Sunday Sermon [La Ofrenda/ The Offering]

¡Hola! Everybody...
When I first wrote this, I had some responses along the lines of, "it was just some deranged lady... " And I guess, perception is an important consideration. However, being present (which is what this post is really about) is everything. Life is like the Lotto, you gotta be in it to win it...

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-=[ The Offering/ La Ofrenda ]=-

What you think you are is a belief to be undone.

One day, a couple of years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, a jealous sun was attempting to break through obstinate clouds. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a life-sized statue of Gandhi there and people often put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with long white, wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way we make people invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some unknown anointment ritual, she emptied a bag of birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for La Gran Manzana -- the capital of woerdness. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me once more with that intense gaze, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another in a feeding frenzy. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness -- clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. At the same time, the act took on an air of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from their paper bag lunches or reading their newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, from the cocoons of fearful lives and we forgot ourselves for that brief moment. Her audience -- witnesses to what I call her offering -- came together for that brief time and we were connected somehow. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again.

And such is life in The City -- if we stay here long enough, we become immune and lose our sense of awe and forget even that we possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine: a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, this awareness, this presence, is a form of meditation in action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Great Scams: The Secret]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I can’t find the original essay, but the first time I posted the following, I got major flack from the New Age disciples of that major marketing event otherwise known as “The Secret.” LOL

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-=[ Narcissism as Spirituality ]=-

Sometimes the desire to be spiritual is really a dysfunctional grasping for psychological security.

“The Secret,” according to the book is “the law of attraction.” This “law” (as permanent as the law of gravity) is that our thoughts attract what they are about and bring them to reality. Think about wealth, and you will become wealthy! Think about that new car you’ve always wanted, and it will come to you! Think about your ideal weight (really dwell on that number, write it on your scale), and you will attract that reality to yourself. Think about getting a good blowjob and some raging beauty will smoke your cock! All of these (except for the last one) are real examples in the book. Author Rhonda Byrne is glad to report that since deciding her “perfect weight” is 116 pounds, she has moved to that mark, and nothing moves her from it, no matter what she does or eats.

Now here is how “the law of attraction” actually works, according to The Secret:

“Thoughts are magnetic; and thoughts have a frequency. As you think, those thoughts are sent out into the universe and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source. And that source is you.” It is here where we find the inherent contradiction of The Secret. It is all about the self, for the self, obsessed with the self. And this is what disturbs me the most about the Secret: from a moral reasoning perspective, The Secret is deplorable. It concerns itself almost entirely with a narrow range of material concerns -- houses, cars, vacations, followed by health and relationships, with the rest of humanity hardly a consideration.

Like most swindles, The Secret is based on partial truths. It takes the truth that our thoughts and feelings are powerful and inflates them to a universal (and false) scale, giving us: Our thoughts are the most powerful things on Earth. The secret takes a statement such as Thought can influence reality and magnifies it to Thoughts create reality. Not just any thoughts, but your thoughts.

Judging by its continued popularity, it’s a great justification for the cynical maxim that there’s a sucker born every minute.

Since you create your own reality, you are responsible as the Source of whatever arises in your Reality. Every thing in your experience, you created (merely using thoughts and feelings!). Many of you reading this right now may be finally relieved to understand you gave yourself cancer. You caused yourself to be born poor, raped, robbed, murdered, stricken with every illness, and overwhelmed with all kinds of trouble imaginable. The Holocaust? Just something Jews brought on themselves, as they each apparently created their own Reality. The Rape of Nanking? Bad Chinese! With their bad thoughts and feelings, simply created their own reality and thus caused the unspeakable murder of 350,000 innocent children, women, and men. Weird, the Reality people create for themselves, ain’t it?

Of course, it’s hard to exaggerate how cruel and insulting such a notion is. The impossibly sick idea that people in such situations create their own Reality is so obviously wrong, so self-evidently false to our basic intuition, that we can almost laugh it off. I mean, we could if tens of millions of people (Oprah said so!) haven’t literally oriented their lives according to these sorts of “discoveries”

The Secret takes a truth like The Self is one with the Universe, and then immediately inserts the wrong self; The Ego. The Secret confuses ego (personality) with Self (an unbounded, unlimited reality which transcends but includes all qualities). In doing so, it creates a blatant narcissism. Ego is God. Your ego, its preferences, its unresolved cravings, becomes the garments and objects in a twisted ritual.

That’s what sucks dead dog farts about The Secret: There are many levels of self, but only one which thinks, and that’s the Ego. Thinking and feeling compose the essence for everything The Secret espouses, and sadly thoughts and feelings (while important and valid) come from an extremely shallow aspect of the self. Because of this, the Secret deeply, tragically, entangles us further into suffering instead of liberating us from it. The Self is absolute freedom. The relative self, what I call the Mini Me, is delusion. The Secret is appealing to the relative self (the Mini Me ), and pretending it’s the Higher Self.

It’s magic. You cast a spell and (voila!) the Universe responds. The Secret repeatedly invokes “The Universe” and “Your thoughts, your feelings” until the two are interwoven into a fantasy that places your Ego squarely at the Center of Reality, in control of all that comes in and out of being. What do you want to do with your Divine Power? Free all sentient beings? Awaken every sister and brother from the Dream? Dissolve the source of suffering?

No!

You want things. And girlfriends (who give good blowjobs), and boyfriends (in tune with their feelings), and a new car and a big new house.

The Secret masquerades the self (ego) as the Higher Self and as an egomaniac, I can attest to the efficacy of that marketing strategy. Conversely, I can attest also to its disastrous consequences.

Don’t get me wrong, I have long ago stopped pointing out to people the futility in attempting to grasp happiness through people, places, and things. And hey! I want things too! I want good blowjobs (and anal sex) from pretty girls, a stable home, and financial security. And no, the Ego is not the bad guy, it serves a purpose -- just as all of life (including those things the ego labels “negative”) serves a purpose. My point is that The Secret is spiritual snake oil supposedly fulfilling wishes, dreams, and desires. But whose wishes? What level of desire? What depth of dream?

