My spiritual blog & articles - My Spiritual Coach

What are the differences between Taoist and Buddhist philosophies? Can a lay person practice both without any contradictions?

12/14/2024

Taoist and Buddhist philosophies are the same in one major aspect: Neither of them mentions a patriarchal God that punishes people according to how obedient they are to God’s commands. There are other similarities as well, such as non-violent, peaceful living.

Buddhism concerns itself more with human suffering than does Taoism. Buddha discovered that all all life is suffering. And this suffering is the result of wanting thing to be the way they didn’t turn out to be according to our desires. He tells us how to alleviate our suffering and that of others by following the Noble 8-Fold Path.

Taoism is more about the cosmic forces underlying everything that exists. It is the Eternal Way. It could be called God if you wanted to but it is not the old man in the sky doling out punishment and gifts because we performed certain rituals. It is an energy field in which all else has its being. Tapping into this field allows us to live a life of inner peace, no matter what is going on around us.

Both of these systems are excellent for the lay person who wants answers to who we really are, apart from the disappearing body. They require practices of a different kind than the explicitly religious ceremonies. The practices are about mindfulness and appreciation of what is, rather than wanting things to be different. The last thing Buddha said to his disciples when he crossed over was, “Be a light unto yourselves.”

Neither Taoism or Buddhism require the lay person to do penances to God. Instead they both encourage observation of how beautifully nature flows and how destructive the untrained human mind can be to happiness and well-being. But you have to discover it for yourself.

How do you know you are an immortal individual infinitely aware spiritual being?

5/5/2023

Practical knowledge can change through the years and is based on experimentation, observation, facts, information, and skills acquired through education. Spiritual knowledge is based on awareness and individual experience of another energy field, often unavailable to the physical senses.

And so we really can’t “know” that we are immortal individual infinitely aware spiritual beings. We can only experience this vibrational field. We cannot find this in books or talks. Others can point the way through these methods, but we have to have the direct experience of this infinite awareness to be the “knower” of this state of consciousness.

This state of awareness comes through many ways but the easiest for me is experiencing the peace of being in the present moment, the joy of a loving heart, and gratitude and wonderment at the mystery of life. It is not something to know and say, “I’ve got it all solved and I know it.”

Hidebound knowledge is based on the past. It is established. We know something to be true because other people told us so and wrote it in books. Knowledge has the quality of being written in stone. It is not considered to be a fluid, changing thing. Yet we can still find many cases of “facts” that were thought to be common knowledge and now are completely debunked. For example, at one time we “knew” that the earth was the center of the universe, that the earth was flat, and that bloodletting of already weak and sickly patients was a cure-all for what ailed them.

As De Bruin says, “… the human mind is loyal to what it has known and used for a longer period, even when confronted with the incorrectness of that knowledge.”

Fluid, cosmic knowledge (in this case awareness) changes, grows, and is not confined to the past. It is experienced now. When that awareness comes to us, we are the Knower of The Now. We are the watcher. It is something we can only hint about. It is difficult to express through language and is not subject to debate about whether we are right or wrong. Ultimately, we feel it in our heart and gut and it has very little to do with the human mind except as a means of communication.

What is the relationship between depression and spiritual awareness? Does being spiritually awakened help depressives cope with their condition?

4/4/2023

Simply put, depression is lack of spiritual awareness. Depression is being lost in the quagmire of the ego-mind, the “little me,” and not seeing a way out. It is endless hopelessness and anger turned inward. It is being upset, anxious, and sluggish, lacking in energy. And it is being dragged along by a fearful mind that is bent on survival above anything else, including happiness.

This is because the ego-mind and it’s constant babble shuts out the spiritual vibrational fields that bring inner peace, comfort, joy, and appreciation of all the beauty around us. It focusses on “what’s wrong with this picture?”, finding a flaw in everything and then zoning in on that flaw. This includes finding fault with ourselves, others, and with the world. Of course, at one time this enabled us to survive and rise to the top of the food chain. But now, like the appendix, it is a useless function that causes more harm than good.

Spiritual awareness, which is tuning into another level of vibration and being receptive to it, is the only way out of depression. People have tried drugs for centuries but they are only a quick fix. They usually need augmentation as the ego-mind finds its ways around them (like a fox trying to get into a henhouse). They also do not build coping skills. Some drugs have opened peoples’ consciousness to non-physical realms but they are also only a temporary doorway.

