Yule

Yule was a Midwinter festival celebrated by the indigenous Northern European people (Sámi) since the 4th century. Yule is celebrated at the time when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half. The events of Yule generally centered on feasting, drinking ale, and gift-giving. Yule was celebrated for three nights, beginning at Midwinter night (Winter Solstice). During the Christianization of Europe, the Yule Fest was co-opted by the Christian church as Christmas to help convert the Sámi people to Christianity.




Many of the Yule traditions continue to this day, including the “Christmas” tree, which originally symbolized eternal life (the conifer remains green throughout the Winter), and the use of reindeer (to this day, the Sámi engage in reindeer herding). Since many of the Sámi people live above the Arctic circle, the idea of “Santa Claus” living at the North Pole is also part of this mythos.




From a modern perspective, we can surmise that Yule was a festival to help the Sámi deal with what we now call “Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD),” or the Winter blues. After spending several months inside because of the dark and cold Winter, the Midwinter Yule festival helped lift people’s spirits so they could make it to Spring without first committing suicide due to a combination of the long, dark days and “cabin fever” (having to stay inside for weeks at a time).

The Right Tool for the Job

You wouldn’t want to use a hammer for a job needing a chain saw (or vice versa). And even if it did “work” to some degree, it wouldn’t do as good or efficient a job. Likewise, using the wrong “tool” to understand the Universe and our place within it will either not work, or will partially work–but not as well.

I am speaking about the science versus spirituality pseudo debate. Science is the right “tool” for understanding some aspects of our experience, whereas spirituality is a better “tool” for other aspects. Using the wrong tool for the job at hand is what creates this false dichotomy.

For example, if you want to explain HOW the Universe and the life within were created, spirituality–particularly organized religion–is a poor tool. Science is a superior tool for understanding the “how” of  experience. However, knowing how the Universe, etc. came into being doesn’t tell us much about WHY these things happened. In other words, science as a tool can only tell us so much and only about some things. Beyond this, we need a different tool. Spirituality, philosophy, metaphysics, and–yes–even organized religion can provide us with information beyond the scope of science.

One place where I see this most clearly is in the field of psychology. At one end you have the Medical model Behaviorists who desperately want psychology to be a “hard” science. On the other, are the Humanists who believe the complexity of the human psyche can never be reduced to brain chemistry and simple stimulus-response reactions. Yes, there is a “science” aspect of psychology, but there is also an “art” aspect. Every study shows that the best psychotherapeutic outcomes result from a combination of appropriate medication (when warranted)–the science piece–and counseling/therapy–the art piece.

In trying to understand our place within the cosmos, we need the same combination of science (astrophysics, quantum mechanics, etc.) and art (philosophy, spirituality, metaphysics, etc.). 

The Tao: Noun or Verb?

According to the World English Dictionary, in traditional grammar a verb is “any of a large class of words in a language that serve to indicate the occurrence or performance of an action.” The same source defines a noun as “a word or group of words that refers to a person, place, or thing” With this as a frame of reference, I believe that in order to properly understand the concept of Tao, it should be viewed as a verb.

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Tao (Wade-Giles), or Dao (Pinyin) is a conception of ancient Chinese philosophy–particularly Taoism–that is traditionally translated as “way,” or “path.” As such, it is typically viewed as a noun or name. During nearly 40 years of studying the contextual usage of Tao–both in Taoist and Buddhist texts–I have come to understand it as referring to an action (verb). In this sense, a more accurate translation might be “process.”

The foundational text of Taoism–the Tao Te Ching (Wade-Giles), or Dao De Jing (Pinyin)–dates back to the 6^th century B.C.E. and is considered to be the primary source for understanding the concept of the Tao. Using this as a guide, let us consider how one’s understanding of Tao changes with its use as a verb rather than a noun.

The first chapter of the Tao Te Ching (Feng & English, 1972) begins:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth.

The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.

The first two lines indicate that the Tao that can be spoken of or named is not the eternal Tao. In an interesting bit of synchronicity, “name” is synonymous with “noun” in English grammar. Now I doubt that Lao Tzu–the mythological author of the Tao Te Ching–had English grammar in mind when writing about the Tao, but when translated into English, the text appears to be saying that the Tao cannot be named. Thus (at least from the standpoint of English grammar) it is not a noun.

