I just learned about Living Time, by Maurice Nicoll. Here are some questions he poses in the book

What do we think about time?
We exist in a world that we do not understand in the least. What is nature? What is time? What is space? What are we?
We take all for granted. We do not face any real issues in our thinking but catch hold of some ready-made opinion. Do we ever get used to the mystery of time, for instance? Is not the problem of time always in the background of our minds although we can never really think about it? Consider the strange experience that a person was but is no more. Consider our childhood and death. Where is all that which has become was, and all that will be? What is this strange now and then, which when perceived together cause the mind to tremble on the verge of new meaning?

Thanks to my new favorite blog: Astro Inquiry for the info. Check out his recommended books!

As we wrote before, our friend Jarrod Toombs passed away in Feburary. We have a tribute to him here. Our friend John also wrote an eloquent piece about Jarrod here.

We recently received a copy of an essay written by Jarrod. We are making it available to everyone. Happy reading (or more accurately happy decoding- the essay is abstruse).

Figuring Nietzsche and His Illegitimate Daughters, by Jarrod Toombs

As you know, Emily and I are big fans of A.H. Almaas and his Diamond Heart series.

He has a new book coming out next week, The Unfolding Now, and has provided a free preview chapter available online. I haven’t read it yet, but am posting the link anyway– it’s from A.H. so it should be good.

Preview Chapter of The Unfolding Now

I was going to post about Mystery of Existence’s recent use of Byron Katie’s Work in coming to terms with the mainstream rejection of the Big Mind Process. It is a beautiful use of the Work to turn around the assumption that “They shouldn’t reject the Big Mind process”, an assumption that I shared. Then I began exploring Mystery of Existence more in depth and I couldn’t contain my post to that little topic.

I can’t figure out the name or gender of the author of MoE, but he or she is not only very insightful and a gifted writer, but an artist as well.

That is incredible.

MoE also has an eloquent discussion of one of the more bothersome (for me) teachings of Christianity: blessed are the meek.

More great examples of Byron Katie’s Work: on animal abuse, American stupidity, and self doubt.

Plus they blog about spiritual lessons in Star Trek. Can’t beat that.

Hope you enjoy Mystery of Existence as much as I do. I’m always happy to bring good blogs to your attention.

Awhile ago I promised you an ongoing series of posts introducing you to some of our favorite music in a variety of genres. I’ve been slacking. I do most of my blogging at work without speakers so I can’t search Songza for working links, but I’m home sick today so let’s dance:

Untrust Us by Crystal Castles is my favorite song today (it changes frequently). I can listen to this on a loop for an hour. Really.

Tombstone by Midnight Juggernaughts makes me feel serious and mean.

Justice is meaner though. Embrace your inner anarchist.

Aerius Light is a former title holder as my favorite song. Makes me dance around the house.

A New Sky from The Presets keeps you up.

I Monster will bring us back down to earth with Daydream In Blue. Nice and calm.

If you enjoyed my selections, I highly recommend checking out The Sound Culture podcast and Missing Toof. Both are great resources for new music.

Thanks to our friend J for keeping me up on the latest Nabokov news. We’ve been following the story of Nabokov’s dying wish for some time now. Looks like our coverage can conclude: Dimitri has decided to go against his father’s wishes and publish his final manuscript. For shame, Dimitri!

My disapproval will not stop me from reading it, of course.

I am reading Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas by A.H. Almaas. He makes an interesting differentiation between the perspectives of various traditions.

Some traditions view Ultimate Reality (or God, if you prefer) as, “that which is left when everything that can be removed is removed”. Almaas calls this the Absolute. Other traditions view Ultimate Reality as a state of total completeness which is “all-inclusive, with the manifest and unmanifest existing in nonduality. Everything is present, including the Absolute, which is seen as its inner nature.”

Almaas categorizes the traditions as follows:

The Sufi and Kabbalistic traditions take the view that the Absolute is the ultimate reality. The Indian traditions are divided, with the Vedantists taking the Absolute to be the ultimate, while some of the yogic paths take the state of total completeness to be ultimate. The Buddhists disagree: The Theraveda tradition believes the Absolute is ultimate, while the Tibetan Buddhists are divided.

Almaas does not mention Taoism, but I believe it would fall into the “total completeness” category. We have discussed the difference in Buddhist and Taoist orientation before. I always gravitate towards Taoism, Tantra and yoga, while Laura leans toward Buddhism. Almaas’ explanation of Absolute vs total completeness helped me understand why I felt a fundamental difference between my set of traditions and Laura’s. It is really the difference of understanding oneness as a fullness or an emptiness, everything vs. nothing. Of course, either route leads to the other side of the coin, through fullness you find emptiness, through emptiness you find fullness.

Both orientations lead to nonduality or as Almaas puts it:

In either case, the perception of the unity of all existence - Holy Truth - remains the same. It is the perception that there are no divisions and no duality between things, that everything is one Beingness, one existence. This is the reality beyond egoic reality, true existence independent of the personal mind. It includes everything without any separations, and it does not matter whether you call it God, the One Mind, the state of the Buddha, the Tao, or the Divine Being.

In case you were unaware, we adore A.H. Almaas. We highly recommend his books to anyone interested in understanding themselves and reality.

Laura and I just read The Golden Compass so when I saw this article on a “God particle” I immediately thought of Dust. (If you haven’t read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, this will mean nothing to you.)

