Tag Archives: Now

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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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The Matrix of The Possible

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I believe that we are spiritual beings snared in a web of ignorance. As spiritual beings I believe we have the authority of creation and the web that is our ignorance is our creation. I believe it is possible, and that occasionally, a person discovers the trick to walking in the realm of ignorance while being immune to it. Free of the normal constraint that is our agreed condition and creation, ignorance. This can only be done by using the magic that is ignorance, our communal agreement of constraint, to prove the truth. Everything is magic, nothing exists outside of its boundless influence. We are the masters, the authority, the creators of the reality we share. By the authority that is God, we create. We are imbued with creative authority by God but we do not name God. We are the creation that creates. We name and the name defines what is, we do not name God. It is God who names us and we in turn name and create. None can name God. God is self evident, even if God is naught.

The past and the future, I do not believe in them. I believe in creation. That the past and the future are constantly being created in the only known time, now. Nothing has ever happened at any other time. So what shall we create? This is something we do together, none do it alone.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

 

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The Corruption of Now

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As a curious reality I continue to struggle with my opposition to exposing what I consider to be my spiritual life, even though it is something that I have already done. It is an opposition to doing what I want to do. Well that seems a bit odd but I suspect it is not at all that unusual for a person to be self-conflicted in this way. I suspect that we all have some of this tendency. Not that we would all struggle with this as I have. I am sure plenty of people are very comfortable in their own skin. Personally I am more comfortable as time passes. I work to be that way and I bring the issue up as a simple observation. Internally it is as a constant complaint but when writing about it, it is an observation. It is certain that as long as I remain conflicted in this way I will fall short of my goal of being spiritually successful in the real world.

The human story has long included spirituality. People have considered themselves to be spiritual and to have spiritual experience. A few of us are revered as having found the way. It is usual that we hold these people to a different standard, as if they are somehow different. They are not. If they were their lives would be meaningless as they would not be like the rest. They would in fact be different. The only possible value in having an observable spiritual experience is if it is an experience anyone might have. Then it tells us something about ourselves. Who and how we are. This is the experience that I write about. My spiritual experience and I think it is the same sort of experience anyone might have. I have no reason to bother with it if it is not. That being said, we are not all given the same thing to do. That would be boring. Together we create a collective spiritual appointment. I am trying to keep mine. Which reminds me, so long as I am trying, I have yet to do it and am only trying.

There is something about creation, about magic, that I have yet to include in my understanding of now. It is certain that the only time ever experienced is now and the past and the future emanate from that single moment constantly. It would seem that all of time is created in that instant and contained there. I have thought that it must be creation itself, but increasingly, I see there is more to the equation. I believe it is something about the future that we can apply and the past is made to be obedient. It is common to remember the past but uncommon to remember the future. I really do not think it is any more difficult, we have simply long ignored this ability and in so doing forgotten how to do it. How can we remember what we have forgotten how to do? In the past we were born and perhaps we will be born again in the future but the only way to accomplish that is to first die. Is this why we will not remember the future? Are we simply afraid of what we can not avoid? Clearly we are as dead as we are alive, there is no other resolution for our animal existence.

I think there must be something for me to learn about the future. I think perhaps this is where my discomfort and complaint reside. The future. Have I made it a reservoir for fear and uncertainty? If I have then that future broadcasts itself into my past corrupting now and preventing it from expressing the success I am certain to enjoy.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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A Knot In Time

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THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE

So we find our self alive. We are given a time, a place, a name. Who are we? Surely we must know. Are we the time, place and name conception and death graced us with? A knot in time. I can be said that this is where we are and the way we have found ourselves to be but quite unlikely that it is who we are. In this grand distraction we can unravel the knot and remember. If we would know the future we only need remember the past. It must be the same thing because the future is made of the past.

In considering this question of who, where we came from, it must also be where we are going. If we choose to remember this past, we also remember the future and who we are. It is a simple matter of letting go of all that we are not. That which diminishes value and divides into parts, is naught. This desire to divide is our folly. It is false ownership. An effort to collect the parts and imagine our value is determined by the number of parts we collect. There is no need to collect parts. The gift of life is ours in its whole measure. To end our want and need we must accept whole measures and then we are complete. One part. This is the one path, the one way that is known by all. Is is discovered by letting go and then all that actually is, is at our disposal. Free. There is nothing to collect. Letting go fulfills every want and need, abundance is the law.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

As It Always Has Been

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The Next Step

After realizing the obvious, that I have already made my beliefs publicly known, shared my experience of spiritual reality, I am ready for the next step. To be comfortable about it. I had imagined that I needed to be open about my spiritual reality and that would somehow restore my spiritual health. Obviously I have succeeded, but I only just realized it. I have exposed a great deal about my personal experience. Anyone who finds this blog can read about it. I have already succeeded in making my life public and yet the prize of restored spiritual relations eludes me. Or does it? The only difference between thinking that I have succeeded in exposing myself, or, thinking I have yet to do it, was telling myself that I have. Admitting success. Even though it is obvious.

