This year – 2024 – is the year of Ascension and The Great Awakening. Sure, that’s my opinion, however this opinion is based on years of study, inquiry and practice in several areas and modalities, i.e., yoga, meditation, spiritual/metaphysical maps, healing practices, etc….

The next few posts I will focus our inquiry on the concept of “The Soul.”

This specific inquiry is based on the Kabbalistic perspective.

REMEMBER: The way which we conduct this type of inquiry is by keeping an open mind. Nothing put forth here is done so for you to “believe” in a particular view or follow a particular path. Try to empty your mind as you do the inquiry. The process of inquiry is a 5 step process. It can be described in many ways. In our yoga practice we sometimes use the Kripalu method called BRFWA: 1. Breathe 2. Relax 3. Feel 4. Witness 4. Allow. The Growth process is: 1. Confront 2. Explore 3. Incubate 4. Illuminate 5. Celebrate.

In this post I will introduce the conditions for the soul’s development and the first stage in the process……..

Conditions for the Soul’s Development¹

A person in our world cannot exist without having some basic knowledge about the structure of this world. The more a person comprehends the world around him, the easier and safer it is for him to exist in it.

If we placed a primitive man among us who did not know the laws of our society, its problems, the thoughts of the surrounding people and their relationships with each other, would he be able to exist?

Just as a person in our world cannot exist without knowledge of our world, a person’s soul cannot exist in the spiritual world, having not acquired certain knowledge of its laws and nature.

The knowledge the soul must possess in order to exist and survive include understanding of the structure and functioning of the spiritual worlds, Partzufim² and Sefirot,³ as well as their interactions called “Zivugim”⁴ and their consequences and actions.

However, in order to gain knowledge of the spiritual world, one is required to have a soul. Only then does it become important to him to understand the nature of the spiritual world, for this is what gives one’s soul the ability to exist in it.

Continue reading The Birth of the Soul →

It is within the patterns of our life that we find our purpose.

There’s a popular movie from the early 1990’s called Groundhog’s Day. It’s a comedy about a man who becomes stuck in a loop where the same day repeats itself. Each morning, Phil awakens and its February 2^nd all over again. No matter what he does, he cannot seem to progress to the following day. At first, he sees this as carte blanche to do whatever he pleases. However, it’s not long before Phil becomes disillusioned with the state of his repetitive life and attempts to end it all. Still he inevitably awakens on the morning of February 2^nd.

It is in Phil’s exhaustion and hopelessness that he begins to contemplate his place and purpose in the loop.

He understands that he can use the repetition the universe has provided him to make himself and the world better: He learns to speak French, play the piano, and after witnessing the death of a homeless man, creates a plan to avert this and other disasters from happening. It is only then that the cycle is broken.

It’s a funny and clever film, but perhaps the greatest reason it has become such a classic is because it speaks truth to our soul.

“Once we recognize the moments that repeatedly pop up in our own movies, we can seize them for the gifts they truly afford us.”

Each of us has our own “Groundhog’s Day,” an unpleasant situation that continuously repeats. Maybe we leave one job to get away from our tyrant of a boss only to arrive at a new one where the boss is an even greater nightmare. Many people divorce their spouse only to end up marrying the same kind of person with similar shortcomings years later. What is this phenomenon that sees the universe placing recurring patterns before us? And more to the point, how do we break the cycle?

The kabbalists had a name for these patterns: tikkun, indicating that which we have come back to correct. Each lifetime may afford us several chances to accomplish our tikkun, to learn the lesson and make the inner changes necessary for our spirit to progress along its journey.

Once we recognize the moments that repeatedly pop up in our own movies, we can seize them for the gifts they truly afford us. For instance, maybe the reason one is faced with a tyrannical boss is to find the areas where they themselves lack kindness and mercy with others, or perhaps it is to learn to stand up to an authority figure if that has been a persistent problem throughout one’s life. If someone finds themselves dating or married to the same kind of person time and again, it could be to learn how to accept someone’s shortcomings and love unconditionally, or it could be simply to start looking outside the box! This is a deeply personal spiritual work; only you can recognize the patterns, and only you can decipher what they are meant to teach you.

