Emotions

Against High Vibrations: A Critique of New Age Spirituality

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Mystics, Spirituality, The Imaginal, The Soul

If you’ve ever read any self-help books or attended any personal development workshops or gone to any number of spiritual retreats you’ll very likely have come across the idea of maintaining a high vibration. I hear it all the time.

A quick Google search of high vibration brought up a slew of articles about what is a high vibration, why it’s important to have it, and what you can do to raise yours.

This teaching lies at the heart of almost, if not, all New Age spirituality, as well as various traditions influenced by New Age thinking–which increasingly is a wide range of spiritual teaching.

Of course as long as there is an idea of high vibrations, then inevitably there must low vibrations. You can’t have high without low and low without high. In this specific context the crucial point is that high vibrations are judged to be good, while low vibrations are bad.

All seems straightforward and obvious–we want to maintain a positive outlook, we want to feel good, and it’s a problem to stay mired in a negative outlook on life.

Simple, obvious right?

Well it may be a simple idea to grasp, it may even seem at first glance to be an obviously intelligent idea, but I’m going to argue it contains serious flaws. In particular I’ll focus on the way in which a high vibration teaching does significant damage to our ability to work with our emotions in a wise manner.

To preview the argument:

The central problem with a the notion of high vibrations is that it equates certain emotions with high vibration and therefore being positive. As a result, others emotions are seen as low vibration and therefore negative. High vibration easily elides into feeling good and low vibration easily turns out into feeling badly. That initial mistake opens the floodgates to numerous other consequential mistakes.

Here’s a classic example of this teaching from the spiritual writer David Hawkins.* Some version like this can be found throughout any number of New Age and New Thought writings. (I just find this one a really powerful and simple demonstration of the view–see image here).

You can see shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, anger are all in the negative category. Hawkins classifies these emotions as negative and of a low vibratory nature. Therefore the recommendation is to move out of such emotions into states of peace, joy, love, acceptance, and so on.

Again that all seems pretty logical–better to be joyful and peaceful than sorrowful or fearful right?

Not so fast.

Here’s what I see as fundamentally wrong about this approach–unconscious grief, shame, anger, and fear are definitely destructive. Unhealthy forms of grief, shame, anger, and fear are definitely destructive. But by qualifying these emotions with the words unconscious and unhealthy, we leave open the possibility that there is a conscious and healthy form of grief, shame, anger, and fear. In this simplistic binary system of high and low there is no ability to distinguish between different expressions of emotion–there’s no nuance or subtlety. Each emotion gets put into a good or bad category rather than seeing light and shadow sides to each emotion.

Just for the record, unhealthy and unconscious forms of happiness, peace, and acceptance are also really bad for you. For example, what if I maintain a peace at all costs attitude? What if I try to play peacemaker between two friends arguing and in so doing I actually end up hurting one of them? Am I supposed to accept prejudice? Should I be accepting of unethical behavior towards myself or others?

Hawkins’ schema is off because it categorizes emotions into positive or negative, into high or low, into good or bad. This dualism is seriously flawed and it dominates so much contemporary spirituality in more explicit forms as well as plenty of implicit ones.

This scale (intentionally or otherwise) compares the negative, unhealthy versions of one set of emotions–grief, fear, shame, anger–with the positive, healthy versions of another set–joy, love, peacefulness, etc. The game is rigged from the get go. It’s a game that ends up causing a lot well-meaning but naive spiritual seekers extraordinary amounts of unnecessary suffering.

I submit that healthy, awakened grief, fear, and anger are some of wisest teachers we have. Saying that undoes the whole simple scale of higher = better.

As compared to the terrible notion of low and high vibrations, what we want are deep and upraised vibrations. Notice the different vibration from the word deep as opposed to low. Notice the difference in saying I’m feeling deep versus I’m feeling low. One is about an absence (low) while the other is about a positive state (deep).

Deep vibration comes from integrating in a healthy way all the emotions labeled as negative by Hawkins and other New Agers. Yes it’s better to live out of peace, harmony, and joy than negative and unconscious grief, shame, desire, and fear. Much better still however is to live out of conscious integrated, awakened fear, desire, anger, shame, grief, as well as elation, peacefulness, happiness, and inspiration. To live a full-spectrum psychospiritual existence. That’s true depth.

Moreover, the word high has its own problems. It’s floaty, fleeting. You take drugs you get high but only for a short time. Inevitably you come back down (sometimes crash back down). It’s very easy to get hooked on spiritual practice or higher states of being and become a spiritual junkie.

I thought long and hard about what a better word for high would be–something that would speak to the value of inspirational experience but without the pomposity or ungrounded nature of high, I was kind of stumped, so I went to a thesaurus.

Options include: lofty (again too ungrounded), elevated (too temporary, too spiritual junkie), hovering (way too ungrounded). Another set of words emphasized more the bigness of high. Words like immense, gigantic, huge, formidable, colossal, towering, etc. These are think are again overinflated in a spiritual context.

Which left a few other potential candidates:

soaring (might work actually–an eagle soars but is also quite strong and in a sense “grounded”)
eminent (would be too confusing but has a truth to it)

And lastly upraised.

I like upraised.

Upraised seems more substantial than its cousin uplifted (again too floaty). Upraised might be a word that fits here. Instead of speaking of a high vibration one would speak of being upraised. There’s up but the raised part has a certain solidity to it (like raising a child).

Rather than talking about a high vibration, we should speak of a healthy ascent under whatever specific name you like there (upraised? soaring?). There absolutely is a place for healthy ascent in the spiritual path. There is Eros, the deep desire of life to evolve, grow, stretch, expand, and push beyond limits. There is Magic, the mysterious force of Creation. There is synchronicity. Things want to manifest into existence. There is incredible allurement to Life. The Universe winks at us constantly. Life is out to seduce us–to call us into partnership to create some beautiful. Following those winks from existence brings a kind of magical playful dimension to living.

That is all wonderfully true, but why is it the opposite of grieving well? Why is allurement the opposite of accessing our hatred to re-own parts of our shadow? Why is it I should have to choose one over the other? Why is one positive and the other negative?

Here is the motto I follow:

Awakened fear is the source of our intuition.
Awakened anger establishes healthy boundaries.
Awakened desire is The Creative Impulse flowing through us.
Awakened shame is liberated humility.
Awakened grief teaches us how to mourn and therefore how to live.
Awakened sadness is utter release.
Awakened guilt is proper remorse and contrition.

None of these are available to one who promotes high vibrations. The richness of incarnate human existence is lost. The wondrous fabric of the human being is torn irrevocably by high vibration New Age teaching.

In my church days I once met a person who came to the church I was working from another church. She said she that when she first started attending her old church, she was found the community really helped her in her spiritual life. She felt a deep sense of meaning there. But after a few years it all began to feel flat. I asked her why she thought her soul starting drying up there. She had this great line, she said, “It’s always a sunny day there [at that church].”

That’s a brilliant critique. When a person is in the dumps a sunny outlook seems like a ray a hope. And for a short time it really can be that. But when one comes out of the pits and readjusts eventually they will realize that it’s actually not good to only have sunny days. “It’s always a sunny day over there” was not a compliment. It was a very important insight and a kind of warning.

So it is with high vibration teaching. It can help people start to take responsibility for their lives, focus on gratitude, and put their energy to doing what brings them happiness, fulfillment, and peace. But eventually it comes to feel flat.

We need to find beauty in the rain, in the storms, in the nighttime, the grey overcast days and yes also absolutely in the sunny days. All of them. The high vibration/low vibration teaching can get some people, for a time, out of the ditch. I’ve seen it. But then it creates a new and far subtler obstacle to further depth and growth. It’s easy to see how letting toxic shame destroy our lives is bad. It’s much harder (but nonetheless true) to notice the ways in which being drawn to high vibration is preventing our full conscious expressions as human beings.

