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  Sitting Owl’s

Book Review

‘The Healing Spirit 
– Explorations in Religion and Psychotherapy’

By: Paul R. Fleischman and Compiled

I would like to begin this review with the comments from the back cover.
"Religion kindles much of the world’s healing, soothing, care-taking forces; yet ironically it also spawns cruel, violent, destructive hatred. Through a series of vividly detailed case studies, The Healing Spirit explores this paradox along with the interrelationship of mankind’s universal psychological needs and the major themes of the religious path. Paul Fleischman blends psychiatric insight, a profound respect for the world of spirit, and a rich sweep of cultural allusion into a fresh, masterful unity."

The author begins his introduction saying that: “Religion can be approached and understood as one aspect of personality”. This is indeed my own understanding, and I believe that when we can understand the big picture of life’s religious, - linking back to the source, and psychological nature and then develop a social order based on it, we can all live harmoniously with the universe. However this big picture must also be experienced in the everyday life, which the author then acknowledges by quoting Mircea Eliade, the great historian of comparative religion that I have previously mentioned, thus: “Religion is an experience of the existence in totality… and the exemplary solution of every existential crisis.”

The author finishes his introduction thus:
“I will describe religion as a circle with ten segments forming a whole and containing: witnessed significance, lawful order, affirming acceptance, a calling, membership, release, a worldview, human love, sacrifice, and meaningful death.”

WITNESSED SIGNIFICANCE is what I spoke about in my article 'Initiations and Vision Quests'. It is the need to be seen, known, responded to, confirmed, appreciated, cared for, mirrored, recognised, and identified; and this need is universal and mythologically based.

LAWFUL ORDER is our need to know that the unknowable universe is not our prison, but is a wonderment that has got rules to the unfolding game of life. Lawful order is symbolised as a law-giving, protective father, who gives us security, but also demands that we manifest the rules in our own actions. Universally this is the Father-in-Heaven, God the father, Wakan-Tanka the father and Creator.

AFFIRMING ACCEPTANCE is the need to feel integral and unified within oneself and the need to feel responsible, an active agent of choice, and a point of origins. “Yet there is a need to feel pardoned, having done enough, tried enough, succeeded enough, and when finished, to feel done and complete… This need is usually referred to as “wholeness,” but to highlight its dynamic, tensile quality, I call it ‘affirming acceptance’.” This is the area that religion plays the major role. The Western religions are heavy with sin and atonement, telling us we have been bad, and weak, that with them is Another who can save us and set free the past. “Repent, be reborn whole and new.”

In Buddhism and some schools of Hinduism 'affirming acceptance' is achieved by the withdrawal of one’s personal wants and desires.

CALLING has two steps to it; firstly the calling to your life’s task (Dharma) or duty as an inner command from God, and secondly the acceptance of the call, even if it is socially unpopular. Psychologically, this brings in the concept of identity. The author here sheds light on the dilemma of divine uniqueness of the individual verses the sense of divine duty (Dharma) as a separation from uniqueness, the self that is identical in everyone. A person’s career may be their calling, but generally career prominence has nothing to do with calling. Every man’s foremost task is the actualisation of his unique, unprecedented and never-returning potentialities.

In shamanism, calling comes as the schizophrenic crack up that Joseph Campbell speaks of, where consciousness totally falls inward, to God within. The author speaks of Jung’s own calling, Gandhi’s merging of calling and Dharma. He wanders through the ‘Rig Veda’, the Bhagavad Gita, Plato, and Tolstoy’s ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’, and Thoreau’s essay ‘On Civil Disobedience’; quoting from it thus: “If a plant cannot live according to it’s nature, it dies; and so a man.”

MEMBERSHIP is more than ‘witnessed significance’ or ‘lawful order’, it governs what language we speak and what we think. “Our habits, values, thoughts, possessions, our health, food, air, and music are strung out on lattices of webs reaching from person to person, and for that matter, from person to soil, plant and animal.”

Religion is one of the fundamental memberships, which expands the self-group to reach back to first man and first woman, and also into the future. Religious membership is about seeing the infinite in the finite and the finite in the infinite, the rejoining of the pairs of opposites to realise the Creator existing in all of creation, of which you are a member. 

Without a sense of membership a sense of calling can deteriorate into self-aggrandisement, “in which history becomes compressed into immediacy, and community shrivels into self, until time and membership disappear behind a charismatic, melodramatic “me and now”.” The negative side to membership comes when the group sees itself as the only form of truth and divinity, and all others as 'the enemy', to be converted or destroyed. Although this situation can bring healing to those within the group, it also brings destruction to those outside the group.

