NATURE’S CALL: A RETURN TO SILENCE

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NATURE’S CALL: A RETURN TO SILENCE

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER AZRAK

Jedediah Hawkins Inn, Jamesport, New York

May 24 – June 29, 2014

http://www.jedediahhawkinsinn.com

 

For the past number of weeks I have been preparing for a solo exhibition of my photography.  It is located on the North Fork of Long Island in New York State.  Among the farmland and vineyards, Jedediah Hawkins is a lovely inn.  On the property lies a “barn” with extensive exhibition space for artists to display their work. I feel fortunate to have been given this opportunity to hang my images in such an open space.

Below is the piece I wrote for the exhibition.  It reflects the sense of how Silence has been calling me through the beauty of Nature.  It seems to me Nature carries with it an abstract quality  That is, almost any selection, any slice of Nature offers a sense of harmony––a peaceful place in which the eye rests.

 

 

When I discovered the beauty of Nature, which was rather late in life, it was the stark identity of the desert of New Mexico which brought me to my knees. Overwhelmed by the brightness of the sky juxtaposed against the cacti, I was able to appreciate the beauty within the otherness of this rather different kind of Nature.  Accustomed to the hills of the Northeast and the green of the grasses, this Nature said to me: “Stop.  Be still. Take in.”  No longer the romance of soft lines, it was the sharp contrast of a boulder, the soft brush, even the dry bedrock against the blue of the sky, waking a sense of awe within me.  But this awakening, if you will, was to a “place” I had not know before.  In the past Nature appeared pretty and somehow in the background as I drove the winding roads of upstate New York.  Now Nature was calling me to a certain attitude in which I was asked to step into a barren arena and “be with it” in a new way.  More participant, than observer. 

And it was this participation that fostered a conscious wake-up call to my need for Silence, a call, ever present today as it was twenty-five years ago.  When I discovered photography as a serious interest in the desert of New Mexico, it paralleled my pursuit of being an active listener as a psychotherapist in private practice. A rather anxious person, sitting and being with people challenged my restlessness. It was photography’s journey into Nature which somehow quieted me down enough to see how Silence offered an opportunity to change my focus from achievement to just being.

My many walks through the desert opened my eyes to how images are not so much captured but are given by Nature.  Although plenty of times, I hiked without camera in hand, it gave me a chance in the quiet to know a presence which up to then had been a complete mystery to me. It was/is this presence which instilled in me a mind-set open to discovery.  My lens opened up; the quiet brought me a new way to see and photograph images from a place within.  Allowing this presence to sink into my being, my work evolved as I was able to sit-with the Silence, the roar of desert life, the swish of a mountain stream, the ocean breeze. Taking this to wherever we travelled I understood that photography was much more about expressing the change within me than the capturing of any one scene. 

This exhibit represents a cross-section of recent images taken over the past five years and some of the older images which have become favorites of mine.  Recently I have given more attention to the wide open space of landscape hoping to bring to light the beauty of the horizon, along with the intimacy of that one moment—the Spirit alive in this moment.                            

http://www.photographsbypeterazrak.com

 

GOD-IN-LOVE (Part II)

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The opening of one’s heart, involves an ongoing exercise in learning how to make matters of the heart a priority.  In our world which revolves around the wisdom of reason to sustain, there seems to be little room for the wisdom gained from the heart.  The heart is often relegated to the sidelines until it arrives on the scene whenever a major crisis forces itself upon us and grabs our attention.  In the case of the death of someone motivated by hatred, prejudice or just plain stupidity, our heart strings, as we call them, are pulled and we, for a moment, can “feel” the pain of the aggrieved parent.  Then, as usual, we tuck our heart back into our chest and “go on with life.”

