My Spiritual Coach - My spiritual blog & articles

Does stoicism have a cosmology and views of a soul or life beyond the human experience, or is it more so a philosophy of how to effectively live life?

10/18/2021

For the most part, people think of Stoicism as an extremely practical way of living. It is about accepting what we cannot change. It is also about living life to the fullest because we never know when it’s going to be our last day.
But the Stoics also had a cosmology and a concept of the soul.

They believed in what in Hinduism is called Prana—the breath of life. But they called it the pneuma The pneuma a mixture of the elements air and fire.

This pneuma is the creative force behind the all life, all inanimate objects, and the cosmos as a whole. The highest form of the pneuma is our soul, which they called the “psyche.”
The psyche is a a small part of the overall pneuma, which is the soul of God. Everything that exists is part of the pneuma in some way. Stoics divide it all into two categories:

Passive—matter and the material world, including us and our bodies

Active—divine purpose, or the “logos”

The Stoics saw the cosmos as an all-encompassing presence, with a mega-soul. This is where the god Zeus come into play. He’s the one that holds it all together with the power of the pneuma. And everything in the world is imbued with the pneuma.

I am completely in agreement with this view of the cosmos, minus Zeus. But I understand the need for humans to embody the forces of the Universe, and put a label on them, such as “Zeus” or “God.”

Other than intent, are there differences between 'shower thoughts' and thoughts you get while meditating?

10/1/2021

Thoughts I get while meditating are like bubbles rising into the horizon. I don’t get pulled into them or give them any importance. They are automatically generated by my thinking machine (ego mind) and have mostly to do with survival, the past, or the future.

They can be funny and they can be a nuisance, like a buzzing mosquito, but they are completely irrelevant to the mediations process. Meditation takes us into deeper layers of consciousness than mere thought.

Shower thoughts are about planning, getting things done, gettin clean, something someone said, a song you like, all kinds of random things, and they can be tied to intention or not. The ego-mind cannot be still in the present moment, so it seeks to distract itself with all kinds of thoughts, some of which are actually useful and problem-solving but others are just mental clutter.

The whole point of meditation is to go beyond this metal noise and get to a place of quiet peace. Therefore, thoughts during meditation are useless.

Is constant unbearable physical pain the result of one’s karma?

10/1/2021

Pain comes with the body and may not have anything to do with your karma. The body breaks down or has inflammation or it itches, it aches, it has stabbing pains. We can point to obvious physical causes: We stubbed our toe on the table, we cut ourselves, we got into an accident. On one level, pain is our friend because it is telling us that something needs to be attended to.

Maybe we didn’t eat as nutritionally as we could. Maybe we are careless or overindulge. We don’t want to blame all this on Karma. Karma isn’t like that anyway, giving out pain as punishment. It is more about how you face your life when you are ready to cross over. How much love did you show?

Humans often want all the pleasure of the body but we often don’t understand the yin/yang of pleasure and pain. Are we going to have all the pleasure and fun and none of the pain? That is not how the Universe manifests itself. Actually, people who cannot feel pain at all, die at an early age because they can bite their tongues or seriously injure themselves and just bleed to death because they have not sought help.

Don’t blame yourself for your pain. You don’t need that added psychlogical burden to your discomfort. Separate the pain from the suffering and see the difference. You can’t choose the pain, but you can choose the suffering (or not to suffer).
Yet pain has nothing to do with who you really are, as a Soul. The Soul feels nothing of pain or distress. It is not physical.

How does Eckart Tolle's "Power of Now" help people who live in countries which are a failed state with the lack of basic everything and not a glimmer of hope for improvements?

10/1/2021

All of us, no matter how wealthy or well-fed have found ourselves in terrible circumstances beyond our physical control. Eckart Tolle teaches methods for finding the peace within, from which we can solve whatever problem presents itself. We cannot solve any problem from a position of upset, anger, want, lack, need, and distress. Those emotions only cloud our problem-solving ability.

We cannot solve the problem of a failed state from a position of greed of the elite, torture, imposed hunger, and terrorism. Those are all the results of the lesser, human ego mind that seeks to entrench its position through domination and control. Only an enlightened understanding of the peace that dwells within the soul produces cooperation, preservation of resources, and the overall happiness of all in any society.

Eckhart Tolle’s books are not a magic bullet for all of a sudden getting rid of the human greed and cruelty that fuels world hunger and other human-caused disasters.