RELEASE is closely related to ‘Religious Love’ and ‘Meaningful Death. Release is the freedom to let the world be what it is. “The prerequisite to attaining release is the faith to let some control slip away.” 

The release to let “Thy will be done” can be seen as a negative when everything is released and one has no will of their own, no self-esteem. The yearning for release through dependency is a very common human problem, that is, the obtaining of release at the cost of autonomy. “Surrender to a Guru, to obtain a sense of release, is probably one of the most wide spread religious practices in the world.” While this achieves a sense of release and surrender, it is not the ultimate release and surrender to the will of God as is the soul’s seeking and the message of most true Gurus. In the world of Guru worship a disciple may, along with release, find ‘Witnessed Significance', ‘Lawful Order’, ‘Affirming Acceptance’, ‘Calling’, ‘Membership’, ‘Worldview’, ‘Human Love’, ‘Sacrifice’, and even a ‘Meaningful Death’. 

Also, “Drugs, alcohol, and sex, with their capacity for oblivion, are to release as sugar is to food: they temporarily ease the pains but add no substantial muscle.” The aim of release is to detach from desire, ambition, worry, guilt, and one’s sense of individuality, and to experience peace and unity with God the creator and all of creation.

WORLDVIEW is basically the expanded need of ‘Lawful Order’ to an ordered cosmos, not chaos. “We recognise our own animation and vitality reflected in limbs of running creatures and the ceaselessness of leaves and waves.” 

Worldview is also the realm of myths and symbols, which serve as templates of reality for others to organise their own worldview. “Dreams are often the route to an expanded worldview… they bring together all that has been experienced, as well as landscapes, characters, and moods that are fresh creations.” 

But the need for worldview can deteriorate into urgent believing. “The psychedelic era and its offshoot, the spiritual supermarket, were realms in which worldviews were tried on like new clothes, and discarded.” A personal worldview comes when one can stand outside oneself, like the shamans, ecstatic dismemberment, which opens one to the wonder of the world. “The most important by-product of a mature worldview is wonder.”

When one becomes more aware of the bigger picture of life, and accepts their original parents, the All-mother and All-father, one discovers a worldview that is both painful and ecstatically wonderful.

HUMAN LOVE is the most critical factor of all the ten divisions. It is the need for communal, parental, and true person to person love. In the current society of individualism, an isolating and socially fragmenting force, this love is sought too concretely and through sexual intimacy. “Among the hurt and pained in need of help, who may suffer from broken marriages, fluctuating or fallen self-esteem, obsessive constrictions, panicky attachments to parents, bewildering isolation, uncontrolled rages, and haunting depression, the common denominator is an inability to transcend themselves with care and delight, to reach over and touch another heart.”

In a case study, a patient who had suffered many divorces had; “worshipped his wives, done all he could for them, and given them all he could of himself… His marriages were like a calling…[and his] private religions.” The worship of the Goddess creates problems because as she embodies and represents the primal forces of fertility, creation, and manifestation, she also represents death and annihilation. If there were no life, there would be no death and visa versa. “A psychotherapist today will find failed sexual romanticism being used as a splint over broken bones of human love. The spontaneous re-emergence of Goddess worship may be one aspect of this phenomenon.”

“Human love is life taking care of life.’

“Love is the activity of transcending the isolation of self.”

“Love belongs to the between. It is not dramatic, loud, or congratulatory, but is quiet and invisible.”

Fear must be faced and put in its place, “to avoid fear is to avoid living” – from sacrifice comes bliss, but love bears all tings.

SACRIFICE; along with human love are the important subjects that I have been working on for some time, under the heading ‘Sacrifice and bliss’ and ‘Suffering and Compassion’.

“Because everyone will grow old, decay, and die, suffering is existential… Suffering is the right arm of love…Sacrifice is the extension of devotion and dedication. It is the ability to choose what is less than comfortable in order to fulfil a deeper demand.”

“Where one observer may see a courageous, principled action taken at great personal cost, a critic may observe it as attention-seeking, foolhardy notoriety.”

Sacrifice is epitomised in the life of a parent, and is the acceptance and affirmation of life as it is, even with pain and suffering.