To open our heart we must learn to see the heart’s way of relating.  Emanating from the inside, from our inner world, the heart moves us out to the world from a place of calm.  Rather than the rational approach which weighs the circumstances and the consequences of life, the heart-directed life begins with silence.  In this silence reflection is honored.  Not just a reflection attached to the mind trying to figure out what’s going on rather through the the heart’s way of breathing-in, taking-in of the atmosphere in which it finds itself.  By doing so the heart awakens us, sensing the truth that lies beneath the apparent rationale of logic and reason.  Here in the heart’s domain of sitting-with and feeling the presence of the air we breathe, we drop our mind’s dominance on reason in favor of the heart’s desire to just be.  This be-ing places a priority on the not-yet of knowing and waits with patience to see where one is.

Patience, a virtue so removed from our daily lives, is needed to redirect our priorities so paramount at this time.  With patience we step into the world of pausing, awaiting the response which our heart may offer.  Likewise with reason, this pausing with patience gives space to a mind rushing to have the answer, giving the heart a chance to weigh in.  As Teresa of Avila reminds us: With patience, we attain all that we strive for.  In other words, we gain a relationship to our entire being that is calm and prepared to take on the consequences of our immersion into the world of the heart.  We may be sad.  We may be joyful.  We may be enraged.  In all of this, patience asks us to simply continue to wait until a response makes itself known.

And when a response comes, it arrives from a different place within us.  No longer just relying on our heads we embrace the one place in us where God is heard most directly.  Yes, God can speak to us in any of the events of our lives, in any of the emotions that arise, but it is in the silence of patience that we arrive at a place where it all began, the emptiness of nothingness—the empty space of not-knowing.  We wait to be open to the infusion of Love’s softening.  As we soften in pausing, we begin to see the breath of love pouring through us and we are able to hear when otherwise we might be too overwhelmed by the immediate stimuli and needing-to-know.

As we practice the art of opening our heart, we establish other ways of responding to life.  No longer caught by any one way, we are open to the myriad of feeling responses buried under the freneticism of our life.  These feelings may scare us at first simply because like a child we may have little ability to sort out overwhelming emotions.  As we grow accustomed to relating to both our inner and outer world with our hearts open, we come to know the love of God developing an atmosphere in which love grows.  An atmosphere of pure acceptance of who we are and, maybe more importantly, the acceptance of others as they come to us.  Outright rejection of another is tabled in favor of this pausing, knowing that experience teaches us the value of waiting-upon our heart’s response.

If God-in-love is a state of our being it follows that the separation from God is lessened.  As we know ourselves as beings-in-love manifesting God-love, then we know through experience what it feels like for God to be in love with His own nature, which is love.

When we fall in love with someone, the oceanic feeling which fills us up, convinces us we are meant for each other.  Our individual separation seems to fall away.  We can feel each other.  Finish each other’s thoughts.  The sense of being one is real.

I am reminded that the oceanic feeling doesn’t last and its disappearance is the cause of many a breakup.  I agree but it is this state of ecstasy which gives us a pin-hole view of what it means to be absorbed in Love-as-God.  We need to remind ourselves of this gift.

As we walk the earth we know we must live within the ordinariness of life.  At the same time we are called to step into our Divine nature allowing love to be present.  When we do, God is in love with His manifestation through us.  He cannot, not be in love with love!  His nature is love and anywhere it is found, there He is.  By coming through us, love helps us to feel as if the separation has been bridged and possibly eliminated for the time being.

Let us embrace the beauty of falling in love with someone or with Nature.  The oceanic feeling gives us a glimpse into the sense of diving deeply into the feeling of being-a-part of something greater than our individual self.  This sense of belonging transforms our individual self into the expanse of the ocean of pure love.  A love available to us all, not just to the mystic or the one who “studies” the mystical way.  As ordinary as love can be, it is available to us each moment of each day, for it is love which finds a home within the open heart.  To notice our divine self in the presence of love touching upon us in this here and now.  It is pure and simple loving from the inside out.  From the heart centered self to our world out there.  From the heart centered self to the deepest part of our divine nature.  From the heart centered self to the magnificence of a world-in-love with itself.

GOD-IN-LOVE (Part I)

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God-in-love is not a play on words.  God-in-love tells us how we know God, that is by being-in the love which He is.  If we are in-love, we are in-God.  As I understand it, it is a state of being whereby love pours out of us without effort.  When love is activated, any reaching-out on our part flows from this state of being-inside-of-love.  As we are filled with love’s desire we are possessed by love’s very nature to flow through us.