Eckart Tolle’s work has helped people who are in prison, on death row, and other circumstances that are beyond the individual’s control. He explains that you can be in the worst of circumstances and still find that peace within. From that standpoint, you can then work to embrace your life, and understand that you are more than a survival machine that eats, procreates, and dies.

But first, we must clear our minds of all the garbage and fear that it automatically generates. Then we must find a path to where our inner peace lives. After that, no matter what the circumstances, they do not affect our inner happiness or peace.

Tolle uses the example of being stuck in the mud or quicksand. It would do no good whatsoever to kick and scream in fear and upset until you wear yourself out and get taken under. Better to acknowledge, “This is where I am right now. What is my next step to get out of this?” Thinking clearly and calmly will bring much better results. That is all Eckart Tolle is about. Get rid of the little, fear-filled human mind and tune into the rich territory of the Soul.

The Soul is connected to all the natural intelligence of the Universe. And when people tune into it, problems get solved. Even if you do get taken under, you will not die in an agonized state of resistance, but will surrender to the larger forces that work within and are much larger than the individual ego.
Tolle is very clear that anything in the physical state is unstable. We cannot expect anything in the physical to last. But he points the way to what does last: The Eternal Soul.

As part of the divine consciousness, do we already know everything?

7/13/2021

As part of the divine consciousness, we really don’t know anything from the standpoint of our limited brains. We think we know things because we have accumulated many facts and educated ourselves so we can gain some measure of control over our lives. We believe that “knowledge is power” and on one level it is. It is better to have skills and understanding than to be completely clueless, especially when performing tasks.

But when we talk about divine consciousness, we are talking about something that is so large, we are simply not equipped to know about it fully. We may be able to see pieces of it, like an ant looking at an elephant. The ant may see just the toenail and think it is a huge mountain. It could never even see the whole elephant.

That is how we are in the realm of divine consciousness. We can get glimpses of it and live in it. We can experience it. But it is difficult to put words to what the experiences are. We can only hint at it. We can only talk about sensations but we can never pin it down. We aren’t meant to. It is arrogance to think that one day we will know everything.

The human race knows a lot already and it still hasn’t increased in happiness or peace. It has not taken itself into higher levels of consciousness and continues to chase after things that do not last. Knowing a lot does not provide much consolation on a cold and stormy night.

What's the difference between your heart and your soul?

7/13/2021

The heart is the vehicle through which our Soul is expressed and experienced. We cannot contact our Soul, the part of us that is eternal and connected to All-That-Is, through our brains or minds. It is through our heart center that we make contact with our eternal being, the Soul.

Our minds are logical, dissecting mechanisms that are very good at solving material problems. But when it comes to the spiritual, we must use the heart. And I don’t mean the organ made of flesh and blood. I am talking about the energy center of our bodies that resides almost exactly where the physical heart lives. But it is something else. It is our unseen heart that feels love and joy in proportion to how we are tuned into our Souls.

The Soul is the part of us that never dies. It cannot be destroyed and it feels no fear. The mind, on the other hand, is a master of fear and is constantly looking out for the next threat to our survival. The path to the Soul is therefore, not through the mind but through the heart center.

The spiritual gut, which sometimes manifests in the physical gut as well, works in conjunction with the heart to contact and download the presence of Soul. You can feel this when you say, “I had a gut reaction.” Add this to your heart center and tune in to who you really are.

Is the noble eightfold path of Buddhism intelligible?

6/23/2021

Like the Ten Commandments, Buddha’s Nobel Eightfold Path, is simple to understand but not really easy to accomplish. These eight attitudes are not moral precepts about specifically what not to do, though. They are a simple list of how to behave if you want to live a life with a minimum of suffering for yourself and others.

Buddha does use the word “right” but it is not in the sense that you are damned by God if you don’t take his recommendations. It is more in the sense of what is most appropriate for the moment. Here is the Noble Eighfold Path:

Right understanding
Right thought
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration

Because they are so simple, people can interpret these concepts in different ways. Huge volumes have been written on the subject. My interpretation, in short, is approach everything with a free, pure, unattached heart. This ensures that we say the appropriate words as well as perform appropriate actions. We consciously put our efforts towards meaningful goals while remaining grounded in what is eternal about ourselves.

Four of the ideas in The Noble Eightfold Path concern themselves with our inner selves: Understanding, thought, mindfulness, and concentration. This is different from the Ten Commandments, which do not concern themselves with a person’s inner life and more with their relationship to Jehovah and with each other.

