Tag Archives: Narrow Gate

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The Way The Truth and The Light

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Justice. The first gift of compassion is justice. Compassion simply knows no prejudice or boundary. Its status is; Always enough. It can not be exhausted. The gift of justice is truth but without compassion truth is the needle in the haystack. The gift of truth is light and we see as things actually are. Justice without truth lets us tell our self what we want to be true. The gift of light is who we are. Outside of the light there are only shadows and we only know ‘how’ we are.

In all of this compassion is the key, forgiveness is the gate and then we are able to see. This is the way the truth and the light. It is the path to spiritual living. It is my path and I have no place to go except to be there. It is easy to be distracted by shadows and give them chase. When we do, we fall from grace and in our concern about how we are, who gets lost. I am not sure if I can bring who I am into full realization but there are stories of people who have. I have been a confusion of reluctance and certainty in this regard. Except for the encouragement of lore there is no guide to do this. Stories of others, just like you or I, who have done it. For some reason I have always felt this is what I have to do. That certainty, historically, has stirred strong emotion and that has never helped. My tendency is to be angry that I should see things, believe as I do. That is a tiresome position that I hope to wear out or just walk away from.

Of course I doubt. That is of little help and as a shadow to give chase. Except for this notion that I have to do this I would have taken a different path long ago and had a very different life. I have never been able to shake this certainty, this sense of what I have to do. It is what drives me. When I am angry about it or otherwise distracted, it never takes me to a good place.

Who are you? What drives you?

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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The Salvation of Jesus

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Writing as the Mystic Tourist I have altered my presence in the collective mind. Of the people who have known me and been my community, none knew the Mystic Tourist, until I created him and gave him a blog. Of course I am the Tourist and I am as I was before. The difference is that I have let anyone who can find my work, know. Additionally I have done what I can to make myself available so any who know me personally might also know, The Mystic Tourist. It creates a different consideration of my self.

My concerns are spiritual. I know of no other way to consider anything, even as I am distracted. I am happy to share my view of current social-political concerns. The way I think we ought to behave as a society. I enjoy letting people know where I think we have fallen down and how I think we might best stand ourselves up. These are distractions. It is what I do as filler. Something, anything to do with my mind and the small measure of time apportioned to it for it to spend. There is always something that I might otherwise do. A different way to spend myself. I think we can do a lot to improve the condition of life here on earth and to create a future more to our liking. I also think that we do all of that as spiritual persons. That it is the spiritual part of our being that is power and authority. The bridge that is creation.

My concerns are spiritual and I while my time to bring spiritual living into animal form. I did this first by creating a spiritual place for myself. A place to discover something true about my experience as a spiritual person. That was very powerful. Step two has been to shine a light on that, to let people know of the rich spiritual experience I have known. Step three is a shared experience. To end the mystery of spiritual life by living it in the open, not as an act of  ’faith’ but as a fact of life. To demonstrate our spiritual form, not as a philosophy, not as an interpretation of theology or scripture, but as my life. The purpose of my life can not be to die and go to heaven. To imagine that as the answer to life, as its purpose, is to be dishonest. If I can only know after I am dead and gone, why I am here, I have told myself a lie. This is the place, this is the form, this is the person to know the answer and now is the time or I am lying to myself.

In the Christian tradition we are all waiting for Jesus to return and when he does he will bring a harsh judgement, except of course, for the few. The chosen few. Mind you this is the Jesus who reportedly, in his last agonizing moment, sought the forgiveness of those who humiliated him, tortured him and brutally murdered him. Such a man could have no part of a judgement so harsh that it landed almost all of us in hell. Not just any hell mind you, but a hell so unbearable that it never ends.

The story of  Jesus is meaningless if Jesus is God. Its only possible value is if it is our story. The story of our human nature and of how and who we are. That is the message and it is not a message of how to be after we are dead. It is how we must be now. If you would know Jesus then know yourself. He is the same as you are. The story of his return is your story, it is my story. If Jesus or anyone else could live the life that he did, then surely, someone else will do it as well.