In this video I juxtapose the 5 ranks of Dzogchen, Spiral Dynamics, and an analysis of the concept of The Matrix. WHY? Further Inquiry into the Nature of Reality; The Truth: The Way: The Tao: Dharma

Answer me this Batman……If the soul comes from a place of perfection, no lack, no darkness and only abundance and beneficence…..Then Why make the trip?

The last several posts have been an attempt to bring the map of spiral dynamics into your awareness. And, together, do some intellectual inquiry.

There are a few reasons to utilize the map of spiral dynamics. The main one was to illuminate the momentous shift from Tier 1 Consciousness to Tier 2….For over 25 years now, I have re-cognized that this move is one way to explain “The Great Work.” Here is another way..

After watching this video the question most of you may be asking is …What is Natural Law?

If you read and studied The Kybalion with me then you already know. If you haven’t then time to do some research. Two clicks on your computer and you can access The Seven Hermetic Laws/Principles which is the outline of Natural Law.

The point of this particular post is to transition from Spiral Dynamics to the concept of The Great Work. My intention is to highlight that it is not all Love, Light and Unicorns. The darkness is real. The opposite of “Good” is “Evil”. The biggest trick the devil pulled off is convincing you that he does not exist.

There are a lot of people in the highest stage of Tier 1 …..those who are primed to move into Tier 2. This is a move from Green to Yellow. It is a challenging move and most people, if not all, resist it. It is my experience the unwillingness to look at the darkness, the unpleasant, the distasteful….is the biggest block to moving into Tier 2.

Hang on to your panties because the sea is churning and the boat of illusion is struggling to stay afloat. This website, the yoga, the meditation sessions, the maps, the blog posts, the videos…is all about “The Great Work.” It is about becoming aware of, doing the skills training and mastering “Swimology.”

“If you die before you die then when you die you won’t die.” Why Wake Up? Why do this work? Why not just enjoy your life and do whatever needs to be done to not rock the boat?

Ken Wilber offers a perspective…

So, The 5th “Phase” in The Five Step Process of Growth, Change, Transformation, Development….etc can be described as the fruit, the result, the score, the product, the manifestation……etc…

From a, let’s say, business project managementy kind of perspective it could be described as the “Managing Outcome Phase” or “Tracking Results/Achievement.”

From a “Tree of Life” Perspective it is Malchut or Kingdom or Sovereignty.

Before we move on from the spiral dynamics map and onto something else allow me to summarize…….It’s a map. The map is not the territory. The Territory is Dharma.

The next map I will be posting about is The Vipassana Meditation Technique and The Philosophy behind it. I am going to read the book “The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Gloenka”. Author is William Hart. I will be creating essentially an audio book.

What the Buddha recognized while sitting under a tree in his pursuit of finding a solution to the problem of suffering was that everything is ablaze in the process of transformation. In fact, at the quantum level, particles are arising and passing away at great rapdity. Apparently at a rate of of 10 to the 20 million times per second. That’s fast and the result of this “speed of process” is that it appears permanent. This is the illusion; The permanent appearance of a Reality that, is in fact, highly ephemeral.

So, from my perspective, I think the dream level goal is to find residence in Coral. To get to Coral we need to first establish a “toe hold” in Turquoise. So my current goal is to work on getting from Yellow to Turquoise.

I kind of see Turquoise as “The Retreat” concept. We need a place in South Florida where we can just “Do The Great Work” of Confronting, Exploring, Incubating on, Becoming Illuminated by and Celebrating Dharma…..The True Reality of Nature. From all indication it is a dynamic process of Growth -Transformation and Revelation.

With that said, let’s cap off our inquiry with the words of a true prophet of humanity’s evolutionary process. A man who rode the dragon’s tail and explored deeply The Edge itself.

Seems like we are all about to experience what Terrance was experiencing and talking about 25 years ago……