If the difference between my sense of having succeeded, or, still having to work toward it is telling myself that I have, then perhaps my spiritual life is the same way. A simple admission that it is alive and well. As it always has been. Now that I have realized that what I have been struggling with, toiling to complete, is already done, it is clear that something else remains. Something other than what has already been accomplished. The continuing struggle to do what I have already done is a silly ruse to fool myself. I succeeded at this some time ago. The only thing separating me from my timeless spiritual acquaintance is a sense of comfort and ease. This contentment, self-approval, comfort, it is the next step and the only thing I have ever had to do.

The time I have invested in exposing myself has been time well spent. In doing that I exposed a lot of dark places in my life where I might hide myself and presented it instead in broad daylight. For anyone to see. Now I need to be comfortable about it. That would be brand new territory for me. I hope it does not take as long to find that zone, the comfort zone, as it has to realize that I long ago succeeded at exposing myself. I suspect that my work to open myself up has facilitated much of what I need to be comfortable.

I did fall from grace. Life, I considered it to be overwhelming. Unless I think it is, it is not. I know these things. I understand metaphysics, the basic structures of existence, of being and sentience. I have used that understanding successfully for decades. So why have I done this to myself? This fall from grace. Perhaps I needed to prove my humanity before my soul can fit into this tired old suit and make an example of the spiritual heritage we all share. To be here now, the only time that exists.

Micheal, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

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The Valley of Shadows

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I have operated on the principal that if I just keep plugging away, sudden realization would be inevitable, and, confidence born of success, that is itself success, would be revealed. Imagining the spiritual landscape, I already find myself in, as success, is quite different. The confidence I seek is to be comfortable in my spiritual skin. Specifically to be comfortable in the spiritual shadow-land occupied by temporal spirits. Where doubt and shame, ridicule and embarrassment, reign. I refer to the expectation found in human sensibility that doubts spirituality. Many are sure that timeless beings of spiritual constitution are nonexistent and our realm of temporal spirits is populated with the spiritual equivalency of that certainty. That is because we are spiritual beings in a temporal reality. As spiritual beings we are by nature creative and our temporal spiritual landscape reflects the collective product of that creativity. The most prevalent disposition concerning our spirituality is ignorance and we blissfully deny the spiritual condition we are in as well as our authority regarding that condition. The spiritual influences we create in turn produce an agreed upon perception of reality. Forty three years ago I decided I would not share my understanding of our spiritual nature. How I see who we are and who I am. My attitude was; Let someone else do it, why should I bother. After all it is no secret. The path is clear for anyone who would take it. In a world where people ignore who and how they are I was angry that I could see it. Worse than that I was driven to pursue it. I wanted nothing to do with myself or the world I found myself in. Why bother?

That rage did tear me up but I managed to survive. I do think that at times destiny is stronger than death and we survive what would otherwise kill us. To my amazement, I, like many others, have survived.

While recovering from the worst of my behavior, a motorcycle accident, I finally took up the mystic person I had always been and tried it on for size. If it had any merit it would prove itself. It did. That time is over and I fell from my spiritual comfort zone. The path I have chosen to restore it goes through the shadowy valley of temporal spirits. To walk in the open as a spiritual being. When I was last faced with this choice, forty-three years ago, I decided to rage against all creation, until by attrition I was dead. It did not work but the temptation to take up that rage again remains strong. After all, nothing has changed, I am faced with the same question; Will I take a spirit-walk as a public figure? To make an example of our true spiritual nature, in a very public way. Time will tell that story best and I still have some left.

Anyone who has been reading this blog must know by now that I write to prod myself into the open. To force myself to let go and simply be here now. Even if I have put it off too long and fall short, this is worth it. I am the same as you and anyone can see as I do. Someone else will do it If I don’t. I feel that much of my writing is circular, the same story over and over. I apologize, I really should get to the point and just do what I am here to do. Take my spirit-walk through the valley of shadows. Invite the spiritual beings who have no temporal origin to join me. They are very comforting, I know this from personal experience, but if I am not comfortable they can not join me. I am as yet undecided about it. I am looking for the decision that will change that.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist, ©2013

Inventory

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Today as I take inventory, consider the effort I invest in my wellness and my condition of being, I accept that I have succeeded. I have had a very rich and satisfying spiritual experience. That time of my life was a private time that I shared only with close acquaintances. Now I have tackled a boogeyman, I have shared my spiritual aspirations. Exposed myself to whomever might have an interest. Where is the bridge that binds these two times of my life together as one experience here and now?