There is no reason to believe that Jesus founded a church. Others did that in his name. They assembled a book and then claimed that the words therein were God’s words. It is not true. You must have faith to believe that. I have no faith, but I do have confidence, all of it rests with God. Fear of God? I have no fear, certainly not of God. I fear those who claim to speak for God, who claim they own God by some book, written words. I fear those who claim to speak for God and threaten me with hell. Forgiveness, that is what it is about. It is the narrow gate. To deal with those who make false claims of God, for and about God, forgive them, by acting out the truth concerning God. Let God be God and make no claim on Gods behalf.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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How To Be Who

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I am not the way. I am not the truth. I am not the light. I am the door. I am the window. I am the gate. I am. However I consider myself, that is how I am. It is different from who I am. Who I am has a single desire. Who I am has endowed in me the authority to create. It desires that I should create who I am. In that way, how I am, becomes who I am. It is intended that they should not be the same. That how should be chaotic, unless we choose something different. In choosing who we are, over how we are, we let go of all that is naught and how becomes who. This simplicity lacks the complication we are so fond of and we feel threatened by that. It’s OK, it is supposed to be that way. It is the mystery we entertain ourselves with. Of course each of us is fully aware that there could be no mystery, after all, we do exist, we are sentient beings. It should be obvious that nothing could exist without first understanding. That is the only way anything can organize itself well enough to exist. What we see, what we experience, we create, not because we are God, but because we exist and we are aware of it.

Who is; the much maligned or much revered soul. It all depends on whether or not you think you have a soul. I never used to give it much thought. My soul was always cast in the most impossible of scenarios by those who would have me save it, if I failed it would spend an eternity in hell. That is pretty damn harsh. To teach me a lesson god (I never the give the hideous god who would design hell the respect of capitalization) would send me to a place so unbearable, so hideous, that only eternal suffering could convey it. A place so awful that a person could only survive it because god would have it never end. Fine. Let that god go to hell. Neither one of them exist except that we have imagined them. As for my soul, I can not possibly save it, it saves me. I, the how of who I am, must choose it.

Why do I write with such authority? Presenting myself as understanding the things I write about. Do you have faith, certainty that things are as you want them to be due to religion or some other construct? Perhaps you are an Atheist and presume yourself as having no faith. Why? Are you sure, as I am, of what you consider to be true. I write with authority on these matters because I have considered it at length and tested it to the best of my ability. I have stepped beyond the social norms to see what I can see for myself and am reporting it here on my blog.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The Psychology of Spirit

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None of us would face difficulty if we did not need the lesson it brings. In considering what people do with their lives it is clear that we each take from our life what we choose. The lesson I learn is determined by what I choose to do with my life. It is the same for each of us. We are each driven by our individual sensibilities, priorities we think we must meet. I do not know that what we choose to do matters so much as how we choose to do it. The way we choose to be determines our sense of satisfaction. People in all walks of life, service, profession, whatever, find that respect and admiration is the prize bestowed more on some than on others. This is due to how they are perceived by their peers but if they carry this sense of worth within themselves it is due to how they see who and how they themselves are. I think most of us want to feel good about our self within our self.

My sensibilities, priorities, are spiritual. I believe that if I succeed spiritually all other concerns are met. That it is the only thing I have to do. Friends, family, prosperity are all satisfied by taking a spiritual path. My path is secular and I have no faith. Religion is of no value to me. I do not believe. I am certain that things are as they are, that I do exist, I am aware and this condition exists independent of me except for the simple fact that I am, I exist. I have no reason to believe in a beginning or an end as it is clear that nothing happens in the past or the future. The only time anything is known to happen is now. There is an absolute quality that allows for everything and I consider whatever that is to be God. My devotion is to God. God being absolute my devotion reaches everything and everyone. Everything I am given to do, every relationship appointed to me is satisfied by devotion to God. To the absolute. Absolutes are also easily identifiable. Anything of a singular nature that can not be exhausted is absolute. Truth, understanding, compassion these only know a single measure and can not be exhausted.

