David Godman interview - Buddha and the Gas Pump (excerpt on Maurice Frydman)
David: Maurice Frydman is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever come across and virtually nothing is known about him. Because of his connection with Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Gandhi, Nisargadatta, the Dalai Lama, I kind of view him in my own mind as the Forrest Gump of 20th century spirituality. He was in all the right places in all the right times to get the maximum benefit from interactions with some of the greats of Indian spirituality, and at the end of his career he was just about the only person that Nisargadatta certified as a jnani.
So in between all these trips to India’s major gurus, he was a Gandhian; he worked for the uplift of the poor in India; he worked with Tibetan refugees; he edited extraordinary books. I am That is probably one of the all-time spiritual classics. This man for me is, how shall we say, a shining beacon of how devotees could and should be with their teachers. He was just an absolutely extraordinary man. Oh, and he went out of his way to cover his tracks, to hide what he had actually accomplished in his life.
So I have enjoyed the detective work of looking in obscure places and digging out stuff that he personally tried to hide, not because it was embarrassing, but because he didn’t like to take credit for what he had done. So I see this as an opportunity to wave the Maurice flag and say, ‘Look, this is one of the greatest devotees, sadhaks, seekers from the west who has been to India in the last 100 years and I think more people should know about him.’
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“Teilhard De Chardin and The Future of God” by Ilia Delio
In his book God After Darwin theologian John Haught claims that evolution opened a new window to God, giving us a new vision of God at home in a universe of chance and law. Not everyone has accepted this claim, however. Strict materialists such as Richard Dawkins readily dispense with God as an unnecessary hypothesis in an evolutionary world, claiming that it runs quite well on genes and natural selection. On the other hand fundamentalists say that evolution belies God’s orderly creation recounted in the first book of Genesis. Evolution contradicts God’s providential design of creation. In the midst of these polarities stands the figure of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic Jesuit priest and a trained scientist. Teilhard was one of the most provocative and seminal thinkers of the twentieth century; yet, his ideas are still marginally accepted. As a paleontologist, Teilhard’s insights arose from his keen observations of the natural world and he was dazzled by the convergence of elements to form the stuff of life. His keen observation of nature and its inherent direction towards unity inspired him to seek God in nature.
“If Jesus Were Alive Today” by Adyashanti — from 'Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic' (EXCERPT)
I often wonder what would it be like if Jesus were alive today. Imagine Jesus—who wasn’t a Christian, after all, but a Jew—entering a church today, going up to the pulpit and giving a sermon. Can you imagine how challenging that would be for the congregation? Can you imagine how uniquely different that sermon would be from what many of us received in church?
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"The Wisdom of Insecurity" by Alan Watts — Alan Watts
"...when you really understand that you are what you see and know, you do not run around the country-side thinking, 'I am all this.' There is simply 'all this.'
"...our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless."
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“Accepting the Paradoxes in Your Life” by Marc Lesser
Intuitively we know that all humans are complex and contradictory. Embracing our paradoxes provides real insights into ourselves and allows for more self-acceptance.
A paradox is something that appears to be contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd but may in fact be true. Do less; accomplish more. These statements present a paradox. Acknowledging, owning and embracing the paradoxical nature of our lives, the lives of others and the world can lessen our resistance to change and increase our effectiveness. At its most basic it makes us less tense and more open to happiness.
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“The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicea” by N.S. Gill
The Arian controversy (not to be confused with the Indo-Europeans known as Aryans) was a discourse that occurred in the Christian church of the 4th century CE, that threatened to upend the meaning of the church itself.
The Christian church, like the Judaic church before it, was committed to monotheism: all the Abrahamic religions say there is only one God. Arius (256–336 CE), a fairly obscure scholar and presbyter at Alexandria and originally from Libya, is said to have argued that the incarnation of Jesus Christ threatened that monotheistic status of the Christian church, because he was not of the same substance as God, instead a creature made by God and so capable of vice. The Council of Nicea was called, in part, to resolve this issue.
