A counter-culture weekend

I was glad to read this favorable review by John Douglas, who doesn't easily give good reviews, of Bob Dylan's movie "Masked and Anonymous" which is playing at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, MI. Dylan's creation is a worthy trip. I have been eagerly awaiting this film since reading about it at Salon.com a month ago. Being an "art film", it has received little publicity even though Salon listed it as one of the ten best of 2003. Now it is playing at a small art theatre here. I've been listening to the soundtrack from the film for the past month and just love it. Imagine Dylan being sung in Japanese, Italian and Spanish along with his own versions of some songs. I can't wait until Sunday when my wife, friends and I can go see it. I've been a fan of Dylan since the mid-sixties. (This is much better than watching the Superbowl on CBS which refuses air ads by MoveOn and PETA.)

We'd go tomorrow, but we're going to see Michael Moore who's speaking at the Fountain Street Church at 6:00 pm. I really appreciate Moore for speaking the truth boldly. We need more people like him who are willing to confront the lies, deceptions and destruction of our nation by the powers that be.

What a great weekend to look forward to. Seems like the counter-culture is alive and well here in conservative, Christian West Michigan after all. Hallelujah!

Peace,
Steve

The worst of times

You know, I'm just so disgusted it's incredible. I must admit, I'm a news junkie, and I listen to a lot of NPR, watch the "Newshour" and also some network news. I also find much in the way of news that I don't get anywhere else on another blog Suburban Guerrilla. Yet I can hardly stand to hear any more.

Listening to the news while eating breakfast this morning, I thought to myself how the advances of the previous century which increased our freedom and greatly improved the lives of ordinary working people are just being stripped away incredibly quickly and with little notice by the public.

I've lived through a lot of bad times in the past 57 years, but I have never seen anything as bad as this. We have a good mayor here in Grand Rapids, and we have a good Governor in Michigan, but their hands are tied by the stinking economy created by the lying, deceiving, sanctimonious fool in the White House and his cohorts who control the Congress. I thought the Iran-Contra Scandal that Daddy Bush, Reagan and Oli North conducted more or less in secret would bring down the whole corrupt system when it was exposed. Nothing. Now, Bush and company are dismantling the economy, the middle class, our international alliances, our civil rights and waging a never ending war openly even as their lies are exposed regularly and NOTHING. Where are the mass protests, the national strikes the calls for regime change? It just shows how incredibly stupid half the population is to continue to support this diabolical plot.

The Democratic presidential candidates are my best hope for change, yet that whole process is so lame it is discouraging. I kind of gave up on the Democratic party being an effective alternative to the Republicans during the Clinton presidency. Sometimes the best we can do is choose the lesser of two evils. Kerry may appear electable, but he is unremarkable and says he was fooled by Bush when he dragged us into war with Iraq. I sure wasn't fooled. Edwards is good looking and a southern charmer with some good ideas. Clark is intelligent, has a good background and good ideas. Lieberman is attractive to conservatives and Republicans, but I can't stand him. Sharpton is a rabble rouser and I like that, but I don't think he stands a chance. Dean has good ideas and charisma, but I think the media will chew him up as they already have succeeded in doing. Kucinich has the best ideas of all. Yet you rarely hear his name, he is discounted as a candidate and has little ranking in the polls. Still, on a gut level, I like him best of all. I said this from the beginning. I have supported Clark because he seemed electable and I like him a lot, but after N.H., maybe he isn't so electable after all. If Kucinich can hang in there until the Michigan caucus, I think I'll vote for him. At least I'll have the satisfaction of voting my conscience. Of course, when it comes down to it in the general election, I'll vote for anyone but Bush.

Solidarity,
Steve

Help wanted

In addition to the book I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I have been working on another book for many years. It is autobiographical and deals with my spiritual journey from beatnik to hippie to Hindu to New Age to Christian to post-Christian. It spans the world and is the archetypical boomer quest. I have over one hundred pages written. I am looking for a coauthor to help me finish it up, a literary agent and a publisher. If you are one of these or know one who may be interested, please check out the rest of my website and contact me.