The Secret takes materialism, narcissism, and other afflictions of self and fetishizes them, placing them on an altar. Rather than liberate us from the Wheel of Suffering, The Secret reinforces it. It anchors us in the shallowest level of our self (the Ego) and sanctifies its preferences, its fantasies.

Genuine spirituality is not a vending machine that spits out cars, lovers, and shiny new gadgets. It is not a wand we can wave to avoid discomfort, or acquire power. Actual awakening increases intimacy with all suffering (and bliss), everywhere, without exception. It does not remove struggle, but increases our presence and devotion to all Reality.

Love,

Eddie

Honesty and Relationships

¡Hola! Everybody...
My friend Shellyhope posted a great little music video today. It’s called “Do You Want to Date my Avatar,” and aside from being catchy, it’s hilarious. I think I may have fallen “in love” with one or two avatars myself. LOL!

I'll be gone all day and most of the evening...

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-=[ Honesty ]=-

Whenever we’re being phony, Machiavellian, manipulating other people by withholding… you end up cheating yourself of contact with that person. The reason for telling the truth is to have authentic contact or intimate experience in your life.

-- Brad Blanton

The root word for spirituality comes from a Latin word that means to breathe. This is interesting in that it can lend a basic definition of spirituality that goes beyond dogma and religion: what connects us all is our breath. We all need to breathe and we all share the same supply existing on this planet. If I were to come up with a broad definition of spirituality is that it is about connection. It is about connection to each other, to the Universal, to our ecology, to everything.

Modern physics has taught us lessons recently and one is that the basic way we see reality is flawed. Underlying our reality is an essential connection that should teach us that we are more integrated than we think and that our actions, even our thoughts, influence our surroundings, loved ones, and even strangers in ways that we’re only just beginning to grasp.

The ego-centered Mini Me, which is to feel everyone as separate, influences our normal habit of relating and because of this we’re compelled to speak and act strategically. This is as true for women as it is for men. As long as we operate from the perspective of the Mini Me, even when we’re trying to do the right thing, we are still doing it from an ego-centered perspective: how can I, or how can this person, fulfills my needs, what am I feeling, how can I express my truths.

This stance is, in fact, the cause of the underlying feeling of separation that causes us to suffer in relationships, more than who said or did what to whom. The Mini Me works behind the scenes, unconsciously trying to fit the other into our world and, without even trying, we become manipulative. Jeeez! The stakes are too fuckin’ high, the unmet needs and fears too great, to allow us to do otherwise. What often happens in relationships is that we create these unspoken agreements to support each other in this dramatic dance of need: “I’ll go along with your story, if you’ll go along with mine.” Let me be clear here: a relationship, any relationship based on need is called co-dependent. What’s happening in such relationships is that the participants are trying to fill a need that only exists as a false belief system (“I need to be completed”).

In mutual dependency, the tension gets so high that we become willing to lie or avoid talking (another form of lying) about a situation in order to keep the relationship “manageable.” If you doubt me, just pick up any one of the “The Rules” books (“time tested secrets for capturing the heart of Mr. Right) and tell me if that isn’t a blueprint for manipulation and dishonesty. In this way, our way of relating becomes a method for reinforcing our basic feeling of being apart, small, and lack. Secrets and lies are what we know.

The sense of feeling small and separate forces us to see every problem and feeling of discomfort as external. Shit, if I don’t feel good, it is because you made me feel that way! Think about that statement. I mean really think about it: is it a true statement, or a belief?

When we relate to each other from a place of separation, we act as if the other person exists on the far side of an abyss. We can shout and wave, feel empathy, and then call that skillful communication. But even then, that deep feeling of isolation has not been addressed.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Terminal Uniqueness]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I had something completely different in mind today, but I couldn’t finish writing. Actually, writing what I really want to post led me to something else completely. Anyway, here’s an oldie but goodie...

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-=[ Terminal Uniqueness ]=-

“Oh, that? Girl, I stopped suffering from terminal uniqueness a long time – thank GAWD!”

-- Overheard on subway, IRT 6 train, NYC

Part of the enjoyment of living in New York city is that you’re always catching snatches of conversations, like the one quoted above. Two young, professional women discussing men and heartbreak. I loved that phrase “terminal uniqueness.” The way I see it, terminal uniqueness is the feeling that many of us get when we’re going through rough times: nobody knows how I feel. No one has ever felt what I felt. My pain is unique and therefore no one can understand what I’m going through, and I’m gonna die a wretch.

I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but I think we all go through this thought process to some degree. We feel our problems are unique to ourselves and in that way, we develop an attachment to our pain: my pain is unique! We seem to be saying. And so it is: we have our own little unique crosses to bear and bear them we do: proudly, like scars earned in battle.

Fact is, however much you’re hurting, someone has you trumped, sweetie. There’s that old cliché about having mourned going without shoes until seeing someone with no feet. Sure, it sounds a lot like what our parents would say about eating all the food on our plate (“Do you know there are kids starving in Africa… ”), but the thing about clichés is that they become clichés because they are often true. We want to hold on to our pain, as crazy as that sounds, because for many people our pain defines us, makes us unique.

Much of what we do is process -- much of letting go involve grief and grief has its stages. Don’t get me wrong: processing is important, but there comes a time that “processing” becomes another excuse to stay stuck. After a while, it’s merely disguised indulging. Or, worse, we don’t allow ourselves to feel completely what we’re feeling. We try to make too much sense of it, we analyze it to death. Ask someone what they’re feeling, and more often than not, they’ll come back with what they’re thinking about what they’re feeling. The majority of the time most of us cannot name what we’re feeling.