When I decided to create this blog I did have a plan. I thought if I conquered my refusal to be spiritually open, that would restore my health. That my spiritual life would once again thrive. I thought that was the bridge I needed to build, or discover. What more do I have to do? Where are my spiritual companions? What veil separates me from the spiritual richness that was once familiar?

This lost familiarity is where it can be realized by admitting my dislike of self. I dislike public recognition of my struggle. I do not think I should have to struggle. Truth is this struggle will continue and that is what upsets me.

This notion of dislike and struggle is an observation revealed by divination. It is true I continue to beat myself up and just why continues to elude me. The work I do to correct this condition is very informative. I consider its value to be indispensable and powerful, however, the sense of repair is short-lived and I find myself wrestling with the same discomforts repetitively. I have many tools to riddle such problems. I am well-practiced with metaphysics and I will guess that perhaps what seems a struggle to me needs to have a new consideration. I can not dislike what I have to do and be happy, glad. Am I being charged to find the joy and happiness I knew privately and make that public?

Having a rich spiritual life privately is not the same as doing it publicly and there are things about it that I have yet to learn. It is not the same and I suspect that the results are different. In matters of spirituality and metaphysics, my path and the problem I am trying to solve now, I will consider the Kundalini.

I am confidant that I have opened the channel. I do not consider the flow to be very strong. Light Gate is cloudy and that suggests an issue with its corresponding chakra Acquaintance, Acquaintance being the second chakra and Light Gate being the sixth chakra. The whole idea of the Kundalini is to bridge the three lower chakras to the three higher chakras by way of the fourth chakra, the bridge chakra, Compassion. Compassion first comforts the three lower chakras and relaxed they can seep through compassion and its attributes to the fifth chakra Truth and Justice or Sea of Justice / Seat of Truth. A person who endeavors to rest on this seat then recognizes a truer understanding of the corresponding chakra, the third chakra, Ego. Compassion is the lubricant that allows this to happen. Should Ego be accepted on truer terms then that produces a measure of enlightenment and Light Gate is made available. Light Gate corresponds to Acquaintance, the second chakra and of course the lubricant that binds these two, is again, Compassion. Once accepting Acquaintance and Ego on the terms dictated by Compassion, Truth/Justice and Light/Awareness, the seventh chakra, Spirit Gate is available. Spirit Gate corresponds to the first chakra Place/Flesh. Conception and Birth. This channel, The Kundalini, is the cycle complete. When we open it, rid it of clutter, soul meets form and mystery is no more. The simplicity between clutter, or not, is so delicate that we only recognize the difference after we succeed.

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

The Complexity of Now

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Now is not complex, it is everything we engage in, instead of now, that is complex. Now is the simple magic of existence. The only time anything can or will happen. All that can be, all that ever will be, all that has been, is contained in its entirety, now. It is magic. It is creation. It is now. Without it there is nothing. It lasts only for a moment and yet without that moment nothing exists.

Of late affirmations have taken center stage in my life. Truth is, I am very good with affirmations. They are as powerful a tool for change and personal growth as I have ever known. There are rules for the effective use of affirmations, at least for me and I have a great deal of experience using them to successfully become the person I prefer to be. The primary rule of affirmation is present tense. An affirmation, by definition, must reflect a condition that is in the present, not the future or the past but now. If it is something that you can, might or would do, it is not an affirmation. It is best to be concise. I have found that when I create an affirmation it often needs work. I usually work with an affirmation for several days and as the time passes I prune and tune it until its nuance is entirely now and as brief as possible. It is surprising how very small adjustment to nuance makes the difference between success and a waste of time.

In my last post, Divine Affirmation, I wrote of frustration. I felt that I had experienced a period of incompetence with my use of affirmations. Jumped the gun there. I might have found a more direct path to success but none the less the work I did, including my use of affirmation, produced success. I have seen as much personal growth and achievement since I started this blog as I have at any other time in my life. Much of that has been recent, my assessment of my life and what shaped it is different today than it was even a few days ago.  The recent pace of change is extreme. My life has changed and I can no longer consider it the way I always have. I am not the way I thought I was. I traveled to my past and shone a light in the darkest places. I found the person I might have been, I made the better choice I did not make then. I have a brand new past. One I like much better. I did not set out to do this. I only found it along my way.