Thanks,
Steve

New book on-line

I have been blogging using excerpts from my new book that is in process. I am an eclectic minister and spiritual guide. In order to explain just what I mean by that, I am writing this book to describe my spiritual beliefs. I start out describing creation, the nature of God and how the soul lives in the material world. I just published these chapters to my website, and they can be read by clicking The Beginning. I hope you find this useful and informative.

Enjoy,
Steve

Watch your karma

What determines whether we wind up in heaven or hell or somewhere in between? It is called karma or the law of cause and effect. We create our own destiny. Everything we have done in this life has brought us to where we are right now. Everything we do in this life will carry us on to the next life.

You have heard about how when persons are dying, their life flashes before them. Your actions and experiences in this life carry you on to the next life. If the wind blows over a garbage dump, it picks up a foul odor. If it blows over a rose garden, it picks up a sweet odor. In the same way, the experiences of this life carry over into the next and help to determine the course it will take.

It is very difficult to break this cycle of birth and death, but by the grace of God, it is possible. Grace is given freely and is open to everyone. However, some persons are more open to grace than others. The best way to open oneself to grace is to become a devotee of God.

Peace,
Steve

Three types of planets

The earth is considered to be a middle planet somewhere between heaven and hell. There are parts of this planet that are quite heavenly and others that are hellish, and it seems impossible to find purely one or the other anywhere. Conditions on earth are good for enlightenment because there is opportunity to satisfy the material necessities of life without having to spend our entire life doing so, yet there is enough suffering to make us want something more.

On the truly hellish planets or in the hellish parts of this planet, persons are suffering too much and have to struggle too much just to exist and therefore have little energy to devote to self realization. On the heavenly planets and in the more heavenly parts of this planet, persons may be too busy enjoying material pleasures to spend a lot of energy seeking enlightenment although the attainment of such a life usually implies a more developed consciousness.

It should be understood that humans are not the pinnacle of the evolutionary process. Some of the demigods and residents of the heavenly abodes are as advanced above us as we are above the monkeys. Others in the hellish realms may have very little developed consciousness. Neither these material heavens nor hells are eternal.

Om shanti,
Steve

Follow King's example

Martin Luther King, Jr. was certainly a great man who did a lot for this country and the world. We are so much better off because he lived and stuck to his principles even at the cost of his life. While he is known primarily for his work in the civil rights movement, he was also deeply passionate about peace and economic justice.

Blacks are certainly better off today in the U.S. as a result of his work, but there is still much more work to be done. Far too many blacks are poor, unemployed, in prison, in broken families and segregated. Peace is far from a reality as we engage in what appears to be a never ending war which is draining our economy and costing the lives of way too many persons. Meanwhile, the middle class is being gutted in an on-going drive to provide cheap labor for multi-national corporations so that the rich can get richer. I told my wife recently that this is like living through WWII and the depression at the same time. The lives of millions of Americans is not better than it was in the previous century. In fact, it is going down hill quickly.

Rather than just honoring Dr. King today, resolve to follow in his footsteps and make this world a better place not just for yourself but for everyone. As King said, we all have to learn to live together on this earth. To do this, we need to follow a different paradigm such as King taught. Real change must come from us as we change our lives, and then we must bring about a regime change in this country this year.

Solidarity,
Steve

Spiritual evolution

We are part and parcel of God, one in quality, different in quantity. Due to our infinitesimal size, when we take birth in the material world, we come under the spell of maya or illusion. Our remembrance of our spiritual nature is covered over and forgotten. We develop a false ego in which we identify with our body and conditioned mind, our family, society, nation, possessions and so on.