An example is that of a mother with her newborn child.  The mother does not need to summon up love in order to respond to her child’s need.  The act of co-creating, that is birthing a child, is an act of love.  When co-creating is carried forth into the world we can understand on a deep level the nature of love, the very nature of God’s outpouring.  Being within the experience of God-in-love, we are no longer self-conscious in our response.  For it is God activated within us which now pours out of us.  By being-in ourselves, the Divine is visible.

In order to be aware of ourselves as manifesting God-in-love, we must change our way of relating to God.  We move beyond “performing,” in hopes of gaining special attention by no longer applying the work ethic and trying to demonstrate that we deserve a place in His heart.  To remain in that kind of childish position with God only keeps us further away from knowing God as love.  The child we need to be is one of curiosity, one of play, simply letting the days go by filled with joyful love.

The adult who can allow the child to simply be, prepares the ground for discovery.  Allowing not-knowing, discovery is possible, awakening us to who we are.  The sense of having all the answers to our faith relationship with God is slowly replaced with a humility which sees our place in the scheme of life.  In other words, with the awareness that we don’t have it all-together leads us into a position to ask for help, guidance, support, often with a renewed openness to discovery.

If we are caught by the responsibility of trying so hard, we might not notice the effortless love pouring out of our being.  No amount of work, no amount of searching will get us there.  A there that is not a place special to God’s favor but a there which is a presence soaking up the love of God.  It is never by our effort to succeed, our effort to impress.  It is by our commitment to be quiet and shift the tone we live by.  Neither agitated nor demanding answers—just the sense that we are sinking into the softness of His Being.  And we come to that softness as we stop trying to win over love.

Love by its very definition is self-giving.  Love pours out of itself like a waterfall or spring which is eternal.  Rather than love being an attempt on our part to secure by “good works” our place in another’s heart, it is by relaxing all effort, love finds its way into to every interest we are drawn.  In relationships we find this particularly true with one’s ability to step out of the way and allow one’s heart to just give of itself.  When this occurs it melts another because the love is genuine.  Any aid will naturally come from being-inside who we are.  We will not have to think about what to do in order to show our love.  It will simply become the air “we” breathe.

In an environment of love acting on its own accord, all demands and expectations are relegated to second place.  Instead of placing demands on the love we receive, we open up to love as it shows itself.  Likewise in our relating with God we put aside our  expectations of how we are to act in order to let the flow of His love permeate our being.  We accept ourselves as being full of love because we know we are in-love.  In-love not as an infatuation but as immersion into a state of being whereby we allow the love to pass through us.  And what comes through this love is an energy that heals the deepest wounds, of despair, cynicism, judgment, betrayal, inertia, and most powerfully apathy.  Love’s power is self evident with no need to proclaim it.  It simply acts out of itself, softening the ground on which it lands.

The opening of the heart becomes the avenue to love pouring out.  But what exactly do we mean by this often repeated command: Open your heart?

God-in-Love (Part II) will address this question.

Spirituality AND Religion

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The holiday season has passed and as we, who live in the Northern Hemisphere move into the dead of winter, I find myself reflecting on the nature of the spiritual path.  These days it is often accepted that the worlds of spirituality and religion are to be separate.  Spirituality belongs to those willing to pursue their own course into the realm of things we call spiritual.  Religion is relegated to the formal structures passed down from previous generations, codified into a set of rules to abide by.

Sadly the two have been so separated that most people who talk about being disciples of a spiritual practice have discarded religion in favor of spirituality.  Religion is something you believe in; spirituality is something you live.  