I’ll tell you this much: there’s a big difference between feelings and emotions. Emotions are the “Drama Queens” of our inner life. Feelings are the reality. Yes, we have pain, it’s part of life, but then we also have what we bring to that pain. If you’re “processing” the drama, you will continue processing until the cows come home. All the crying, gnashing of teeth, ripping of clothes, loss of hair, will not get you through life with any measure of sanity.

Neurosis is a poor substitute for real feeling. In order to feel genuinely, we have to drop the drama and get to the feeling -- the core. And we have to feel completely, without fear, without contraction. Crying? If you think crying is an indicator that you’re moving through the “stages” of grief, you’ve merely taken a concept and distorted it. You have to feel -- really feel, completely and totally, opening up to whatever it is so that you become more and more transparent, allowing the love within you to shine through.

I recently had a client come to me and tell me, before we even started our session, “Please! Stop telling me to open up my heart, because I’ve been opening and opening and the shit is still hitting the fuckin’ fan, Eddie!” LOL

I had to laugh, because I totally understood. It’s part of life. There are no guarantees and just because we’ve decided to effect a shift, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the world will now dutifully conform to our perception and roll out the Red Carpet. Now, that’s the process! Co-workers, lovers, relatives will all “conspire” to fuck up our little strategic plan for better living. It’s their job, actually. Our job is to drop the terminal uniqueness and realize that taking it all so deeply personal is the true source of our suffering.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Self-Importance]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Congrats to my Filipino friends/ boxing fans. Manny Pacquiao took apart Puerto Rico’s pride and joy, Miguel Cotto. I honestly thought Cotto was too strong for the Pac Man -- boy was I wrong! LOL BTW, did I ever mention how much I admire the beauty of my Filipina sisters? *grin*

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-=[ Renting Space ]=-

Blessed is he who can laugh at himself for he shall never cease to be amused.

-- proverb

I have an admission to make. An admission that I fear will decrease your high estimation of me. (LOL!) I suffer from a terrible inclination toward renting the space inside your head. You usually rent it free (!!). Have you ever rented out your head space? Perhaps you have in the past, or maybe you still do. In that case, you should be wary of predators such as me for I have been known to rent the space inside many a head. I also take over your inner remote control as I lounge in the cramp quarters inside your head (hey, it is free).

People allow me to do this all the time... I know, I know: I am bad -- incorrigible even.

I must submit in my defense, however, that I am much better today than I was in the past. When I was younger I used to allow people to rent the space inside my head all the time. Having been on both sides of the issue, however, I am here to tell you that I would rather rent the space in your head, than allow you to rent space in mine. Are you confused?

Allow me to 'splain Reeky...

Let us say someone calls you a twat. That starts you thinking, “Who the hell does he think he is to call me an twat?!!” “How dare he call me an twat?!!” “He has no right to call me an twat -- I’ll show him who the twat is!” And if you are smart you realize that you have just allowed him call you a twat another five times.

That’s known as allowing someone to rent the space inside your head.

Every time you remember what they said, everytime you recall or mentally relive the insult, you allow them to insult you yet again. And therein lies the problem.

If someone insults you and you don’t hang on to it -- you let it go -- then it ceases to bother you. Its power (power donated by you) is diminished. Therein lies the solution.

I can correctly measure the level of my personal growth by how long I choose to hang on to an insult. Why allow other people (most of whom are unimportant) to rent space in your head? Why give them control of your inner happiness? Part of the answer is tied to the degree of self-importance you possess. All that ego takes a lot of energy that could be put to better use. But don’t listen to me, I love renting space in your head (free! LOL!)

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Your Original Self]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Woke up late, and I’m headed out the door... the following is a summer rerun. I think the “exercise” at the end is pretty cool. What is your original self? Don’t answer! LOL

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-=[ Original Self ]=-

“There is an inescapable sense of our original being in us, however much it gets battered by experience and repetitive conditioning. The original sense is that I’m good, I’m me, and within me that me there is the source of my health and well-being and vitality.”

-- James O’Dea

For centuries, we have operated on certain scientific assumptions about our reality. “A” causes “B.” An object cannot be in two places at the same time. Time moves forward, never backward.

No argument, right?

However, in the last few years quantum physics has made us challenge everything we take for granted about our reality and thrown it into a blender, forcing us to look at reality anew with a child’s eyes. In the same way, I have been encountering many people who are questioning the most basic assumptions about what it is that makes us human. To be sure, countless people talk to me about spiritual matters often taking place outside the realm of organized religions. People everywhere are searching for spiritual meaning in a very personal way.

Life 101…

For the most part, these seekers are asking questions: What do we all have in common? Why do we, unlike other species, have a dimension of life we call spiritual? What causes us to seek for something more? I think the answers to these questions have the potential to impact all of our relationships, not merely the romantic ones. I think that romantic relationships -- or the struggle to find them -- can illustrate what I would like to articulate today: our innate, or original/ natural self.

Think about when two lovers first fall in love: there is this unbridled optimism, the feeling of walking on a pink cloud, and the invincible sense that anything can happen, nothing is impossible. I am sure if you would whack someone in the throes the first blooms of love, that person would merely smile at you and pay thanks.

Juan and Juanita meet, and though they have both experienced betrayal and pain in their past relationships they are now certain of their love. “We are meant to be together, there is a destiny,” says Juanita before the wedding. “I know we can make it, I know we can. You can do anything as long as we’re honest with each other, we’re going to make it.”

Juan and Juanita could be anyone you know, they can be on Facebook, or live on your street. What happens to you when you read the story of their beginning? Perhaps, you may feel more than a little cynicism: you have heard this kind of optimism before and you know where it leads. But my point is this: can you also recognize the certainty Juanita -- bless her soul -- was feeling? This feeling is a peek into our original self, the part of our selves that is connected, that is at the same time a part of us and larger than we are. This is the way we really are and we do not have to wait until we “fall” in love to connect with this powerful aspect of ourselves.

