Sharing GOD's Secret

It was 2007, and I was on my way to the airport. On a long business trip to Europe or Asia, I always pick up a couple of books to while away some time on the plane. I found "A New Earth" by an author I had never heard of before. The title looked intriguing so I bought it. Later as I passed the security line I saw "The Power of Now" by the same author; it was then when it clicked; yes, I had heard of Eckhart Tolle, the new spiritual author on the block. It turns out the "A New Earth" was a symptom of my own awakening. Today, nine years later, I am one of the millions of initiated light-workers Eckhart Tolle had with his book in mind.

The irony was that when Eckhart Tolle submitted his first book, "The Power of Now", to a publisher it was rejected on the grounds that this idea is as old as spirituality itself. True, how nice that another publisher brought it on the market as it quickly lid a fire in the New Age community. So perhaps we should just remind each other from time to time of the ancient wisdoms that apparently have to be rediscovered by each individual spiritual traveler for herself. GOD's "secret"  has been out there for millennia, ready for everyone to discover it. "The Power of Now" is one catchy phrase, but there are so many others. The Old Testament is full of spiritual insights, as were Jesus' teachings. The Sufis know it, as does Taoism, Buddhists and Hinduism. 

The note below zooms into a little book that is a spiritual master piece, "To Have or to Be", by Erich Fromm. The author was foremost a psychologist, with a passion  for the Talmud, spirituality and socialism as well. Erich Fromm knew GOD's secret, just to fall in love with life; to do something with your life that is both purposeful and passionate; to learn to recognize the distracting whispers of the ego that keep you from the WAY. Erich Fromm also realized that magic tends to happen when we wrestle with life on a path that is of GOD. Lastly I would add that enlightenment is not something that you aspire to get one day; enlightenment is a state that you can enjoy moment by moment, as long as you use some of these insights below as your milestones. Everyone can be a light worker. Hope you join us too!

God's Secret - The Problem Statement

Problem Statement: Separateness 

Adam and Eve, what is the sin they have committed? To face each other as separated, isolated, selfish human beings who cannot overcome their separation in the act of loving union. The sin is rooted in our very human existence. Being deprived of the original harmony with nature. Being endowed with reason and self-awareness, we cannot help experiencing our separateness. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Problem statement: Me, Myself and I

Our picture of physical reality does not correspond to what is "really real" and, mainly, in the sense that most people are half-awake, half-dreaming, and are unaware hat most of what they hold true and self-evident is illusion produced by the suggestive influence of the social world in which they live. Knowing , then, begins with the shattering of disillusionment. Knowing means to penetrate through the surface, in order to arrive at the roots, and hence the causes; knowing means to "see" reality in its nakedness. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Mental greed - and all greed is mental, even when it is satisfied via the body - has no satiation point, since it's consummation does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression it is meant to overcome. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Everything and anything can become an object of craving: things we use in daily life, property, rituals, good deeds, knowledge, and thoughts. While they are not in themselves "bad", they become bad; that is, when we hold onto them, when they become chains that interfere with our freedom, they block our self-realization. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

But if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being insane, but simply annoying; generally one has contempt for them. But factually, greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as illness. To be driven by irrational passions is to be mentally sick. To the degree that we achieve optimal growth, we are not only (relatively) free, strong, rational, and joyous, but also mentally healthy; to the degree that we fail to reach this aim, we are unfree, weak, lacking rationality, and depressed. (Erich Fromm quotes Spinoza in "To Have or to Be")

Problem Statement: Having, not Being

Greed is the natural outcome of the having orientation. It can be the greed of a miser or the greed of a profit hunter or the greed of a womanizer or the man chaser. Whatever constitutes their greed, the greedy can never have enough, can never be "satisfied". (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

What is fully describable is our persona - the mask we each other wear, the ego we present - for this persona is in itself a thing. In contrast, the living human being is not a dead image and cannot be described like a thing. In fact, the living human being cannot be described at all. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I? Nobody but a defeated, deflated, pathetic testimony to a wrong way of living. Because I can lose what I have, I am necessarily constantly worried that I shall lose what I have. I am afraid of thieves, of economic changes, of revolutions, of sickness, of death; and I am afraid of love, of freedom, of growth, of change, of the unknown. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

The fear, then, is not of dying, but of losing what I have: the fear of losing my body, my ego, my possessions, and my identity; the fear of facing the abyss of non-identity, of "being lost". (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

