Assumption

There is only one assumption we make throughout the book, and that is that truth is always and forever true. Truth is unchangeable, by definition. Therefore anything that is subject to change is untrue.

A particular state cannot be true because state is always changing. You may say that it is true at a certain time, but we can never pinpoint what that time was exactly, and so we have to discard the state as untrue. Let’s think about the high jump winner at the Olympics who perhaps now holds the world record. We can say that this person can jump the highest in the world, but that may not be true tomorrow, it may not be true at the moment we say it. You will tell me, but at that time they jumped the highest and so it must have been true at least then. But then we must define what that time was exactly and all our measurement devices can only approximate, or give a range over, when any given time was. We collectively agree, unconsciously, that time is fixed; but it isn’t in reality, and any physicist will confirm it. So time, as a changeable concept which cannot be, and has never been pinned down, must be untrue.

In fact, there is not one, solid, never-changing, singular instance of measurable time for anything, and there never has been. So the state of being the winner or the loser, the tallest or shortest, saddest or happiest, must necessarily be untrue. Similarly, everything we consider to be unquestionably true is in fact only a measure of where we’re at in terms of our current level of knowledge about the world. Things that we thought true in the same way in the past were debunked by newer ideas and research. We are always rethinking and redefining the world around us; it is an on-going process of change and it is what we homo-sapiens do. It is a peculiar arrogance typical of humans that, in whatever epoch we have found ourselves - aside from a few notable folk who have striven under great pressures to open our minds wider, we have always assumed that the current consensus was the final word on it all, and have quite often behaved appallingly whenever it was challenged.

Let’s not forget that consensus world views of any past epoch are always successfully challenged, and amended or discarded completely. Therefore, due to the unlikelihood, given past experience, of our current beliefs remaining the same forever, we would be wise to discard these as untrue also.

We may talk about personal truths, i.e. something being true for me meaning it is not necessarily true for anybody else, ‘my truth’. We will again assume here that this sort of truth is not Truth. It is something else, preference maybe; not to be disrespected but to be understood as something other than real truth, which has to be true forever and for always.

The test of whether something is really true, then, is whether it is true eternally.I do not attempt to define what this Truth is, but I hope to eliminate enough of what it isn’t to help point towards it.

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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The Two

He had spent many lifetimes getting to this. Made it through the speed-up successfully with the others, to be born again into the world he had taken part in the creation of. A world many light-years away from Earth, which knew of Earth and could hear in dream the struggle going on there, something they remembered and recognised.

His twin sister had not followed his path in previous existences. But she had been born, nonetheless, alongside him, and the elders knew it was important. They couldn’t know how, but in the same way that every living being on the planet spinning round what the Earthlings in the now times knew as Sirius-B, they had come to understand that everything that is, is good. So it was accepted and welcomed, yet not entirely understood.

They had ideas about it though.

And she had insisted on joining him, not unexpectedly, and something in him would not leave without her, even though it could not be expressed in the little language they had left to share with each other. The elders knew it too, and could not refuse the request, that particular part of the grammar having been done away with eons previously.

So she joined him on his journey, their travels across space and time in the blink of an eye to be born again on the Green Mother for the purposes of joining, nothing less.

It was to be an interesting journey back to go forward.

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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Ronald Bloom, Addicted to Dying

This time around, lethal injection.

It’s getting harder and harder to kill me these days. Not like before when it'd be very swift. One quick pop and I’d be gone.

Though I never used to remember the light so much before. I was aware of it, sure, just being there those times, way off it felt, but the memory would be vague when I got back. Nowadays I remember the light so clearly; even more clearly perhaps than the blessed, delicious relief of the pop.

And the voices. All those I’ve loved. New voices too now. Last time there was even that old bastard under the bridge I’d killed with a pitchfork for no reason other than the thrill. Nearly 600 years ago.

He was a surprise.

Things are shifting, clearly.

Seven thousand years ago I started to become aware of the dying process, as it happened, during and after. Consciousness remaining during continuous lives of all varieties. Anyone else would probably get spiritually enthused about that. Not me. Oh no. I can’t be bothered with that right now. I’m having far too much fun.

So, slowly, I began to realise that it didn’t matter, dying, we always come back anyways. I’d got carte blanche from God and could do anything I liked, knowing I’d always be back again.