Actually, the soul does not necessarily have a human body in all of its incarnations. If we go back to the beginning, there were no humans here. Souls inhabited single cell organisms, fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles, mammals and other life forms as they developed through the evolutionary process over millennia until human life evolved.

Evolution has to do not only with physical evolution, but also spiritual, conscious evolution. Humans have a more highly developed consciousness than the plants and animals. We have more opportunity to exercise free will and to realize our spiritual nature.

There is a process known as transmigration of the soul. The soul transmigrates from one body to another until it evolves to the human form. If the soul misuses the freedom of human life seriously enough, it can go back down to a lower life form. Otherwise, we may remain in the human form for many lifetimes until we attain full enlightenment and go back to Godhead.

Om shanti,
Steve

Free love

We are all eternal, individual persons and desire to be in relationships of love and joy. God is the same way, only God is infinite and we are infinitesimal. God is a person who is able to manifest in unlimited forms on unlimited worlds and engage in unlimited pastimes. This is what God does.

God also creates innumerable individual souls with free will to interact with as “others.” God is love, and a lover needs a beloved. We are God’s beloveds. Yet love must be freely given and received to be true love. It cannot be forced or coerced. Therefore, those souls who do not want to love God are placed in the material world where they can think they are independent of God and forget about God until they want to reestablish their loving relationship with God at which time God brings them back to the spiritual world.

Love,
Steve

Oneness

There is an aspect of God that is formless, attribute less, indescribable and like the light of the sun—this all pervading white light is eternal consciousness. The Vedic literature calls it Brahman.

Some yogis aspire to merge with it and become one with God. They liken it to a drop of water merging with the ocean and becoming one with the ocean. They seek to loose their individuality and enter that realm of undifferentiated oneness. This is very difficult for the embodied soul to do. Some are successful in attaining liberation this way however. They escape from the cycle of repeated birth and death entering into this state of pure consciousness.

However, the soul is eternally individual and desires a variegated existence in relationship to other individuals engaging in diverse, blissful pastimes. Therefore, they return to the material world just as the sun evaporates drops of water from the ocean and it falls back to the ground as rain.

Om shanti,
Steve

Democracy?

In a Grand Rapids Press article today, Fareed Zakaria points out some of the difficulties we have gotten ourselves into in Iraq which cannot be solved with a quick fix Money won't change Iraq, speaker says. As we pour billions of U.S. tax dollars that we don't have yet but which will be paid for by our kids, we continue to see school cutbacks as well as government cutbacks of essential services for the well being of our citizens by federal, state and local governments. Zakaria is right. More democracy does not mean more freedom. We can see that in this country as we lose long cherished freedoms and watch our economy and way of life crumble regardless of what they call a jobless recovery. At least the jobless part is right. If we're going to continue to elect lying, destructive leaders like W and gang, perhaps we don't deserve democracy. Democracy is supposed to be based on an educated electorate which can understand the issues and discern the nature of the persons running for office. I don't believe that is true of a large number of Americans, especially when they are fed the party line by the corporate media. Wake up people! We need regime change.

Solidarity,
Steve

God is talking to you

God is incredibly close and immanent. We can talk to God and God hears and knows and feels and experiences our lives right along with us. God talks to us and guides us on the path of life. God is a constant presence with us. We are free to acknowledge God’s presence and follow God’s guidance or not.

The Upanishads describe the relationship between the supersoul and the individual soul as two birds sitting on a tree. One bird is trying to guide the other as to the best course of life to follow. The other bird is busy eating the fruits of the tree and pays no attention. Yet the first bird is always there waiting for its friend to turn to it for guidance.

So God is the super soul, the universal guru, the cosmic Christ. Listen for what God is saying to you.