MEANINGFUL DEATH is about living life to the fullest potential and being prepared to transcend it. Quoting Stephen Levine, a student of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (see ‘The Wheel of Life’ Vol.1 no.2): “Our fear of death is directly equatable to our fear of life… whatever prepares you for death enhances life… focusing on death is a way of becoming fully alive.” Death is the symbol of loss, transformation and transcendence. Every second dies with the birth of a new second. “Release and love… always awaken proximity to death.” Robert J. Lifton has said: “Every significant step in human existence involves some inner sense of death.” Awareness of death leads one to search for the eternal, undying spirit of God living within each and every manifestation of life.

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Maori Teachings

By: Dr. Rangimarie (Rose) Turuki Pere

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My Brothers

By: Flame Morning Star

The Dawn of a new age is upon us,
We must go within and find our strengths,
We must seek to find our weaknesses
And work with them.
We must find our truths and speak them.
We must send our messages out to our brothers and sisters,
and tell them to hold tight to our sacredness.
We must bring forth the new dawn,
the golden light, so it may shine over the Earth Mother, 
cleansing her of dark sadness.
Bring forth our joy, hold tight our truth and love 
spread it on eagles wings.

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Vision

By: Lynn V. Andrews

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Maori Teachings

By: Dr. Rangimarie (Rose) Turuki Pere

Mahi-a rongo – Peaceful pursuits eg: arts and crafts.
Peaceful pursuits of arts, crafts, song, and dance, play an important part in healing of the heart, mind, spirit and psyche. Take time out to feel the magic.

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Mother Nature

By: He Who Sees Through The Eyes And Wisdom Of The Eagle

From the day that I became a man onward, whenever I would go hunting, I would use every part of the animal and waste nothing given to me. The secret is to always put back something when you take something from Mother Earth, then you will always enjoy good hunting. My hunting these days is to try to repair some of the damage done by the first settlers in Australia. I hunt only feral cats, foxes and pigs, which were brought here by the white men, and they don’t belong. These animals have done massive damage to native animals over the years, and I do enjoy cleaning them up. Every cat or fox I kill gives that many more native birds a chance to survive. I hunt with bow and arrow, and no spot light, so that I must still use the bush as my cover, therefore still giving these creatures a chance to escape, and also perfecting my own bush skills to maximise success.

For those people who feel that hunting is a crime, I do apologise, but you must remember that it was only a hundred years or so ago that all men had to hunt to survive. I do look forward to the Golden Age when I can have a zoo with as many animals as I care to have, and I will keep my promise to the buck that made me a man. I will have a large deer farm, and I will feed and look after them as friends. I will gladly give up eating meat in those days and I will love and care for these creatures that share our life and love of Mother Earth. To know the spirit of the creatures on earth is to know the spirit of the universe.

As you walk through the forest, you will see that all the creatures run away from man. This is because they know the spirit of man, they know that he is the most dangerous animal in the forest. Their fear of us is one of nature. They only trust you if you have shown, over many months, that you mean them no harm. The trust, which is formed with another creature, is the thread of the universe, it shows us that the Great Spirit is alive and well, and living here with us on planet earth. We can learn so much from nature, if only we would listen.

Just recently my little girl, aged five, said to me, “When I see an eagle, it’s like he can speak to me inside.” It made me realise that the connection that the Indians have always had with nature is alive and well, and no matter what happens to this planet, the children of the Golden Age will find that peace of mind and love of one another that we have forgotten. As with all generations, our hopes rest in our children. So we must make sure that our children love and respect nature. It is not here for us to rule over, or use for our own materialistic benefit, it is here because it is part of us and we are part of it. We must take our kids out of the city and introduce them to nature, and show them that the city only exists because we took it from nature. The trees are our houses; the sand, gravel and rocks are our roads, and the animals and plants are the foods that we eat, and that with out these things we would not survive. It is important for our kids to understand that we are part of the great circle of life, and not here to destroy and rule everything. Our scientists are now counting the cost of mankind’s destructive nature. They know that with every animal that becomes extinct many more are endangered. All creatures depend on each other for survival, and man must realise that he is in the same boat.

I know that Mother Earth can heal the many wounds that we have inflicted upon her, but we must try to curb our destructive nature now, and begin to help her heal. We can stop the use of dangerous chemicals and clean up the land we walk on. Many people are trying to do this, but it will take all of us working together to make a difference. Just because the world is heading for great destructive times does not mean we should give up. In fact, we should try all the harder to mend the damage we have done so that the earth will heal quicker and be less destructive. Once we put the earth and nature back in balance, the Golden Age will begin. I just hope that the fires of mankind don’t burn too long, and we have enough land, forest, water, and animals to start all over again. Bringing back the balance will help.