No doubt the formal religions of the world have contributed to a widespread rejection of “the way of religion.”  In my own Christian tradition the matter is particularly jarring because the church has continued to speak of faith as something that comes from the top down—from the leaders, the so-called elders, who carry on the past traditions spouting out the way to God.  By following the rules, one survives this horrific world “down here” and achieves heaven in the afterlife.  Sad to say there are many who continue to promulgate a religion of this sort, leaving little if any room for an individual path to the Divine.  Individual searching remains under the umbrella of the central tenets, the so-called doctrines of faith.  Buy into them or leave the church.  From one strict code of behavior to another, churches pop up in revolution to the one they just left.  The answer is seen in the quest to get it just right, that is, my church now becomes the way. Competition survives.  Cooperation as in mutual understanding of shared experiences is rejected.

The separation between spirituality and religion is growing because of the misunderstanding of what religion has to offer.  Instead of a dried up set of beliefs that one adheres to, the word religion in its original meaning suggests a way to bind together various parts into a unified whole.  I understand religion to be an attempt by the community of those who share a belief to bind-together, “become as one,” in order to connect with the Source of all life.  Here the emphasis is on the community sharing in a belief.  The community acts as a way to assist the individual on her path by intensifying the vibration which occurs when we, the community come together.

In our secular world we do this.  Recently I read in the paper the concern at certain NFL games that the joint effort to cheer the loudest for one’s team might injure eardrums.  My take was that the attempt to cheer the loudest was a community effort to raise the vibration of what seemingly everyone wanted—victory for the team they shared.

We must bring the essential need for connection into the realm of the spiritual yearning.  This yearning gone underground, arrives in the form of mass gatherings. Lost in our world is the shared experience that religion brings—the sense we are in it together, struggling to maintain our awareness of things Divine.

What we commonly call God is an energetic so powerful it permeates everything, including Nature and our interior self.  When we become aware of our yearning to connect with this higher vibration our job as “followers” is to re-connect with this energetic on a daily basis.  And religion as the voice of the community binds-together the common desire to honor that yearning.

In my work as a teacher, psychotherapist and spiritual director I have found something lacking in those, whose parents rejecting the tradition of their parents decide to avoid the issue by not offering their children any tradition.  The foundation established by the ways of the tradition is lacking therefore leaving one unprepared in the ways of “listening” for Spirit in life.  It is as if individuals with no structure from a religious upbringing are thrown into the world of spirits trying to find their way through the morass of various ideas and fascinations.  In other words, without the basics there is no ground from which to build upon.

Now I am sure there are plenty of readers who believe they are the exception to this idea.  I-can-do-it-on-my-own is the calling card of anyone who lives outside of the professed beliefs of tradition.  Yes, many can.  Yet it is my contention that the religious tradition provides a jumping off point from which the individual can explore out from.  The real jumping off point for deepening one’s individual connection to this yearning comes from a perseverance developed by the sense of belonging, being a part of a larger community.  Perseverance, this stick-to-it-ness, the Sufi mystic Rumi tells us is the key to joy.  Knowing how to navigate the common pitfalls of any mystical path develops a muscle on which one can rely.  History provides such a muscle.  Those who come before us, show us how to stay with it.  This staying with it fortifies any belief we may have by testing our beliefs, our ideas in real time.  No amount of thinking and reflecting will ever get us to the essential truth which experience brings.  Even so, this experience will eventually bring us to the sense of being lost without any markings to guide us.

The many who come before us have shown that being lost, lost in the desert experience is part and parcel of one’s spiritual growth—a desert experience that returns throughout the journey to renew us and renew our commitment to stay inside, inside our interior world.

The traditions offer access to the eternal truths passed down throughout the generations.  Each tradition has its own slant on these truths but the key is the common spiritual atmosphere a child absorbs as the tradition is carried on.  For instance, the sense of integrity fostered by truth telling and it’s eventual connection to the figure of Jesus within Christianity, establishes a way which is inherently adopted by the child.  As a figure to be emulated, Jesus reflects the struggle of telling the truth about one’s world, the hypocrisy, the pretentiousness and the like.

