcendental and you undergo a sacrifice by no longer identifying them as yours. Then, there’s a most amazing experience that takes place: your natural power comes through. When the ego surrenders wrapping itself around something, you realize you are imbued by something else, and have been all along, and your task is to find the simplicity mystery in relationship to that, so that when it is operating you recognize it is operating through you, but you don’t identify with it either consciously or unconsciously. You offer yourself as a Vehicle – it’s a mystery of relationship to the larger forces."

"What a fool I am… Perhaps it is a fool's experience of life that most approximates Eden...a fool's paradise precluded to the very intelligent. Is Forest Gump's foolish life just one paradisical poem after another, each episode delivering him into Eden after Eden, physically, psychologically and spiritually? Does my anxious educated and socially conditioned thinking, occult my own manifested Edens?"

"Whatever you’re running from is what you worship."

"When powerlessness is concealed by inflation into any power of any sort whether it be in events, relationships, actions, or Realizations, the cycle begins again until the ego finally suffers defeat into its own inadequacy and then surrenders the power drive to begin progress to Wholeness."

"When the personality or ego begins to take charge of dreams and possesses the dynamics ….a mishandling of the Holy Forces occurs. Really…the ego is the witness to the Self/Ego/Shadow development."

"And rather than judging this from the standpoint of what is wrong or even what is right about it, the idea would be to begin to see that this is organized by much deeper layers. I don?t think the psyche and particularly the Self cares which side you are accessing as far as the deep process seeks to do us in. What it seeks is to unfold its pattern. It is how we bring our awareness to those patterns that determine whether or not we are either victimized by the whole thing or we begin to catch a glimpse of a much deeper life."

"Divine Love is inclusive of all action that comes out of the clarity of the Transpersonal Heart Center. From the clarity of the Heart Center the warrior may come forth to fulfill the required action. It will not be based on power and powerlessness. It is based in the Mystery of Love. Judah's action comes out of Love in the mystical understanding of the Christ Drama. It is not personal but transpersonal. Arjuna?s action came out of the understanding of Love and the necessity of fulfilling the required action. It was not personal. This is a very important shift and cannot be pretended. The clarity of the Transpersonal Heart Center reveals the appropriate action. The action is not based in personal power/powerlessness."