No one starts off a venture, romantic or otherwise, expecting to fail. Everybody has a vision. We all possess a gut feeling about our real potential. We feel it when we start something new, before the ego-centered Mini Me starts its poisonous whispering. A relationship, a business, having a child, moving to a new house -- each opens a whole range of possibilities, of beginning anew. We all have a feeling of who we are, what our life can become, and what this planet could be.

Vision -- what I define as the creative ability to construct our reality -- is the fuel to our actions. It gives meaning to our lives, provides the inspiration to stretch beyond our self-imposed limits. Vision guides us in investing our energy, allows us to overcome obstacles, and, in a group of people coming together, vision is the glue that keeps them together and motivated. Just look around these loosely connected blogs, or social networking profiles for a minute and you will get an idea of what our collective vision is like.

This creative energy, vision, is also something that I feel is born within us. We are born with a sense of awe and wonder that is untouched by the limitations of the constructed world. This ability to engage in innocence is what makes childhood a time of wonder -- possibly the only time of wonder a person will ever know. Although this child-like wonder is unaware of the stresses and disappointments of the adult world, this is our true self; our true heart of wisdom. It actually knows something that is ultimately real.

This original self -- the wisdom of the heart is worth exploring. If we examine our own assumptions whenever we embark on anything new, whether a romantic relationship, a business venture, even a spiritual practice, tells us a lot about ourselves. If we pay close attention to how we feel and act when we are initiating something new, we will discover a great deal about our selves.

Try it!

Try this experiment before reading on. Think back to a specific time when you began something new. It could be entering a new relationship, buying a new house, starting school or a new career. Try to recall the imagery – the vision – you had of how things would go. How did you imagine how you would meet each situation? How did you anticipate being received? Just close your eyes and remember.

Good…

If you have a pen and paper handy, write some notes about these assumptions. You will discover something valuable about your heart.

It has been my experience working with people these last ten years that there is this ingrained habit of cynicism and disappointment. “It won’t work out,” they think, or, “I don’t have what it takes.” Oftentimes my work involves asking them to go deeper to the original vision before the voice of the Mini Me kicks in. It might be just an image or feeling. For some who have experienced extreme hardships, they might have to go way back to how they felt when they were much younger.

This innocent vision, the kind we live as children and later hide and repress as adults, emphasizes a playful approach to life: laughter, connection with the body, physical pleasure and the uncensored expression of life. In this state, we know nothing of achieving goals in a structured and imposed.

I will share with you what some people have shared when asked to reach back:

Happiness Happiness is the beginning and end point of our plans

Contentment We may desire things we could get in the future, but aren’t our futures desire-free? You are sitting on that fuckin’ beach with that special someone, watching a sublimely beautiful sunset. Do you imagine your mind as being distracted at that point?

Being fully present None of our fantasies, even of the perfect date, includes time spent worrying about other things. We often plan to be fully alive, empowered.

Harmony In our vision, we assume being in tune with others.

Fulfillment We do not expect dissatisfaction. We anticipate integration and feeling complete.

Success No one plans for failure

Honesty When we connect to our innocent, open heart, we do not plan to lie. Some have even said that honesty is the essence of being.

Love,

Eddie

Generosity

¡Hola! Everybody...
I was very busy today -- out in the field. I was walking by the NY’s court district right after the Madoff sentencing was handed down. I snapped this photo -- this is your MSM at work...

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-=[ Generosity]=-

“I should be content to look at a mountain for what it is and not as a comment on my life.”

-- David Ignatow

I work for a non-profit and at the heart of our mission is to work towards helping the members of the communities we serve to “empower themselves.” It’s a serious responsibility cutting across all levels for those concerned. After my own spiritual awakening, I made a decision to make service the centerpiece of my life’s mission, and I realized that not all of my motivations were as pure as I would like to think. There’s a dark side to service and I see it all the time, both within myself, and in my colleagues.

In Buddhism, there are different levels of generosity. One starts at the level of giving because you will amass spiritual “points” for the afterlife or at some point out there somewhere. Some give because they hope they will reap some benefits. Others give, and this very much prevalent, because it gives them a sense of identity: “I’m a good person, see how I helped the helpless little natives?” Others give because religious dogma dictates they give. These are the evangelicals who give if you accept their God and their beliefs. It may not be overt, but the pressure to submit is there. There are many reasons, both good and bad, for service.

I think what’s more important than the service is the motivation underlying the movement to serve. For the most part, service is flavored by what stage of development one is serving from. Service from the egocentric (I care for myself) stage will look and feel much different from service from a person who works from an ethnocentric (I care for my tribe, my country, my nation) and that, in turn, will be different from a person who operates from a worldcentric view (I care for all human beings, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed). Service is a tool and wielded by the misguided can do more harm than good.

I’ll attempt a clearer example: Let’s say you are at an ethnocentric stage of development and you have a moment of awakening or spiritual experience of being one with everything, you might interpret that as an experience of oneness with Jesus and conclude that no one can be saved unless they accept Jesus as their personal savior (this is the “ethnocentric interpretation – you must belong to this one group in order to be saved -- and, no, I am not a Christian). Have a spiritual experience at the ethnocentric stage and it will only make you more ethnocentric

See how it works? You can be at any stage of development, experience the same life-changing event and you will interpret it according how you perceive the world. Now, let me see if I can piece this all together. We all know examples of reborn Christians who have had very powerful spiritual awakenings; they glow, they are radiant, and they are fascists. This is because they are still at the ethnocentric stage, and, bless them, think Jesus is the one and only way. But there is hope yet, research shows that the more spiritual awakenings you experience, the more quickly you move through developmental stages.

So, what the fuck does this have to do with self-centeredness of service, you ask? LOL! Well, the teachings of Jesus and others remain relevant today because of the emphasis on service, what I consider a form of prayer in action. People, it’s easy to utter prayers, doesn’t take much effort, really. However, when our spiritual life is about getting something or arriving at some destination it reinforces the feeling of having a need -- of not being there yet. Wanting anything, including a mate, or spiritual enlightenment, works to solidify a universe in which you are missing what you want.