But that pesky light. And the peaceful feeling. No, I don’t like that, at all. I don’t want any of that.

OK, so the idea’s a little bit appealing, ending this eternal hamster wheeling, but every time I go and come back, I just have to do it again. Dying, for me, has been like the first drink for a serious alcoholic after a long period of abstinence. It’s just great. The variety of forms. The variety of painful experiences a person can have. The itching suspense of the pressure in the head and the heart as if every cell were going to explode at once. And then the POP and subsequent blissful relief. A slow drift through layers of greyness. A short sleepy time of dreamlike experiences in unusual worlds not obeying those laws of physics you guys are so keen on.

Hey, have you ever noticed how when it’s freezing cold outside the world seems to be wider, more expansive? That’s important, I just don’t know how yet.

Anyways. It’s never been too long a time away for me, although I know it is for some. Just days sometimes, two minutes once, and I’m back. Perfect. Ready to go again.

However. However. It seems to be getting more difficult. As if I’m becoming immortal – well I suppose I am really anyways. But no, something’s different now; shifting. And recently so.

Like the hanging in 1865 which failed 3 times before they finally dispatched with me, head half torn off. Then the lung cancer in 1899 which went in and out of remission for nearly 15 years – that was an interesting experience. And living without some vital organs for a good few years after that train crash in the 1930s was particularly fun, but unusual, given my history.

This time around it’s lethal injection.

They’ve already pricked me around 15 times. I can see they’re going to give up soon. They can’t find a vein. But I can see the veins myself. Are these fools half asleep or what?! Come on guys. A man’s got to go!

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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Who is this Joseph of Arimathea?

And why is he important?

Well, he was the rich fellow that was a follower of Jesus, but he didn't want anyone to know so they kept it quiet. Apparently, he had a line in tin mining which meant he quite likely visited Cornwall in his life. It is said he took a young Jesus to Cornwall sometime in those missing years. This places Christ in Britain before the main event and legend has it Glastonbury was one of the spots on the trip. Given the wonder of this person's time on earth, to imagine him doing nothing much of import in those missing years, to me, sounds a bit naive. The suggestion is he hung out with the druids at Glastonbury and learnt stuff.

Some people say Joseph was Jesus' uncle, coming from the fact that a body would be placed in the tomb of relatives, and the Gospels do say that the dead body that the Christ had been using this time was placed in a tomb nearby to Golgotha, which means the place of the skull, in the property of one Joseph of Arimathea.

But more interestingly, perhaps, are legends surrounding the visit of Joseph of Arimathea to Britain after the resurrection, given the task of spreading the news to the widest flung corners of the known world. In those days the Somerset levels would have been covered by the sea, and it is said that Joseph sailed into Glastonbury and landed at Wearyall Hill, the name of the hill being given due to the fact that Joseph and his twelve companions were weary from the journey.

Joseph brought to Glastonbury the Holy Grail, and buried it under the tor where now we have the Chalice Well, a natural spring providing two types of water from underground, a red spring and a white spring. Here is the red spring found in the Chalice Well Gardens.

He also brought his staff grown from the Crown of Thorns, which he thrust into the ground at Wearyall Hill. It immediately took root and is still grown in Glastonbury today. Interestingly, the Glastonbury Thorn is of middle eastern origin and flowers twice a year, once at Easter and then again at Christmas. A sprig of blossomed Holy Thorn is sent to the Queen for Christmas each year.

Understanding the energy of Glastonbury and being able to set aside historical references and scholarly effort, this story becomes more and more likely to me every day. Glastonbury is undoubtedly the spiritual centre of the British Isles and draws us to it to learn its mysteries and heal ourselves through our connections there.

Glastonbury also miraculously finds itself within part of a giant landscape zodiac, re-discovered by Katherine Maltwood in the early 20th century. The tor and Glastonbury town itself is within the constellation of Aquarius. Interestingly, the site of the mass hedonism that takes place once a year in the area is outside of this zodiac landscape.

Legend has it that the zodiac found in the landscape, which can only be seen properly from the air, is the true Round Table of Arthurian legend.

More recent events at Glastonbury include the spiritual effort in fighting the dark forces of of the Nazis in World War II when mass occultist meditations took place the length and breadth of Britain with Glastonbury Tor as a focus. These healings were led by Dion Fortune who had a property on the slopes of the Tor, now the site of Berachah Guest House. She believed Glastonbury to be the spiritual centre of the nation, as do I.

