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Feature Articles Archive |
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Below are links to our previous Feature Articles by Paul Hourihan on various aspects of spirituality from an Eastern philosophical perspective: BENEDICT LABRE: SAINT BY ACCLAMATION CATHERINE OF GENOA: SAINT OF LOVE CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS CHRIST'S TEACHINGS IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT Concentration: The Key to Success DISSATISFACTION: THE PREREQUISITE FOR SPIRITUAL LIFE INDIVIDUALITY AND Mystical EXPERIENCE KARMA YOGA – Enlightenment on the Installment Plan MEDITATION - THE ULTIMATE ESCAPE THE MOTHER'S UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY THE MYSTICAL STATE VS. THE DREAM STATE NO PROGRESSION WITHOUT CONTRARIES: DEATH, LIFE'S GLORIFIER Questions FROM Spiritual seekers FROM REINCARNATION TO RESURRECTION From reincarnation to resurrection, continued my quarrel with myself by Shirley T. Lewis - Selected Poems TIGERS OF WRATH: ANGER AS A SPIRITUAL TOOL
STUDY THE WORD by Paul Hourihan, edited by Anna Hourihan Study of the scriptures is an important aspect of spiritual life. An intense, creative, engaged reflection and a searching, earnest examination of the law, the Word, the universal wisdom as it may be found in scriptures,* will help to illuminate us into commitment and conviction. How will this kind of scriptural analysis, and the special way of life the scriptures enjoin on us, help us to have a life-transforming mystical experience?
For all these reasons, as well as others that will occur as we proceed, mystical experience and the life being recommended to us in the scriptures interact upon each other intimately and directly.
However, the scriptures are not the end. Though they are
our highest production, they offer only the basic introduction to the
realities of spiritual life in the mystical ascent. In the meantime, they
help us to understand, check, curb, and control the lower nature and
establish ourselves on a new path—that achievement, alone, will be
monumental. * Mystical writings in particular, such as: "The Sermon on the Mount" in the Holy Bible, the Upanishads, and the Tao Te Ching. Please note: Our latest title, Children of Immortal Bliss: A New Perspective on our True Identity Based on the Ancient Vedanta Philosophy of India includes a study of the Upanishads.
See also:
Thoughts on
Detachment, Words of Wisdom: Spiritual Life
and
Meditation.
every DAY IS A NEW YEAR DAY by Paul Hourihan, edited by Anna Hourihan - (Excerpt from a taped lecture) The New Year is here. We hope you’re starting some resolutions to become even better than what you are and have been. But we don’t need a New Year’s Day for that, do we? Every day is a New Year Day; every day is Christmas. In our spiritual lives, every day is Christmas because we celebrate the sense of joy and oneness that Christmas brings to ordinary people during the holiday season. We also celebrate New Year’s Day and every day of our lives by the resolution we make when we wake up in the morning, such as “this day let me be better; let me practice change in myself today” and similar resolutions we state at the start of each day. New Year’s Day is for those who are not practicing spiritual life but need the benefit of a few days or a week or two to give them extra motivation to change their lives—this is all to the good and we wish them well. Meanwhile, as the Christmas season passes and a new year is upon us we realize that these celebrations with others that we enjoy are, in a sense, symbols of what we are doing in spiritual life. Christmas is a symbol not only of Christ’s birth but the ever-renewed birth of something in us each day. We may not know what to call it, but we think it is the beginning of what might eventually be a rebirth of spirit; New Year’s Day is a symbol of that rebirth in our will and resolution to turn over a new leaf.
We have 365 New Year days to be authentic spiritual
aspirants! See also: CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, Words of Wisdom: Spiritual Life and Words of Wisdom: Christ.