The only cure for this endless and painful quest is service and gratitude, period. LOL… Fucked up, huh? I mean I always thought it would be Halle Berry, but she’s not returning my phone calls these days.

Here’s one level of service as described the Buddhist literature (and echoed in many religious disciplines): Compassionate service. Compassionate service only comes about from doing the inner work to the point where it takes no morality or effort at all. If you put your finger in a flame, it takes no effort or willpower to pull it out. You feel the pain, and the action is spontaneous. When your sense of self expands to include other things aside from the sack of flesh you call “you” and expand your circle of life, you feel those close to you as yourself. When a mother sees her child in danger, standing in the path of an oncoming car, for example, she does not need religious dogma to know what to do. The intimacy she feels with her child makes her action spontaneous. As our ego membrane becomes thinner, and one recognizes The One Spirit everywhere, all things become more intimate, the connection stronger. Everyone becomes a part of us -- one humanity. It is only then that we live in Jesus’ teachings, and the Buddha’s, and Krishna’s too, and the teaching lives in us.

Service, Compassionate Service, is the only true prayer.

Love,

Eddie

Relationship Thursdays (The Experiment)

¡Hola! Everybody...
The weather here lately has been fantastic! Now, the weather is apart from our estimation of the day, right.

Right?

Today: more jacked up shit about relationships from someone who isn’t in one! LOL

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-=[ The Joyful Experiment ]=-

The Seven Factors of Awakening are mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, diligence, joy, ease, concentration, and letting go.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

People think I’m kidding when I tell them that if they come to my workshop they may very likely leave their relationships.

It never fails. I have yet to hold a workshop where someone doesn’t tell me they left a relationship as a result of what they experienced in my workshop... this is true.

My workshops have nothing to do with relationships per se, but I used to think that part of the reason was that if you hold yourself to certain standards, you begin to hold others to the same standards and those that refuse or cannot be accountable, naturally fall by the wayside. I now realize that’s only part of the reason.

The other part is love. This is where it gets tricky, however. I hear people all the time say, “Today I love myself,” implying a past in which that wasn’t true. That’s cool, I can dig that. However, what I often find with such individuals is that they’re in love with their egos -- especially the dysfunctional parts of their ego. This is not cool. Let me put it this way: if what you love is the dysfunction, then how does that change anything for the better? I see a lot of angry people walking around these days, irreversibly in love with their anger. LOL!

Actually, loving in that way is not really love, it’s a form of clinging, something many of us (myself included) mistake for love. Loving yourself is important, but the real skill lies in exploring what you consider your self to be. For me (and this is part of my theoretical orientation <-- smart-sounding phrase), coming back to love meant that my sense of self changed as I let go of limiting beliefs about my self. How I perceive that mess of entanglements, coincidences, and floating pieces of conditioned debris I call “my self” today is very different from how I saw that nineteen years ago. For one thing, it includes more of my world: there’s me, my loved ones, my community, my state, my nation -- the world! I am not separate from all that.

Therefore, part of genuinely loving yourself is letting go of those parts that bring you unnecessary pain. When you love, there’s no clinging, there’s only freedom -- pure consciouness. We don’t see love in that way. We love somebody only if they agree to love us back. Or if we have someone that loves us, we guard that love as if it were a rare commodity. The upshot being that we sometimes live in fear of losing that love. For me, that’s not love, that’s a form of psychosis. If your relationship is based on mutual need, eventually that relationship will fail. any relationship not based on love is on shaky ground to begin with.

I’m sure by now someone reading this will be shaking his or head and thinking that I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about and they may be right. However, how has it worked for you otherwise? I am aware of the internet phenomenon in which people who respond are sometimes perfect beings, were raised without hang-ups, are in perfect relationships, or used to be in “bad” relationships, but no longer are, and are well-adjusted, highly realized human beings. If you’re one of these individuals, then you shouldn’t read my blog, this is for the rest of us deeply fragmented, clueless, and mistake-prone mere mortals.

Life, for me, is an experiment; joy its intended result.

You can approach life as an artist/ scientist. Scientists take action and then observe the results. If that action does not bring the desired effect, they keep changing the actions until they find one that brings the results that are wanted. With an approach like this, you can observe the results of your actions and in that way move toward the desired result.

Let’s assume the desired result is joy. If you are experiencing pain, you can change what you do. You can also note which actions result in joy and expand on that expression.

As an artist, you can paint the picture of your life. If there are some elements, colors, or textures that do not fit your artistic vision of life, then it’s probably not working for you. Artists take risks and experiment in order to get in touch with their inner expression. Take the artistic risk and get in touch inside.

How?

Well, what ways have you tried in the past? How has going from one marriage to another, one relationship to another, worked for you? If your approach is to place the power of your vision externally (blaming others, God, etc.), the results -- joy -- will be limited by those outside factors. If your mood is dependent on whether it rains or not, for example, then it is safe to say that you’re going to be a crabby biatche a significant amount of the time.

Let's take loneliness. Oftentimes, we look for and stay in otherwise unrewarding relationships because we ant to avoid feeling lonely. Many people have confided in me that being with someone beats being lonely even if the relationship brings a lot of pain. My question then is: is that really true? How many times have you held someone in your arms and still feel a profound loneliness? Take a moment and look at everything you do and ask the question, “Does this bring me joy?” That is the only criteria to use, as you look at your life as an artistic scientist.

Love,

Eddie

The Mini Me

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today I am reposting one of my favorite pieces because I want to use it to frame subsequent posts...

We all possess what I call a “natural vision” -- a child-like (as opposed to childish) quality that insists on seeing the world with fresh eyes.