Better to be deep than low. Better to be upraised than high. Best to integrate the best of both.

—

* My criticism of the high/low vibration scheme from David Hawkins’ is not a criticism of his spiritual experience (which I think is quite real and powerful). It’s a criticism of this aspect of his interpretation and teaching around spiritual experience.

16 Jul 2014 3 comments / READ MORE

Why We Should Be More Judgmental

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Mystics, Spirituality

Back in my days as a parish priest, I once gave a sermon (this one in fact, in audio even!). There’s a line in the sermon about how I found the spiritual vision laid out in the reading that day (on The Transfiguration of Jesus) both deeply inspirational and deeply disturbing. For the vision laid out in the text didn’t seem to me to be to be on great display in our world. I mentioned I felt sadness, grief, and anger at this state of affairs. It’s worth mentioning that I included myself in that description of having missed the mark. I was not pointing my finger at those evil sinners down there and assuming some self-righteous stance. Still I plainly spoke of my deep pain.

After the service, a woman came and shook my hand and said she was concerned for me given what I had said in the sermon. I mumbled something or other about how I was fine and that I was trying to put in a bit of an edge to shake people up–“comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted” as the saying goes. This individual proceeded to say that from her perspective there was a continuum with judgment on one side and love on the other and the point of the exercise was to move towards love and move away from judgement.

I didn’t get into a long discussion with her at the time (there were plenty more hands to shake!) but reflecting on her words later I found them seriously flawed. It’s not my intention to single this individual person out because I’ve heard similar perspectives numerous times over the years both inside and outside church circles. In fact, her articulation of a continuum with judgment on the one side and love on the other was actually the clearest explanation of this view I think I’ve ever heard. I appreciate it’s clarity though I think it’s fantastically wrong. It’s a view that dominates our postmodern landscape and I think it’s one that deserves radical questioning. I think that view cripples us in serious ways emotionally and spiritually.

To simplify her outlook, we have this:

Judgment —– Love

With the intended direction supposed to be:

Judgment —> Love

When visualized this way, what do you notice?

Here’s what I notice:

There can be no judgment in love. (Judgment and Love are mutually exclusive).
All judgments are therefore lacking in love.
Judgment is consequently an inherently negative thing.
Which means there can never be a positive version of judgment.

I’d like to question all four of those assumptions. Why can’t there ever be judgment in love? Must all judgments inherently be without love? Is judgment always bad? Can’t there ever be positive, life-giving, wise judgment?

When it came to Love and Judgment, I would say my interlocutor had actually stumbled upon a polarity and not a continuum. I see Love and Judgment as mutually interacting and related to one another (more like the Yin/Yang symbol of Taoism) rather than opposition. I see them as complementary, paradoxically related, not antithetical.

Normally when we come to polarities in life, we tend to favor one side or the other. We choose light over dark. Or decide that some of our emotions are positive ones and others negative ones. We want the former and not the latter (and this is a big mistake).

In particularly bad cases, we may even seek to suppress one side of the polarity and thereby treat it not as a polarity but as a continuum (as this woman did in relation to Love and Judgment). When we see these as a polarity the idea is to move to embrace both sides. In this case we might start by asking questions like:

In what ways are there positive judgments in this world?
When an innocent person is brought to trial and the court finds the defendant innocent is that not a positive judgment?
When an innocent person is found guilty is that not negative judgment (again implying there is positive judgment)?

Can you think of any other positive judgments?

Maybe a time in your life when you realized you were behaving in a way that was hurting you or others and decided this was wrong and took steps to heal the wounds caused and to act in a more life affirming manner?

(Not everything in life is a polarity by the way. Sometimes things are just plain wrong or destructive.)

Not so coincidentally others perceived this woman as at times arrogant, looking down her nose at them. When a voice like Judgment is suppressed–when one half of the polarity is disowned–then it comes out in unconscious and destructive ways. It was her unconscious judgment that was coming out. The problem was not that she had failed to move farther along the continuum away from judgment towards love. It was rather than in framing the issue that way she was always leaving parts of herself disowned (in this case judgment), parts that would express themselves in an unconscious manner.

Again this isn’t me slamming this woman but just pointing out what I think is a rather inevitable consequence of suppressing one half of this polarity: it doesn’t go away it just shows up in a really unhelpful ways.

The view she was advocating was one that is hugely dominant in liberal spiritual circles–that we should be non-judgmental and loving. I think non-judgmentalism is a flawed concept and virtue. Positively stated, I do believe we should be accepting–that we don’t want to stand in positions of moralistic self-righteous. Everyone is a human. We try our best. We fail. We make mistakes. We hurt each other. There’s no need to believe any of us are above all that.

But describing oneself as non-judgmental has the unintended consequence of making our judgments unconscious.

Awhile back I wrote a much longer, more involved piece on this same subject from a slightly different angle entitled: Can We Ever Truly Judge One Another? It generated a lot of feedback–some positive, much of it negative. A good friend suggested that had I used the word discernment rather than judgment I wouldn’t have received any critical comments. I think she was right. While I highly value discernment, I don’t believe discernment is equivalent to judgment. They are closely related but I believe slightly distinct.

Discernment involves sifting through one’s desires to locate the truest, holiest motivation lying within one–a key to finding one’s soul purpose or calling. Discernment also includes learning about the dark and unhealthy sides of one’s desires. Discernment is about individually and collectively reading the signs around us and figuring out a best next step, a best way forward.

It’s true then to say that discernment is a kind of judgment–it’s (healthy) judgment in relation to questions of one’s calling as well as the common good.

But the question I have is what about judgment more broadly?

A point I noted in my earlier piece was that in my experience (speaking generally) marginalized and oppressed peoples do not seem to have the negative associations with the word judgment that privileged peoples do. The marginalized and oppressed actually seemed to embrace judgment because for them judgment means the wrongs they experience are going to be righted. This narrative is especially true in The Bible.

I think for all the talk about being non-judgmental as a great value among well to do North Americans, it’s really fear of having to look into the ways in which we benefit from unjust systems and situations. If we really honed up to judgment, the judgment would probably be on us. Non-judgmentalism as a value often says far less about our supposed ethical love and care, and far more about what we don’t want to come to light.

What I’m not trying to do here is revive some fire and brimstone old-timey religion based on guilt, freaking people the hell out. Of course there are all kinds of destructive judgment: prejudices against people based on age, body size, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic class, ethnic makeup, national or cultural heritage, on and on. What kind of music you listen to (or don’t), what kind of clothes you wear (or don’t), what political party you support (or don’t), the list is endless.

Those are wrong. But please notice in saying that I’m exercising judgment–wise and loving judgment I believe.

Non-judgmentalism is very much like tolerance (another word I’m not a big fan of particularly). Why should I tolerate injustice or cruelty? Why should I tolerate abuse? Why should any of us tolerate those things? That’s different than saying I should despise or seek pain on those who do such things. It’s not intolerance of their personhood I think we should embrace, but rather intolerance of attitudes, actions, and ways of being that are dehumanizing.

In that way, I advocate that we should all be much more conscious and upfront about our judgments. We should be more intolerant, not less. We should seek to hone and sharpen our judgments, not dull them with talk of love and being non-judgmental.