Peace,
Steve

Why I write a new book

As I said in my last blog, I am writing a new book elucidating my beliefs about God, the purpose of life, the nature of the self, how to attain enlightenment, etc.. As a spiritual guide and minister, I feel it is important to do this. I often call myself eclectic, but what does that mean? It means I pick and choose what seems best to me from various spiritual, religious and philosophical systems producing what may be termed a mixed bag. I do not claim to belong to any one particular school of thought because I find things I agree with and disagree with in all of them. I have a unique point of view developed over a lifetime of study, practice and following the spiritual path wherever it led me both far and wide. The mix of wisdom teachings I have put together is hard to categorize. Therefore it is my hope that this book will concisely and clearly make these teachings available to seekers on the path and help guide them on the way. Another excerpt follows:

God is the ground of all being, the cause of all causes, the beginning and the end of all things, the source of all life and love. God is eternal. God exists before the beginning of time. Time begins with that big bang. God was and is before that.

Where and how does God exist? That's a complicated question. The old mechanistic view of a creator God up in the sky kind of puttering around creating the earth in six days is quite obsolete. We now know that the universe is much bigger than the ancients could conceive.

Let us postulate that there is an eternal, infinite spiritual universe that exists prior to the creation of this material universe. While this material universe is many light years across, it is not infinite or eternal. The material universe is a reflection of the spiritual universe like a tree reflected on water. The tree is real while the reflection is illusory yet it has a basis in reality. The material universe is a temporary manifestation. It appears real just as the world we inhabit in dream seems real, but when we wake up, we realize it was an illusion. We consider this waking world to be reality, but it is another level of illusory dream.

Let us consider that God is both formless and yet has infinite forms. Suppose one of those forms of God is sleeping and dreaming and this world is God's dream. Yes. God's dream is so powerful that it creates a "reality" that goes on for billions of years and billions of light years and seems so solid and captivating that we believe it is all there is. Yet it is a dream, an illusion. Still we have a longing, a strange unfulfilled desire to be somewhere else. We sense that things are not quite right here, that there is a place somewhere, far beyond where everything is right, a place where the ills and suffering of this world does not exist.

ShalOm,
Steve

New book explains it all

I just started writing a new book, sort of The World According to Steve or Steve's Systematic Theology. The final title is yet to be decided--perhaps Practical Mysticism or some such thing. From time to time, I'll give you some previews on this blog page such as the following:

Well, let’s start at the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1 “In the beginning.” In the beginning of what? In the beginning of the creation of the material universe. In the beginning of time. In the beginning of space. Before the beginning of creation, there was no time or space. There was just eternity, without beginning or end, just the eternal now. There was something at the beginning. What was that something? It was the logos, it was the Word, it was God. BANG! The big bang. OM! My God, what’s going on here? What’s with all this racket? I believe it is the event horizon exploding.

Of course, no one can adequately explain the beginning of creation. No one was there—not scientists or religionists. It’s pure speculation, mythology. Yet we want to know how creation began. There are many versions both from science and religion, each trying its best to explain the unexplainable. We want to know. Yet, it is unknowable. Give us your best shot. Give us something to hold on to.

Humans want to know where we come from, what is our purpose, why are we here. Various religious traditions have tried answering this question for millennia in various ways according to the understanding of the persons addressed in particular times and circumstances. Therefore, we have various religious interpretations of the creation story. Many of these interpretations are allegorical and many are based on the best scientific understandings of the day.

To teach these mythological stories as scientific fact equal to the science of the 21st century is absurd. While they are truth on a spiritual level, they are not scientific truth. The ancients who wrote these stories had completely different goals in mind when writing them than do modern scientific thinkers. They were not concerned with facts as much as meaning. What is the spiritual meaning of creation? That is what they were trying to address. This is true.

Yet, I love reading the scientists explanations of the universe and believe the big bang theory and evolution to be valid, truthful scientific explanations of how creation came about.

Both the scientific and mythological explanations can be true at the same time dealing with creation on different levels of understanding. One is to be taught in the science classes and one in the religion and theology classes.