Why wouldn't Joseph (and/or Jesus Christ himself) have come here given the relative easy of travel at the time, his connection with the sea and of course the spiritual significance of the place? And even if historically, literally, physically that didn't happen, it most certain did happen in a spiritual sense, and is still happening now.

What is more important, what happened in terms of looking back into time, gathering evidence and making assumptions inside the confines of the unhealed psychology of humanity as it is, or what happens now, outside of time?

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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What is Health?

And I've thought very carefully about that title, given that an acceptance of its opposite as real is erroneous as far as instruction goes.

But instruction also insists that I must not deny the existence of the thing, i.e. sickness, although once the error has been accepted it is "only an indication that immediate correction is mandatory".

And so I have recently found myself, well over the last 12 years more or less since 2000, struggling with ill-health, systemic candida and all that that entails, upward and downward movements towards better-ness, then worse-ness, finding life impossible and then just do-able, yet steadily moving upwards, thankfully, until a few years ago when a level of health was realised that I had not yet experienced in this lifetime.

It may be of great comfort to many that I have finally found the years of continued health concerns (a.k.a. worry and stress) on diet, supplements, what's going in, what's going out, what I need to do in terms of therapies, detoxes, diets and life-style changes, are quite unimportant once you get to the crux of the matter (interesting use of word there!).

So what has brought on this revelation in terms of health? Well, bear with me because this will appear to be unconnected for awhile, but I beg you read on...

Last year I travelled in India. I stayed in ashrams and practiced yoga and meditation and reached a sort of persistent bliss-state. Yes, the yogi's are right about that being achievable! But at the same time I was experiencing this bliss my health was failing. We can clearly say there was some sort of conflict here - another post on that perhaps - and my lack of health became somewhat alarming. I was experiencing colitis-type symptoms which would have sent anyone else to the doctor, or emergency room even, forthwith. The fact that my experience with the medical profession has not been particularly positive over the years, coupled with my success in healing myself from debilitating illness over an 8 year period, made me decide to deal with this problem on my own by utilising my personal knowledge of herbs, diet and what works for me that I have gained over this personal healing process; a true scientific endeavour, although possibly non-transferrable in terms of medicinal prescriptive measures.

But anyway. I got better on my return to the UK. I healed myself from illness again. Wheat came out of my diet completely and I went on a severe candida cleanse of no sugar, no dairy, nothing that might incite a fungal reaction, and the bleeding stopped, completely.

However, I was still very high on this bhakti yoga which I had been doing in India. Bhakti is devotion to God and it feels amazing. The problem is in the egoic mind's choices on how to express such a devotion to God. I have no other intention but to serve God. And so when the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation course appeared in a magazine that I subscribe to, Miracle Worker, it felt utterly correct that I should do this, this would be my bhakti here in UK, in the West. I could continue to serve God here in a practical way.

I joined the course and pretty much immediately upon doing that my health deteriorated to a state in which I became scared to leave the house.

From the beginning of the course I noticed that there were some huge mis-creations going on within the organisation. For example, there was a prominent belief in lack which came out very obviously in clunky activity designed with the hope of alleviating this fear of not being able to continue as an organisation due to not having enough money. Activities that could be seen as money-grubbing perhaps. Now I'm well aware that this is quite a common error for us humans, but I had presumed there would have been some healing done on this one. There was a lot of chat about abundance, but it was quite clear nobody had really got the point on what abundance actually is.

Moreover, there was a lot of chat about the reality of the shadow, as well as this continued seeking for condemnation we all do when we're not listening to ourselves. Judgments swayed towards the negative arising from an impoverished evaluation of other's personal expression. It became clear that this wasn't a place for true heart openness, unless you accept that you have issues. For example, I would say something that expressed a fear coming up and it would be jumped-upon as a condemnation I had against myself, another, or the group, without the option of just discarding it as illusion. A solid reality. Unchangeable.

Fear was always given this concreteness.

These things hit me physically, like banging my toe against the radiator in the morning. It was really painful.