I actually think the polarity is not between Love and Judgment but rather between Mercy and Judgment–Love being the union of (wise) Mercy and Judgment. Mercy is what reminds us that we are all human, full of pains and sorrows, imperfect, and act in ways that harm ourselves and others–as well as we don’t do things that would benefit and heal ourselves and others. Judgment is what holds us to account in love–mercy is forgiveness not getting off the hook. Love is the Warm Presence of Being Herself. Love teaches us the nature of reality herself–Mercy and Judgment teach us how concretely to relate to her properly.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the great critics of apartheid in South Africa, led The Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid ended. Notice that the emphasis is on Truth first and then Reconciliation. No deep and lasting peace or reconciliation is possible without first truth. As Jesus said, “The truth shall set you free.” [That’s a judgment from Jesus!]

Truth in the context of anti-apartheid meant the truth of the dehumanization and evil of the apartheid system. Showing that this entire thing called apartheid was wrong and led otherwise well-intentioned people to do awful things. The truth also involved the recognition of how everyone was hurt: the oppressors and the oppressed (though certainly not in equal measure). Everyone was dehumanized from apartheid not just the obvious victims of persecution.

Truth and Reconciliation are for me basically interchangeable words for Judgment and Mercy. It could have been called The Judgement and Mercy Commission but Truth and Reconciliation I think has a better ring to it. But it’s the same basic principle. It’s not just saying sorry and offering forgiveness (Reconciliation, Mercy) without clearly annunciating the violence that was done (Judgment, Truth). It’s not simply articulating all the wrongs (Judgment, Truth) and then wanting revenge. It’s articulating all the wrongs (Judgment, Truth), then forgiving them (Mercy, Reconciliation)–saying these evils will no longer have power over us.

Truth and Reconciliation. (Wise, Loving) Judgment and Mercy.

Judgement in this regard is very close to, if not identical, to healthy shame (a subject I’ve written on here and here). The judgment we’re speaking of here is judgment as to actions, attitudes, and beliefs that are causing pain and desecrating life. It’s not a judgment of any human being as to their essence, their humanness. It’s not moralizing. It’s not sneering. It’s not us versus them. It’s radical and deep humility. It’s powerful but also loving. It’s not a license to start blasting people. It’s a call to serious maturity.

The first piece I wrote for this site is about deep hospitality and welcome as an abiding spiritual practice. That includes judgment. Br. Judgment needs to be welcomed into the family for he’s been marginalized for far too long. When he’s welcomed, then he will offer his wisdom of clarity, insight, and clean power. He will then come into relationship his sister Mercy and together they will form Love.

Understood rightly, the path of owning our judgments, is the path to greater Love.

13 Apr 2014 2 comments / READ MORE

Without Shame Is the Same as Shameless

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts

Recently I wrote a piece arguing that we should befriend and welcome shame. I described the insights of wise teachers–those who teach us that there is such a thing as healthy shame and that weirdly healthy shame is being negatively shamed nearly out of existence. The basic argument was that there’s a lack of differentiation and understanding of healthy versus unhealthy shame–how to welcome the first into our lives and not enact the latter. I talked in particular about the gifts healthy shame has brought to my life of late–in particularly feelings I’ve been having of shame around trying to build my business and not being very good at certain key portions of it.

Since writing that piece, my ears are much more attuned to language around shame. In particular, I’m more cognizant to sensitive language around shame in relation to personal development, politics, and spirituality, the areas of my interest.

In particular, I’ve been noticing a whole lot of teachings describing themselves as promoting X Without Shame. X there could be Sex, Wealth, Happiness, Authentic Power, whatever.

Once we take the distinction between healthy and unhealthy shame into account, we can see why, for example, the push for having X Without Shame is so very problematic (if you need to learn what that distinction is, read this piece).

This “without shame” trend is really dominant right now. Shame has become the new pariah. Of course this push towards no shame can of course engender a lot of (negative) shame in someone for having or feeling shame. They’d be made to feel inferior for having shame (the very definition of negative shame btw). Maybe even healthy shame, which they should rightly have (e.g. feelings of proper remorse).

When someone says they are teaching say Owning Your Power Without Shame what they (hopefully) mean is they are teaching how to release negative shame in relationship to accessing and expressing our inherent capacities and gifts. But if they don’t hold the distinction between healthy and unhealthy shame in clear view, they may well be pushing down the very real need we all for healthy shame.

Since healthy shame is so closely connected to (healthy) remorse, empathy, and moral conscience, sending all forms of shame into the abyss–both healthy and unhealthy–leaves the door wide open to serious unethical behavior. As an example, consider a teaching about Owning Wealth Without Shame (there are plenty of these out there whether they use that exact wording or not). Let’s imagine in this not-entirely-hypothetical teaching there isn’t clarity between healthy and unhealthy shame. In such a case, we should not be surprised that the teaching would led to a view that we should all become ridiculously wealthy (in explicitly financial terms) and have no shame about it. And that any potential critiques of such a view would immediately be shamed be being labeled “Poverty Consciousness.”

Continuing with the wealth example, healthy shame might say that yes it’s very valid to let go of all kinds of negative shame. Speaking about money is a taboo in our society and there is all kinds of destructive, negative shame that results from never talking about money in a conscious, intentional way. Healthy shame might also suggest however that there are proper limits, that we should be as equally concerned about personal wealth/abundance as we should be about social and collective health and justice.

Or consider sex.

Healthy shame would certainly recognize the deep pain and destruction that has been caused by negative shame around sex: pervasive sexual abuse and rape, slut shaming (there’s that word again), closeted unhealthy sexuality, people being unable to led healthy, joyous sexual lives, the list goes on and on. Obviously we want to work against all those forms of death and destruction. They are legion, nearly infinite in nature.

But I think healthy shame would advocate as well for proper ethical containers of safety, trust, and exploration. Perhaps having large-scale events where strangers touch each other’s genitals, for example, wouldn’t be the best context for such exploration. At least not for everybody. (And yes that does exist).

Part of what’s behind all this, I think, is far too much naivete about shame and its relationship to repression. I’m talking about English-speaking North America here now. There’s a very simplistic notion that I think essentially equates shame with repression. Therefore to be liberated we have to overcome repression, which means overcoming shame. We take the lid off repression and whatever flows out of that eruption is inherently liberated. Michel Foucault knew better. He knew that many of the so-called forms of liberated sexuality were actually subtler forms of repression–harder to realize as such since they were officially so aimed at liberation and de-repression.

To put it most bluntly, we could easily turn the language of X Without Shame into an equivalent linguistic form–shameless. Without shame and shameless are the same thing right?

So, here’s a question: Would anyone market a class on Shameless Wealth? Shameless Sex? Shameless Power?

Probably not because the word shameless still hits a warning in our conscience (at least I feel it should). We still realize somewhere deep down shameless is wrong but somehow without shame sounds better. But really are they all that different? For example, shameless is usually followed by exploitation (“shameless exploitation”) or manipulation (“shameless manipulation”). Maybe we should take more seriously what those linguistic terms are pointing to–maybe advocating being totally without shame is actually heading down a potential road of exploitation and dehumanization?

The most interesting example I can think is when someone prefaces a work of self-promotion by saying, “Here’s a piece of shameless self-promotion.” By doing that, they are actually incorporating healthy shame. It’s in fact not shameless because they are in a good-natured way teasing themselves, showing a sense of humility and self-perspective (i.e. healthy shame).

Conversely, if a person was ok with a notion of titling something they are doing as Shameless X (Power, Sex, Money) I would raise a flag. (Unless again they were doing it as a joke or self-parody). Shameless is not a good way to go. Neither is being without shame. Being without loads of negative, destructive shame yes. Being without shame altogether no. This distinction is really not that difficult and yet it’s radically missing and profoundly needed nowadays.

15 Dec 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

Does God Hate?

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Mystics

A few weeks ago, my good friend Bruce Sanguin wrote a piece entitled The Tender Wrath of God. He described it as an attempt to redeem the language of God’s wrath. I recommend reading his piece in full. I’ve been thinking about writing a piece or giving a sermon attempting to redeem the wrath of God for awhile now, but for some reason I always backed off doing it. Br. Bruce’s piece has inspired me to finally explore the matter.