Christmas Reflections Excerpt from a lecture on Christ by Paul Hourihan, edited by Anna Hourihan Christmas—the birth of the Mystic-Savior … that is, more than a man, a savior, a Divine Principle is embodied in the birth of Jesus Christ. It is the Soul... the Divine come to earth to show man what man is like! During ordinary, crowded hours we are not able to contemplate such a life as Christ’s with anything like an adequate temper of mind, but rather in calm, secret, solitary times we can do so. Midnight, dawn, in the hush of Christmas Eve, of Christmas Night, that fills the Western world—nay, any part of the world where Christ is worshiped—at such auspicious times we contemplate that charismatic night in Bethlehem 2000 years ago … and not only his birth, but his life: all the words, the events, the crises that followed. As we meditate upon this mysterious existence, we may gradually find ourselves meditating upon the mystery of our own. Wrapped in deepest mystery, indeed, is our own existence—as is the recollection of it as we reminisce, ponder, trace over the strange patterns we have woven together to make up the design of what we call our life. Odd, that in thinking so intensely with such powerful intuitions filling our consciousness, during the stillness of Christmas Eve, of Christ’s appearance, we may find ourselves thinking of our own lives as well, as though the life we have lived is somehow related to the archetypal life that began in Bethlehem, is like it, is a part of the same continuing greater life of the Divine in the world of manifested things. According to Vedanta philosophy, Thou art the Soul in all souls. The heart of Christ is yours, not in a figurative sense but in an actual sense. He belongs to us. He is us. This Vedantic view is supported by Christ’s own sayings: He that hath seen me had seen the Father … Know ye not that ye are Gods, children of the most high… Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect … The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Christ has been called the Savior, but each of us may be one—prophets, all. Burden-bearers. World-supporters. On a smaller scale than his, no doubt, but in principle there is no essential difference. He but does on a world scale what spiritual aspirants are all doing, each in his or her own way, on the little stage of our individual lives, burdened as we are with so many trials, sufferings, tediums, miseries. Each of us is the savior of our family, children, parents, relatives, close friends, who have not yet begun to lead the life of the Spirit as we have. They are always looking, watching, waiting. If we fail, they will fail. If we succeed, they shall be elevated also. They all depend on our dedication, our endurance, perseverance, faith, spiritual practices, our willingness to tread the heroic path to the end. For them we play the role which Christ played for the world—the principle is the same. The same life is in us as in him, only less intensified, less powerful in its vibrations, less commanding in its effect. But not essentially different. We see, then, that with an act of spiritual imagination we may be able this Christmas to bring Christ closer to us than ever before, make him part of us and we part of him—part of his life, his high destiny—as we realize, in that act of creative imagination, the implications of the ultimate truth of the Upanishads: Thou Art That. See also: CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, CHRIST AND VEDANTA, and Words of Wisdom: Christ.
BRAHMAN: THE Absolute
See this
Sample
Excerpt* from
our latest book, Children of Immortal Bliss: A New Perspective on Our True
Identity based on the Ancient Vedanta Philosophy For another excerpt from Children of Immortal Bliss see also INDIVIDUALITY AND Mystical EXPERIENCE.
*In PDF format.
INDIVIDUALITY AND Mystical EXPERIENCE The following is a selection from our newest publication, Children of Immortal Bliss: A New Perspective on Our True Identity based on the Ancient Vedanta Philosophy of India. Individuality is really a myth. It is so changeable that we don’t know just what it is at any point in our life. If we lived to be 100 and were asked when our individuality was truly in flower we wouldn’t know when to choose because every decade it changes—our ego-conception of individuality, that is, which, the sage reminds us, is not a true conception at all. The truth is that we don’t know what our individuality is. Something that fluctuates so constantly, at the mercy of so many phenomena and creature influences, cannot be a satisfactory possession. ... The individuality that we know now is separatist. That is what we cling to. It is egoism responding when we protest: What will happen to my individuality in mystical experience? However righteous it sounds, that is the ego speaking, loving divisions and differences; whereas, the spiritual element in us is trying to find unity and oneness. We want to develop and polish our individuality, but keep it intact, apart from other entities. We want to develop it, not lose it. In mystical experience, however, we lose the egotistic sense of individuality and gain a different consciousness entirely. It is like explaining to a boy of ten about the joys of married life. He doesn’t believe there are any other joys except the ones he knows. So we think our idea of individuality is the ultimate when it is only the beginning. There is something much beyond that.... We have to keep training our minds not to think that [mystical] experience has anything to do with annihilation, as we all tend to believe at first. It is simply the dissolution or extinction of the ego-power. Therefore, will mystical consciousness cause us to become nothings and lose our individuality? Quite the contrary: It will expand us to include the universe. The individuality we hug close is trapped in a kind of shell, like the caterpillar in a cocoon. Just as the caterpillar goes through