Unfortunately, natural vision is invariably sabotaged by an unforeseen element in our lives, which affects us both internally and externally. It is so powerful that it influences the way we parent, the way we treat our loved ones and each other, the way we do work each day. And... it influences how others treat us. We never expect or invite it, yet almost every aspect of our lives exists in its shadow. And though we constantly find evidence of its effects, this force is basically invisible and therefore never anticipated or understood. Oh yes, we do our best to put a good face on it in order to keep it hidden from others, thinking our dark secrets are ours alone, but it really doesn’t work: you can see the effects of this force everywhere.

What is this mysterious element in human nature that stalks and sabotages us?

STORY TIME!!! LOL!

* * *

-=[ The “Mini Me” and the Creation of the “Personal Novela” ]=-

“Human beings are driven by a core wound -- this kind of madness that something’s missing. The more conscious they get, the more desperate that becomes... ”

-- Saniel Bonder

In Shakespeare’s Othello the protagonist and his young Venetian wife are deeply in love. Othello is a noble and simple-hearted soldier who trusts those around him. Desdemona, his devoted wife, loves him deeply and hangs on his every word. It is Iago, Othello’s advisor and apparent friend, who plays one character against another, creating an atmosphere of separation and distrust. He whispers doubts into Othello’s ear, inciting in him a violent jealousy that ultimately leads to a senseless tragedy.

We are all Othello’s at heart -- open, trusting wanting to see the best in each other -- and we are seduced and driven to insane action by our own invisible Iagos. Our Iago is a state of mind; he cannot be seen, he lives in the shadows. Yet his work can be seen everywhere. Iago whispers to us from within and through other people: it is the voice of a collective conditioning.

Our Iagos are like the “mini me” from the Austin Powers movies -- a smaller, angrier, and spiteful version of ourselves. A tragically funny alter-ego. Most of us live with a painful sense of separation from others, a nagging sense that something missing, and a deep experience of limitation, fear, and desire. We experience ourselves as small. As a result, we engage in a flurry of activity to avoid the objects of our fear and obtain the objects of our craving.

This is the dance of problem-based living and, although widely perceived as normal, it fuels an endless drama of struggle. It’s the main character in our personal novela – those unintentionally hilarious over-the-top Spanish-language soap operas. And no matter how hard we try, the poison seeps through the cracks in our armor, manifesting as disease, conflict, and perceived failure.

On a personal level, it can manifest as a general anxiety, or a body image problem. On a community level, it can sabotage something as seemingly simple as a blog. Globally, it is expressed as war, as economic and environmental madness. This force has been given many names. I have heard it called “The Gremlin,” or (for the fundamentalists here) “Satan.” Simply put, it is ego-based living, or as I call it, the “Mini Me.”

Unlike the movie, we cannot see or measure the mini me directly; we only know it by its effects. It is like a thief in the night: you actually do not see him, but you know he has been there because your valuables have been taken. This mini me is state of mind -- a social conditioning of sorts -- and it possesses certain qualities:

Sense of lack This is the essence of the mini me. Enough is never enough; we are never spiritual enough, skinny enough, smart enough, or hip enough. We filter all of our experience through this sense of lack.

Sense of separation Constantly reaching “out there” to fill up our sensed emptiness keeps us focused on a “me-oriented” reality, reinforcing our separateness.

Addiction Gripped in the throes of craving and lack, as soon as we sense that something external will “do it” for us, we latch on to it and become addicted. In this way, the mini me can lead us into unhealthy attachments to work, sex, food, drugs, the internet (Facebook? LOL!), or even romantic relationships.

Fear Once desire and addiction take over, we are overcome by a sense of non-specific fear. If we believe the perfect relationship will alleviate our sense of emptiness, immediately loneliness becomes a terrifying fate. What if s/he leaves me?!

Suspicion fear makes us suspicious, we trust no one completely.

Strategic living We always plan for the worst -- something bad can happen any moment (politicians are notorious for using this aspect of the mini me).

Anxiety There is notion that something is wrong, that we should be doing something more to be “complete.”

Hostile competition this is especially true in the realm of romance and love. If there is this notion that there is not enough, we must fight others who are trying to get it too! This is hostile competition as opposed to co-creation.

Next: the way out…

Love,

Eddie

Ego, Spirit & Relationships

¡Hola! Everybody...
As promised -- a continuation of “crazy wisdom” as applied to relationships... LOL

* * *

-=[ Ego & Essence in Relationships ]=-

“People say, ‘I want love.’ Take away ego (I), and desire, (want) and what are you left with?”

Yesterday I received two communiqués from friends on the frontline of love. Why they try me, when I don’t even own a cat is beyond me. Maybe it’s because they think I’m smart, or because of my background in psychology, I dunno. In any case, both were in pain.

It’s funny because I was reading some interesting material that I feel bears on this whole relationship thingee. As some of you know, stages of moral reasoning hold a deep interest for me and it dovetails well with relationships. If we can picture love as a light, then as that light passes through us, it’s filtered according to what level of moral reasoning you’ve attained. At one end of the spectrum, there’s relating from an ego-centered perspective, at the other there’s a spiritual or essence-centered perspective. Both have huge implications of how and who and why we love. Perhaps you can think about this the next time you’re out on the front lines bleeding out...

First, ever notice how people often say, “I am angry,” or, “I am sad,” but almost never say “I am love”?

::arches eyebrow::

Ego-centered Relating

The major characteristic of ego is a sense of being separate and “unique.” To relate from an ego-centered perspective to experience love as a want -- something to fill that hole you feel at the core of being. Loving in this sense is grasping, clinging.

Relating from an ego-centered perspective is like making the commitment to turn your lover into an emblem of your sense of unworthiness, and to use that individual as a justification to forget who you really are. It’s a determination to make someone else your Higher Power -- to see them as the source of your happiness, security, sense of well-being.

In that way, it is almost certain you will blame them for the feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, lack of fulfillment, anger and discontentment that you feel. It’s always him who makes you unhappy. If only she could be the way you want her to be, you would feel better.