The one thing my Grandfather said to me that is more relevant today than ever, is simply, “Nothing in the past is as important as the future.” He said this talking about the way the Indians were treated in the past, and he meant that what happened in the past was gone, and we should turn our attention to the future, because it was of more importance to all people. No matter what has happened in the past, every day is a new day and anything can be fixed or made better in the future. So even though our rivers are full of algae and chemicals now, we can easily make a difference by starting now. To the Indians there is no such thing as no hope. We can always change our ways to become a better race of people.
Go in peace

He Who Sees Through the Eyes and Wisdom of the Eagle

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Feminine

By: Lynn V. Andrews

The world is bereft of feminine consciousness. To bring Mother Earth back into balance, we must bring back our awareness of her. Language is a barrier between us, but woman has always communed with women in an unspoken language. Her roots are entwined with the essence of Mother Earth, for she too is feminine. A woman is the Keeper of the Planet and must not let her energy be re-rooted by the male systems within woman or man. We are all in need of world harmony. Mother Earth has been misunderstood, but she is the universe. She is the womb for all that lives. Feminine consciousness is the energy that embodies the wisdom you need at this moment.

It is in the direction of the west, through the transformation of an overbalance of male energies, that we will reinstate the harmony and balance on earth, with feminine consciousness. The feminine spirit as exemplified by the trees of women, trees in a grove of sisterhood, of women in communication. This grove of female trees shows its connectedness and harmony with the universal consciousness within the earth below. The butterflies represent the Chakra system of energy throughout the human being, which relates to universal energies that are born from sacred space and provide a growing evolution toward the light.

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Funny as it may seem, but as a male I can only say, that I agree totally.

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   Emotions 

Understanding our emotions is one of the first steps not only to enlightenment, but also to integrated, functional daily life and decision making. This is why it is fundamental to psychology and shamanism

Humans have been given the full circle of emotions, ranging from Hopelessness, depression and hatred; through sadness, fear, and anger; all the way up to excitement and bliss just to name a few. But it is a strange judgement on what the Creator has given us to help us communicate our experiences of life if we think that some of these emotions are bad and unacceptable and others are good and to be expressed freely, even if they are false.

The biggest mistake we can make is to suppress any emotions. I have heard it said that emotion is ’E’ energy in ‘MOTION’. That being the case, then suppressing it at lest creates stagnation and disease. My own experiences of anger and frustration is that when they are suppressed, there will eventually be an almighty eruption, attempting to release all of them at once. I pity the nearest people to me at those times.

During a lot of my growing years, I tried to control these outbursts that made me look like a crazy monster. Sometimes I had success, but most of the time I didn’t. However I have since learnt to express my emotions at the moment I feel it, and also to balance emotion with rational knowledge of the true circumstances, rather than a past experience that might have only one minor similarity to the present situation.

Our emotions generally come from the ‘body-mind’, ‘cellular-memory’, subconscious or unconscious. They live in the north of the Medicine Wheel, so they need to be balanced with the rational knowledge of the conscious mind, in the south.

As Lynn Andrews has explained many times, that in this current society, women generally live in the north, of their emotions, and men generally live in the south, of the mind. She says that the couple may meet in the physical, the west, for an occasional encounter, which may or may not bring them the ecstatic experience of being one with spirit, in the east. But soon they revert back to the north south movement, which of course keeps the sacred hoop half balanced, but still pretty wobbly.

To create harmonious relationships with yourself - both inner and outer; with others; for enlightenment, and for balanced decision making the process begins with a seed, idea, or the meeting of two souls in spirit. Therefore all beginnings and births of ideas come from spirit, inspiration, or illumination, in the east of the Medicine Wheel. Then one must move to the south, the place of knowledge and the mind, to think rationally of how to go about manifesting the relationship, enlightenment or decision, and to access all the knowledge about the specific idea and whether or not it is practical to manifest the idea. Then one should move into the north of the emotions and subconscious memories, or cellular memory, associated with the task at hand. This is to balance the dry academic and doubting mind with the emotions and to access the fluid motions and inspiration needed to accomplish the manifestation of physical actions, ceremonies, tools and works of art, that are found in the west. The idea has now been manifested into a fruit, which houses the next seed, and so once again one finds oneself in the east, the place of spirit. This continuous cycle is symbolised as an infinity sign, from east to south, to north, then to west and back again to the east.

