Dennis Lewis

Depending on your original premise(s), your original assumption(s), you can make a convincing argument for almost anything. People promoting their own particular brand of psychology, politics, religion, spirituality, and so on do so all the time.

What few people do today, however, is question their starting point, which is most often just an infinitesimal point in the vast unknown multi-dimensional spectrum of Indra’s net, the incomprehensible wholeness that both embraces and reveals us.

On the surface, deep inquiry, deep questioning, is difficult work. It seems to be far easier to spin webs of suggestibility and belief and try to catch ourselves and others in them. When we begin to open our minds and hearts, however, we realize that deep inquiry and questioning are as natural and beneficial as breathing itself, which, of course, is happening right now.”

Copyright 2016 by Dennis Lewis

I’ve done a lot of walking in my life, some conscious, some not, some with friends and loved ones, some by myself. I’ve walked in cities around the world, in forests, in mountains, in deserts, around lakes, on ocean shores, in ancient ruins, and in the many hotel rooms, apartments, and houses that I called home. And I realize now that all of this walking, and all the people I’ve walked with and met along the way, have created an intricately complex, multi-dimensional path that has brought me right here. Strangely, no matter when and where I stop on my lifelong walk I always stop now and here. Oh yes, I’ve taken buses, bicycles, boats, motorcycles, trains, planes, and automobiles, too, but I had to walk to get to them, and the walking, whether by myself or with others, has most clearly revealed my shallowest and deepest hopes and desires, as well as much of my mechanicality. What’s more, the impact on my nervous system of each step along the way has left its mark. Today, more than ever, I walk more attentively, more consciously, recognizing that each step is a step into the unknown. Though I cannot walk as far or as long today, I’m getting the feel of it now; walking is a joy and a miracle, often revealing new perspectives on myself and the world!

Copyright 2015-16 by Dennis Lewis

Think of all the famous and awe-inspiring quotes passed back and forth through the worldwide web that connects so many of us. As some of them pass through your awareness notice how and where they touch you or when they help awaken something in you that has been dormant.

It’s helpful also to write something from yourself, from your own practices, efforts, impressions, and insights, and offer it to others. Of course, some won’t understand your intention or what you say, or will purposely misinterpret it to make their own point, or won’t listen to you at all, but so what? That is their problem, not yours.

To say or write something as best you can not from your beliefs but from your experiential knowledge and understanding, without reacting to someone else’s words, is a beautiful and creative act. It means that you have to actively open to what is true in you right now and discover a way to express it. You will learn much by doing so.

Some 20 years ago, during a visit to Russia, I was invited by the head of a team of consciousness researchers, scientists, medical doctors, and alternative healers at the Russian Medico-Military Academy in Saint Petersburg to speak on my understanding of the Gurdjieff Work and give a demonstration of Chi Nei Tsang, a Taoist healing modality involving internal organ chi massage and breathing, which I had learned in the Healing Tao and practiced in a well-known acupuncture clinic in San Francisco, even working on people with AIDS. The person I worked on with my hands and conscious intention gave his impressions in Russian to the rest of the group as he lay on the massage table.

At the end of my three-hour presentation to the 10 people who were there, the leader, a big bear of a man, gave me an enormous hug, intentionally readjusting my spine as he did so (I was tired, and he noticed and wanted to help). When he finished hugging me, he said–with a huge, engaging smile–something like: “here in Russia we are not parochial; we go beyond our training and specialities; we welcome and integrate all approaches and understanding.”

We then continued to talk (his wife spoke good English and functioned as the interpreter, as she had for the presentation), while one of the team, an energy healer, sent me energy from across the room using all sorts of novel (for me) movements and gestures. Here was a group of people who were open to influences other than their own, a rare occurrence in today’s world. And they really seemed to listen, not just to my words, but to my very emanations.

I think of these researchers often when I see the ways in which we in America treat our own frequently narrow, reductionistic approaches to knowledge and understanding as somehow sacrosanct. We have paid a heavy price in many areas of life for this reductionism. Though I have spoken to numerous people and groups over the years, the great openness I felt among these Russian researchers was both rare and inspiring. We had a vital exchange on many levels.

Several years ago I received a FaceBook message from an old San Francisco friend making accusations about someone very close to me. The complete note read (I’ve left out the name and the supposed action): “I suppose you are proud of xxx for doing yyy. I think xxx is a scumbag.”

This was interesting. I hadn’t heard from this man in many years–a man to whom, at his request, I had donated much time without payment for something very dear to him. We also used to spend time together playing tennis and chess, and he was also a guest in my home on a couple of occasions. And here was this accusatory note from him without either a “Hi Dennis” or a signature or real space for civil discourse.

The fact that the accusation was false is not what really concerns me here, though it is troubling enough. People, in their ignorance, make false accusations all the time (I myself have certainly done so). What bothered me most was this man’s lack of even the smallest degree of civility in communicating with me about the issue. No openness. No kindness. No interest in my view.

Of course, one sees incivility everywhere today: on Facebook, on Internet discussion groups, in politics, between governments, and, sadly, between people who call themselves friends. Lack of civility in today’s world is indeed ubiquitous.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “There can be no high civility without a deep morality.” And he was right. Civility and deep morality go hand in hand, though this is seldom recognized. Emerson was not talking here about the cheap rules of morality, the political correctness that people use as weapons to try to bludgeon one another. No, he was speaking, I believe, about what it means to be truly human.

Unfortunately, we see little discourse today based on civility, especially in the public arena. Making angry accusations is easy, but it is only civility and kindness that allow people to actually listen to one another in a way that enables new understanding and real relationship.

Copyright 2010-15 by Dennis Lewis

The musical harmonies of the written word are fast being replaced by the cacophonies of impatience, efficiency, and inattention. One can see this most clearly in the social media, which is rife not just with sloppy, inattentive communication but also with language shortcuts often difficult to decipher. I am not speaking here of people’s efforts to communicate in a language not their own (often with great caring and clarity), but of those native English speakers who seem little concerned about their use, or misuse, of language.

What’s more, the lyrical precision and magical energies of well-chosen words in concert with one another, words with often ancient roots that can reach deep within and help awaken and support our most profound feelings, questions, and aspirations, are being replaced by the merely utilitarian–abbreviations, acronyms, and other language fragments poorly formed and devoid of harmony, fragments whose sounds seldom reverberate in the heart and soul. I give you one egregious example here: the jarring (both sound and image) efficiency of ‘RIP’ replacing the prayerful harmony of ‘Rest in Peace.’ In such abbreviations there is certainly no music to reach into the depths of ourselves.

Copyright 2015 by Dennis Lewis