Egoic love is like taking a vow to use the relationship to practice and perfect your ability to judge and project. Self-centered relating is giving to get, and solidifying your perception of yourself as a powerless victim. Relating from an ego-centered, lower-stage moral standpoint is valuing the form of your relationship over its content, and to focus your energy on whether or not the other is living up to your needs as you have defined them. In this way, as long as your lover fulfills the desires and demands of your ego, you will love her and be nice to her. When they don’t, you will feel justified in criticizing and attacking him, manipulating him and trying to change and control him. You will use the relationship to practice your belief that safety lies in separation, in keeping secrets, in being defensive and attacking or withdrawing when you feel scared.

In this way, you assure that you will emerge from the relationship more angry, despairing, cynical, defensive, hopeless and convinced of your guilt (and his/ hers) than when you entered it.

Spiritually-centered Relating

Spirit, or Essence, for me is about the original self -- a higher self -- before all the garbage created in order to perfect the walls of our egos. Ego-centered relating is based on fear; essence-centered relating is grounded in love. It’s another way at pointing at our spiritual nature. We experience our essence in those moments when we become translucent enough to allow the light of love shine through us with the barest of distortion. From a moral reasoning development perspective, essence is relating from a worldcentric perspective, where the sense of separateness that marks ego-centered relating is absent.

Essence demands you deepen your acceptance of your own true nature as Love itself and using that as the ground from which you engage in love with your lover. It is committing to see your lover as a reflection of The Sacred, and think of her as a beloved companion here to help you wake up to the sanctity of existence. From this perspective, it is committing to join with your lover in healing whatever defenses come up in order to experience love.

In cultivating your capacity for unconditional acceptance, forgiveness, kindness, compassion and trust, you surrender your judgments and pave the way to see him as innocent and entirely lovable. In this way you may come to know yourself as the same. Essence leads you to focus on nurturing the content of the relationship, honoring her by doing your best to relate from a place of honesty and kindness. Where you see something lacking, you look to what you could give, instead of looking for what could be.

Resisting the temptation to control in order to avoid facing your own pain, essence will direct you to commit to stopping when confronted your own wounds and instead explore the true nature of your hurt. This can be scary because in sharing your process with another, you’re asking for support in opening your heart and in that way, surrender living under the thrall of your inner fears.

This sounds like a tall order, but it is infinitely more rewarding and healthier than anything you may have tried in the past. Relating from Essence is like returning home into the heart of Love together. It’s coming to the realization that through our relationships we may become our truest Self: free, whole, at ease, and capable of loving without condition.

Whew! LOL

Eddie

Problem-Solving

¡Hola! Everybody...
People: you may not realize it, but we’re in the midst of a huge historical transition. We have a president who’s doing his best to get his message out. Whether you agree with him or not, you should be paying attention. Fuck American Idol! Part of the reason you’re getting fucked without the consideration of a kiss is that you’re amusing yourself to death. We as a people have become the laughing stock of the world and with good reason... Best line of the night was Obama’s response to the reporter’s insistent question of why he waited two days to express outrage at the AIG bonuses: “Because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak, that’s why... ” Want a ghetto translation? Nigga Please! LOL!

In case you haven’t heard there’s a woman here in NYC who was married to a gazillionaire 30 years her senior. She signed a post-nuptial agreement that left her something like $48 million! She’s changed her mind because she claims she can’t live on anything less than $53 thousand a week (click here for a breakdown of her budget). She ain’t even that fine (she has that pallid constipated look most women who consciously starve themselves sport). I guess that poosie was good, I dunno. OTOH, she should be entitled half of the man’s net worth and she’s only asking for a third (he’s worth over $300 million).

Sometimes I’ll read something I wrote several years ago and I wonder who wrote it. LOL... (repost)

* * *

-=[ Problems ]=-

“Test pilots have a litmus test for evaluating problems. When something goes wrong, they ask, ‘Is this thing still flying?’ If the answer is yes, then there's no immediate danger, no need to overreact.”

-- Alan L. Bean(1932 – ) US Astronaut, Apollo 12 Moon-walk mission

The Wonderful World of Problems! LOL!

Stop to think about it: how would you feel, who would your friends be, how would you live, dress, walk, or speak if you had no problems? How at peace with yourself would you be if you had no bills, or hadn’t been sexually abused, beaten by your drunk of a father, or had a different job? How would you feel without hate for a parent, or with a different boss, or girl/ boyfriend, or engaged in a satisfying romantic relationship?

How would you act without your problems?

Yesterday’s responses to the set of “who’s responsible” questions I posted are the self created road blocks we habitually identify as problems. Along with everything in our lives, we perceive our problems to be the result of fate -- therefore impossible to change. However, as much as we anguish over our problems, the truth is, no matter how much better we think we would be without them, the idea of liberating yourself from your problems is terrifying. Sounds crazy, huh? But no: problems give us our identity.

I remember becoming deeply upset when someone said that there are no such things as problems, only our attitudes towards living. It was one of the few times of my life I can remember possessing a sincere desire to kill. I am exaggerating, but I think you can identify. There I was, my world was collapsing around me, I’ve barely had my recovery by the skin of my teeth, and this asshole was telling me there are no problems in life?! Looking back now, the fact of the matter was that my collapsing world was my life. It was all I knew. It was my identity.

We think we are our problems. In other words, we think our problems are a part of who we are. Well, they’re not, and that’s why I began with the “who’s responsible” questions, so that we could see that all those hurts, blames, and regrets are what we think we are (or what we think we have to be), when in truth they’re nothing more than our own limited thinking born from a false belief system and thought constellation. Our problems are how we create our identity, the image we present to the outside world.

(Now please! Do not try to over simplify what I am saying by pointing to the suffering in the Gulf area and laying the blame solely on the victims of what is a horrifying nightmare come true. Some “problems” are more intense that others. My point is – how do WE become fixated on the problem and not the solution!)