Enjoy,
Steve

Perfect

As I prepare to lead A Perfect Life workshops later this month, I must ask, "What is a perfect life?" Believe me, I had to go through some soul searching before I could even think of leading A Perfect Life Workshop. The Buddha said, "Life is suffering." For years, I said, "Life sucks." In so many ways, life does suck. When you look at economic disparities, the destruction of the ecosystem, political corruption, war, oppression, human cruelty, how can you say life is perfect?

Yet, here we are on this planet earth. If you understand that we are eternal, full of knowledge and bliss and not this body, but spirit souls, that puts things more into perspective. We are here to learn, to carry out a mission, to realize that we really do not belong here permanently. We are here as a step of growth in our spiritual evolution and the situations we face in life help us in that growth process. The process is not always easy or pleasant, but if it leads to a higher goal, perhaps it is worthwhile.

How can we see the perfection in our present life, and how can we make our lives even more perfect? That is what the Perfect Life Program is all about. I'll help you see the perfection that is already in your life and what you can do to make it even more perfect as you define perfect for yourself. Find out more at A Perfect Life

Peace,
Steve

More religion and politics

Well, here we go again with religion and politics. Governor Granholm made a remark in a TV interview using the Bible to point out the hypocrisy of cutting services to the poor while giving tax cuts to the rich. Governor's religion remark rankles GOP lawmakers Of course these Republicans who are so quick to point to religion to support their causes were offended and attacked her. Liberals who want to argue on religious grounds to counteract conservative religious/political views will need to become theologically conversant. Conservatives are much more used to using religious rhetoric to support their arguments than are liberals. However, the Bible strongly supports the causes of peace and justice and is strongly opposed to the rich further enriching themselves at the expense of the poor. The culture wars rage on and will continue to increase in this presidential election year.

Solidarity,
Steve

Religion and politics revisited

As I was discussing in my blog Tuesday, there is a call for liberal churches to engage in the political arena. This is reflected in an excellent article Salon.com News | God is not a right-wing zealot that I came across today. It would be good to see the mainstream get off its duff, get organized and do something. Enough letting the right dominate religious discourse.

I must say I find Dean's leaving the Episcopal Church over a dispute about a bike path to be a bit petty. Now Lieberman is one Democratic candidate who is up front about his religion. I read recently that Lieberman is the candidate for people who want to vote for Bush but don't think he's Jewish enough. I saw him on the news last night. He said he was a Dylan fan and was active in the civil rights movement of the 60s. Where did he go wrong?

What about the Texas Democratic congressman who became a Republican because otherwise they wouldn't give any money for his district? Talk about legislating for the good of the people. I'm so glad partisan bickering has been put aside since W was elected and we are now benefiting from compassionate conservatism. Not! Come on people, it's time for regime change here in the good old U.S. of A..

Solidarity,
Steve

Be true to yourself

Ah, to be oneself, to live true to one's own nature, to fulfill the purpose we are here for, what greater goal can be attained? However, too many are lured from this path by seductions of power, wealth, fame and grandiose illusions. Baubles of material rewards are dangled before us as temptations to renounce our self for another's vision of who we are. Many give up themselves for far lesser rewards such as security, affection, a pat on the back, a steady pay check.

From the time we are born, our parents and others try to mold us into their image of who we are. Peer pressure, teachers, the educational system, the military, job prospects, getting the right mate--the pressure to conform, to sell out is tremendous. Few are able to resist. Most are not even aware that they have sold themselves out. The veil of illusion is so strong.

It requires knowing one self, having strength of character, ego strength, will power, perseverance, love and grace to avoid the temptation. To live with one's eyes open, to not conform, to live one's own life often requires a price to be paid in terms of the rewards of this world, but one gets the greatest treasure, one self. What can be better than being one self fully, living in the light of God, being liberated from illusion? I've been on this path my whole life, and if you're ready to walk it also, I can help you find the way. Let me know. I'm here for you.

Peace and joy in this new year,
Steve