Undoubtedly I had made some assumptions as to how the course would be managed. These assumptions came from the fact that the course was advertised in Miracle Worker, the magazine printed for the community of A Course In Miracle students in the UK, the Course in which we are instructed, repeatedly, to discard any belief that we don't have enough. We are told, instead, repeatedly, that there is no lack in the universe and everything is available to us, God being loving and beneficent. We are also instructed, repeatedly, to discard any notion of the reality of the "dark-side", knowing that whenever light is brought to darkness, the darkness disappears, completely, and so it could only have ever been a dream, an illusion.

The Interfaith course was originally set up by a well-known student of ACIM who wrote a lot of the course handbook (at £30 a photocopy!) and then after some years left it to others to manage for unknown reasons, although it is my suspicion that like with any human group or organisation the ego quickly gets itself established, and sometimes that can be overwhelming. But that is only my thought at this moment.

Of course, like everyone, I continue to navigate through life within these structures, groups and situations in which the ego is prominent, how could I not? But I did not expect to have to accept its dictates again in the setting of spiritual ministry.

In any case, it started to become apparent that I couldn't continue without feeling like a total hypocrit. And the straw that broke the camel's back finally came up with the "rule" of payment for spiritual counselling. The Interfaith course requires that in any spiritual counselling session for trainee ministers, a payment structure must be agreed upon and rigidly adhered to.

Can you imagine going to your imam, rabbi, priest and asking for guidance, and then having a very healing chat with that person, and at the end them saying, "right, £50 please"? Or worse still, going to your priest, rabbi, imam, with a deep issue in your life and them saying, "oh well I can help you, but it will cost you £50 an hour and I can't help you without some agreement on that first"? Or can you imagine going to your rabbi, imam, priest thinking that you need to pay by the hour at all?

Donations come and abundance flows when peace is there. And this peace comes without the structure of economic theory within spiritual life. Economic theory and the barter system should be left to the collective ego, it is nothing to do with God, Spirit, Great Spirit, the Godess, however you wish to call the All That Is.

God doesn't get paid for His services and will always provide everything we need whilst in His service. But the mistake is completely understandable given ignorance of true abundance and the belief in divine retribution and the eternal reality of sin...which by the way doing ACIM clears up for us completely and forever.

Admittedly, I had read this stuff about payment in the Interfaith course agreement at the beginning of the process. But truthfully I had thought they must be joking. This is so far outside anything I'm learning in ACIM and I had assumed (bad move) that we were all on the same page. A more prominent part of the same training agreement was to always "walk your talk", so you might see the insurmountable obstacle I came up against right there. How can I "walk my talk" and be true to my path and yet behave in a manner I know to be spiritual procrastination? How can I knowingly be complicit in the avoidance of making any real changes in the world?

Anyway. Again.

There are ALREADY so many problems with us humans creating the world from this egoic-error-based mind. We have made a total pigs-ear of it all. To find myself in yet another human-ego defined situation, except dangerously insisting itself connected to God, was the end of a long journey looking outside of myself for spiritual connection.

So I left the course.

And the very day I officially left the course I got blood test results back that were completely normal. (My parents had been so concerned about my poor health I eventually capitulated and went to the doctor). The symptoms I had been experiencing decreased enormously and within days I started to feel better about leaving the house.

And so the lesson was given and received - the practical assignment. Health is in my own mind and in reality I decide upon everything that happens to me. And if there is something in conflict within my consciousness, something I'm doing that is against the Truth within me, then it goes straight out into my physical body and manifests itself there.

I believe that we are One, we are God, and all that is shadow in this world is a mere error in our thinking. Actually, I don't just believe that, I know that to be true. And so connecting with a group of people with the intention of living that belief, and instead being required to stay in an assumed dark and fearful world where chaos reigns free made me ill.

Thus, health is a state of no conflict within.

So, on that note, back to the job of dealing with the rest of the conflict remaining within, cos I'm not done yet on that, but I'm making good progress, and I have a great Teacher. And now I'm aware that when I make a huge spiritual error, such as looking for God in worldly structures and expecting to find Him there, I'm gonna create for myself some really big conflict and make myself sick.

I should have known really. In fact, I did know, and that was the problem. Lesson learned.