Four of the items on the Path are action-oriented: Speech, action, livelihood, and effort. The Buddha did not leave anything out. And by not defining precisely what each “right” thought or action is, he left a lot of room for interpretation. But the final test is, by living this way do you alleviate suffering? Thousands of years after he delivered his insights, they are still alive and bringing people and understanding of life, so they have stood the test of time.

Is it possible to dissolve the ego completely? If it is possible, how can this benefit somebody’s life?

6/9/2021

The Universe is perfectly designed, so if we are born into bodies that come equipped with egos, who are we to say it needs to be completely dissolved? We can manage it because it has some troublesome aspects. It is fearful, tries to prove itself right and everyone else wrong, and it is never satisfied with what is, wanting more, more, and more.

But it is also part of what makes us human. And as with our bodies, we can do things with it to optimize its performance and not turn it into our enemy. We can put it in its place. We can be grateful to it that it is only trying to protect us to ensure our survival. We don’t have to fight it. We can thank it and then put it in its place as our servant and not our master.

The ego wants to excel, improve on things, fix things, and gain praise. It sees what’s wrong with the picture and is discontent with the Now. All of these qualities spurred the great works of art, engineering, technology, and inventions of our species. So we don’t want to throw the ego out completely. We want to put it where it belongs—being a help to us in our creative energy and not destroying our happiness in the process.

What were Eckhart Tolle's fears and anxieties of his life situation before Enlightenment?

6/9/2021

Eckart Tolle’s fears and anxieties, that he reports on in his books, were very much like all of our fears and anxieties: We’re not enough. We need to do something to make ourselves enough but we never do enough, we’re not good-looking enough, we’re not smart enough, we will be on the street with nothing, we’re not loved or appreciated enough, we’re not (fill in the blank).

Those are just a few fears that plagued him, along with an unhappy childhood with quarreling parents, not fitting in at school, and just the low-level non-stop terror that the mind inflicts on everyone who doesn’t know how it operates.

When he discovered how the ego-mind and its negative bias runs our lives instead of us running it, he was able to get out from under its tyranny and start to control and master it. Now he could use it as a tool, instead of letting it using him as its tool. This brought him freedom from the never-ending emphasis on lack that is the focus of the ego-mind, which always wants more, more, more and is never satisfied with what is.

The books by Eckhart Tolle were very popular because they had the answer that if you are totally in the present (now), you are totally happy. But are people now disappointed because he had no way to get there, since he got there by accident?

6/9/2021

It’s delusional to think that anyone can be totally happy all the time by following a simple formula. It is a popular concept, of course, that if you are always in the present you have found the way to total happiness. It is a great selling point with people who are looking for instant enlightenment and a life of endless fun without the discipline, watchfulness, and work it takes to get there.

Such ideas can also make a reader feel that if it is so easy, why doesn’t it work for them? They must be deficient in some way. They then add that to the list of negatives that keep them stuck in a depressive world view.

I don’t interpret Eckart Tolle’s present moment awareness as being totally happy, anyway. I interpret it as being at peace with the underlying understanding that all lis right with the Universe, regardless of what my emotional reaction is to the circumstances. Sometimes being totally happy is not appropriate and shows a shallowness and lack of sensitivity that borders on the fake and annoying. Sometimes, being truly sad and feeling it deeply, is the appropriate emotion and shows compassion and empathy for other sufferers.

As F. Scott Peck says in the first line of The Road Not Taken, “Life is difficult.” Because people don’t want to face that, they are outraged, angry, disappointed, upset, unhappy, feel entitled to their piece of the pie, and every other negative emotion. If we accept that life is difficult and that it requires spiritual work and discipline to achieve inner peace, lots of our problems would clear up naturally.

With Eckart Tolle, it wasn’t really an accident that brought his breakthrough into the world of spiritual peace. It was that his mind broke. He had taken the ego-mind to the limit and saw the absurdity of its claims on him. He saw that he wasn’t two beings, his nagging ego-mind and his eternal, harmonious soul. It wasn’t an accident at all. It was the result seeing clearly, for the first time, that if he went with the repetitive, automatic, and negative path of this mind, his life would continue to be hell.

Many mystics have arrived at this realization the same way. Often it is the result of The Dark Night of the Soul. But it is never an accident. Part of it is by grace as well. But it is never because someone read a book and got “instant karma” as a result. It always takes some form of work.