Tuning into the underlying Source Energy of the Universe brings us into an awareness that we are more than our rambunctious minds. We are not so apt to be carried away by the “little me” and it’s perpetual worries. When we allow the natural well-being of All That Is permeate us we are actually harnessing that energy and we can freely flow with life now. We are not stuck in the past and we are not worried over the future because we live in Eternity. This is the only lasting source of happiness, joy, and excitement about being alive. We step back from the mind and all its anxiety and depressive tendencies and allow ourselves to experience eternity, space, freedom and move into the vibrational space of Spirit.

Spiritual awareness needs practice to get there for most people. It’s worth it to find our way to emotional freedom and joy. All other methods, including talk therapy and drugs have been enormous failures, with a few individual exceptions. Also, I am not vilifying our thinking apparatus, the miraculous mind that is capable of creativity, problem-solving, and communication. That aspect of the mind is in keeping with the miracles of the Universe. Being in contact with Source Energy sharpens those aspects of our thinking because we are not giving so much attention to turmoil and unhappiness.

Spiritual awareness also helps people who have chemical or neurological brain imbalances. For they are able to recognize the tricks of depressive thinking. They begin to see how the fretful mind works and are able to put it in its place. They learn to watch their thoughts and even laugh at them, instead of being dragged down into the quicksand. It takes skill and training to do this when we have depressive tendencies. But it’s worth it to uncover the shining light that has always been there: Our Eternal Soul.

Is it possible to be very intelligent but not spiritually advanced or enlightened?

3/9/2023

Intelligence has nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment. Intelligence depends on the thinking mind, which is like a radar system that ensures our survival. As such, it can be frequently alarmed and live in agitation and fear. Spiritual enlightenment does not depend on the mind, logic, or advanced intelligence. It comes from the heart and gut center and not the head.
We have many different kinds of intelligence, which may be debatable:

Logical-mathematical
Linguistic
Spatial
Musical
Bodily
Emotional
Naturalistic

Our logical-mathematical and linguistic forms of intelligence allow us to communicate our path to enlightenment when we have found it. They also enable us to read books that point the way. But those books are just one way to “get there.” If you can’t read, or even have a below-average IQ, you can still feel at one with the underlying energy flow of the Universe. You may feel it in your bones or through your emotions. Or you may feel the creative forces of nature running through your body.

Sometimes intelligence stands in the way of understanding Source Energy. It wants to dissect, analyze, and prove itself right. It is looking for all the flaws so it can dominate them and protect itself. Very intelligent people can torture themselves endlessly over everything that could go wrong, from cosmic explosions to atomic meltdowns and entropy in interpersonal relationships . Intellectually understanding all the possible consequences of every action can lead to paralysis and incapacitating anxiety.

Spiritual enlightenment is a state of inner peace. It is not the mind racing around trying to solve every problem in the world or even every personal issue. And there are many paths to this peace. The intellect is not usually one of them. Yet the Stoics and other philosophers are able to use logic to arrive at a sense of resignation to what is, combined with a zest for being alive. However, in general, it is not the head, but the heart that opens the gates to enlightenment.

Are spiritual healing and energy work compatible with modern medicine?

1/17/2023

Spiritual healing and energy work may be compatible with modern medicine in certain cases. For example, if you have a broken bone. Modern medicine (and even ancient medicine) can be of service to you. But how quickly you heal, as well as your attitude towards the inevitable pain, depends on energy systems that you tune into.

Pills, cutting, and burning can only take us so far down the healing process. They remove things such as pain, set things such a bones, and. destroy things such as cancer cells. But they can do nothing whatsoever to speed healing. Healing depends on how tuned in we are to the abundant energy of the Universe. It depends on our trust in all of its miraculous systems instead of running and hiding out of fear. Modern medicine feeds our fear to feel pain for even one instant, instead of seeing pain as our friend that is there to guide us further into healing.

Modern medicine is based on fear and the raging need for survival at all costs. It has caused us to view all people as possible vectors for disease. If we want to survive, we should keep away and be very afraid of them. They could make us die. Instead of a friendly face that could add beauty to our lives, we see masked up faces scurrying along, trying to make it through another day. Trying to make it through another day of fear, with some escapes, courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry.

So from that point of view, modern medicine is not compatible with energy healing techniques or approaches. However, I have used spiritual healing approaches to find the right physician when I did need one. I also did metaphysical work and intentions to guide his or her hands. This has worked out very well for me. I have had two knee operations with almost no visible scarring. During the healing period I kept my consciousness in a blissful state through conscious breathing to speed the healing process. Now both my legs are stronger than ever.