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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Interfaith reflections on the Divine Feminine, Sacred Masculine

The third meeting of the Interfaith Seminary in January 2012 focused on what the foundation calls Abrahamic Traditions, subtitled as an investigation into the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine. I'm not entirely sure how those two labels are linked apart from perhaps a growing personal understanding of the Kabbalah from my reading of the Zohar in which I understand that God is made up of essential parts represented by masculine and feminine energies, the joining of which is key. I suppose the ideas of masculine and feminine archetypal divinities were felt to be essential parts of any Interfaith course and needed to fit in somewhere; here being the most obvious place to put them, on a weekend that was not really clear in terms of which religion was being looked at, if any in particular.

Attractions:

I'm not attracted to either of these paths as they stand separately, although I have certainly felt the Goddess energy in my life during shamanic practice over the last years, as well as the God energy in my study of ACIM in which all the pronouns within the human and much edited version are given in the masculine gender.

As I understand it, any spiritual practice has at its foundation, and quite often hidden within obscure references, the Oneness that is the basis of the Universe. This is because God is in everything and this fact cannot be escaped, ever, even if it is not fully comprehended. If you gave me some time to research any spiritual practice I could pull out all the bits that support Oneness, and I suggest to you that all the other bits that are left, i.e. from religion at the surface level, are “Separation Management Strategies”. SMS's could be thought of as basic instructions to the ignorant on how to avoid falling back into lower-level realities (lower states of evolution), fearful states which undoubtedly cause pain, chaos and confusion in the human world.

The Masculine and Feminine, divine or otherwise, are two halves of dualistic and egoic thinking, and thus very much part of the right mind stuck in its separation fallacy. The Marriage of the two is exciting to me, but embracing them as distinct entities worries me a little and I’m not quite sure anyone really has a notion of what the Divine Masculine is, outside of becoming a little bit sentimental. I'm going to offer an interpretation of the Divine Masculine right here, which I feel is a little more balanced than perhaps the more common and naive notions of male warrior energy, kindly kingly archetypes, and what not.

Challenges:

Any problems faced in life are most often quite impossible to understand whilst in the thick of them. It is only when time has passed a bit, and assuming the lessons have been learned, that we can look back and explain to ourselves, in a more balanced way, what was going on at the time. To those who look to the Divine Masculine as something from the past, or from the future, and outside current human experience I suggest that they are looking in the wrong place for something that is right here alongside us, and has been so very strongly for around 500 years in the West; at least since the beginning of rational, objective scientific thought and the philosophical notions of the “person”, a separate state in a separate physical body, that thinks and therefore is, on its own. This singular “person” state now interestingly includes corporations and businesses, considerably devious notions miscreated by the collective human ego as projections of the singular fearful ego state that are scarily unable to speak for themselves whilst wreaking havoc on the world.

To me, the Divine Masculine is quite obviously our current God of Science coming with a very Atheist tilt. Belief in nothing is just as strong a position as belief in Something and I suspect that in another 500 years from now, in whatever state we make it, we will look back at these times and see an expression of the Sacred Masculine in full throttle, extrapolated to its maximum with no tempering from its counterpart; a pathological state of collective consciousness.

An important point here is to say that the Divine Feminine existing as a similarly pathological underpinning of human consciousness would be (has been?) as destructive, but in different and maybe unimaginable ways; hinted at in ancient texts and by recent seers such as Robert Graves.

Essence of the path:

Which path? In separation the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine are at loggerheads. The Divine Feminine is the path of nurture, birth, creativity, shamanism, witches and herbalists in a world deeply connected to nature and viciously derided by modern culture. The Sacred Masculine must therefore be this modern culture I mention, our current worldview where this God of Science is fervently worshipped. The Sacred Marriage, which has to be a goal for any sane and spiritually minded person, would approach a collective consciousness state of Oneness again, respectful and accepting. Do we really know what it could be, or what it might look like?

Aside: I suspect menstruation might stop in women when we start approaching this state of Oneness, and be replaced by a conscious Willing of reproduction. It is my feeling that early female humans or pre-humans created menstruation in order that they might get a break from continued and forced sexual intercourse.  The Interfaith course manual talks of menses being perhaps the original human spiritual ritual, and this is supportive of my thesis here, menses being perhaps the first mis-created projected act by higher-consciousness on our planet, something indeed to be celebrated, certainly in terms of the proof in our creative ability, not so in terms of the basis of the need to create such a situation, i.e. fear. Is perhaps all bodily dis-ease connected to fearful conflicted states of consciousness?