One can argue that such ideals as living one’s life with integrity can be absorbed into the culture without the need for a religious tradition.  Secular humanism would proclaim such a promise.  My contention is that religion provides the central core of a belief system which incorporates the truths into one’s very being.  Secular society alone, in my mind, cannot provide such a context since the disparate parts send a child in many directions.  Messages, for example, about the efficacy of cheating in achieving one’s goals will pull one away from the opposite message of integrity.  If a tradition has provided clear ideals, then it is more likely a young person will be prepared for the inherent hardships of adult spiritual development.

Perseverance and the power of a prayerful life lend themselves to an interior sense of these eternal truths.  However it is equally true that this “knowing from the inside” is mostly lacking in the religious traditions today.  Thus the shift from top down to interior searching must be incorporated into the traditions, in order for a tradition to effectively re-establish itself as necessary in the development of a spiritual life.

What is necessary for any tradition is a true reformation shifting from simply the passing down of truths through the generations to a tradition of mysticism whereby the interior search is honored.  If so, it sets in motion a foundation from which we understand the initial desire to connect as community.  A shared belief is not about buying into some set of doctrines but in the understanding that we as a community must support the path of each individual.  And we do so because we share in the process by knowing the common experience of spiritual maturing.  The elders of the indigenous societies have taught us the power of such wisdom, by letting the “child” fly the coup and fall as she may, fully knowing she will still be picked up again and supported in going deeper.  Deeper into one’s relation to things Divine and one’s sense that “I” am part of the All—the Source of all life, both without and within.

 

DEATH AND REBIRTH

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As we approach the end of the calendar year, it becomes a time to reflect on the transformative power of “endings” and “beginnings.”   The ultimate ending, of course, is at the death of the physical body.  The ultimate beginning is birth.  This time of year is the cyclical reminder of the importance of dying followed by birth.  It is the reversal of how we usually see life and death.

I have long been in the camp of those who have feared the dying process because I was born and I will die.  But in the last few years something has changed.  No longer just thinking about the process of how life will end someday I am now focusing on dying as an inevitable part of this thing we call life and  how that awakening changes me now.

It is no coincidence in the Northern Hemisphere, when light is at its lowest point by the 21st of December, that celebrations begin with the winter solstice.  As light begins to gain its prominence we celebrate the “coming of the light” as a reminder that all darkness, all death, precedes light and life.  History tells us when the Christian tradition was looking for a day to celebrate the birth of their savior Jesus, they appropriated the Sun celebration of the solstice from the pagan religions.  The festival Sol Invictus (The Birth of the Unconquerable Sun), was a time of great feasting, celebrating the rebirth of Sun’s light.  Jesus, the Son of God of orthodox Christianity, was often referred to in more esoteric language as the Sun of God.

The celebration at this time of year, when there is the least light in a day, primes us for the inevitable return of the sun’s light.  Mircea Eliade, the great mythologist, referred to this cyclical time as The Myth of the Eternal Return.  Endless.  Never to disappear, always fulfilling the flow of repeating what is known and expected.  The cyclical sense of time is in contradistinction to the time we live with everyday—linear time, past, present, future.  In cyclical repetition we gain access to a world outside of time whereby meaning is attained through Nature’s repetition.  Nature shows us how to allow for the flow of life which repeats itself after the dying process.  This is why the Christian myth predominated in the Western world.  Instead of a simple historical account of a man who lived as a Jew, and elevated to the status of a god, the cyclical notation of honoring life after death is a depiction of natural cycles that Nature dispenses on us.  The concept of life after death did not begin with Christ.  In fact it emerged in the early indigenous cultures based on the cycles of Nature.  And even Saint Augustine who grew up as a pagan and became a staunch advocate for the Christian mythology made this idea perfectly clear when he said: “That which is known as the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist; from the beginning of the human race until the time when Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed began to be called Christianity.”

I am forever amazed by this quotation.  Imagine if you will the implications of this idea.  Imagine if we could truly understand the powerful message Nature teaches us that all life emerges from death.  Our “deaths,” our failures, our losses, our imperfections, our disloyalties, our hypocrisies, in fact, all our struggles are expressions of a death which, when mourned, we rise again with life. When we say we get a second chance, we literally get one when we adhere to a cyclical sense of time which steps away from the literal meaning of life’s events.  Not that the literal does not teach us the importance of each event as in the death of Nelson Mandela or September 11th.  But each of these events help us to move on as we mourn the loss.  We know on some level we are invited to see beyond the apparent meaning of the loss.  Has this loss opened our eyes wider than before?  What do we know in a way we could not have if the death did not occur?