Having problems is a chronic habit. Limited thinking is a habit and as addictive as any food or drug. Like alcohol, or bingeing, we give our problems priority in our lives. We live by them. We are them. In addition, we create them with the same consistency as an assembly line to give us the identity we think we need to have.

Limited, or faulty, thinking in any sense is not good for our happiness, except in the sense that we glorify our manufactured identity: the who of what we think we are. Let’s say, for example, you’re sacrificing your life for your child, that’s limited thinking (limited in the sense that it’s like a frozen thinking: there are no options in frozen thinking). This is also a manufactured identity: “suffering parent, that’s me!” Another example: you can’t get ahead in life because of your lack of education, another limited and manufactured identity. Or, here’s a popular one: you only attract jerks for lovers -- also a limited and manufactured identity.

Problems become real because we doubt our true selves. We believe in the myth of ourselves as limited and without power when in actuality we are walking miracles endowed with a divine spark. Simply put, because we have no faith in our true selves, we have created “identity shells.” Out of feelings of worthlessness, or fear, we create identities -- personas -- to bring meaning to a life without apparent purpose, a life with out a true understanding of its own reality. Problems, folks, give us that purpose. Problems create for us our own imagined reality.

Just look at how we live with problems. They consume our thoughts. We plan around them, and for them. We talk incessantly about them, go to shrinks over them, and spend a huge portion of our lives totally obsessed by them.

What would we be without our problems?

Our problems are so dear to us that in the unlikely event one might get solved, instead of being grateful, we run right out and find another one, right now! “Hey! It’s my problem, and while it may bring me pain, it’s the only existence I know and it’s better than the unknown,” someone might say.

Living life at the mercy of our problems is living life as a victim.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Semon [Terminal Uniqueness]

¡Hola! Everybody...
The weather is slowly changing -- becoming milder, the days growing longer. I’ll be scarce, looking for a Spring Fling with the possibility that it will become a Summer Romance that will eventually die a tragic and dramatic death in September.

I love life!

Repost!

* * *

-=[ Terminal Uniqueness ]=-

“Oh, that? Girl, I stopped suffering from terminal uniqueness a long time – thank GAWD!”

-- Overheard on subway, IRT 6 train, NYC

Part of the reason why I love this city so much is that there is a human interaction here. You hop on The Train and that’s the ultimate equalizer: poor, working class, and upper management all rub elbows on the train and no one is allotted more than another on The Train: your $2.00 gets you the same seat whether you’re homeless or the mayor (he takes the train everyday). There’s human interaction: you come face-to-face with fellow human beings – strangers even. You ride the train and you will hear at least three-four different languages spoken. Living in this city is being exposed to the diversity of the human condition in ways you will never experience in Armpit, USA where everyone lives in homogenized complexes.

Yuck

Anyway, part of the enjoyment of living here is that you’re always catching snatches of conversations, like the one quoted above. Two women discussing men and heartbreak. I loved that phrase “terminal uniqueness.” And there was a lot of wisdom in what that young lady was saying. I actually break taboos in NYC: I make direct eye contact all the time and speak to strangers on a daily basis. It’s a lot of fun, actually, trespassing invisible boundaries, it’s what I do for a living, actually LOL!

Anyway, terminal uniqueness is the feeling that many of us get when we’re going through rough times: nobody knows how I feel. No one has ever felt what I felt. My pain is unique and therefore no one can understand what I’m going through, and I’m gonna die a wretch.

I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but I think we all go through this thought process to some degree. We feel our problems are unique to ourselves and in that way, we develop an attachment to our pain: my pain is unique! We seem to be saying. And so it is: we have our own little unique crosses to bear and bear them we do: proudly, like scars earned in battle.

Fact is, however much you’re hurting, someone has you trumped, sweetie. There’s that old cliché about having mourned going without shoes until seeing someone with no feet. Sure, it sounds a lot like what our parents would say about eating all the food on our plate (“Do you know there are people in Africa… ”), but the thing about clichés is that they become clichés because they are often true. We want to hold on to our pain, as crazy as that sounds, because for many people our pain defines us, makes us unique.

This is true: some people will even apply Kubler-Ross’s stages of grieving to loss to the point that all they do is process. Don’t get me wrong: processing is important, but there comes a time that “processing” becomes another excuse to stay stuck. After a while, it’s merely disguised indulging. I have a sister, love her, but it’s really hard to be around her because all she does is complain (“process”) about her childhood and my mother, and the way we were raised, and blah blah blah! Jesus fuckin’ Christ! When will it be over for her? Never?

I’ll tell you this much: there’s a big difference between feelings and emotions. Emotions are the “Drama Queens” of our inner life. Feelings are the reality. Yes, we have pain, it’s part of life, but then we also have what we bring to that pain. If you’re “processing” the drama, you will continue processing until the cows come home. All the crying, gnashing of teeth, ripping of clothes, loss of hair, will not get you through life with any measure of sanity.

Much of our neuroses is merely a substitute for real feeling. In order to feel genuinely, we have to drop the drama and get to the feeling – the core. And we have to feel completely, without fear, without contraction. Crying? If you think crying is an indicator that you’re moving through the “stages” of grief, you’ve merely taken a concept and distorted it. You have to feel -- really feel, completely and totally, opening up to whatever it is so that you become more and more transparent, allowing the love within you to shine through.

I recently had a client come to me and tell me, before we even started our session, “Please! Stop telling me to open up my heart, because I’ve been opening and opening and the shit is still hitting the fuckin’ fan, Eddie!” LOL!

I had to laugh, because I totally understood. It’s part of life. There are no guarantees and just because we’ve decided to effect a shift, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the world will now dutifully conform to our perception and roll out the Red Carpet! Now, that’s the process! Co-workers, lovers, relatives will all “conspire” to fuck up our little strategic plan for better living. It’s their job, actually. Our job is to drop the terminal uniqueness and realize that taking it all so deeply personal is the true source of our suffering.

Love,

Eddie