I did not use the pain pills because I needed my body to signal when it was time to get up and start moving around. I did not want to fool it into a false sense of where I was into the healing.
Many physicians chose the field of modern medicine because they wanted to help people and to save lives. Coming from that intention, they can be of enormous service. But if people herd to them like sheep and give up any sense of responsibility for their own health, it is also not compatible with energy healing. Energy healing is about determining the root cause, not putting a bandaid on it and suppressing it. It is about looking within instead of finding something “out there” to save us.

The root cause may be any form of imbalance, any form of immoderate behavior that simply showing up at a doctor’s office and saying, “Here doc, make me better,!” will not cure. What is causing us to drink too much, eat too much, smoke too much, or do other self-harming practices? That is what we need to address and that is where energy healing is effective. Modern medicine does not address these issues, nor can it, for these are sicknesses of the Soul and they cannot be seen under a microscope.

Can you explain how quantum mechanics or something similar can be used to understand spirituality?

12/29/2022

Quantum physics and mechanics point to underlying energy forces that are not perceivable through the physical senses. They extrapolate that the entire material world is dependent on the observer. What we consider to be solid matter, composed of atoms and molecules, is actually patterns of energy that can either be a particle or a wave, depending on the observer and on probability.

The observer interacts with the particle or wave during the act of observation, for the scanning electron microscope alters what it is aimed at through light energy that interacts with the observed. This makes it almost impossible to pin material objects down to solid forms when we are examining them at this level. The basic building blocks of all that is felt, seen, heard, tasted, so elusive that we cannot measure them under laboratory conditions. Furthermore, they are not blocks or structures that can be quantified.

Spirituality is also based on the unseen and unmeasurable. It is observer-dependent. The observer perceives through spiritual senses the underlying energy patterns from which all material forms arise. As Lao Tau says in verse 25 of the Tao, “There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born.” From this formlessness, all forms arose and all perished. But the underlying formlessness from which it arose is eternal, unchanging, and One.

Lao Tzu said this 2,500 years ago and it still perfectly describes the paradox that all this stuff around us that we think is real, perishes and therefore cannot be “really” real. Yet it comes from something that never perishes. It comes from something eternal. Some will call it God, some the Source Energy of the Universe, some the Tao, all in an attempt to understand what seems to be illogical. But it cannot be pinned down to one name.

In Newtonian physics we have measurable laws of cause and effect, gravity, and thermodynamics. In Quantum physics, cause and effect don’t apply because an atom might be a particle or a wave based simply on probability. Everything exists in the realm of possibility. And so it is in spirituality as well. It is a space of infinite possibility, unbounded by physical, material laws. At it’s root, matter is not real because it is not eternal. The only thing that is eternal is the fountainhead from which everything that exists proceeds. And that cannot be seen, heard, named or quantified in any way.

The underlying structure holds all in place, and yet we cannot “see” it. And cannot “see” the atom either. This requires a leap of faith that all is well and perfectly organized, even if the human brain cannot grasp it. And this is the same faith that pervades spirituality, regardless of the form it takes.

How can belief in something that cannot be seen or measured provide strength and comfort?

11/5/2022

We can't see electricity, nor the interconnections of the Internet that makes our communication with each other possible. We don’t see the air, yet we rely on it for our very lives. We put our trust in so many things that we cannot see or measure.

We can measure the outcome or output of these invisible forces, such as how much light or heat electricity puts out. But the actual invisible energy is not quantifiable in that way. All we can do is rely on the thermodynamic laws and laws of electrical flow to predict their outcomes.

Belief and trust are two different things. Belief means, “I don’t know. I’d like to think it’s such and such a way. But I don’t really know.” Or, belief is based on blind trust, as a child believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

But when it comes to finding strength in unseen forces outside ourselves and our sensory apparatus, it is more a matter of deep feeling, and an inner knowing that comes from profound experience. If it is based on belief alone, we could find comfort in the Great Rabbit in the Sky, if that is what our culture teaches. Then, a new belief system comes along, such as the Great Turtle beneath the Earth, and we believe that as well. Because belief is not based on knowledge or experience.

The most important things in the world are those unseen things, such as love. We can’t see love or peace. We can only feel love, peace, and joy. Also, it doesn’t depend on sight at all. Sighted people rely so much on what they see to believe what they think is real. What about our blind brothers and sisters? They can feel the presence of the Holy Source Energy of the Universe too. Because, Spiritual forces are not dependent on our senses, which can easily be lost, destroyed, or diminished by age.

