Structure

My new counsellor, Margaret, says that I am looking for a structure for my inner world.

I told her a while ago (and have thought for some time) that my old personal construct, structure, paradigm or whatever you want to call it, was thrown out some time ago, and a new one hasn't replaced it yet. As a result, I feel a bit like I'm floating in space. It may sound like a good thing to have no lens or framework through which to view the world, as though I am seeing clearly in an unobstructed manner, but the reality is it's very confusing and disorienting and scary.

This is what Jonathan Cainer (what a hero) has to say about the month of June for Sagittarians (Sagittarius is my ascendant):

'They say that if a wall is falling apart, we shouldn't try to paper over the cracks. If, though, we are only intending to live with that wall for a short while, it makes no sense to start knocking it down and rebuilding it. Perhaps those cracks are just the result of old plaster crumbling and not serious subsidence. Or, then again, perhaps not. In June, as Jupiter moves into a new sector of the sky and forms a conjunction with Uranus, you see how to knock down and rebuild an arrangement where many cosmetic repairs have been attempted without success. That requires courage and vision. But it's going to work out very well.'

The question is now, what will that new wall or structure be? Astrology, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, or some combination?

My little inner fundamentalist (hangover from my adolescence) feels a bit scared about any of these options. When I was growing up, anything seen as New Agey, or anyone who combined more than one form of spirituality, was a bit of anathema. Maybe that's why what will happen for me in June requires courage.

I really have to read more about Advaita Vedanta anyway. At the moment what I like about it is:
'God' and the self as one.
Non-dualism generally.
The interconnectedness of every being (I also see astrology as an expression of interconnectedness).

Quote from Jonathan Cainer taken from: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/horoscopes.

'Sagittarius, Aria Nadii' downloaded 29th May, 2010, from: http://mamamagic.wordpress.com/tag/sagittarius-moon/.

Trust your Feelings!

I've realised in the last few days that this anxiety I've been whingeing about is actually something of a gift.

I've learnt a lot from it in the time since I started writing this blog.

I was told some time about the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, a method of discernment in which anxiety is used as an indicator that something is not right or true for the person doing the work. I've come to see my own anxiety in a similar light. I think it is intuition / wisdom / the higher self / God guiding me away from ideas or practices which are not healthy for me, or are not 'my truth,' to risk sounding like a flake!!

Much of the time I think the anxiety acts to prevent me from 'going over the top,' from getting too fundamental or extreme or overly zealous. But then I think my natural 'zeal' and spiritual hunger is a gift as well. It's as though I need both, working in tandem, balancing one another out. Too much spiritual zeal and I get anxious; too little and I lose touch with my spirituality altogether and experience a deadened, empty feeling - which is another indication given to me by my feelings and intuition.

'Trust your feelings, Luke!'

The Fear of the Lord Part I...

Why do I find God so frightening?
I expect I may need to speak to a specially skilled counsellor to begin to unpack this, but one idea I have is that I feel fear when someone in authority tells me something about God that my intuition tells me isn't true (or atleast is not true for me...). I think there's more to it than that, but perhaps that's a start. Towards the time I gave up on God, I was becoming more and more 'theologically picky', until there were maybe two or three churches in Melbourne whose theology resonated with me and didn't cause me to panic. Perhaps I have just arrived at a point in my life when I can no longer tolerate another person telling me who God is or is not. I certainly feel much more comfortable writing about who I think God is (to simplify what I'm doing here) than I ever have hearing someone else tell me. Is this a little like the mystics? - who would not be told by authorities or doctrines who God was, but had to experience Her for themselves, and then share their experiences with others (sometimes bishops or Popes...) Such audacity! On their part, and also on mine, to assert some kind of connection with them. Perhaps it always takes a degree of audacity to approach God.
It's interesting that it's always the audacity of fundamentalists, who say they know God better than I do, and that their God says I am wrong, that makes me furious. Is it actually healthy to balance audacity with fear?
I don't think I would wish this kind of fear on anyone...

PS. I saw Richard Dawkins interviewed on "Elders with Andrew Denton"1 on the ABC last week, and they showed a clip of Dawkins being accused of arrogance by someone I understood to be in a role of leadership in the church, someone who came across as being equally arrogant (or just audacious??). It made me think of Fowler's (1995) writing on the stages of spiritual development, where he talks about 'secular faith'. I've often thought there can be a discernible spirituality to atheism, but of course there can be fundamentalist atheists too.

Notes
1. Transcript available on the ABC website at:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/elders/transcripts/s2757522.htm


Fowler, J. W. (1995). Stages of faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. San Francisco: HarperCollins.