metamorphosis to break free from its cocoon to achieve the next stage of development and become a butterfly, so we have to break the encasement of the ego-consciousness. After we do this, the Infinite will not be alien to us, although it is now. The feeling of exaltation and bliss that accompanies the experience, universally attested to, is the sign of coming into our true realm. We’re attracted to the Infinite, but we’re afraid of it, too. When we don’t have any direct experience of something, we are a little estranged from it even as it lures us on. This is what undergirds our fear that we are going to lose our individuality. But all the sages declare that the Infinite is our actual self. The discovery will be like suddenly coming home to ourselves in a flashpoint of awareness, consuming but a single moment. It will be like illuminating a dark room—after the light appears we don’t wonder where the darkness has gone, it seems never to have been. The moment the light is on, we don’t conceive of darkness any longer. This is how it is with the experience of the true self. The old self, so afraid to develop beyond its known limits, is magically wiped out, and we don’t think of it any longer—just as we don’t recall the darkness, which has not so much been changed as somehow fallen into nonbeing. Our true nature is Light. For more on mysticism: See also THE MYSTICAL STATE VS. THE DREAM STATE, IS MYSTICISM ESCAPISM? and Mysticism in our Words of Wisdom section. tHE Spiritual AND THE PSYCHIC
By
Paul Hourihan Between spiritual reality and ordinary, mundane reality (including that of the every-day conscious mind) lies the world of the psychic. The psychic is merely an extension of our familiar world of sense and ego-experience, but an unfamiliar area of the mind at this stage of things. It is so unfamiliar that we assume it is spirit! In fact psychic gifts, ESP, etc., flow out of our natural constitution, like the other senses. Mind has many channels, the psychic being one of them. Access to the psychic world is possible without any of the disciplines or self-denial necessary for a genuine spiritual life. Many people who possess the psychic gift are not prepared to live a spiritual life with its emphasis on discipline and purification of the mind. Those who seek psychic powers, and gain them, usually cannot control them. Soul and Spirit are beyond Nature, beyond Mind and beyond the senses. The greatest temptation is said to be the desire to exercise occult powers. Lust and the desire to control the lives of others are the two great foes in spiritual life. The use of these psychic powers by us is not only an expression of egoism but an enhancement of it. Of all the aptitudes or gifts we might possess, it is the most hazardous and burdensome for a spiritual aspirant since it so directly and subtly fosters the growth of the aspirant’s archenemy—the ego itself. Patanjali in his Yoga Aphorisms says that giving up these psychic powers, even great miraculous ones, destroys the seed of evil. The evil he refers to is identification with the body and the mind, which in Vedantic terms is ignorance, Maya, egotism. Is It Psychic or Spiritual? Psychic experiences leave us essentially the same; spiritual experiences transform us. When we have a psychic experience we wonder about its meaning, its genuineness, etc. With the spiritual experience, there is no doubt—Spirit is Truth! Truth speaks with a clear, compelling voice. Spiritual experience is not possible within the limits of the mind. We must transcend the mind to reach the spiritual realm. Many mystics discover psychic powers on the way to self-realization, but are always advised to remain indifferent to them. After discovering why, they so advise others.
Dissatisfaction - The Prerequisite for Spiritual Life
By
Paul Hourihan Why are some drawn to the spiritual search, and not others? Dissatisfaction—discontent with the world and with oneself. We must disintegrate (break down our conditioned thinking and behavior) before we can integrate. We must know great conflict before peace, great passion before serenity. We must want and need the Truth. Otherwise we do not find it. Truth belongs to the discontented. Dissatisfaction with oneself and with Life, as well as a great inner, ongoing discontent is what is needful. From the viewpoint of reincarnation, it is when we have lived many lives, passed through all the experiences, then the discontent arises because all that we have gone through does not satisfy or fulfill. We are ripe for something else. The fruit of our readiness, our ripeness, hangs heavy on the bough. The slightest stimulus may loosen it—some book, some meeting, some moment, some dream, some tragedy. In other words, we have to work our way through the basic experiences that Life has to offer, that the world provides, before we are ready for that which the world does not provide, or that Life does not conceive—the world of spiritual enlightenment, of mystical realization. Another prerequisite—a kind of hopelessness … like a land bird that finds itself on the mast of a ship that has gone out sea.… Us, too. What else can we do? But from this condition springs grit and determination, which are so essential. But isn’t mildness and quietness always recommended? Yes, but an achieved mildness at depth, where the Truth is. Congenital mildness lies on the surface and is perhaps not the best ideal because the drive, the determination is not there. But the mildness we achieve through effort—that is different. Our strong resolution to go forward, in turn, is fed by desire, passion, and energy that is not necessarily visible to others: passion of soul, and energy of will. A more purely spiritual prerequisite: guilelessness … absence of calculation … simplicity. All the prerequisites are really geared to enable us to weather, and eventually supplant the psychological pattern of our past conditioning that provides resistance to spiritual life.