GOD's Secret - The Solution

The Solution:  At-One-Ment

There is but one way to save ourselves from this hell: to leave the prison of our egocentricity, to reach out and to one ourselves with the world. If egocentric separateness is the cardinal sin, then the sin is atoned in the act of loving: "at-one-ment" is Middle English for union. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

The Solution: Purpose and Passion

The joy of a mitzvah (the fulfillment of a religious duty) is he only way to get the Holy Spirit. (Erich Fromm, quoting the Talmud in "To Have or to Be")

In order to avoid decay, we must strive to approach the "model of human nature", that is, we must be optimally free, rational, active. We must become what we can be. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Joy is what we experience in the process of growing nearer to the goal of becoming ourselves. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Activity is "wholesome" only when it is rooted in and expresses the ultimate ethical and spiritual demands.  (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Only in the process of mutual alive relatedness can the other and I overcome the barrier of separateness, inasmuch as we both participate in the dance of life.  (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

In non-alienated activity, I experience myself as the subject of my activity. Non-alienated activity is a process of giving birth to something, or producing something and remaining related to what I produce. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

The Solution: The Holy Now

The active, alive man is like a "vessel" that grows as it is filled and will never be full. 

(Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Freedom in the sense of being unfettered, free from craving for holding onto things and one's ego, is the condition for love and productive being. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

The mode of being exists only in the here and now. The mode of having so exists only in time: past, present and future. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Knowledge is no particular thought but rather it peels off (all coverings) and is disinterested and runs naked to GOD, until it teaches HIM and grasps HIM. (Meister Eckhart in Erich From, To Have or to Be) 

The Solution: Being, not Having

One of the main themes of the Old Testament is: leave what you have; free yourself from all fetters; be! (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Do not lay for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

There exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

They respond spontaneously and productively; they forget about themselves, about the knowledge, the positions they have. Their egos do not stand in their own way, and it is precisely for this reason that they can fully respond to the other person and that person's ideas, because they are not holding onto anything. While the having persons rely on what they have, the being persons rely on the fact that they are, that they are alive and that something new will be born if only they have to courage to let go and respond. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

To the extent that we decrease the mode of having, that is of non-being - i.e., stop finding security and identity by clinging to what we have, by "sitting on it", by holding onto ego and our possessions - can the mode of being emerge. "To be" requires giving up one's egocentricity and selfishness, or in words often used by mystics, by making oneself "empty" and "poor". (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

While having is based on some thing that is diminished by use, being grows by practice. The 'burning bush" that is not consumed is the biblical symbol for this paradox. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

We human beings have an inherent and deeply rooted desire to be: to express our faculties, to be active, to be related to others, to escape the prison cell of selfishness. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Every new step contains the danger of failure, and that is one of the reasons people are so afraid of freedom. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Master Eckhart taught that to have nothing and make oneself open and "empty", not to let one's ego stand in one's way, is the condition for achieving spiritual wealth and strength. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

We should not be "filled" with our knowledge, or hang onto it, or crave it. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

Living structures can be only if they become; they can exist only if they change. Change and growth are inherent qualities of the life process. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

The Buddha, the Awakened One, calls on people to wake up and liberate themselves from the illusion that craving for things lead to happiness. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

GOD's Secret - Conclusions

What may appear to you as a tour de force was just a little book full of ancient wisdom by a wise man, Erich Fromm. Every single line in it - very quote cited here - can lift you to that state, just as the simple title "The Power of Now" tried accomplishing a few decades later. Having this insight is huge, but living it is priceless. And that is where GOD's mission comes in. Find this path, hold HER HAND every step of the WAY and you are enlightened. If this all sounds all a bit overwhelming right now, why don't you start with a mission statement, to be one of us. GOD will do the rest. Of you only one thing is required, do your best every step of the WAY, and share GOD's Secret with others.

The Power of the Symbol

Adam and Eve's departure out of the Garden of Eden was an act of mis-creation, a step away from GOD's KINGDOM, and once they discovered the rush of the "I" in action, other steps followed until there was no turning back. The symbol of the snake was the temptation to view the Tree of Life as the Tree of Good and Evil. Duality replaced the ONENESS that reigned before. 

Adam and Even and their off-spring only thought they had been expelled, when in fact they never departed from Heaven. The snake was the symbol that catapulted us from the SPIRIT level down to the ego plane, but while we were able to turn our back on GOD, HER PRESENCE is always with us. The HOLY SPIRIT is our GOD-connection who holds the key to catapult us back to the SPIRIT level with the help of the symbol.