The third line tells us that the “nameless” is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. If the nameless is a verb, indicating an action, then the Tao is the process that begets the material Universe (matter = noun). Then in line four, matter (the named) becomes the origin of everything thereafter.

From this line of thought, the first four lines of the Tao Te Ching are in essence saying that an ineffable, nameless action gives rise to that which can be named–matter. Matter–that which can be named–in turn, gives us everything else.

If we apply this concept to modern astrophysics, we could interpret the Tao as the action underlying the “Big Bang.” After all, the “Big Bang” was an event–not a thing–because prior to it, “things” (matter and a Universe in which it could be) did not exist.

We can further apply this principle to virtually any other domain with the Tao being understood as a nameless action underlying its named manifestations– life, growth, evolution, etc.

This reinforces the idea that Taoism is essentially pantheistic in that the Tao is not a “creator” (noun) as such, but rather the action (verb) infused throughout creation. It would also lend support to the concept that matter is not the foundation of being. Rather it is action which gives rise to being.

As a side note, in another instance of synchronicity, while looking up synonyms for the word “process”–the word “route” was listed. This brings us full circle back to the English translation of Tao as path. Perhaps in the subtleties of translating Chinese into English over the year this concept of Tao as a verb, rather than a noun, was lost.

I would invite you to ponder these thoughts as you study the Tao.

The Breath of God

I just finished reading the novel “The Breath of God” by Jeffry Small and it was a delight on many levels. The story is in the style of “The DaVinci Code” in that it is built around a real-life event. In this case, the event was a report by a Russian novelist (in 1887) that he saw a document in a Buddhist monastery in northern India suggesting that Jesus (yes, THAT Jesus) may have spent several years from his adolescence through his twenties studying Hinduism and Buddhism in India, prior to returning to start his own ministry in Judea. The story concerns a doctoral candidate from Emory University who is writing his dissertation on this legend.  While in India trying to find evidence, he learns the documents were moved to Bhutan shortly after their discovery. Some evangelical Christians get wind of this and want to find and destroy the documents—using the help of an ex-military Christian terrorist— before they can be scientifically verified. Within the cloak-and-dagger storyline, the author (Jeffrey Small—acclaimed writer and speaker on religion and spirituality) weaves in ideas on the mystic origins of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and even Islam. I highly recommend it!

Chacaruna

Chacaruna: (n) Literally, bridge person. The Incan name for a Shamanic guide who helps others to cross from one state of consciousness to other states of consciousness.

Ann Druyan–Writer, Producer, Activist

I wanted to share a quote by Ann Druyan, wife of the late Carl Sagan. I believe it captures the essence of the Taoist and Pantheist vision.

"The God of Spinoza, the God of Einstein is our ability to understand nature. That’s how we worship what is sacred, what is holy, by trying to find the deepest understanding of nature. Our bias against this is so strong you can hear it in the word “supernatural”–above the natural. As if our fantasies and our little stories that we make up, whether we made them up 10,000 years ago, or 5,000 years ago, or this week, as if our stories could compete with the reality of nature as revealed by science."

Death, Birth, and Reincarnation

All is impermanent,

All is without a self.

–The Buddha

Today I have had some time to reflect and allow various ideas that have been bouncing off the walls of my skull to coalesce. These ideas were inspired by several films that I have seen recently and that I highly recommend to those on the mystic journey. The one that has dominated my consciousness today is Sukhavati–A Mythic Journey from the collected works of the late Joseph Campbell. This film has helped to flesh out many of the ideas I gleaned from The Quantum Activist, a film about Dr. Amit Goswami’s theories about the nature of existence based upon his lifelong study of physics.

These films and others have allowed me to greatly expand upon an insight I have been playing with for the past several years. It’s difficult for me to put it succinctly into a type of “Executive Summary,” so please bear with me as I try to put it all into words. The central idea has to do with what happens after one’s physical body dies, but it spins off in several different directions from there.

I’ll start with the seed of an idea that has been germinating for some time. As a minister, I was asked by a woman who was terminally ill to talk with her about death. I knew her from having conducted her marriage ceremony a few years earlier. The main question she had was, of course, “What happens after we die?”