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What, in God’s Name, is Christ Consciousness? (Part 1) by Seán ÓLaoire
Quite frequently, in homilies, lectures and writings, I use the phrase, “Christ Consciousness.” Some weeks ago, a parishioner asked if I might deliver a full ‘sermon’ on the topic. So, I did; and this blog, in two parts, is the result.
I don’t believe for a moment that Jesus of Nazareth was the only ‘avatar’ to exemplify and teach on this topic. Very similar ideas can be found in the terms, “Buddha nature” (in Buddhism) and “Self-realization” (in Hinduism). And I would claim that even the Christian term “Salvation”, properly understood, is really the same idea. Of course, all of these articulations of the great mystical traditions have been misinterpreted and even abused as control mechanisms. More about that anon.
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“Healing My Religion” from healingmyreligion.com
“Dimension of the divine”.
“And the goal… is not to pray to God or have God tell you what to do, but to realize that you have been, all along, contrary to all of your illusions, a dimension of the divine. And in moments of heightened spiritual awareness, the boundary line… momentarily is erased, momentarily is blurred, and it’s no longer clear where you end and God begins.”
– Lawrence Kushner, scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, from his conversation with Krista Tippett on On Being
I AM
Fact: when Jesus spoke to the crowds of people that gathered to listen to him, he the spoke in an ancient Semetic language called Aramaic. Another fact: the English language version of Jesus’ teachings that we have access to today were not translated from Aramaic, but instead translated from Greek after first being filtered through Greek philosophy and greek language.
Consequently, much of the modern English canonical gospels are a representation – and sometimes a downright manipulation – of the teachings of Jesus that best supported the Greek culture and worldview at the time.
“Infallibility and Its Errors, Part 3: The Infallibility of the Bible” by Seán ÓLaoire
The infallibility of the Bible
And the fourth shock to my hopes for some bastion of infallibility came as I studied the Bible. It, too, for all its wisdom and insights, has been filtered, edited, redacted and massaged by hundreds of generations of priests, translators and, yes, even emperors.
I have learned lots from newspapers, from theology, from science and from the Bible, but I am duty bound to separate truth from tactic, and fact from fiction; to recognize metaphor and allegory and distinguish those from historical data.
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“What If You Could Interview God?” by Alan Watts
If you were told that you were going to be given half an hour's interview with God and you had the privilege of asking one question, I wonder what you would ask? You might be given some preparation too. Because when you think what is your ultimate question? You'll probably do many things before you arrive at it. And I know many people would discover that they had no question to ask. The situation would be altogether too overwhelming. But many people to whom I’ve put this problem say that the question that they would ask is “who am I?” That is something we know very little about — because whatever it is that we call “I”, is too close for inspection. It's like trying to bite your own teeth or to touch the tip of your finger with the tip of the same finger. Although other people can tell you what or who you are and do. They only see you from the outside, as you see them from the outside. You don't see from the inside. And so the nature of what it is that we call I is extremely puzzling because there is some confusion as to how much of us is “I”.
Interspiritual pioneer Beatrice Bruteau loomed large in the contemplative universe by Cynthia Bourgeault
Beatrice Bruteau, a scholar, teacher, interspiritual pioneer, and intrepid explorer of the evolutionary edge of consciousness, died Nov. 16 at the age of 84. Her passing exemplified her signature brand of clarity, freedom and intentionality, traits that for more than five decades have been the hallmarks of her teaching presence among us and that she now bequeaths to us as both a legacy and a continuing invitation.
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Neil Douglas-Klotz - Aramaic Jesus, Native Middle Eastern Spirituality, Christian Mysticism - (Buddha at the Gas Pump w/ Rick Archer)
A superb interview looking at Jesus and his words through an Aramaic lens. Neil Douglas-Klotz brings new insights and resonance to the teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) in an otherwise too often Biblical interpretive malaise.