I’m going to tack differently than Bruce did–I don’t think what I’m going to say is in opposition or critical of Bruce’s view. Just different.

First off, I’m going to change the word wrath for hatred. Some may feel this is an unfair exchange but I think hatred is a word we can relate to more viscerally than wrath (and I think the meanings are very close, if not nearly identical to make the substitution valid).

Could we then speak of The Hatred of God?

Right away I’m sure I’m setting off all kinds of alarm bells. At least I should be setting off such bells. The idea of God’s hatred is a weapon that has been used against countless beings. The formula of course is quite simple in it’s deadliness.

1. God Hates X group of people (fill in the X with aboriginals, gays and lesbians, Jews, atheists, “heretics”, “infidels,” etc.)
2, I speak for God and therefore I have to hate X as well (conveniently for me God and I always share the same point of view, how awesome is that?!!!)
3. I should therefore do any of the following to X:
Ignore them
Ridicule them
Shame them
Oppress them
Commit violence upon them unless they change.

1 + 2 = 3

The history of that ‘3’ is a history of terrible bloodshed, trauma, and destruction. Just as evil, that history is still present reality. So let’s put that giant warning label over everything that’s to follow. It may be as Bruce said in his piece, that redeeming the Wrath (Hatred) of God is not possible.

While holding all that horror in mind, can we still speak positively of the Hatred of God?

Before I jump further into that question, there’s one more prefatory comment I want to make.

One of the criticisms that I find emerges right away in any discussion like this one is that speaking of God being angry or hating or being full of wrath is too anthropomorphic–i.e. it makes God too much like a human being. I definitely appreciate that criticism coming from a place of great respect for the utter transcendence of The Divine–that God can’t be reduced to our human thoughts or feelings. Still, I think we should make God far more human. I think one of the major problems of most theology is that God isn’t nearly human enough. If we make God far more human, I think we would potentially connect far more deeply with our own humanity (and therefore our divinity). As St. Irenaeus said, “God became human so that humanity would become God.” Making God more anthropomorphic is actually about the divinization of humanity.

When we make God (as I think we should) more human, then I think we can talk about the Hatred of God. Please bear with me. I realize this is raw territory full of pain for many people.

Karla McLaren in her book The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying To Tell You, has a chapter on the emotion of hatred. (I mention her book frequently because for me it’s a lodestar). The subtitle of the hatred chapter is The Profound Mirror. The gifts of hatred (*properly held*) she describes as, “intense awareness, piercing vision, sudden evolution, shadow work.”

McLaren writes,

“Though humankind’s expression of hatred has created unrelieved suffering throughout history, hatred is actually a natural, healthy, and exceptional emotion. Hatred is a laser-focused form of rage and fury that arises when your boundary is devastated, not through an attack per se, but through a more intimate and interior hazard that you’re not yet able to confront on your own…Hatred is an intense flare of rage and fury, which means you’re dealing with boundary devastation and the near-complete loss of your equilibrium.” (The Language of Emotions, pp. 215-216)

For McLaren, the guiding question for properly working with hatred is: What has fallen into my shadow? What needs to be reintegrated?

The desire to be nice, kind, polite, even spiritual (or at least to be seen as such) blocks admitting we feel hatred. It’s a normal, healthy human emotion. I’m not surprised that we’re uncomfortable with our own hatred and therefore are also uncomfortable speaking of God’s hatred.

To make this clearer, let’s take a different emotion that we’re also really uncomfortable with: jealousy. Again I find McLaren’s understanding of that emotion really helpful. Jealousy she describes as “relational radar”, a mixture of fear and anger in response to a perceived threat to an intimate relationship.

Just so, The God of The Bible is described as “jealous”. “I am a jealous God” (Exodus 20: 5) God’s jealousy has to do with a threat of God’s intimate relationship with the people of Israel being broken or damaged. The Prophets of Israel repeatedly refer to worship of other gods as a form of adultery for just this reason. The relationship between God and the people is meant to be as close as that of spouses. Worship of other gods isn’t an abstract proposition but cheating on your divine lover.

One of the classic atheist critiques of religion is that humans have projected our emotional states onto a deity–it’s a form of supreme human arrogance. I actually think it’s the reverse. I think God is the only full human and we are less than humans and have to develop into full humanity (which turns out is one with divinity). So, as I said before, I think we should be anthropomorphizing God (*rightly*) much much more.

I think it’s deeply profound that the Biblical tradition speaks of a jealous God. I think it creates a point of connection between us and God. Even in jealousy (*rightly embraced*) we are not separate from God. I love that in the Bible God is variously depicted as sullen, heartbroken, wounded, grieving, and yes even at times resentful or hating. I think it’s much easier to create a nice theology of a serene, unmoved, contemplative God who sees everything as One. I’m not saying that style can’t be attributed to God but it leaves out all the messiness.* I think awakening (i.e. accepting and acting upon our godhood) is much harder, and therefore far more valuable, precisely when that enlightenment is expressed through anger, fear, sadness, grief, joy, jealousy. In the story of Noah and the Flood, God even feels remorse and sorrow (think about that one for a second…it’s a total theological mindf#@!).

So that brings us back to hatred, ours and God’s. If God hates and we humans do not, then we are not yet incarnate. If we hate and God does not, then our hatred is left unredeemed. In other words, I think I’m flipping Br. Bruce’s question. I’m not asking whether God’s Hatred can be redeemed but rather whether our hatred can.

McLaren writes,

“If we can channel hatred inside our own psyches, we can instantaneously reconstruct our boundaries, focus ourselves intently, and perform amazing feats of shadow-retrieval and evolution.” (p. 219)

Hatred, McLaren emphasizes repeatedly, is not mere dislike. It destabilizes the sense of self at a core level. She offers a beautiful practice of how to own one’s hatred within healthy boundaries rather than exploding out onto the one we hate (see her book for this practice).

But let’s look again at that last line, when hatred is channeled inside our own psyches, we can perform amazing feats of shadow-retrieval and evolution. This understanding of hatred raises a very interesting theological question (which I don’t have anywhere near the skill to take on)…if we talk of God’s hatred, do we talk of God having a shadow? If so, what’s in God’s shadow?

Whether God has a shadow or not, we certainly do. And hatred (rightly understood and embraced) has the power to call the shadow material from the depths, so that it might be redeemed and its light released.

Concerning the gift of shadow material brought forth through healthy hatred, McLaren writes,

“This won’t turn you into a brutal, ignorant, or selfish person; it will actually protect you because you’ll no longer be tormented or seduced by brutality, ignorance, or selfishness in shadowy ways. When you reintegrate your shadow material, you won’t suddenly enjoy brutality, ignorance, or selfishness, but you won’t be endangered by them either. You’ll be able to make healthy separations from people who live out those traits, instead of throwing yourself into twisted, hate-filled love affairs with them.” (p.225)

This understanding of healthy hatred and the ability to welcome it, I think opens up a very powerful way of understanding apocalyptic language and theology, of being able to reintegrate shadow, express hatred, and yet have healthy separation–as well as clear boundaries of holding the energy rather than unleashing it in hurtful thoughts or actions).

I think it’s time for a Theology of Hatred (*Rightly Embraced*). To make things a bit too simplistic, we’ve had a theology of unhealthy hatred in many forms of religion, particularly (but not exclusively) Christianity. This shows up as the puritanical, judgmental faith that has caused so many to be turned off by organized religion. We’ve had the reaction against unhealthy hatred in so-called liberal, mainline churches. There’s actually a huge amount of shadow hatred in those churches–particularly against the more conscious haters on the right. But formally hatred has no place in the softer, more gentler, more supposedly loving and forgiving liberal churches (as well as New Age spirituality).