Therefore, the only things that are truly comforting, are the eternal things, which cannot be destroyed or diminished. That is what brings comfort. But don’t try to measure them with any scientific instruments. You must feel them to know them.

Is the law of attraction/manifestation simply a way for people to just believe in themselves, and therefore take action, or is it more than that?

1/25/2021

The Law of Attraction, which is “like attracts like,” makes a lot of sense when we see it in nature. Geese don’t hang out with skunks, they attract other geese. It is also about the energy that we put out there. It is invisible, but is comes back to us as we magnetically attract it.

However, I take issue with people thinking that they can sit on their sofa all day long and pet their cat and all the goodies they ever wanted in life will magically appear. My experience is that you have to meet the Universe at least half way, through action, to manifest anything you want in your life.

It is the lazy way out to think that you can lose weight, for example, by just thinking thoughts that you are thinner. You have to put in the work and the discipline. You must take some form of action. That is what sets the whole Universal ball rolling. If you just sit there and indulge in magical thinking that just because you are a good person and think nice thoughts everything good will come to you, I’m sorry, it won’t work.

Unfortunately, the Law of Attraction has been so commercialized, it has lost its original meaning. It is all about the energy forces of the Universe, which are unseen but can be harnessed by our own energy fields. It is not about brining in all the stuff money can buy and everyone lives happily ever after.

The physical plane is not easy and we a driven by the media to believe we need so many things to be happy. The Law of Attraction appeals to people who want lots of things. And therefore, it has become tarnished from misuse. We believe all these things lead to a happy, successful life. But they don’t. Inner peace, joy, love, bliss—our minds need to be all of those first things to attract them.

But we cannot be a huge SUV, a McMansion, a $1,000 pizza, and those things all go away or get digested and turn to excrement or dust. So, using the Law of Attraction for such things may be amusing, but it is not fulfilling and often doesn’t work. We are coming from an energy level of need and want, rather than fulfillment and that is the flaw. Law of attraction, without the necessary energetic work to supplement it, will not work.

Can you trust the law of attraction to solve all our problems?

7/11/2020

No, solving all our problems is not so easy as sitting on a couch and thinking positive thoughts.

The Law of Attraction does work. Like always attracts like, as we can see in nature all around us. Skunks don’t hang out with geese and fish don’t fraternize with sparrows. But it is not so simple as just being a positive source of energy and opening yourself up to the abundance of the Universe. All the goodies are not going to fall into our laps automatically.

The way it is designed, which many people would not like to face because they think it is easier to just wish and hope, is that we must meet the Universe at least halfway with action. It sounds like such a wonderful fairy tale to think that all we have to do to lose weight is to think about being thin. No, sorry, we must also stop eating fattening and non-nourishing foods and do some form of exercise.

And if we want to be wealthy, all we have to do is stop our negative vibes about cash flow and money. But again, this is wishing and hoping. It is not the whole picture. Yes, we can be unobstructed conduits for all the good of the Universe, but we must put in the effort. Not the struggle, not the grueling slavery, but the effort that shows our intentions.

The goal of “solving all our problems” is unrealistic and not the reason for our existence on this planet. Our problems are instigation for growth. And once they are “solved,” opportunities for new growth appear. It is never solved. It never gets done. and our opportunities for growth are endless.

I'm afraid of getting specific with the law of attraction because I'm afraid there might be something better for me. Is it better to go specific or broad in manifesting?

3/22/2020

It is better to go specific, for if you go too broad it does not show enough committed intention. I am not saying that you will manifest the exact thing you passionately keep in mind. But if you don’t know what you want or are too general, you are not putting out enough energy to attract it.

In the case of the Law of Attraction, there is also the Law of Deliberate Intention. This is where you outline in detail what it is that you want to fulfill your life this time around. It may change, so mercifully, there is a gap between your ideation and the manifestation. This leeway allows us to fine-tune what we really want for our happiness and peace.

Then, we must acknowledge the Law of Allowing, and let the Universe bring to us what we desire. So its, deliberately intend, then attract, and then allow it to manifest in its own way and in its own time.

I notice in your question that you use the words “I am afraid” twice. Fear is also a vibration and all it can attract is more fear, as like attracts like. Don’t be afraid of the Law of Attraction. It’s not about getting as many goodies for yourself in the shortest amount of time and hoping they are the right ones. Those things don’t last anyway. There is nothing better out there in the future for you unless you come to peace with the present.