It is this season of “midwinter” which reminds us of those powerful losses in our lives which will bring us a new light.  A light which reflects back to us the place of hope in our lives and the importance of making awareness our prayer.  For prayer, no matter how it is defined, aims to keep us awake to the deep power which lies within us.  And if we are open to rebirth, we operate from this inner power knowing death can never be the end.

CAN’T WE JUST TALK

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Recently I’ve been reflecting on how our issues, our “stuff” we are here to work on, emerge early on in our journey and continue to re-emerge as we grow.  I was struck by a memory from my early twenties which highlighted a struggle that continues to this day.  Although much “progress” has been made in this arena, I feel the overall lesson of returning to the struggle has helped me to see deeper than I otherwise would have.

“Can’t we just talk?”

Ignoring my request, she went about her business of preparing for daily meditation.

It’s 5 a.m. and I am about to explode.  Another day of silence.

Although we had been on this retreat for only two days, I was ready to ditch it and leave.  But my girlfriend, at the time, was so committed to keeping the silence, that any provocation on my part was ignored.  There was no way of moving her.  For her, this was what she had hoped the days would be like.  For me the torture was extreme.

I had put myself in a situation I thought I wanted.  I failed to realize what a seven day silent retreat really was—an all-day and all-night observance.  Any contact made with others was relegated to hand signals and hand written notes.  Trying ever so hard to “get it right” by following the path of meditation, I tried to convince myself I would eventually adjust to sitting for hours and to the senseless silence.  The problem was—I never did.

So on the fourth night, after trying numerous times to get my girlfriend to talk, I decided to just give up and walked into the kitchen for a snack.  To my surprise, in the center of a group gathered, was the leader of the retreat talking as if there was no tomorrow.  Trying to “get it,” I found myself just listening as he explained various aspects of his work  detailing the confluence of Christianity and Buddhism.  Fascinating stuff from a man who grew up in Japan, became a Dominican priest, tried to pray in the Dominican tradition eventually abandoning that approach in favor of what he learned as a boy—zazen—the art of silent meditation in the Zen tradition.

Going to sleep that night, I racked my brain to understand what had happened.  Confused by him breaking the silence, I was at the same time moved by his story.  It was an illuminating story for it gave me the sense of how someone adjusts to life, finding his own way.  As a young adult in my early twenties, I had been trying way too hard to get “it” right.  This time it just happened to be silent meditation.  Looking desperately for a “way,” an approach to go deeper into my relationship with God, I was hoping to adapt to this revered approach to prayer.  But I was desperate to break the code, unable to sit for long hours and ultimately wanting to know more about the leader’s life and his process rather than to sit in silence.  Little did I know, that it was a continuation of my quest to connect with an elder, or a mentor who would usher me into adulthood.

So when the leader and I walked together on the final day I looked to him for advice.  I struggled with falling asleep each night, tossing and turning for what seemed like hours on end.  Hoping he would offer me some sound and sage advice, he once again surprised me when he said: “Why don’t you just have a glass of wine before going to bed?”

I almost laughed out loud, being prepared to listen deeply to his wisdom.  Once again confused, yet relieved, I was not being asked to meditate longer or keep the silence for the last hour before bed.  I quickly saw how this man lived by the moment at hand.  His wisdom was here and now.  Practical indeed, but most of all outside the spirituality of denial, outside the box of living, “without.”  His was an inclusive spirituality based on his own experience not some rule imposed by his order.  He had shown us that all week—returning to the Zen Buddhism he was born into.