Instead of that, I say let’s have some Healthy Hatred.

—

* As a theological sidenote, Christians have misunderstood their own scriptures for centuries. They often see The God of the Hebrew Bible (Adonai Elohim) as God the Father of the New Testament. This is wrong. Adonai Elohim, The Holy One of Israel, for Christians, is the character of Jesus in the New Testament. It took a literature scholar, Harold Bloom, to point out that obvious fact. Jesus evinces the same range of emotions as does The God of Israel. Jesus shows anger, grief, sorrow, ecstasy, contentment, and yes even hatred. cf, the work of Margaret Barker.

27 Oct 2013 2 comments / READ MORE

Why (Healthy) Shame is Good For Us

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Mystics, The Soul

“Shame may be our most hidden or submerged emotion; it may also be the one we shun the most.” (Robert Masters, Emotional Intimacy p.109)

Shame gets a bad rap. A really bad rap. And for good reason. It can be an absolute killer. For so many people shame is like a virus that infects them at an early age and stays with them for life. Shame can be crippling.

“You’re not good enough.”
“You’ll never be good enough.”
“You really f#@!ed that one up, didn’t ya?”
“You’re a failure.”

This is the voice of shame. This is what we think of as the voice of shame anyway. But I want to suggest that’s the voice of negative and unhealthy shame. The negative and unhealthy there is very important because it suggests that not all shame is necessarily negative or unhealthy. Though it might seem counterintuitive, I’m going to argue that recognizing and embracing healthy shame is a wonderful process in our lives. I feel we should welcome healthy shame.

“Shame is the painfully self-conscious sense of our behavior–or self–being exposed as defective, with the immediate result that we are halted in our tracks, for better or worse. The felt sense of shame is that of public condemnation, even if our only audience is our inner critic.” (Emotional Intimacy, emphasis in original p.109).

There’s two pieces in that definition: painfully self-conscious sense of our behavior or self being exposed as defective. Since shame is about being exposed, there’s no better way I guess to advocate for healthy shame then to share what (healthy) shame has taught me. I’ll start with the painfully self-conscious sense of my behavior being defective and then move to the thornier dimension of self-shame.

Healthy Shame and Behavior

The behavior part of shame is a bit more straightforward it seems to me. I want to separate my actions from my beingness. I, like everyone else, am a fallible human being. I make mistakes, sadly sometimes ones that hurt others, even hurt myself. When I commit actions that hurt people close to me, people who I love dearly, it’s very painful.

So I need to be able to feel remorse, genuine contrition, for those actions, without feeling that something is inherently wrong with me as a human (that’s negative shame). Falling into the cycle of destructive self-recrimination hurts me but it also doesn’t actually address what I did wrong nor give me the energy to heal broken relationships. Without genuine contrition, I will most probably make the same mistake. Healthy shame, when it comes to my beahvior, is about genuine remorse not guilt. Guilt isn’t really a feeling I don’t think. It’s more a state of affairs. Masters describes guilt as something we do with shame (shame mixed with fear).

When I reflection on times I’ve said “I feel guilty”, what I think I was really feeling deeper down was remorse. The painful recognition that I did something that hurt another or possibly myself. I feel really sorry; I feel the wrongness of that action and genuinely seek, where possible, to make amends and connect to a deep desire to live and act differently going forward.

This was not an easy process for me to come to. Being raised in a very traditional Roman Catholic family I had plenty of guilt and plenty of negative shame heaped on me. There were theological variations of negative shame–as in the teaching that I was born a sinner and Christ had to die to save me from my sins. There were ways that such theologizing was used as a social instrument of control. In third grade, I had an old battle ax named Sr. Marian (she was an actual religious sister). Sr. Marian had a crucifix with the image of the vision of La Salette. There was a hammer on one side of the crucifix and a pairs of tongs or pincers on the other. Sr. Marian told me that when I was good, I took the pincers and pulled Jesus’ nails out, relieving his pain. And when I was bad, I was taking the hammer and driving his nails in even further.

My bad actions–which intriguingly happen to include not following her orders about how a classroom should be organized–caused wounds to my Savior. (This is a true story–I’m not making that up, that honestly happened. It’s too messed up not to be real). You’ll see the hammer in the picture above which I apparently used as a very naughty 9 year old to wound sweet Christ Jesus. It didn’t help that I was going through a very difficult period with my childhood asthma so I was on medications that were making me hyper (I’m normally quite calm and chill all the time, even as a boy). This is what got me into trouble with Sr. Marian and got me to believe that I was a cause of pain to Jesus, whom I loved dearly as a boy (and still do actually).*

Anyway, while that is a bit of an extreme example, I think most folks have the experience through childhood–either in family or school or among peers–that something is really fundamentally wrong with them as a human being and they should be ashamed about it. Also they should never show nor feel ashamed about it because that would be weakness, which is even more shameful.

For the record, I was able eventually to realize that Sr. Marian was wrong and that I’m not an evil being. I also was able eventually to work through my anger, feelings for revenge, and hatred of Sr. Marian to eventually come to forgive her. (This took years, long since she had died).

Healthy Shame and self

The second part is harder. How to feel a proper sense of healthy shame that has to do with our self. Here’s Masters again:

“When shame shows up, it can crush us, and it can also serve us, as when it makes us less immune to remorse or less full of ourselves. In the latter case, shame is not an enemy but an ally.” (Emotional Intimacy, p.114)

I’ve talked about my experience of the former (remorse), what about the latter? What about a healthy response that makes me less full of myself?

That one is quite current in my life right now. In the last two months I’ve moved from being a full-time priest in a pastoral charge to working to establish a full-time private practice in intuitive readings, energy healing, and spiritual coaching. It’s a complex process. It’s quite tricky and I’m inevitably making mistakes as I go. I surely will continue to make mistakes going forward. Not ethical mistakes, not things I should feel healthy remorse about. More goals and actions I set for myself that I didn’t follow through on necessarily in the timeline I set out for myself.

I’ve had days where I’ve wanted to pull the covers over my head and hide. I feel the embarrassment, the humiliation, the shame in saying that. In Masters’ language, I’m exposed now.

I mentioned this experience of wanting to hide to someone the other day and they responded by talking about vulnerability. It’s not a vulnerable feeling. Vulnerability isn’t something I struggle so much in accepting. I was very sick as a boy and nearly died a couple of times. I’ve been with people through illness, crises, and in the process of dying and death. So I would never say I’m perfectly at peace with my vulnerability (I don’t even know if that’s possible) but I’m to some significant degree at peace with it.

It’s not vulnerability. No, I’m talking about a sense of potential failure, that I might not be able to cut it. That is a far scarier thought to me than the thought of dying. In comparison, death feels like an inviting release. Swing low, sweet chariot, come take me home any day of the week compared to public failure. As the ancient traditions understood, loss of face is death. Better to die and be actually dead then to die publicly and still be alive and have to live with your demise as a zombie.

So given the challenge of what I’ve embarked upon, it’s not surprising I’ve had moments when I’ve let negative shame take over–those moments of pulling the covers over my head and seeking to hide. It can be a real mind toilet. Negative shame hits the handle and down the shit drain I go mentally and emotionally.

Fortunately there haven’t been too too many of those moments so far.

The way I’ve found to deal with them, however, is to actually call on healthy shame in those moments. I’m definitely not following a ‘just push through it’ mentality. Maybe that works for others, but it doesn’t work for me.