Here is what the scientist has to say about the God particle:

Nobel laureate Leon Lederman has dubbed the theoretical boson “the God particle” because its discovery could unify understanding of particle physics and help humans “know the mind of God.”

Fancy! Wikipedia explains that in Pullman’s novels Dust is:

Unlike ordinary particles, Dust is conscious. It falls from the sky and is attracted to people (especially adults) and objects made by people. This makes it of great interest to the Church, which believes that it may be the physical manifestation of Original Sin. It is later learnt that Dust actually confers consciousness, knowledge and wisdom, and that Dust is formed when matter becomes conscious.

Compare that description of Dust to National Geographic’s article on the God particle aka the Higgs particle:

The preferred name for the God particle among physicists is the Higgs boson, or the Higgs particle, or simply the Higgs, in honor of the University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed its existence more than 40 years ago. Most physicists believe that there must be a Higgs field that pervades all space; the Higgs particle would be the carrier of the field and would interact with other particles, sort of the way a Jedi knight in Star Wars is the carrier of the “force.” The Higgs is a crucial part of the standard model of particle physics—but no one’s ever found it.

If the God particle indeed functions like a carrier of matter, it could be considered the substance from which matter springs. As a field in which matter exists, we could imagine it as a canvas on which a picture is drawn. The canvas is the field of creativity, of consciousness, from which all matter arises, just as in most spiritual traditions Being arises from Non-Being. I’m not sure that the God particle could be considered Non-Being, but it is an interesting parallel. Pullman’s Dust is consciousness which is creative potential, the God particle is a field of potentiality in which matter exists. Here we have art, science and spirituality converging on the same idea: God is creativity is consciousness is source.

Physicists in the audience, feel free to shoot my conclusion to pieces.

If you haven’t heard, Oprah is doing an online series with Eckhart Tolle. She chose Tolle’s A New Earth for her bookclub this month. This is a pretty big deal. When Oprah gets behind a book, it sells millions of copies. The first installment of the online series had over 700,000 visitors (Oprah’s figure). The people that watch Oprah are not people who you would expect to be getting excited about consciousness evolution.

Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now was published in 1997. My mom gave it to me in college during my existential crisis phase. I remember thinking it was interesting and useful, but it didn’t cause a real shift. I haven’t read A New Earth, but the first installment of Oprah’s series is very interesting.

For those of you who are at all familiar with any variety of consciousness work, there won’t be anything new, however, it seems like an ideal introduction to mindfulness for traditonally religious people. I love Oprah and I know that many people trust her completely. Oprah takes callers’ questions about reconciling their religious beliefs with this scary New Age spirituality and she puts them totally at ease. The Universe couldn’t ask for a better spokesperson.

The whole endeavor could be seen as a watered-down version of any of the great esoteric traditions, still I think it’s fantastic. It’s so important that these ideas get into people’s daily lives. Just the fact that Oprah is able to do this at all shows that significant numbers of regular people are at least intrigued with the idea of spiritual growth, if not actually awakening to some degree. I am very excited about having lots of new people to consider the Universe with. I feel like I’m just beginning on my path and it’s nice to know there’s many other people in the same boat. Hopefully this will translate into more traffic for our blog. Ha!

I just finished Book One of A. H. Almaas’ Diamond Heart series. Doesn’t he look nice?

Almaas’ Diamond Approach is a method of self-realization that we briefly introduced on CtU back in January. It draws on Sufism and Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way, although the Diamond Approach is not aligned with a particular tradition.

Central to the Diamond Approach is the theory of holes. Each of us has certain holes inside of us that we are constantly trying to fill. Maybe we feel unlovable or lonely and fill that hole with extravagant possessions or a steady stream of romantic intrigue. No matter what we try to put into the hole, it never feels full. The Diamond Approach aims to clear out all the junk we put into the hole so that our true essence can come through and fill it.

Essence is the personal manifestation of the Universal, the Tao. It is the expression of the One in the Many, in each individual. This is basically the idea of letting the Tao flow through you so all of your actions arise effortlessly and correctly. It is beyond knowing how to act according to the Tao, or feeling you are in accordance with the Tao, it is literally being the Tao, realizing you are the Tao, allowing yourself to be the Tao. Very cool stuff. Check out the Wikipedia article.

The Diamond Approach has been recommended by two of our favorites, Ken Wilber and Jack Kornfield. Here’s what they said:

“I myself can recommend the Diamond Approach as probably the most balanced of the widely available spiritual psychologies/therapies.”—Ken Wilber

“The work of A. H. Almaas places him among the greatest psychologists alive today. His brilliant vision of the human psyche embraces our Being from early development to the highest realms of spirit. From this he then offers a new language and direct approach for awakening to this manifold nature.”—Jack Kornfield

As I was reading Book One, I got such a positive feeling about it, like it is a path a need to pursue. One thing that’s great about San Francisco is that no matter how far-out a method is, you can find it nearby. The Ridhwan School promotes Almaas’ teachings worldwide and we happen to have a branch here in Berkeley. I will be attending their introductory series beginning in May. (If you are interested in the program, email me and I’ll get you more information.)

I’ve decided commit to the series although it totally conflicts with my job and will require a major rearrangement of my schedule. So why am I doing it? I realized that if I didn’t, I would be forever kicking myself and wondering what it would have been like. I watched Riding Giants last night and it inspired me to live life to the fullest and follow my path. I feel fantastic since making the decision, a good indication it’s right.

I’m starting Book Two today and will be sure to keep you updated on the Diamond Approach as I learn more.