Worldview shift:

I have heard from many traditions that the feminine is the foundation of everything that exists in the Universe. I never really understood the wholeness of that until a workshop exercise that took place at the meeting. In this practical experience of listening, reflecting and writing I was the writer, having to note down the non-process aspects of what the speaker was saying. Being something of a scientist I found it fairly easy to split the subjective from the objective content, only noting the facts. During our discussion about the process afterwards, I remembered from my research days that there is no objective reality; even though we accept our approximations as the last word without question.

It must be pointed out that there is only ever approximation (i.e. a choice or probability) in science but we’re not really aware of that, and of course the mathematicians avoid making the link to human psychology, because science is the ultimate projection outwards, and therefore must remain external to minds residing in bodies that believe themselves to be a brain-body thing alone. I’m reminded of one of the most amazing books I ever read, Arnold Mindell's “Quantum Mind” which links every mathematical concept going to human psychology. A beautiful read.

My thoughts on this eventually converged into connecting the masculine idea to that of scientific endeavour. So, the Divine Masculine is the foundation of objective thinking. But there is no true objective view, there cannot be. Even in the deepest reaches of scientific experiment and mathematics, we only ever make approximations on an assumed objective truth. It is all probabilistic. This objective truth is never, ever, reached. So where does this leave the masculine? Does it even exist?

Whatever view we have as a species at any particular time must be consensus. And quantum physics supports this. Perhaps the fact that we have never pinned down our material reality adequately (something required by the Divine Masculine acting without his other half, proving Himself right) explains our obsessive and arrogant need to find this Higgs Boson and solve all problems of the universe (sarcastic type emoticon required here) never mind how much it might cost. When we consider the living situations of the majority of our brothers in the world, do we not see here a form of madness in the extreme?

And so we are currently, in our lifetimes, witnessing firsthand the effects of thecollective human ego driven by its goal of separation. It acts under the label of “masculine”, the rational (irrational actually) thinker, the “right” one, the proof of that which exists on its own and the real and unquestioned basis of reality. Our support of the masculine consensus is similar to an unconditional acceptance of a deity, whilst the feminine principle, which in truth does underpin everything even in scientific thought (in terms of the fact of infinite subjective possibilities), is side-lined, ignored, railed-against, tortured, put-to-death, silenced, etc.

The fact is that the so-called objective truth emerges from infinite subjective truths, is born of them, whilst yet remaining within uncertainty at very fine levels of measurement; just one reality of an infinite choice of them. And so the masculine can only ever be a part of the feminine, in divinity and/or otherwise. We are One, but in the material Universe we do appear to be mostly feminine, if you have to give a label to it. Did we create the notion of the masculine to ensure continued separation? Has it got out of hand? Shall we not just let it go and consider ourselves the same, and perhaps find another label for that sameness, if it is needed at all?

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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Interfaith reflections on Hinduism

Currently I am undertaking a two year learning process with the aim of graduating as a spiritual counsellor with the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation based in the UK. Each month we look at one of the major world’s religions and have to produce a written piece for homework. After some editing, here is my submission for Hinduism.

Attractions:

On a visit to Kedarnath in Northern India, a Hindu pilgrimage town devoted to Siva, reputedly where Shankaracharya left his body, Nandi and I connected. Nandi is the little bull that sits looking at Siva. He is the gatekeeper to Siva and Parvati, as well as Siva’s vehicle. His name means ‘he who grants joy’ and he represents the serious student and seeker of enlightenment who looks only to Siva as personification of the goal. Nandi also represents the male principle and all that that entails. It is considered that only those who have conquered desire and achieved self-knowledge can ride the bull like Siva. The connections I made between Nandi and my life experience were very strong. He seemed to be a loving, kind but oh so powerful character, not to be messed with; the most appropriate student of Siva, strong yet humble, faithful yet independent. In Kedarnath, he smiled at me and welcomed me. He gave me a gift, a thread bracelet tying us together. The feelings of warmth, love and acceptance that were coming from his statue slathered with butter and peppered with coloured powder that sits facing the temple which houses perhaps one of the oldest Siva lingams in India were overwhelming. I love Nandi like no other Hindu representation of God. And I really, really, love him. I adore him. Interestingly, the picture I took of him at the time shows him in full regal and imperious state, and not at all how I was seeing him at the time.