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“What Is ‘The False Self’”? (excerpt) THE IMMORTAL DIAMOND by Fr. Richard Rohr
I begin this chapter with a positive quote, so I can describe the False Self properly and avoid the usual connotations of false. Your False Self is not your bad self, your clever or inherently deceitful self, the self that God does not like or you should not like. Actually your False Self is quite good and necessary as far as it goes. It just does not go far enough, and it often poses and thus substitutes for the real thing.
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“Consolation for My Cancer” by Claire Gilbert (+) Nomad Podcast Interview w/ Ms. Gilbert
In March 2019 I was diagnosed with Myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow. I have been in treatment ever since, in an attempt to send the cancer into deep remission.
You have to submit to the treatment. Thank heavens I am, at Guy’s Hospital, among world class haematologists and oncologists and clinical nurse specialists who are easy to trust. That helps. But I don’t really understand the science and it is utterly counter intuitive to allow a substance to be infused into your body that makes you feel dreadful when you had felt - because the cancer was found early - perfectly well.
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“Beauty and Spirituality” by Christine Valters Painter
I was initiated into the church of beauty as a young child. Though neither of my parents was religious, we would travel in the summers to my father's native Austria so that we could hike the Tyrolean mountains. There we would stand in wonder and awe, surrounded as we were by massive, snow-capped peaks stretching toward the heavens. In the cities of Europe, too, we would walk with quiet reverence through the sacred space of museums and great cathedrals. The beauty of art and nature called to me.
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The Essence of Our Being by Karin Baard
What is it we have forgotten about ourselves and one another? In the Celtic tradition, the Garden of Eden is not a place in space and time from which we are separated. It is the deepest dimension of our being from which we live in a type of exile. It is our place of origin or genesis in God. Eden is home, but we live far removed from it. And yet in the Genesis account, the Garden is not destroyed. Rather Adam and Eve become fugitives from the place of their deepest identity. It is a picture of humanity living in exile.
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“Michael Meade on Cultivating Mythic Imagination /124” Interview by ‘FOR THE WILD’
The crises of cosmological, mythological and psychological disconnection from nature and from each other may drive us to places of darkness and suffering; and yet there is great potential in that darkness to interact with creative energy. Retracing meaning through archetypal myth offers an opportunity to understand the great challenge of our time to heal the planet from its wounds, and to refresh our dominant worldview with one based on connection. This week, journey into Michael Meade’s expansive vision of awakening ancient meaning for the individual and collective consciousness.
“The Relevance of Visionary Experience to Culture” by Anne Baring
I know that all of us here today are deeply committed to finding ways of alleviating human suffering. This paper suggests that our culture is incomplete and impoverished if it fails to take account of visionary experience in the ancient and original interpretation of its meaning - that of receiving revelation, inspiration and guidance from a transcendent dimension of consciousness that used to be called spirit…
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“Jesus Revels the Lie of Scapegoating” by Richard Rohr
If your ego is still in charge, you will find a disposable person or group on which to project your problems. People who haven’t come to at least a minimal awareness of their own dark side will always find someone else to hate or fear. Hatred holds a group together much more quickly and easily than love and inclusivity, I am sorry to say. René Girard developed a sociological, literary, and philosophical explanation for how and why the pattern of scapegoating is so prevalent in every culture. [1]
“Heroic Consciousness: What it is and How to Acquire it” by Scott T. Allison
The philosopher Yuval Noah Harari (2018) recently described consciousness as “the greatest mystery in the universe”.
What exactly is heroic consciousness? It is a way of seeing the world, perceiving reality, and making decisions that lead to heroic behavior. Human beings display heroic consciousness by employing the nondualistic strategy of unifying disparate experiences into integrated wholes, by engaging in an enlightened processing of transrational phenomena, and by acquiring the wisdom to know when, how, and whether to act heroically.