This is a lesson I remind myself of often—the path of spiritual awakening. It’s not a rigid if you paint by the numbers “you will get there,” but a spontaneous and wonderful adaptation to modern life.  Drinking the wine before going to sleep helped me tremendously.  Not only did it help me fall asleep faster, it helped to rid me of my self-consciousness around falling asleep.  Slowly over time, having that glass of wine was no longer necessary, as I allowed my way toward Spirit to come forward.  In other words, the more I was simply myself, the less I was stuck in the expectation that I needed to do it the “right” way.

I didn’t completely grow out of my neurotic clinging to follow the “right” way.  I gained a foothold and could return to this openness as a way to expand my restrictive self.  I could still be so restrictive, I would catch myself doubting all that seemed dear to me.  This tension, between the “right” way and my way, would become so unbearable, it was a major factor as to why I would finally give in and enter therapy a number of years later.

The lesson to this day remains the same.  I’ve learned a slow but deep respect for the guidance that comes as I quiet myself.  By quieting myself I allow something to move through me, a something that cannot be held and captured and frozen like a photograph.  It can’ t be codified and explained into a theoretical principle, I can then apply.  This something is like the wind which nourishes although I am unable to speak directly about it.  Because it is the air itself, it acts more like the atmosphere which sustains. When I permit myself attention toward this quieter self within, this “wind” sweeps away the the many distractions which pull on me.  It is a daily choice to pay attention.  Wishing it could become the default mode in which I operate, I must admit I would still rather be under the spell of the frantic life which begs me to keep moving and ignore the call to stillness.

Speed kills.  It kills off stillness. It leaves me little choice than to remain stuck in the rush to get high.  Silence, which demands me to press the brake, provides an alternative by simply offering an atmosphere of acceptance.  No place to go.  Nothing to accomplish. I am in the silence with the air moving by this wind, this Spirit of life.  The true acceptance comes when I have decided to remain with this sense of nothing to accomplish.  This inner tension between speed and silence remains, in simple terms, at the heart of my spiritual journey.

Reader of Hearts

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During the Middle Ages, an elder who offered spiritual direction was known as a “reader of hearts.”  Today I would like to imagine, what a modern “reader of hearts” would look like.

In our world, matters of the heart, are often relegated to popular culture.  I can imagine the heart reader having an uphill battle trying to be noticed, up against the stars of say, pop music. The music, a seduction of the heart, often promises a quick fix to our need for love, personal attention and inner longing.  The reader of hearts would redirect our attention from quick fixes to the slow unfolding of life’s events, where each moment is seen less as a hindrance and more as a gift to be treasured.  The reader would remind us that the heart evaluates quite differently than the mind’s speed to “fix” the problems of life.  In fact the reader would suggest life is less of a problem and more of a mystery to encounter.  As we encounter life as a mystery, we engage with each moment to see what it has to offer.

I imagine this heart reader redirecting our attention to the not-yet-seen, not-yet-known aspects of one’s inner life.  As we slip down out of our heads, we enter the realm of the heart by asking: “What am I to see?  What am I to learn?  What do I truly feel in my heart?”

Recently I found myself agitated almost every moment of the day. I realized how pumped up I was, my mind racing, searching for something to do.  A familiar feeling, this rush of freneticism kept me caught up in my head.

I teach and preach the wonders of quieting the mind to allow the heart’s desire to come to our awareness.  Here I was caught in this rush, as if nothing had changed for me in the last thirty years.  I started asking myself: “What is really going on besides the rush, and the attachment to it?” I began to make a connection to the rush and how familiar it was, a feeling experience from when I was young.  I was revisiting the frenetic pace allowing it to carry me away.

In this frenetic pace, I allow my mind to be obsessed with details.  It “feeds” me, keeping me going without needing to stop.  Like a sugar rush, I am satiated with a false sense of feeling alive.  However the danger of relying on “speed,” makes itself known over time.  Keeping up a pace, without pausing, ultimately leads to a breakdown of some sort.  No, not in the dramatic image of being assigned to a psychiatric ward or being unable to get out of bed in the morning, but in an insidious way, freneticism leaves me, leaves us returning for more, in hope of maintaining the high.  The bottom line, I cannot access my feelings because my goal is to be high, high in my head.  To feel demands a moment, to re-collect the energy within and know what I need.  With freneticism I run out of gas.  And yet, I chase after the very thing that sets the burning-out in motion, the getting high by never stopping.