I asked her if she wanted the truth or some bullshit answer that might make her feel better. She opted for the truth, so I said that I honestly did not know, but that shortly she would. I also told her that fear and excitement were physiologically identical–it is only how we view them that makes the experience of them differ. She was about to go on a great adventure–the next stage in whatever it is that we are all doing here–and that she could choose to begin the journey feeling fear or excitement.

I don’t know if any of that helped her, but she said it did. A few weeks later, I officiated at her funeral.

This encounter got me seriously pondering humanity’s age-old question of what’s next after this. So I began as I often do with the principles of Taoism. Taoism says that the answers we seek can be found in the natural world. The first question that came to me was, “What happens to the material body when it dies?” The answer–it returns to from whence it came. The Taoists often refer to this as “returning to the source.”

All the material “stuff” that is the body almost immediately begins to decompose so that its stuff can return to the Earth and be recycled. What if the same is true for our non-material stuff? Does that which briefly inhabited the body go back from whence it came and, if so, from whence did it come?

I initially had the idea of a sort of “spiritual compost bin” where the elements that made-up the non-material also decomposed. I didn’t go much further with this until I became aware of Dr. Goswami’s theories via The Quantum Activist.

The core tenant of Dr. Goswami is that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of being–that matter comes forth from consciousness, rather than the other way around. This is actually a very ancient idea in religious traditions, but basically turns science upside down. Undifferentiated consciousness (Dr. Goswami uses the term “non-local consciousness”) is the “pool” from which differentiated or individual consciousness is drawn. This, to me, answered the “from whence it came” question.

The only “problem” with this idea is that it really is a buzz kill for all those people who believe in the individual consciousness continuing to exist after death. So my next stop was Buddhism.

In the film Sukhavati–A Mythic Journey, Joseph Campbell describes the “lake of bliss” where one’s consciousness arrives upon achieving Nirvana. All along the shore of the lake, all the creatures (birds, animals, etc.) are chanting “All is impermanent, All is without a self.” This was the key that seemed to unlock the puzzle so the other pieces could fall into place.

The Buddha taught that there is no self–that the idea of different, individual selves is an illusion. This is the basis of the greeting “Namaste.” It is the acknowledgement that we are not two, but one. Extrapolated out–we are not 7 billion, we are one.

So just as the body is a brief assemblage of material elements that returns to the source, so it is with the non-material. And I feel the word “consciousness” fits better than “spirit” or “soul” as these historically imply an individual consciousness that continues to exist.

This also illuminates the idea of reincarnation. Most people view the concept of reincarnation as the individual “spirit” or “soul” being reborn into a new body. With this new insight, I believe that reincarnation was never meant to be about an individual consciousness being reborn, but rather about the “stuff” of consciousness being recycled–just as the material elements of the body are recycled with each new birth.

One of the things Dr. Goswami discusses in The Quantum Activist is that he had a dream in which he was very clearly told, The Tibetan Book of the Dead is true and that it is his job to prove it. Well this fits in rather nicely. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is about how to guide one through the Bardo–the intermediate state between death and rebirth.

Traditionally, of course, the idea of the death-to-rebirth journey is viewed as something the individual consciousness (spirit) does. It now seems to me that what the Bardo refers to is the intermediate state when the individual consciousness is travelling from death to the “pool” of undifferentiated consciousness. It is then reincarnated from the pool–not as the individual consciousness that it was–but as a new assemblage of “recycled” elements of consciousness.

This could also fit within the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition if one views “Heaven” as the return to undifferentiated consciousness (which, coincidently is what Dr. Goswami refers to as “God”).

This would, if one were looking for it, also provide an explanation for the phenomena of ghosts. Ghosts being individual consciousness becoming stuck in the Bardo. In fact that is the purpose of the Tibetan Book of the Dead–to keep one from getting stuck. This would imply that being stuck after death of the body as an individual “spirit” is not a good thing.

Using the analogy of water: when a body is alive, it is the vessel that holds the water (consciousness). When the body dies, the vessel breaks and the “water” returns to the ocean from whence it came. When a new vessel (body) is created, it is filled with water (consciousness) from the ocean. Yes, there may be some elements of the former vessel’s water in the new vessel, but it also contains water from many other broken vessels. If the water can’t get back to the ocean, it gets stuck becoming a stagnant pool (a ghost, or a soul in Hell).

Just some thoughts during the confluence of Earth Day (material) and Easter (spiritual). Namaste!