When I call on healthy shame, I accept that I’m starting out and there’s simply too many variables and skills that have to be developed. Inevitably I’m not going to be very good at this in a short span of time. When I accept that…and that’s a big when because it’s hard to do, really hard to do and doesn’t always happen admittedly…but when I do I deeply relax. The hard part is getting to accepting the healthy shame. It’s so challenging in no small part because I’m really big into being an expert. I don’t like to learn on the job or learn by mistakes. I’m not one of those kind of people. I like being able to do things well and when I’m not very good at something I really struggle. Hence this is a difficult time in my life (it’s also a very creative one and overall I’m far more at ease than I was in my previous work).

It’s been a great learning the value of healthy shame in relation to self. It’s something more than simply humility. Humiliation is probably be closer to the mark. Amazingly, I accept the healthy shame of self and there’s a moment of deep pausing (Masters says that shame is about stopping us in our tracks). And then, rather incredibly, I actually find energy to take a step and recommit to the process. In those moments of healthy shame it’s far easier for me to ask for help from others–something that again is very hard for me.

I experience healthy shame as a cleansing feeling. It feels like I’ve just come out of some kind of sweat lodge. I’m a little woozy but purged, purified. It’s not a pleasant feeling certainly but it’s a solid one. There’s a grace in it that I don’t recall having felt or understood so clearly before.

I thank Brother Shame for what he’s teaching me.

—

* (Afterthought: I have to say that a part of me really admires the pure sinister genius of Sr. Marian’s view. I mean that’s way better mind control than telling me that some large-bellied bearded Northerner who visits annually has a system of worldwide surveillance to decipher if I’m in the good or bad child category and won’t give me presents if I’m in the latter. Boo hoo, no presents. I mean that’s nothing compared to hammering the nails into poor innocent Jesus.)

22 Oct 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

What Is Loving Presence?

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Mystics

The tagline of this website is An Invitation to a Life of Loving Presence. What do I mean by Loving Presence? I’ll start first with a brief description of how I understand presence and from there explore why I feel adding Loving is so crucial to living a contemporary life imbued with spirit.

What Is Presence?

Presence is the word I use to describe the state of awakening at the level of mind. It goes by many different names in different traditions. The names are pointers. What they’re pointing to is when the mind uncoils and relaxes from its tight grip on life and the person feels a deep dropping, a profound release. They begin to experience a state of deep and utter peacefulness. Time and space begin to melt away, fading into oblivion.

I invite us all to take a few deep breaths and just scan and see if we can find this place within us that is already peaceful, already at ease.

Like sinking down to the bottom of the ocean floor…the lights above disappear, the sounds and noise of the day recedes, down to the bottom of the ocean where everything comes to rest.

Presence is that space–a space of freedom and peacefulness.

The word presence points to the presence of Truth in this state. This Presence is Holy Presence, a realization of all being well, at ease, and rest. In this state, everything and everyone, in fact the entire process of Life itself, is felt to be conscious.

There’s a sense of liberation from our conventional experience of time and space. Everything feels whole.

Why Loving Presence?

Now many (maybe most?) spiritual teachings of enlightenment stop here. The path becomes one of deeper and deeper immersion in this state of presence. There’s truth in this perspective as there’s never an endpoint to Presence. It is infinite in nature.

But to be a little crass for a moment, there’s more to the show. There’s another track, another dimension of awakening and that’s why I talk about Loving Presence. Adding the word loving to presence is meant to convey this second dimension.

While it might seem redundant to add the word loving to presence, when talking in the context of spiritual awakening, my experience is this is DEFINITELY not the case.

The state of presence can be a bit of a safe place. It can be seductive because it is so free of pain, worry, and struggle. It’s totally natural to simply stay there forever in state of natural perfection.

But our world is deeply struggling. We can’t stay “there” forever, however much parts of me emotionally share that view.

There is a still deeper movement–a movement of the heart.

The awakening of the heart retains the goodness of the mind’s awakening. There’s still the peace, the freedom, and the ease. But there’s something added that presence alone does not convey–a warmth. It’s a feeling of liquid fire.

In this fire of the heart, one is not only in a state of peace and rest but also of profound devotion to life. The state of presence alone is always a little well kinda spiritual. I mean it’s a bit special feeling, a little too awakened.

The state of the awakened heart doesn’t feel so spiritual (in the normal sense of the word). It feels radically sane and normal–undergirded with a deep pulsation of fiery love. This is what I’m trying to get by adding the qualifier loving to presence.

A Brief Glimmer of the Heart

Here’s a process I’ve found helpful to connect to loving presence. The heart is a realm of grace. It can’t be earned. So it’s not that doing this process gains me an experience of the heart. It’s not a cause and effect thing, but it does help to put me in a space where I’m more open to the possibility of the grace. Another way of saying that is that the process helps release some of the restrictions that may get in the way of grace.

I sit, take a few breaths to relax. And then I go about feeling and scanning–both within myself and in my perception of my environment. It’s kind of hard to describe but I feel and sense that there is a Love already present. In theological language I would say God is already praying for us and that prayer is Love. My role is to join in that already ongoing and already existing prayer.

Love is meditating us. Love is praying us into being.

It’s a feeling of pervading warmth. Love begins to mold us, shape us, and form us.

I then sit in that space and listen. What is Love trying to tell me?

The answer often comes in strange ways….a slight bodily contraction or opening, a dreamy image may come to mind, or I may hear a word or phrase that just pops into my head. I’m not sure from whence any of these come but I’m learning to trust them and my ability to be taught by them and understand their messages. I always check them and I check my interpretations of these pieces of information against this space of Love.

More and more however there’s just somehow a knowing, a feeling of what is right without a lot of content.

Sometimes the response is to experience a sadness or even a grief but one that’s not personal to me (or at least not exclusive to me). It feels more like the sadness or the grief of God. It’s an unconditional and totally open sadness or grief. Conversely sometimes it’s a feeling of unbounded joy or complete gratitude for no particular reason, just because. And other times it’s simply sitting in a space of pure love. It is that pure love that will become our teacher and guide.

06 Oct 2013 4 comments / READ MORE

The Problem With Donkey Kong Spirituality

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Mystics, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

Recently father and video game developer Mike Mika redesigned the classic game Donkey Kong to reverse the gender roles of the characters. In his version Pauline became the heroine saving Mario from the evil giant ape. Mika did this based on his daughter’s stated preference that she wanted to save Mario. According to Mr. Mika, his daughter seems to enjoy the game more since the switch. This story became widely distributed over the internet as a much needed victory for empowerment of young women. You can watch Mika’s version of the game here.

While I definitely appreciate Mike Mika’s redesign I think there’s a deeper issue not being addressed by the gender inversion. Namely I believe Donkey Kong reveals a mytheme. A mytheme is the essential unit or kernel of a myth. It’s a structurally similar form seen across a variety of different versions of a myth. In this regard video games like Donkey Kong to me are a holdover, a residue, or perhaps better an echo, of a classic mytheme surrounding mysticism, namely the mysticism of ascent.

When I speak of the mysticism of ascent I mean a spirituality that emphasizes a transcendent reality somewhere up above this world that one must journey towards. One must leave or transcend this plane of reality to reach a more perfect one somewhere else.

This ascending mytheme evident in many video games has some potentially problematic aspects–aspects that are going unexamined and replicating themselves in human consciousness through the proliferation of video games. Donkey Kong is a primordial video game and therefore is a great example to use. It’s one of the first platform video games. It’s the first with a full narrative storyline. It’s also the first to introduce the mytheme of saving the damsel in distress (which Mike Mika’s hack so brilliantly deconstructed).

Whether it’s the Hero’s Journey on TV shows, Shamanism in Modern Day Fairy Tales, The Christ Story in superhero movies, or the Path of Ascent in video games, mythemes play themselves out in our media culture, however officially secular it may be. I see a strong resonance of the ascending mystical traditions in the tradition of video games, particularly in Donkey Kong. This deeper structure–with its potential problems–will not be unearthed simply by a gender inversion process however helpful that is on it’s own terms.