By Paul Hourihan/ed.
Anna Hourihan Going away on vacation is wonderful! There is only one fault with it—we bring ourselves along. We can get away from our jobs, but we can’t get away from ourselves—that is, the ego self, the compulsive self, the ordinary self. One reason we drink and take drugs is so that we can temporarily escape from the limited self we normally identify with. Sexual adventure serves the same purpose, since sexual excitement pushes the ordinary consciousness out of the central place in our life for a little while and we seem to become someone new. Hence, also, our constant need of novelty—new sensations, new things! But still we can’t escape ourselves! What is the solution to this? Make yourself such that you won’t want to escape! The spiritually evolved individual, for example, is absorbed in his or her own Presence and is quite content. A great deep opens up within him and he discovers at last what the rest of us are foolishly seeking to uncover through novelty, travel, sex, addictions and losing ourselves in work. To reach where he has reached we have to control, renew and transform the mind. How do we do this? Through the practice of meditation. With meditation we escape from the ego self; we push this aside because we’re seeking something else. We immobilize it for five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, or whatever we can manage without strain. During this time we give the mind a respite from its usual restless, ego-driven self. We infuse the mind with different vibrations, such as peace, love, devotion, and acceptance, which are coming from a higher level of the mind. Otherwise it experiences its usual self … and thus is continually bored.
Knowingly or unknowingly, we are aiming for the mystical state so that the
mind will experience another consciousness than its own habitual
consciousness: namely, the Self, the charisma of the divine presence
within us. The true vacation is meditation—we absent ourselves from the familiar limited self to reveal the unlimited Self within.
WE have It ALL NOW! We seek fulfillment in so many things—love, marriage, parenthood, art, wealth, power—and fail to find it in any. What will fulfill us? There is something: namely, the knowledge that nothing will fulfill us, that we need no fulfilling, that we have it all now! Spiritual meditation reinforces this idea by turning our attention inward. The answer we seek is to be discovered by solitude, prayer, meditation, inner analysis; in other words, by cultivating a life of introspection even as we continue to live in the world. But long practice is necessary, as it is necessary in mastering any difficult art. Here the task is to discover that there was nothing to learn, nothing to do, nothing to be discovered! Yet … we need practice to arrive at this conclusion. Yes, we have it all now. Just as we are, we are fully equipped for enlightenment. Everything needed is at hand if we would but use it, and continue to use it and faint not. God, heaven, immortality, eternity, all of life, all of the universe are there, ready at hand. The Infinite is our destiny since—as great mystics have told us—the Infinite is our true nature. But we must know it. Know thyself, said Socrates, and so says every mystic. Discover who you are and then stand on the strength of that knowledge. Experience the Divine, know it, become one with it—and then awaken it in others. Free yourself—then free others. May the freed make others free.* The mystic's call is a call to perfection and to Life—the life of the Soul, of Self-realization. It is a summons to undergo the agonies of creation that must precede deliverance from the fetters of our bondage, from the specter of our egoism. In overthrowing this specter, as one day in this life or in some other we all will overthrow it, we allow our true nature to emerge—the Christ-Consciousness, the Buddha-nature—and come home to ourselves at last. * This is a line from an ancient Hindu chant:
May the
wicked become virtuous.
See also
What is Vedanta? and Words of Wisdom:
Mysticism
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