I concern myself with my spiritual health and pretty much nothing else. Sure I have distractions, I like politics and social issues but the driving force to everything in my life is spirituality. I have no other concern. I believe in God but not perhaps as you might think. God, or the absolute, the way things actually are, truth, is inseparable from any spiritual quest and I can think of nothing else worth doing. Because my spiritual template is based on the absolute everything I am given to do is fulfilled by my spiritual success. The surest proof of this is compassion. I am devoted to what is absolute and compassion is absolute. How do I make this observation? It knows only a single measure, enough. Another of my rules is confidence. I have no faith. I believe instead in providence and I expect that my life content is produced by it. I am as devoted to the people I find in my life as I am to anything. I have loved ones and their importance is made clear by providence. Of course my devotion extends to them.

I do expect a lot from my spiritual path. Success in every aspect of life. It is an all in approach and the proof is in the end result. Along the way the successes are obvious, one after another. That is a powerful incentive giving hope that in the long haul the effort proves its worth. All this intellect poured into spirituality, is it a waste of time? Personally, it is gratifying. I learn so much but why not a more traditional path? Maybe read a book or otherwise take counsel in what has worked for others. I do expect to answer that with a success that can be realized by no other means. To realize the magic that is the simplicity of now. To have success in all that I do by simple acceptance of it, by allowance. Set aside all that is in conflict with success, success in its full measure, by accepting it as present now. I am sure that this is how things work and I am much less angry about presenting an example, of now, than ever I have been.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013

The Confidence of Now

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Confidence

Begin with the admission; All people expect my person will be a success. Success is expected of each of us. Identify the success already known and choose to continue or end it. When all behavior is seen as success, I choose the success I want, the behavior I want.

Traditionally success is considered to represent how well a person makes educational and occupational choices, that certainly does represent success. This is but one metric and success is a more complicated equation. Achievement in business, in a career that brings prosperity, a comfortable home and retirement, good health, can all be achieved and yet we ache for something else. Our mind, when it is not busy juggling the demands of our daily needs, busies itself in some other way. Much of what occupies our mind is repetitive thought. Like a mantra the same thoughts spiral round and round. We can avoid these thoughts by creating distractions, read a book, listen to music, play a game, watch T.V., involve our self with a hobby, socialize, it is a never-ending list. At some point, when we are not distracted, we are left with our habit of thought. That habit, for some, may well be distraction itself or perhaps it is all distraction.

We can build success beginning with our habit of thought and our thought filled habit can easily undermine success. Then that is success although we tend to consider it as a failure. Poor habit or good habit produce results, that is their respective success. Reducing the clamor of negative thought undresses opportunity. Without the noise a certain calm is present and we are able to own the condition of our life. This calm is satisfaction and from it springs true success. A calm mind, clear of burdensome thought, is peace and peace, I think, is the success we all want. All that distracts us from this calm, from peace of mind, has purpose. To teach us how it is that we are not calm and at peace. It is easy to imagine that outside influence is responsible for disturbing our calm, it is a simple and effective trap, but never true. We can be calm and of a peaceful mind no matter the circumstance, this is the success I seek.

I think a peaceful mind and a calm demeanor make all success possible, that it is the place to start a successful life. I think when we imagine success as being the job we have and measure its value by our buying power we spend our time expecting outside trappings to bring us a sense of fulfillment, of happiness and success. I think the way it works is from the inside out.  Certainly a person can pursue this calm, can find peace of mind through the traditional pursuit of success; education and career.  Prosperity through hard and good work. That is as likely to work as establishing the peace at the outset but for me I am driven to establish the peaceful calm as a center to build from. There is something about this approach that seems more durable. More direct. To me it seems the only success worthy of pursuit and that the process addresses all other concerns.

Now. Now is always the concern. Only when we consider our condition as being manifest now can anything be realized. Whatever we are doing now is in fact our reality and the only thing that prevents any person from realizing the condition or circumstance they want is what they entertain instead of that now. Now is the magic and when it is different from what we want it is because we have occupied now with that. Now, magic or whatever, does need existence and existence is born of providence. The aspect of now that is our prize is calm and peace of mind. These are the true value as they reveal the worth of any circumstance even if it is just that simple peace and calm. They are free. They are gifts. They can not be accomplished but rather are received by letting all else go.

Michael, The Mystic Tourist ©2013