Emotions must be balanced with knowledge, guided by spirit, and manifested honestly and sincerely. 

If you cannot be yourselves enough even to experience the truth of your own emotions, how can you expect to express the true depth and beauty of who you are?

In his book ‘Beyond Within – A Philosophy for the Inner Life’, Sri Chinmoy discusses how to conquer fear thus:
“Our body is limited: that is why the body has fear. Our vital is unconscious: that is why the vital has fear. Our mind is obscure: that is why the mind has fear. Our heart is unaspiring: that is why the heart has fear.

"To free our body from fear, what we need is the glorious experience of our soul. To free our vital from fear, what we need is the dynamic and conscious expansion of our soul. To free our mind from fear, what we need is the transforming illumination of our soul. Finally, to free our heart from fear, What we need is the fulfilling perfection of our soul."

Regarding fear and anxiety, the Dalai Lama in ‘The Art of Happiness’ says that if there is a solution to the problem there is no need to worry, you must act on the solution. And if there is no solution, there is no sense in worrying either. But by making sure that you mean no harm and have only good motives and compassion, you can reduce anxiety. This is being honest with oneself and others. 

In discussing anger and hatred, he says: “The only factor that can give you refuge or protection from the destructive effects of anger and hatred is your practice of tolerance and patience.” And that an end result of this practice is forgiveness. “When you are truly patient and tolerant, then forgiveness comes naturally.”

While discussing the Dalai Lama, I would like to add a comment that he made in this book, with which I totally agree:
“The idealisation of this romantic love can be seen as an extreme. Unlike those relationships based on caring and genuine affection… It cannot be seen as a positive thing, it’s something that is based on fantasy, unattainable, and therefore may be a source of frustration."

“If it’s not totally yes, it’s absolutely no!” I found this quote in ‘Buffalo Woman Comes Singing’ By Brooke Medicine Eagle. It goes on to say that If someone asks for your help, your response can range from “no”, “maybe”, “yeah I guess”, “I know I should”, to “yes”. But all answers should be considered “no”, unless you experience a total, excited and definite “yes”.

For example, If you give a yes at first response and then change your mind, you open yourself to criticism that, “You don’t keep your commitments.” But if you say “no”, and then change your mind it’s different. I have never heard anyone say, “I was counting on you not to help me”. But to do this fully, means you must be a true warrior and be truthful to yourself; to all your emotions; and to everyone and everything else. But this is not as easy as it sounds, especially with all of today’s social duties to be kind, considerate and non-judgemental. 

Joseph Rael, in his book ‘Beautiful Painted Arrow’ speaks of the six passions, which are:

Jealousy, which is the physical possession of someone or something. To use this passion in a positive way, one can redirect it into seeking and possessing insights or spirit guides.

Anger, which happens when one is stuck between ‘Believing We Exist’ and ‘Awakened Awareness”. This passion is already positive, because it seeks to find a solution to the conflict by bridging the gap. This is when insight happens, with a sigh of relief.

Greed, which is identified with ‘Existence of Existence (Intense Desire). As with Jealousy, the positive use of this passion can be directed to gaining insights and spirit guides.

Pride, which is when one can become locked into one’s own achievements, possessions and children. The positive aspect here is to become open and receptive to new insights rather than things or activities

Attachment, which is similar to saying that; “What one experiences with the physical body, one owns.” The first step in this process is that one tries to obscure the attachments mentally. In the second step one identifies the person, place or thing with ‘Believing We Exist’, thus plugging the gap in our ‘Inner Spark Plug’, therefore preventing the spark of insight from firing the light of ‘Awakened Awareness’. So we must ‘Let Go’ of ‘Believing We Exist’.

Mental Obscuration, which is ignoring our ability to see the truth, by taking away the purpose of the experience, and dissolving our relationship with the unity in all of life.

Fear:

The following is taken from a CD insert of Funkadelic, which was taken from Process Number Five on Fear The Process – Church of the Final Judgement

"Fear is at the root of man’s destruction of himself. Without Fear there is no blame. Without blame there is no conflict. Without blame there is no destruction. But there IS Fear; deep within the core of every human being it lurks like a monster; dark and intangible. Its outward effects are unmistakable. Its source is hidden.