A fear of unworthiness is the motivator.  If I am constantly absorbed, I keep away the feeling of shame.  A shame pointing to my unworthiness.  Unworthiness in the eyes of others, unworthiness within myself.  A shame spoiling the fabric of life.

So is there any reason I would ever want to switch away from the frenetic pace and face the shame?  The reader of hearts, I believe, would suggest another way of posing that question.  Is not the freneticism itself bringing on shame because I am running away?  The freneticism keeps me away from the shame of never being good enough, and yet only up to a point.  By making the freneticism an addiction, I have now added a layer upon the initial shame.  I am now feeling shame because I can’t stop myself from running. I feel disengaged.  By ignoring my heart, I lose touch with my feelings.  The frantic self becomes what I know.  I wonder: Where did “I” go?  In other words, like a substance abuser, I am upping the ante.  As the new layer of shame is placed on top of the initial shame, I will then have to work doubly hard to free myself of this addiction to freneticism.

There is no way around it, freneticism calls for “pausing.”  Not just to stop and then start up all over again.  But a “pausing” which allows the time necessary to feel what I feel and at the same time, acknowledge the truth of who I am—human.  Human in the fullness of my being.  Not the partiality that shame would wish to make out of my life.

You see the problem is that shame demands I see myself as a perfect being.  In perfection nothing is off.  Everything is on.  Spot-on.  Ready to handle anything that comes my way.  In response to shame, “pausing” asks me to see myself as I am.  I can only come from the “me” I am today-not the “me” who I think I should be.

The process of acceptance of who I am is ongoing.  But the beginning point remains the same—I am who I am engaging in this world now.

Begin now, by promising yourself to pause with me in embracing yourself as a person in process.  As we learn to replace judgement with acceptance, it is the reader of hearts who asks us to remain vigilant in accepting who we have grown to be—both in our head and in our heart.

The World of Spirit, the Way of the Heart

Posted by pgazrak on

My “outer” world is most often focused on the outcome, the goal, the achievement.  Being a man who loves his projects, such as this one, I lose sight of how Spirit is operating in-the-world.  Being caught by distractions, most often repetitive and obsessive, my mind has little time to gain the space to drop down into what matters the most– what my heart is sharing with me.  My heart?  Yes, the place within me which can, if I choose, help to “center” my attention.  So the first point I’d like to make about this blog is that it is an attempt to speak from heart about what truly matters to me and the people I work with and the world I know.

I am a psychotherapist by profession.  I chose this professional role in order to journey with others on the spiritual path.  Modeled on the ancient idea that a mentor, an elder has gained wisdom to share with one who chooses to take part, I see the work as a long-term commitment toward self-discovery.  Not a fix, as much as a redirection of one’s attention.  Thus inner attention refers to seeing what we call life, from the inside-out not from the outside-in.  When we see from the inside, there is a step which must precede our evaluation of what comes our way.  And that step is what I call “pausing.”  In pausing, I am asked, we are asked, to simply be with what presents itself and let our hearts weigh in.  How that is done will be part of future blog entries.

When I refer to Spirit in the World, I am asking how it is that Spirit, the realm beyond our immediate awareness, infiltrates life and changes, may I say charges, the moment with an aliveness unknown before.  To be connected to Spirit, I believe is the entry way to life being embodied with soul.  And when we are in touch with soul, we are grounded.  Not caught by the fascination of ideas but in learning to apply an idea into my life.  Making it real, not leaving it out-there, being caught by the mind’s attachment to potential.  Ah, potential.  We all love it, especially  when the idea inflates our head with possibility.

So I invite you to join me in taking a look at what our hearts have to say and how Spirit lives in the world.  My goal is to speak about the here and the now, and the many ways life is simply a mirror for us to see ourselves as we really are and at the same time, a mirror showing us what can be if we drop our heads into our hearts.