No matter what events and people may come our way, there is always the WAY that connects us back with HEAVEN. Where we saw conflict before, the HOLY SPIRIT opens the door for co-operation; where lust led us astray, love heals us. And were we feared dark magic, we now awaken to GOD's miracles instead. The snake that climbs the rod points us the WAY towards a holy vision. The choice for GOD is always near-by. 

When the Snake Tempted Adam

The production of images and exciting experiences is one of the most common ways in which self-image seeks to avoid Union.

(Gerald May, Will and Spirit)

There was a time when Adam simply was. He walked upright, he breathed - Spirit in Latin; or "Atman" (Self) and "atmen" (to breathe) in the Indo-Germanic language connection. Divine energy was running up and down his spine. From the energy center at his testicles towards his Third Eye via the seven Chakras, and back. Adam certainly made love before the Fall, but when he and Eve created a new Being, the energy centers of yin and yang combined with the Spirit in the Divine act. Adam was always Home.

The Fall in the Bible talks about was about Adam becoming aware of his creative powers, and with it, the potential for mis-creation. While there even may have been masturbation before the Fall, mis-creation arose when Adam became aware of the separate "I". Mis-creation can happen in many ways, but sexually, Adam's erect penis can become the conscious symbol of the separate existence, the symbolic "I" so to speak. In the conscious act of masturbation, man enjoys diverting the cosmic energy away from the vertical testicle - third eye connection, horizontally into nothingness. 

Again, the act of masturbation is not the villain here, neither is the physical expression of love. What disconnected us from the Garden of Eden was the conscious departure from Oneness. Yet, the door to the Garden of Eden has always been wide open to return. Oneness is with us every step of the WAY. 

The Greatest Story Ever Retold in the Boardroom

I was sitting in a conference room with some colleagues the other day participating in a video conference with a remote location that was exceedingly boring. I saw people shifting in their chairs, making faces, rolling their eyes and I thought to myself, there must be a more creative way to spend this hour. So I looked around and studied the seating order of the 8 people who were in the room. Believe it or not, the Law of Attraction always lines up people who have some connection. So I thought for a moment what the two colleagues in the front had in common and I concluded that they were both intellectuals. Then I had a look at the two women facing each other and I scribbled down female power. The couple sitting next to them was a little harder to figure out, but in the end I wrote down "European" and "nice". I left myself and the colleague I was sitting next to out and decided to ask someone else instead about what we had in common. So here is what I got up to this point:

                                                 i

                                                fp

                                                en

When I looked at it, I rearranged the order to "fpeni" and thought to myself - perhaps inspired by the fact that I had just written a note about Adam and Eve - "wow, it isn't this amazing, you take away the "f" in the beginning and you add an s at the end and you are left with the phallus. Symbolically, by adding the "s" for snake you have to take away the "f" for freedom. As we fall in love with our creative force we lose a degree of freedom. In the beginning, that is before the snake came on the stage, we had "fin pe". Fin is French for completion while p and e stand in my vocabulary for peace and enlightenment. In the beginning there was peace and there as knowledge; a state that we can unfortunately only aspire as long as the snake is doing its creation.

Wow, the greatest story ever retold right here in the board room with the help of a little creative alphabet soup! Later I bumped into a colleague who attended this meeting and remarked how engaged I was in this boring meeting. I replied, "Oh, I actually was working on something else." But then I asked her what she thought I and the colleague I was sitting next to had in common and she said, "You are both mellow and hard working." Yes, that made sense to me but by then my story was already written. So I leave it up to discover a new story with the addition of m and h :)

The Day When the Snake Found its Way

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

"You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

(The Story of Adam and Eve)

If our consciousness is the force that is aware of what is happening to us, as well as the decision what to do next, then what exactly is the ego? Is it the voice in our head? Is it the feeling of the "I"? Could it be the snake that whispers to step away from God's Path? I have never found a convincing way of setting up this question. What exactly is it when we talk about the ego? Is this force just deluded or is there a desire inside of us that wants to deliberately walk away from God? 

While I can't get my arms around the problem statement, the solution to the problem is actually quite simple. We are in charge - we are holding the reigns despite our thoughts and emotions. When the cart is drifting away from the Way, we can counter-balance. If the insight of the snake is to create, to become artists and scientists, to be "like God" as the snake puts it, then why not? Isn't that what our world was made for?

We are creators, so let's create something, but let's do it according to God rules. We can step away from competition, mistrust, scheming, and fear. We can embrace love every step of the Way. While we perhaps will never be able to shut up the voice in our head, and likely will never be able to leave behind some negative emotions, it is very much in our power to line up our ego drive with the Way. That's what it means to be a Tao traveler.

