Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.
CG Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the multidimensionality of our loves and our lives.
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People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive. —Joseph Campbell
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life—Albert Camus
The attempt to codify the spiritual experience into a method or attribute meaning to it escapes me, especially if that attempt is with any idea of then reproducing that experience within ourselves or another—worse yet, to validate the experience. Whether in New Age or traditional beliefs, systematizing the Ineffable is the core of depersonalizing and therefore devitalizing your connection.
Religion is the best way to avoid a religious experience. —Joseph Campbell
Meaning seems often to be defined as that which the conscious mind/ego-mind can analyze/qualify and re-express into words that can be understood by self and another. In our scramble for meaning and/or understanding, we should be certain not to underestimate the importance or the value of pure experience—that which sometimes cannot be captured in “meaning” and defies conscious understanding
The heart has no need of meaning. It feels; it experiences. The spirit has no interest in meaning—it simply IS experience. These two vital aspects of our existence cannot be appropriately explained/analyzed/qualified by conscious mind.. The Ineffable can be alluded to by words. But the true essence of the reference cannot be conveyed, only lived and incorporated into our being. We then become the only true expression to that which we are attempting to represent in words. The mystics of every conviction have always known this. The words/doctrine of their belief system were the launching platform of their experience, but was not allowed to confine their personal experience or connection with the Source.
Verse 1 —Tao Te Ching
The way of the word is not the Way
Words are simply too inefficient to precisely convey the actual experience of something like bliss. Any semblance of conveyance is merely the listener/reader revisiting their personal experience of bliss—or their preconceived idea of bliss—and assuming that is what was intended/expressed by the words. Meaning and method are crafty contrivances of the conscious/ego mind. It is a manner of naming/categorizing. Not always, but quite often “meaning” can be a distraction from or method of avoiding the experience itself.
Words used with the intention or accepted as an explicit conveyance of the spiritual provide a situation of mistaking the map/representation of the landscape for the landscape itself. Explicit conveyances (i.e. “this is THE truth”) seem often to have been inspired by a true connection with the Absolute, but became bound by the attempt to define that connection with words/meaning, and what we have been left with is often little more than the sarcophagus of the original spirit. However, I would not say that any use of words to represent the spiritual is an inherent problem. I am inclined to believe that the symbolic use of poetry or fiction can be the catalyst to a shared connection. This is the same nature of a Zen koan, something unintended to contain truth, but rather to shake the mind free from any attempt to seize the “map” as reality in order to awaken an awareness of the true landscape.
…those profound truths of life…can’t be transferred from one person to another with words but can only be genuinely known through one’s connection to the collective unconscious. In this sense, we can only learn what we already know at the unconscious level.—Robert A.
As for the meaning of communion with the spiritual, meaning is the domain of understanding, and spirit surpasses all understanding.
copyright 2008 CG Walters
CG Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the multidimensionality of our loves and our lives.
Autographed/signed copies of CG's "Highly Recommended" (Midwest Book Review) Sacred Vow are available from the author– or purchase as ebook or from Amazon as Kindle version or printed copy.
CG Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the multidimensionality of our loves and our lives.
Autographed/signed copies of CG's "Highly Recommended" (Midwest Book Review)Sacred Vow are available from the author– or purchase as ebook or from Amazon asKindle versionor printed copy.
I don’t remember the specific focus of the conversation that my wife, Kathy, and I were having, but I know it included something about prayer/communication with the Absolute, and something about laughter. We were playing around with the words, twisting what had been said, coming up with new variations/perspectives that had serendipitously been introduced. And then Kathy exclaimed, “Laughing is praying!” It was one of those things that made perfect, undeniable sense the moment I heard it—information that the spirit has always known, even if the conscious mind was unaware.
Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods. —Japanese proverb
Neither of us had probably ever verbally expressed this insight nor even explicitly entertained it consciously—I know I had not. The moment she said it, I went silent, taking in the depth of this fortunate little gift of wisdom. A wave of realization ran through me and a couple of minutes passed before I was able to continue with the conversation.
The one who laughs, Lasts!
I have always loved that saying, and had not doubt of its truth. Science acknowledges that laughter exercises your heart, elevates your mood, suppresses the stress hormones, and boosts your immune system. Up to 80 muscles are exercised during a really good laugh. Now considering Kathy’s insight, I realized ever more reason why this little saying impressed me as being so true.
Humor is the prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer. —Reinhold Niebuhr
Not only is laughter benefiting the body in ways that can be studied by science, but it is also bringing body and spirit into communion/alignment with the Absolute, the Tao. It is not surprising that time spent in closer communion with Source would rejuvenate us.
The greatest prayer you could ever pray, would be to laugh every day… —Ramtha
It makes perfect sense that laughter would be one of our surest invitations into audience with the Absolute. In the moment of a sincere laughter, the heart is open, the restrictive mind is lost, and we are completely genuine, naïve as a child. In such laughter, we give ourselves over, fully and unreservedly. Laughter is a true expression of earnest gratitude for life and the experience of our Self. Laughter could easily be the greatest prayer.
May you laugh heartily and frequently, my dear friends, and feel the union with your Source.
CG Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the multidimensionality of our loves and our lives.
Autographed/signed copies of CG's "Highly Recommended" (Midwest Book Review) Sacred Vow are available from the author– or purchase as ebook or from Amazon as Kindle versionor printed copy.