On the narrow path there is a narrow gate. There is but one key, it may have different names but I know it as forgiveness. With forgiveness we discover compassion, understanding and truth.

As I have considered my spiritual psychology, how it is my spiritual life is healthy, or not, I have learned what you are reading here, my blog. My last lesson was a tough one and it took many years to learn. Thirteen, oddly, the number of completion. It was proceeded by four or five years of great difficulty that then became my life. Of course this sense of difficulty was as much to do with perception as it was the challenging circumstance I faced. I had unwittingly made myself a victim. Deciding that the actions of another were harmful to my character. This was an indirect choice, accumulative in nature, subconscious.  It seeded my life, my past, with all sorts of nasty stuff to support it. That in turn became my spiritual path. To return to the past and fix it. This was stuff I had already spent years of my life ridding myself of, and here it was, restored. It was interesting to see that the same weeds grow back. Not necessarily in the same place but every bit as prolific.

I am not sure why I treated myself to this experience. I will guess it was necessary, providence. I have learned things that perhaps I might have learned some other way. This is the way I did learn my lesson and it may well be that there is some value that could not be had any other way. If I have learned anything I hope it is how to avoid doing something like this to myself again.

My spiritual health is returning.  One thing I have known for a lifetime that I must do has come to pass. I have made public my spiritual aspirations.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

Soul Sojourn

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Soul. We have a soul but what is it? Can it be saved? The soul is the person we are, that exists, even when our body, our temporal body, does not. Whatever that is or is naught. What we are when whatever we are is not physiologic. An essence of being that is independent of our birth but of which our birth is dependant. Whatever it is it exists, even if it is what is naught, then that is what it is and that must exist. It does seem obvious that it can not be saved but rather it is our salvation. It is something that is known to all as it is impossible to escape. Can we know our soul, ‘be’ where our soul is? I think so or I would not bother with all this work.

It has been my experience, that in matters of this nature, there can be no accomplishment, only realization. All of a sudden, by choice and consideration, you realize you are there. It is not so much an epiphany, more like a door opening, unexpectedly, and you see. Having had experience like this and walked in such places before I am confidant that I can expect a similar result from doing the kind of things that got me there before. Today it involves being public and being comfortable with that. Seems to be working just fine.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

The Temple of Now

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Life shifts and twists as I work for openness. All preparations are being fulfilled as I challenge myself to be completely honest, to walk in the open. There is much complaining within me, protesting, fretting… The raising of concern! It is a big distraction and without merit. I am as I am. I see what I see. I do wonder if I know something that gives rise to my protest, a fate so true to destiny that it will not be avoided. Our history is filled with stories of people who suffered unjust fates. No incentive there. So incentive lies elsewhere. I am confidant that my spiritual health is tied directly to openness. Naked honesty and I am still a little uncomfortable with that. While I have known this day would rise it did not used to be this way. When last my life went under repair, the time before this, it was a spiritual project as well and the rewards were extraordinary. For the most part I could keep it private. It was easy to remain discreet and find people to share my experience with. They were few and I felt safe. That path no longer exists as I am given a new task. It is increasingly clear that this is the way as it is the only way I have found growth. The growth is refreshing and I am finding my spiritual legs once more. With a new task there are new lessons and with the lesson, a new application.

In that past repair I learned a lot about the Key of Solomon. Maybe it is something else but I know it as that and so I will continue to refer to it as such. What I have learned about it in the past is not enough to turn it today and so I am learning to understand a new mystery and secret. Openness is the grease for this wheel, this new lesson, steadily and surely freeing the movements. I can not reclaim the comfort past and so I must look to this new lesson. I can actually see this thing. It is a place, like a temple and a portal. A spiritual place. People think of it as magical but magic does not exist unless all is magic, as I believe it is. Nothing happens except by it. Call it creation if you like, it is the same thing.