"It can be seen on one level in furtive embarrassment, argumentative protest, social veneer and miserable isolation. It can be seen on another level in the mammoth build-up of war machines in every corner of the world. It can be seen in riot-torn streets and campuses. It can be seen in fantasy world of escapism known as entertainment. It can be seen in the squalor of ghettos and the pretentious elegance of ‘civilised’ society. It can be seen in the desperate rat race of commerce and industry, the sensational slanderings of the press, the constant backbiting of the political arena and the lost world of the helpless junkie who has passed beyond the point of no return.

"The tight-lipped suppression of the rigid moralist reflects it, as does the violent protest of the anarchist. But more starkly and tragically than anywhere else, it manifests in pale grey shadow of the ordinary person, whose fear clamps down on all his instincts and traps him in the narrow confines of the socially accepted norm. Afraid either to step down into the darkness of his lower self or to rise up into the light of his higher self, he hangs suspended in between, stultified into an alien pattern of nothingness."

But to a greater or lesser degree, and manifesting one way or another, all human beings are afraid. And some of us are so afraid that we dare not show our fear. Sometimes we dare not even know our fear. For Fear itself is a terrifying concept to behold.

"We may confess to being afraid of violence and pain and even ghosts; and with such obvious terrors, pigeon-hole our fear to our own satisfaction. But fear of people, fear of ourselves, fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of our closest friends, fear of isolation, fear of contact, fear of loneliness. Fear of involvement, fear of rejection, fear of commitment, fear of sickness, fear of deprivation, fear of inadequacy, fear of emotion, fear of GOD, fear of knowledge, fear of death, fear of responsibility, fear of sin, fear of virtue, fear of guilt, fear of punishment, fear of damnation, fear of the consequences of our actions, and fear of our own fear? How many of us recognise the presence in ourselves of these?

"And if some of us recognise some of them, are we prepared to see the full extent of them? Do we know just how afraid we are? And do we know the effect that our fear has on our lives? Do we know how completely we are governed by our fear?…

"And do we know that wars and rumours of wars mount up in an ascending spiral of violence and potential violence, as the fear in the hearts of men intensifies? Do we know that strife of every kind increases as hatred, resentment, jealousy and prejudice increase, and that all these stem from one thing only: Fear?

"And do we know that one thing only ensures the escalation of the spiral of violence and destruction; our unwillingness to recognise the full extent of our fear and its effects – our fear of fear?

"For each and every one of us, as long as he is afraid, and unwilling to see with full clarity his fear for what it is, contributes to the crippling conflict that has become the hallmark of this world of ours. And as long as there IS fear, together with unwillingness to see it clearly and completely, as long as human beings are afraid and also fail to recognise the fact in their need to isolate themselves, in their outbursts of anger and irritation, in their embarrassment, in their sense of failure, in their feelings of resentment and frustration, in their desire for revenge, in their guilt, in their confusion, in their uncertainty, in their disappointment, in their anxiety about the future and their wish to forget the past, in their need to blame others and justify themselves, in their sense of helplessness and despair, in their revulsion and disgust, in their need to be vicious and spiteful, in their lack of confidence, in their tendency to boast and protest their superiority, in their failure to respond, in their sense of inadequacy, in their feelings of envy, in their futility, in their misery and in their scorn; as long as human beings fail to see THEIR fear reflected in these and a hundred other manifestations of Fear, then they will fail to see their part in the relentless tide of hatred and violence, destruction and devastation, that sweeps the earth. And the tide will not ebb until all is destroyed."

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>Essence

By: Lynn V. Andrews

Life is like school. We move through it learning many things, cloaking ourselves in environmental knowledge. You are on the warrior’s path toward enlightenment. You must one day peel away accumulated knowledge like layers of an onion and move back into the source of your power. When contemplating a Zen garden, you find that the source of your power is the essence of the Great Spirit. We come onto this earth-walk like a giant piece of smashed mirror, every one of us reflecting the light of our God. The experience of life is a process of piecing together these scrambled fragments into one great mandala, reflecting the source of all being. Like the centre of a cyclone, we sit at the one point of stillness, the pandemonium of life circulating madly around us. Choose equilibrium, not frenzy. Live life from your centre. The essence of you and the essence of the primal moving force of the universe are one.

The Zen garden promotes the process of reflection upon the outer essence of all life and the inner essentials of our existence as human beings. If you do not understand your essence, you have no power. Do not try to develop force, intent, and abilities without first understanding the primal qualities and wisdom of your essence. The process of discovering your essence invokes illumination.

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