Re-read the story of Adam and Eve. Couldn't the snake's advice be an invite to become business men, professors, doctors, politicians, parents, teachers, scientists, spiritual travelers, artists or story tellers, or whatever else it is you consider your mission? The world that you and I perceive was created as a virtual reality show with the sole purpose to complete our soul longings and return Home. Create, design, teach and invent to your heart's desire just make sure that love follows you every step of the Way. 

I Am Here For You

Summer is here and with it the Sunday School the boys and I have together every year starts. The beginning of the lesson plan is always Adam and Eve. If there was only one spiritual story to be told it is this one since it contains everything we need to know about our departure from God as well as our homecoming. Few people know that Adam is just dreaming all this and that it is very much in his powers to wake up. In any case, the older boy always gets upset at the part when Adam and Eve have to leave the Garden of Eden. But then a week later comes lesson plan number 2, the story of the prodigal son. We can always return Home! My older son was very happy to receive this message and I saw a smirk on his face when I mentioned that the brother in the story minded when the lost son got such a nice treatment from his Father when he finally returned.

The parent child relationship is perhaps the closest of them all. We are one! You know that, right? Unfortunately I know of a couple of cases when parents decided to disown their own children. I can only shake my head in disbelief when I hear that. Don't they realize that they shun themselves that way? Our children are our extension. I can feel this fact in my bones, and you can probably too. But then, the more spiritually advanced we become, the more we realize that we are literally one with everyone. Our spouses and life partners, our friends, even our so-called foes. We are all one and you can very much experience this for yourself. All you have to do is to open your eyes and let go of your thinking and your preconceived notions. Suddenly you realize that your so-called enemy is nothing but a mirror put up in front of you. He shows you an aspect of yourself that you haven't quite integrated and thus still disown. When you are mad, you are mad at yourself. When someone manages to hurt you, you have hurt yourself. When you are afraid, you mind monsters that seem so real to you even though they don't actually exist. Live by that idea and you see that it is not only correct, but you will also come very far in life with this philosophy.

I had these thoughts this morning when I listened to Bon Jovi's "I'll be there for you" on the radio. Isn't that the attitude to have about all our relationships? You never give up on anyone. Unless of course someone decides to depart in which case you will certainly not stand in the way - God didn't stand in Adam and Eve's path either. Actually, when I listened to the song's lyrics I realized that even this promise is not strong enough. "I'll be there for you" is a commitment, a promise which could be broken at one point. It is not yet a fact. The phrase should read instead "I Am Here For You Always". I Am You!

I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
I'd steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what love can do
I'll be there for you

Bon Jovi

The Tree in the Middle of the Garden

A couple of symbolic interpretations of the Garden of Eden come to mind. The first one is sexual in nature, the snake is Adam's penis and Eve's forbidden fruit is her vagina, and both taboo objects can be found in the middle of the garden. The second interpretation of our fall is about the intellect. Thou shall not eat from the Tree of Knowledge, the bible says.

Now what exactly do we do with these warnings? Does it mean not to have sex outside of the intention to create new life? Does it mean not to think and create mentally? I actually think there is an overlap of both interpretations. Mental activity can lead you astray from the here and now and tends to be highly addictive. As far as sex is concerned, I have recently written about the surprising difference between the real sex act and the many mental fantasies. While the former is bliss, the latter turns destructive before you know it:  http://zeitgeistinma.blogspot.com/2010/07/sexual-fantasies-sex-and-spirituality.html

As far as our mind is concerned, the human evolution is mainly a mental one. We have literally squeezed out as much brain-power as the birth-canal of an upright walking woman could handle before the cesarean age, and our enormous brain size is also the reason why babies are still born prematurely even after nine months of pregnancy. As with sex before, the intellect may better not stand in the way of enlightenment otherwise few lights will walk the earth in future eons.

Sex and brainpower do not separate you from God, your mental constructs do. The feeling of not having everything here and now, but to search mentally for the things that supposedly make you better off. You are searching for bliss away from what you have and like a carrot dangling in front of the donkey, the bliss is always out there in the future never to be reached. Anyone who has suffered from an addiction knows the feeling. You run after your drug as you feel connected when the blood is rushing through your system, but every climax is followed by a lower low. Oneness can only be found internally and never externally. Beware the snake that wants to lead you astray from the here and now. Stop the mental acrobatics and enjoy life!