I have been working with the Kundalini, puzzling my chakras to see if something is amiss there. The Kundalini is as a pillar and it seems intact, in proper order. It acts as a channel and as I look through it I see myself at a much younger age. The Kundalini is also the center pillar of the Key of Solomon, Providence. Providence passes through the axis that is Now where it is joined by Abundance and Fate. The intersection of these three lines, at the moment of Now, is foundation, and around that is the Temple of Now or the Key of Solomon. It is an actual place. As I look in on myself as a child I begin to see that the child arrived from elsewhere, a new passage I now see. I believe the comfort my child and I seek is through this new-found passage. As I consider it, it generates powerful images and I imagine the passage is active.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

Basic Magic

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Now. Now can only be appreciated by isolating the moment we first knew it. When we see the person we were when Now was present, when the question was, will we do what we are given to do, Now, then we have returned to that place. It creates a tunnel, much like the eye of a storm and we see our self as we were, and, as we are, Now, once again considering the choice… Will we do it Now? There may be any number of times when the question presented itself and when we recognize any one of these we are here Now. Should a person want to reconsider their appointment, whatever it is a person is given to do, the one thing that completes and brings the best value, solves the puzzle; providence provides the way. We discover that whatever it is that makes it possible to reconsider this question of Now is presented and we get to make the choice again. As I consider this question, this morning, I am returned to my four-year old child and the choice he made concerning what to do Now. The choice he made created a history that I have lived since then. That is basic magic and we do it all the time. Spiritually, a four-year old is establishing their second chakra. It is Acquaintance. Acquaintance first of course is family but then naturally community branches from there. The tunnel I see between these opportunities to choose Now, is, ‘as I was and as I am’. It presents itself a number of ways and one of these is the Kundalini.

Today in my life I am charged with making my spiritual life public and I do it with this blog. My spiritual journey is chronicled as a daily journal that is this blog. It is the vehicle for my personal growth and the restoration of my spiritual health. This is a public blog and so the issue of, Acquaintance, the second chakra, is at play. The tunnel between – as I was and as I am – is illuminated by way of the Kundalini. Each of the chakras has a symbiotic relationship with one other  chakra and then by that association with all the other chakras. Light Gate, the sixth chakra, and, Acquaintance, the second chakra, have a symbiotic relationship. The light that fills the tunnel between the sixth chakra and the second chakra is of course from the gate. Light Gate, the sixth chakra. I am not comfortable being so public and the light will dissolve that should I choose to restore the seven chakras as one, the pillar in the temple of Now that is also the central pillar of Solomon’s Key. Yes it is the Kundalini as well.

I have said that I am uncomfortable being so open, so public, and I am. So much so that often, as now, it feels as if I can not do it and yet I know it is what I have to do. It is extremely emotional as whatever has been broken is being healed. If I do not do the writing I can not process the squirm that I feel and usually I feel very much better on completing a post, even if just briefly. No such feeling this morning. I see the spiritual world. I do not know why, but I do. I am sure that I have to share this and so I am doing it here with you. Thanks for your company. It means a lot to me.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

A Familiar Tension

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The angry four-year old is very powerful. That youth can set the course for a lifetime. The storm that became my life, as a young man, can be traced to the dictates of a little boy. I see him now in the eye of the storm, brooding, stewing… Choosing. He was hurt and worn down. The choice he settled on created a false gravity and a history to support it. Magic. Now for a new choice and new magic. I remember my imaginary childhood friend. What he looks like. His name and how he presented himself. Enoch. I have known Enoch since but had forgotten that I knew him then. Enoch is transparent. Light and matter pass right through him. Enoch is all-knowing. At four years old people did not appreciate my acquaintance with him. Frustrated and angry I shunned him. Closed the door and ignored him. The time to correct this has arrived and a great comfort sweeps over me as I remember that, Enoch, who I have known as an adult, is my long-lost childhood friend.

As a wave of emotion erupts from my person I will see where it carries me. It seems I may have found the passage. I hope so. Enoch, I am sure, knows the way and if I have found it he will advise me.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

The Question Of Ego

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End avoidance beginning with my Ego.

