The concept of enlightenment, marketed today by a vast spiritual-media industry, is suspect. For me, anyone who believes or pretends that they understand the final meaning of life (other than living it as consciously and lovingly as possible) is deluded. And those who feed this self-deception in others are also deluded. Now I realize these… Continue reading The Concept of Enlightenment
Category: Musings
Listening to the Human Voice: Impressions for an Inner and Outer Study
The human voice is composed of a fundamental tone and various harmonics, depending on who is speaking and the various existing physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual conditions. The voice rides on the waves of the breath, which is also conditioned by many factors. When I truly listen to myself as I speak, a miracle… Continue reading Listening to the Human Voice: Impressions for an Inner and Outer Study
Spiritual Suggestibility
The word “spiritual,” imbued with so much potential meaning and promise, is one of those words behind which many people hide and about which there is much confusion and obfuscation. On the social media, people readily bandy this word about. An entire industry has been created to take advantage of our “spiritual suggestibility.” And, yes,… Continue reading Spiritual Suggestibility
Some Thoughts On Blaming and Responsibility
Blaming assumes that people and things and situations should be different from what they actually are. You can argue with reality all you want, but you can never win. What you can do is stop wasting your time and energy and attention imagining that things should have been different, and, instead, if that is what… Continue reading Some Thoughts On Blaming and Responsibility
The Arizona Desert
I never much liked the Arizona desert during my first visits as a young adult visiting my family. I liked the ocean, mountains, and redwoods of Northern California where I spent so many of my adult years, and I loved the lake and woods and corn fields where I spent my teenage years in Wisconsin.… Continue reading The Arizona Desert
Stop Trying to Erase What You Don’t Like
I was in a weekend art class with Mrs Nyland, Willem Nyland’s wife, at the San Francisco Gurdjieff Foundation many years ago. As I was drawing, not very well in my estimation, she came over to me and strongly suggested that I stop erasing, or trying to erase, what I didn’t like and just move… Continue reading Stop Trying to Erase What You Don’t Like
“The Unstruck Sounds”: Don’t Let Yourself Become Breathless When You Speak
Many of us when we speak try to say too much too quickly. Sometimes we try to say as much as we can before we are interrupted. At other times we just get carried away in expressing our thoughts or feelings. In doing so we often find ourselves still speaking when we simply don’t have… Continue reading “The Unstruck Sounds”: Don’t Let Yourself Become Breathless When You Speak
The Words We Use
The words we use–and how we use them–have consequences, whether for better or for worse. I see and hear people (we’ve all done it, haven’t we?) begin a conversation about a particular issue with bitter or provocative words (in the name of ‘truth’) that create the turmoil and negativity that follow. This generally happens when… Continue reading The Words We Use
Listening In Two Directions at Once
The effort to listen in two directions at once, inwardly and outwardly, and suddenly realizing that, in a very real sense, there is no inward and outward; there is only the vast, silent spaciousness of Presence that welcomes everything into its miraculous embrace. Copyright 2016 by Dennis Lewis
Thanksgiving
I wish you a wonderful, gratitude-filled Thanksgiving. Whether or not you celebrate this popular American holiday, you have much to be thankful for, beginning with your very existence. However difficult your life, I suggest you take a few minutes today, and every day, to actually ponder all the blessings you have been given. Put your… Continue reading Thanksgiving
The Three-Fold Impetus of Being
Ah, nostalgia. All through history people have looked back to the good old days. I myself spent my teenage days and nights on a lake surrounded by woods and wandered freely with my dog, a boxer. I hunted, fished, swam, played ice hockey, put my tent up in the woods, and used to climb a… Continue reading The Three-Fold Impetus of Being
Questioning Your Starting Point
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… Continue reading Questioning Your Starting Point
Walking
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… Continue reading Walking
Open Mind, Open Heart
Some people today put great emphasis on heart-based perception. To be sure, the heart is a powerful brain–one of three main brains, or instruments of perception (head, heart, and gut) according to G. I. Gurdjieff, as well as to modern science. But fewer and fewer people today use their head brains as an instrument of… Continue reading Open Mind, Open Heart
A Beautiful and Creative Act
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… Continue reading A Beautiful and Creative Act