Recently I visited a local Siva temple near to my home. This temple is so authentically Indian I could have been back there. On wandering around the murtis I found myself in front of Nandi again. My heart burst with love and tears filled my eyes. I became very sentimental indeed and was transported immediately back to India, to the ashrams, to the people and the Himalaya. The feelings were as intense as they had been at Kedarnath and I was amazed that a proper statue of Nandi lives so close by. I became elated about this and I vowed to visit him for a chat once a week. After a few weeks of this I realised I was getting funny looks from the traditional Indian priests and some of the congregation and I realised I had to rethink this situation. It was one thing being in India where all the temples are open to everyone and no-one has a problem about who might pop in for worship or to just visit. But here in London, in the West, where the Hindu community is in the minority it is certainly not going to be the same situation. I had misjudged this completely; I had not come down from my prolonged trip and spiritual high in India, and didn’t see that I was needing to readjust to the cultural differences here so as not to offend or worry anyone, including myself. I stopped visiting Nandi, but he stays with me at all times in my portable temple which goes with me everywhere, so I’m not sure it’s important or matters. And I learned something about diplomacy and tact there.

In Hinduism God is considered to be everywhere, in everything, as everything. This fits entirely with my view of what we are, where we are, and why we are and so I am very attracted to Hinduism as a spiritual practice and it fits hand-in-glove with my study of A Course in Miracles. I have also been studying yoga for the last 12 years, a practice that comes from India, and what started as a desire for physical fitness and emotional calm has become a personal scientific investigation into All That Is, and an effective manner of answering the One question for myself, What Am I? It is interesting to note that my personal spiritual journey through illness and beyond really began at the same time I decided to start attending yoga asana classes in Holland in 2000 due to experiencing undue stress at work. Somehow, I knew that yoga would be the answer, and it was. The very first class I ever did, at the Iyengar centre in Amsterdam, gave me some stillness in a mind that had not been at all still since a very young age. This was a powerful and immediate proof of the efficacy of yoga as a holistic well-being therapy and even though at the time the main surface consciousness focus I had for doing it was body fitness, the peace had come and I used to blabber on about that to people, and then forget again and think I was doing it to have a healthy body only!

I see now that yoga is a rigorous science. The only difference in the yogi’s idea of science and that of common culture is that any findings are personal and cannot be replicated externally. You must experience the truth yourself or it is not necessarily true. None of the evidence is second hand and this is very appealing to a mind somewhat habitually looking for the weak point in any argument. You really get what you pay for. Even the most cynical non-believing doughnut can find a great deal of benefit from doing yoga asana classes, and these days in the West the number of classes, packed to the rafters with people who don’t know what an Om is, must be testament to that.

Having spent some time in India it appears, outside of the veil of the caste system, that every human can be considered a Hindu. It is a welcoming faith where all human beings are considered part of the same system and does not insist on conversion or declare itself the only way. There is something very sane about this.

I started my life-changing study of A Course in Miracles around 5 years ago. This year I undertook an intense and challenging yoga teacher training course at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta centre in Kerala. It was a wonderful surprise to hear the words of Christ being echoed in the Advaita Vedanta philosophy classes I took on the course. This undisputable connection has strengthened my foundation in yoga. Advaita (non-duality), I believe, explains Reality, but does not describe the more familiar dualistic world which is explained through other ideas such as myth and the Hindu pantheon, maya and the law of karma in particular. Although very logical, we can say that karma and the continued cycle of death-rebirth must itself be part of the illusion of duality. The more worldly practices of Hinduism remind me of my own shamanic approach to being in the living natural world where, for example, energies are revered and worked with and nature is given to be benevolent and loving. I feel a close connection to Hinduism in both its highest philosophies as well as its pragmatic worldliness.

Being in India was like hanging out with God every day, the most inconsequential things in India are steeped in spirituality. There is no separation of the mundane and the sublime, everything, every atom is a part of God, and that is reflected in the country, the people and the faiths there.