As life progresses, bringing with it conflict, we react. We create a tendency that is predictable, our Ego. Ego is our carnate identity, it belongs to the physical expression of being; flesh, blood and bone. It is as a possession, of being incarnate, that imagines it possesses what is carnate. It is like a defence mechanism and tends to be defensive as well as possessive. What Ego wants is direction, to be told how to behave. Much of what becomes of our Ego ends up as what rules our behavior. That is a role reversal of its purpose. Just as Ego is not intended to control us we are not intended to control it. Ego represents the completion of our child and is pretty much completed at age seven. It is also the third chakra. The direction it seeks can be found only when all decisions, made and maintained by the Ego, are seen as important. When it is a decision that troubles us, that is its purpose. It seeks direction so as not to be troubled. This direction comes from opening all passages to divinity. We are not comprised of earthly substance alone, existence is timeless and we exist. It is the nature of existence that all the secrets of existence are represented in everything, in anything, that exists. The Ego needs to let go of its possession and its ruling tendency, this creates the opening that allows divine guidance.

In my last post, Behind The Veil, I wrote of ‘Ghost-like apparitions’ generated by the Ego. In this post I am learning what I thought I already knew; Approval, acceptance, a sense of importance, compassion, heals the Ego. These are attributes of the fourth chakra which is Compassion. Compassion is the gate or bridge between the higher and lower chakras. Bridging the chakras is one of the fundamental steps of divine living. Now when I am pressed by ghostly egoic apparitions I let them let go by acknowledging their request for guidance. I do believe that is all they represent, a request for guidance. I visualize the apparition  rising into my fifth, sixth and seventh chakras. This represents the question that is Ego being raised and the bond forming between the higher and lower chakras. The qualities I noted in this post; giving importance to the Ego’s decisions, Compassion and its qualities need to be given to the Ego if it is to rise up through the higher chakras with its question.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012

The Key of Solomon

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There is a place I know of as foundation. It is a single point through which three lines intersect forming twelve right angles. The first line is Providence and it is as a pillar. The second line is Fate and it runs front to back. The third line is abundance and it runs left to right. I have long known that the intersecting point is Being. My mystic considerations, of late, have had me considering Now and how to find it. That ponder has led me to realize that this point of Being, of intersection, is Now. Emanating from these lines, and fixed by this point, are three planes. I can see this place, it has a substance I will call image, for lack of any other term. Just now I can see the planes and I have no idea what to name them and so I will write about it and divine their definitions. Come along with me if you like, I enjoy the company.

First I will consider the plane that cuts along the lines of Providence and Abundance, it is as a face or front. I will call it character. Next is the plane that is fixed by the lines of Fate and Providence and is as a profile. It is disposition. Lastly resting along the lines of Fate and Abundance is reputation.

We are usually as a satellite circling this point as it is the point of true gravity, this point that is Being, that is Now. Being somewhere other than this point is ‘normal’ or usual. This is the place of power, it can not be owned as it is what owns us. In truth we own nothing but we go about glomming on to all manner of things creating false gravity’s that pull us from our center, from Being and Now. This is how we actually create reality and it is only ‘true’ that it is real. Being and Now are also appointed a place in our physical body. It is at our body center or Hara. (You can Google Hara if you do not know what it is. Here is an example). Should a person find this place and learn the trick to fix it to their Hara, so that Now-Being and Hara are at the same place and fixed, they become a Divine Being. A completed person with the full complement of intended attribute. It is a state that can not be achieved, only realized.

There are many other components that define and secure this place, give it a ceiling and a floor. It creates a window, a door, a narrow gate to an actual place, a world, a reality. A place to walk and be. I have walked there. In this post I will cover just one more component of Solomon’s Key, that is what I know this to be. A sphere surrounds the central point As you walk on the floor of the key the sphere moves freely in any direction and is,I think, as a force-field.

It is nice to be able to see this place again and recognize its components. Hopefully I will learn a more durable lesson this time. I am still trying to get back on the seat so I can drive this thing. You have to let go of everything to be able to do it. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2012