What exactly do I mean by the mysticism of ascent and how is it being replicated in Donkey Kong? Let’s consider some parallels.

The Great and Mystical Donkey Kong

In Donkey Kong there are levels. One ascends through the levels by mastering each successive one. This is literally the case in Donkey Kong as one scales up ladders and each new level is located up above the one prior. Similarly, in the mystical traditions there are levels of ascent–usually depicted as planes of reality. The mystical aspirant is taught, through various techniques, how to “jump” up to higher levels of consciousness and being.

In Donkey Kong one must master (“beat” in original video game player-ese) each level and its attendant challenges and opponent. On the mystical path one must defeat various characteristic enemies in order to reach a higher level. Challenges and opponents on the mystical path include deep-seated fears, common misperceptions, potential fixation on pleasure-inducing mystical phenomena…as opposed to say falling barrels and moving fire.

Nevertheless the same basic mythic structure is in place in both–both are a kind of game, a form of hyperreality.

In Donkey Kong, as in mysticism, one is assumed to be a solitary individual who must ascend this obstacle course. Originally the character in Donkey Kong was known as ‘Jumpman’. Truthfully this is a pretty good name for the mystical ascender: A Jumpman (as usually, though not always, they have historically been men).

This solitary individual must journey alone (or perhaps occasionally with the aid of temporary helpers) and overcome various obstacles and challenges. These challenges are overcome through the use of some basic, repeated techniques. In Donkey Kong that’s jumping, ascending and descending ladders, moving side to side, and using the various tools on screen (e.g. hammer). In the mystical traditions these techniques consist of things like allowing energy to rise up the back of one’s body, opening up above oneself, closing the eyes and turning them upward, repeating mantras, guided visualizations, and the like.

In Donkey Kong, Mario (or Pauline in Mike Mika’s version) undertakes all these actions and seek to overcome these obstacles in order to unite permanently with his beloved. In the mystical tradition, one ascends to unite with the Transcendent Source.

Notice that in both the video game and the ascending spiritual tradition there is a journeyer, a set of techniques, a game of challenges, and a love or goal at the end. Having reached the pinnacle, this individual will conquer the final barrier and be forever united with his beloved.

(Sidenote: Though in a brilliant, perhaps even ironic twist, in Donkey Kong once one finished the original four levels and saved Pauline, the game restarts from the beginning in a more advanced form–leaving open the possibility that there never actually is a finish to the ascent, leaving the individual forever struggling upward. In the history of mysticism this is known as epektesis, and was actually the view of one of the greatest Christian mystics, St. Gregory of Nyssa, who argued we would never ever fully completely reach God but would forever journey more deeply into what we could experience of The Divine Mystery.).

There are many variations on this same basic theme of mystical ascent in the world’s spiritual traditions. In the tradition of Merkavah mysticism of Kabbalistic Judaism one meditates and ascends up to the Chariot of God (or the Throne of God). In Shabd Yoga one follows inner sounds upwards, through thee sound’s current until one reaches the Primordial Sound, seen as the Originating Source of all reality. In Kundalini Yoga, the serpent power lying coiled at the base of the spine uncoils and rises up the spine until it pushes through the crown of the head leading to an experience of ascended light. In the Christian mystical tradition primary images include the Ladder of Ascent usually up a mountain or climbing a staircase to heaven. Other examples could be given, these are not meant to be exhaustive, merely representative.

Critique of Donkey Kong Spirituality

There are some characteristic problems associated with the Donkey Kong-esque mysticism of ascent.

1. The Critique from The Absolute

As I said the mysticism of ascent assumes the coherent identity and reality of a separate self-sense. It then uses certain techniques to effect a major transformation in this self-sense. Traditions like Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta (along with many others) question the automatic assumption of a self-contained, individual self. They do this through processes like koans or inquiry, repeatedly asking “Who am I?” “Who is asking this question?” These traditions argue that it we follow these processes deeply enough they will show the insubstantial nature of the self sense. With no separate self, then there are no practices to do to effect change for that self. In addition there is no longer any objective outside world relative to that self, nor any prize that self must attain (whether Pauline or total absorption into the Source). The whole self-world-enemy-attainment-God complex falls apart once the separate self drops. No levels, no ladders, no up, no down, no climber–just free fall in space.

2. Critique of Ascent

This critique can be combined with critique #1 or exist on its own. The mysticism of ascent is, as the name implies, ascending in nature. As a result, the history of spirituality in the last 2,000 years, which has largely been dominated by the traditions of ascent, has left a destructive trail. When our ascent becomes driven by fear, then mysticism can become a cover for teachings and communities that deny the value of the earth, of the human body, of women, of sexual existence, of indigenous wisdom, and of our inherently animal nature and connection with all life. I don’t think I need to remind any of the pain that mistake has caused and continues to cause.

Now What?

Given these trenchant criticisms, is there any value to Donkey Kong spirituality? Is there anything worth salvaging in it? Anything worth rescuing? I think there is.

If we look at traditions of iconography–for example Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi among others–we see halos. We see beings of grace who radiate a light that encircles their heads, shining outward. For our purposes here what interests me about a halo is that they reach up above the top of our physical heads. Our incarnation is more than our physical selves. We extend around, below, and above our physical bodies. The halo tradition is not simply a metaphor, it’s a clear artistic description of a spiritual reality. There’s part of us that are up above what we normally think of as our physically defined bodies. A halo reveals a person whose “higher” forms of themselves are open and full of light. I put “higher’ in quotes there because higher here doesn’t mean better–that was the mistake of many of the ascending spiritual traditions, to see these parts of our incarnation as our salvation and to seek to flee from our “lower” parts and live exclusively in our “higher” selves.

But what if we don’t make that Donkey Kong mistake? What if we aren’t driven by a notion that we have to climb “up there”, to save some Prince/Princess, to finally and forever overcome some devilish or apeish foe? What then? Well, it means we could retain a, maybe the, central insight of the ascending traditions–we could open up these parts of ourselves and become responsible for the full range of our being here as human. Part of the spectrum of our being here does include parts of us that are more transcendent, subtler, more ascended in nature. (For readers interested in a somewhat more technical description of what these parts of ourselves are through the framework of chakras, see this piece I wrote on the subject.)

Responsible is the key word there. The Donkey Kong tradition of spirituality is too much of a game.* It’s too achievement-oriented, too immersed in a mentality of conquering and winning. Responsible, on the other hand, means realizing that these parts of ourselves are always operative. Either we will come into conscious relationship with these dimensions of ourselves and therefore become responsible for what we are putting out there or we won’t and they will unconsciously transmit their conditioning, potentially hurting us and others. (For the record, this exact same mechanism holds for the “lower” end of our incarnational spectrum.)

There’s no winning in the spiritual path.

With the current range towards embodiment in spirituality (one I’ve been critical of) I do think there’s a subtle bias against the ascended portions of ourself. By ascended I mean these parts of ourselves that are extend up above our heads–the subtler domains of ourself that are depicted with halos.

I think we should retain the opening of these ascended portions of our incarnation without this whole narrative of ascent. Ascended yes, ascent no. A model to consider for such a way of approaching the subject would be emotional literacy. Emotional literacy training is simply about learning to name and experience different emotions, recognizing the distinct role of each and how they work together, and how to take proper care of emotional boundaries. I could see an “ascended literacy” which would strip these domains of the narrative of ascent and spiritual heroism (and the subtle or not-so-subtle arrogance that inevitably comes from such a viewpoint). It would just be rather plain and straightforward–creative, fun, and interesting to be sure–but not a game. Not about who has the highest score and can reach the highest most spiritual state. It would just be about the learning the language, the experience, the strengths and limitations of the ascended portions of ourselves–and this would simply be one course, if you like, in a more integrated curriculum. A real spiritual path that would seek to welcome and work with our bodies, our emotions, our shadow, our beliefs, our souls, and so forth.