Challenges:

I would say that the “separation” or ego generated ideas found in Hinduism are as follows: the biggest is the very prevalent idea that enlightenment, although a very real pursuit, is not for us in this lifetime. Somehow the ego has managed to persuade us all we’re not good enough to go for it and it won’t be for many lifetimes that we get a shot at it; certainly this thoroughly limiting belief does not come out of Hinduism alone. It is a most obvious a win for the ego as we wonder exactly which lifetime it will be, if it’s never this one?! If true, would we not see some people openly going for it in this lifetime? But we don’t because the ego has persuaded us to stay small, and stay here. We fear being labelled an egomaniac if we think of wanting to be enlightened. Wow! A perfect example of the irrational logic of the ego we live with every day, the opposite of what we believe being the truth instead. Another win for the ego is that “being enlightened” does seem to be a real delusion for some who clearly still have a lot to learn and so we avoid the escape plan even more perhaps.

One way to address this challenge is to observe ourselves as part of the “we” and not a separate, alone and defensive “I”. Anything anyone says, even if I don’t disagree with it, is part of “we” and thus part of me. There is a practice in groups of not using the “we” whilst talking, because it assumes you speak for everyone and a lot of people get scared about this. Well, if every thought everyone ever had is also my thought, then everything anyone says is part of the “we”. However, as people are very determined to maintain the structure of their own truths, and feel fear when someone includes them in a statement that is outside of their defined reality, I think it’s probably better to be sensitive to that in those situations, as they arise, although how can “we” approach unity and Oneness if we’re not prepared to let go of the “I” which insists on being separate and defining strict boundaries for itself in terms of delineating where it and other egos stand in terms of belief or opinion? Another win for the ego there for sure! And a learning in compassion, which can't be bad, sorry ego :)

I’m convinced it is very possible to become enlightened in this lifetime and have made it my clear and only goal. I’m really done with all this suffering and have no desire to go around again, and again, and again, each time convinced again that this madness is real. I’m seeing very clearly why getting out of this is the only sensible choice. This is the only worthwhile activity. Everything else comes second to getting to God, to being and living who/what I truly am.

One thing that really worries me in Hinduism is the fatalistic belief in the prophecies about the Kali Yuga (the current age) which state that humans will be greedy, lying and cheating, amongst other things. India is unbearably corrupt and one wonders how anyone can make a difference to that when the common belief is that, oh it’s Kali Yuga, and that means I’m justified in behaving this way, a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is really worrying considering current global ecological matters and I don’t know how it can be addressed.

Not advocating skulduggery at all, I note the resistance to acceptance of the smallpox vaccination by India was resolved by the forging of holy texts. It seems, in India, unless it comes from God (via holy texts) it is not applicable, and even destructive commands/ideas (perhaps even those posing dire danger to life on earth) are given great weight.

It was interesting to note that recently in India when a prominent politician went on hunger strike to protest against corruption the government backed down the day after there was a mass protest by Indian businesses, which closed spontaneously for a whole day. One wonders what was the most powerful influence, the hunger strike or the shops closing? He had already made a similar protest the year before. He was able to start eating again after 12 days. The following day it was business as usual and it was clear to me that the message of anti-corruption had not filtered down to the rickshaw drivers on the Paharganj and I'm sure I didn't remember them being quite so aggressive 15 years before when I had visited.

I am very challenged by the hypocrisy of holy men, Indian yoga teachers and Indian men in general who have a very poor view, maybe no humane view at all, of women and the feminine principle. Indian women appear to share this opinion as there is very little dissent amongst them, an example having been set for them in tradition, myth and legend. The Hindu religious stories support these ideas. For example, Sita is the most exemplary wife due to her faithfulness to Ram and the consorts of deities are ‘perfect’ devotees. There is a lot of promiscuity amongst the male deities but the goddesses never step out of line. The Indian feminine ideal is insipid and quiet. Indian women have very little, usually no voice. Unmarried women, particularly foreigners, are regarded as available sexually to any Indian man, married or otherwise, and being in India presents a daily wrestle with these mistaken ideas. If you are lucky to be born wealthy India, then you can have a chance at a gender-based freedom, particularly if you manage to get out of the country to be educated in the West and see a new view, true for both men and women from the minority wealthy classes.

Conclusion:

Hinduism is super-cool and perhaps has the clearest and most obvious agreement with Christ in ACIM than any other faith I have studied as yet.

THE LIAR, by Niramisa Weiss

@niramisaweiss

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