—

* Another article for another day and for another person to write would look at the postmodern turn in video games, particularly multi-player online role games. i.e. The way in which video games are reflective of and furthering the movement towards postmodern consciousness. In the multi-player role games especially the landscape is arguably much flatter (more horizontal) than the vertical orientation of most classic video games. The storyline element, nascent in Donkey Kong, is much more in full flower. The way in which characters can co-construct collaboratively their environments (think 2nd Life). The way in which characters can create their own identities. These are all hallmarks of postmodern consciousness.

15 Sep 2013 no comments / READ MORE

Spiritual Bypassing of The Soul

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

In 2010 Robert Masters wrote an excellent book entitled Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us From What Really Matters.* The book explores how we use “spiritual practices or beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.”

Masters’ approach is, to use some jargon, psychospiritual in nature. It blends the spiritual with the human psyche–it merges spirituality in particular with the body, relationships, and emotions (see his latest book entitled Emotional Intimacy).

The spiritual bypassing critique–in the context of emotions, body, relationships–is very important. It’s real. It’s all over the place. And Dr. Masters insightfully diagnoses the disease and offers practical remedies.

I, however, see another form of spiritual bypassing and that is spiritual teaching that bypass our souls. I’m not claiming I’m the first to realize or make this argument but it’s been on my mind frequently of late. It’s this other form of spiritual bypassing that I’d like to explore a bit in this piece.

A few years back now I wrote a 3 part series that explored different identities we have as humans and how we might learn to bring them into greater harmony with each other. I wrote a piece each on the ego, Spirit, and The Soul.

Ego I defined as our human personality. Spirit I defined as The Ultimate, a recognition one essential nature shared in common by all, entirely free and full–what’s traditionally called Enlightenment, God Realization, or The Natural State. And I defined The Soul as our True Self, aka The Flavor of our Awakening. Each of us has a distinct expression of the awakened state and talking about The Soul as The Flavor of our Awakening is a way of giving voice to that part of ourself. As many mystics have said we are like unique rays (Souls) flowing out of the same Sun (Spirit).

That way of viewing The Soul (capital S) is a crucial one. It’s ignored or obscured in many of our contemporary Spirit-ual teachings. Nevertheless it’s an incomplete view of The Soul…or maybe I should say the soul (lowercase s).

By soul (as opposed to Soul) I mean a subtler dimension of our experience–one that is quite attuned energetically and empathetically to our environment and relationships. It’s a deeper layer of our being, a subterranean wisdom. And importantly, the soul, little s, is able to be wounded. Soul, Capital S, sometimes called The Oversoul, is not wound-able.

Little s soul is the realm of mythology. It speaks in the language of dreams, archetypes, and visionary experience. Often, it’s a quieter part of ourselves, one that therefore is easily drowned out by other voices and agendas.

To make it a little clearer why I mean by soul, here’s a list of the kinds of conditions we see that are unique to the soul (little s).

Auras–energetic and subtle emotional boundaries around ourselves. Boundaries that can be strengthened or depleted through intention and practice. Boundaries that can, under stress or trauma be pierced, leaving long lasting energetic marks.

Karma–aka Stories of Ancestral/Humanity’s Past Living Within Us. These are tendencies, conditions, and stories of personal, familial, and collective human consciousness that are still playing themselves out unconsciously in our lives. The soul is a realm of deep memory.

The World Soul–known traditionally as the Anima Mundi. Nature herself is conscious as are all beings. We can commune with these beings in non-ordinary states of reality. This is the realm of shamanism–the realm of power animals, nature mysticism, journeying, plant medicine, dreaming, and inspiration.

soul wounding/illness–there are many potential forms of wounding at the soul level. Shamans and healers throughout history have developed an intricate classification system as well as treatment modalities for these various afflictions. Ailments like soul loss and fragmentation; cords, hooks, darts, and other energetic enmeshments; attachments of all kinds. (See a list of such treatment modalities here.)

The Otherworld–this is the traditional Celtic term for the spirit world. The Otherworld is home of angels, departed loved ones, and guides. Our soul is the one who is connected to these domains and the various characters who populate them.

Astrology–not only are we in a psychic relationship with Earth, we share a connection with other planetary and cosmic realities. We are, after all, made of star dust. Hence we are intrinsically in communion with these forces and the ability to read those influences upon us is where astrology (done well) comes into play. That influence and mutual relationship occurs at the soul level (not at the personality nor at The Spirit level).

That list is by no means exhaustive but it’s intended to be representative. I hope you get the idea of the overall kinds of things I mean by referring to soul.

Most of these experiences (and the kinds of teachings that relate to them) would in our day be labeled New Age. I think of them as primarily shamanic and quiet ancient in pedigree. But in our contemporary spiritual environment, these kinds of processes and domains are dealt with by New Age teachings, if anywhere.

And this segregation is problematic. Because by and large New Age teachings can be guilty of the various kinds of spiritual bypassing at the human physical, bodily, and emotional level that Robert Masters warns about. New Age teachings tend to emphasize ascending energies and currents. New Agers often call themselves “lightworkers” (as opposed to one who embraces the darkness). They typically interpret states like Peace, Love, Joy as “higher” than ones like fear, anger, or sorrow, leading to a strong bias to maintain a “high vibration.” (This over-emphasis or bias towards ascending energy is not found in the shamanic traditions).

New Age teachings also typically don’t include teachings like Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen, Advaita, Inquiry, and the like which are about Spirit Awakening. In turn, those traditions of Spirit Awakening typically deny these soul-level teachings.

Many of The Spirit teachings of Awakening are spiritually bypassing our bodies and emotions. Some aren’t. But all of them are essentially bypassing our souls. Conversely our soul teachings aren’t often recognizing our Spirit teachings. And neither is doing a very good job with our emotional, bodily selves.

This disconnection is one of the primary reasons why spirituality is in a such a poor state currently.

In his book on Spiritual Bypassing, Masters vividly portrays the kinds of problems that continually manifest when spirituality acts to numb us emotionally or disconnect us from pain. It shows what happens when our spirituality breaks our connection to ourselves as emotional, incarnate beings.

The spiritual bypassing of the soul similarly leaves spiritual aspirants with missing pieces of themselves (though they’re often different pieces than the ones Masters focuses on). Spiritual teachings that bypass the soul leave us in a state I often refer to as “energetically skinny”. There’s a certain kind of energetic emaciation that results from teachings that deny our souls. Power and artistry come form the soul realm. Teachings that don’t include the soul often lack power, a basic umph.

The soul is true. It’s a substratum of us, a finer form of resiliency, like a spider-web. Regardless of many of the very real problems of the packaging of soul teachings in our day through New Ageism, this part of us is genuinely alive. It’s significant. It seeks to be honored, heard, respected, incorporated as part of our daily lives.

I referred earlier to the word psychospiritual. I said those were teachings that included both spirit and our psychological selves. By psychological I meant there things like our emotional patterns, personality, and ego. But the original meaning of the word psyche means soul. It could be understood to include both what we typically think of as human egoic personalities and these subtler dimensions of our being…things like soul illness, karma, ancestors connections, The World Soul, and so on.

That fuller psychospiritual teaching is still waiting to be discovered, taught, and embodied. Until then we are left cobbling together bits and pieces here and there.

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* The term spiritual bypassing was coined by John Welwood, another wonderful psychospiritual author and teacher.

07 Sep 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

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