CONSCIOUSNESS ART EARTH AWARENESS MYTH PSYCHOLOGY ENTHEOGENES COSMOLOGY
WATKINS
Seeing Beauty 50 Everywhere th
EDITION
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
ECKHART TOLLE
KEN WILBER
WAKING UP OR GROWING UP?
WHY we are here BY ERVIN LASZLO
TIM FREKE
ON BEING HUMAN
NATURE COMMUNICATION FINDING RESONANCE WITH ALL LIFE
STEVE TAYLOR
LEAPING INTO AWAKENING
TRANSCENDING BOUNDARIES THE AGHORI PATH
ALAN WATTS SOGYAL RINPOCHE DOREEN VIRTUE
PSYCHEDELIC GOSPELS BYZANTINE TAROT
ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES TRUSTING UNCERTAINTY
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SUMMER 2017 / ISSUE 50, £4.95
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NEALE DONALD WALSCH Assisting the Planet
CONTENTS
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08 18 Alexander de Cadenet: Eckhart Tolle on Art & Spirituality
Ervin Laszlo Why Are We Here?
FEATURES
34 The Tibetan Book of
Living and Dying - 25th Anniversary Edition by Sogyal Rinpoche
8 The Spiritual Dimension of Art: An Interview with Eckhart Tolle by Alexander de Cadenet
13 What is the Religion of Tomorrow? by Ken Wilber
36 Evolution and Emergent
Spirituality by Tim Freke
38 The Aghori - Photo Essay by Darragh Mason Field
18 Why Are We Here?
42 Games of Trust
26 Awaken the Species:
45 The Musique of the Sky
by Ervin Laszlo
An Interview with Neale Donald Walsch
29 Alan Watts: Out of Your Mind by Mark Watts
30 The Doors of Deception by Steve Taylor
by Haim Shapira
by Fabien Maman
46 Finding Resonance with Life by Tamarack Song
48 You Were Not Born to Suffer by Blake Bauer
52 The Psychedelic Gospels
by Jerry & Julie M. Brown
58 Lessons from the
Eleusinian Mysteries by Carol S. Pearson
61 The Power of ‘I Do’ by Theresa Cheung
64 Trusting Uncertainty
26
by James McCrae
66 The Call of the Soul
Neale Donald Walsch Interview
04 • WATKINS' MIND BODY SPIRIT • ISSUE 50
by Juliet Grayson
34 The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - 25th Anniversary Edition
68 No More Seeking the Key to Happiness by Doreen Virtue
70 Inside the Byzantine
Tarot by John Matthews & Cilla Conway
REGULARS 3 Poetry 6 Editor’s Note 7 Viewpoints
75 A Laughter Journey
16 Watkins Event -
78 Meeting Our Galactic
77 The Astrological
by Lisa Sturge
Neighbours by David McCready
81 Become Your Own
Doctor by Paul Lloyd
Laurence Shorter
Dynamics of the Universe by Demian Allan
82 In Memory
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33 56 16 74 Watkins Event: A Talk with Laurence Shorter
Self-Development, Sacred Texts, Ayurveda New Titles Card Decks & Oracles, Health & Healing, Pocket Wisdom
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61
Darragh Mason Field The Aghori - A Photo Essay
Steve Taylor The Doors of Deception
ANCI ENT MYST
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N CRYSTALS
ENTHEOGE
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INTERVIEW WITH
Anita Moorj
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CONSCIOUSNESS
WHAT IS
The Religion of Tomorrow?
In his most sweeping work since Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, philosopher Ken Wilber calls for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of tomorrow
I
’ve been asked if I could give a simple and straightforward explanation about what my new book, The Religion of Tomorrow, is all about. You always hate those kinds of questions, because they imply that if you can’t explain what you’re trying to say in a relatively short space, then you really don’t have much to say.
Unfortunately, that’s probably true, so I shall give it a try. One way to explain this book is to ask, with reference to the major founding texts of any great religion, what would the writers of those books say differently if they had access to all the new truths that have been discovered since they wrote their books? SUMMER 2017 • WWW.WATKINSMAGAZINE.COM • 13
CONSCIOUSNESS
After all, for virtually all religions, that means discoveries like the existence of atoms, molecules, and cells; the fundamental facts of chemistry, astronomy, biology, physics, biochemistry; engineering knowledge about how to do everything from build an Eiffel tower to plopping a person on the moon. How would, say, the New Testament, or most Buddhist sutras, or the Upanishads, or the Quran be different if their authors knew all of that kind of newly discovered information? These foundational texts, after all, were written by humans who were divinely inspired, but they were also indeed still human— so how would those human minds write their books if they had access to all the new knowledge discovered over the last one or two thousand years? Well, take something like the New Testament. One of the items that it is very interested in is consciousness transformation—as when St. Paul said, “Let this consciousness be in you that was in Christ Jesus, that we all may be one.” (The Greek word that was used for this transformation was “metamorphosis.”) And Buddhism itself could be defined as the religion of consciousness transformation— transforming the mind from one sunk in samsara to one awakened to nirvana. In fact, the central goal of virtually all the great religions is indeed this profound transformation, metamorphosis, enlightenment, awakening, liberation. Well, one item that has just been recently discovered—only around 100 years ago—is that there are actually two major types of transformation that the human mind can go through. One is indeed overtly spiritual, as the great religions maintain; and this involves the transformation from—at one end—a self that is said to be dualistic, fallen, ignorant, sinful, illusory, and steeped in suffering, to—at the other—an awareness that is whole, nondual, unitive, awakened, and one with spirit, often called “ultimate unity consciousness.” This general type of transformation is called Waking Up.
14 • WATKINS' MIND BODY SPIRIT • ISSUE 50
But the other main type of transformation involves, not the ultimate state of consciousness, but all the relative states of consciousness that the conventional self itself goes through as it grows and develops. In other words, not Waking Up to nirvana, but Growing Up in samsara. Why would it be important to include the relative stages of Growing Up when they apply to a self that is illusory, ignorant, suffering-ridden, relative? Well, one reason is that the great nondual spiritual systems maintain that nirvana and samsara, Emptiness and Form, absolute and relative, infinite and finite, are actually two sides of the same spiritual coin, that “that which is Emptiness is not other than Form, that which is Form is not other than Emptiness”—or nirvana and samsara are actually not-two or nondual. Put simply, even though the conventional, finite, ordinary self is indeed relative and limited, it is still the conventional self through which enlightened awareness will express itself and manifest itself, and since these two realities are ultimately not-two, then having a relative self that is emotionally crippled, cognitively disoriented, or pathologically
antisocial will really not help the situation that much. It would be much better for enlightened awareness to be expressed through a conventional self that is as healthy and functional as possible. That, in other words, had managed the GrowingUp process in a healthy and functional manner. But it turns out that it’s much more than that. The new discovery that has been so profound is that how a person actually interprets and thus experiences their Waking Up will depend primarily on the stage of Growing Up that the person is at. This really changes everything. One example of the stages of Growing Up that researchers have found virtually all individuals go through is archaic to magic to mythicliteral to mental to pluralistic to integral. A brilliant researcher named James Fowler actually studied people’s interpretation of their spiritual ideas and experiences (including any Waking Up experiences), and he found that all of them went through essentially those six stages of spiritual understanding. So, for example, a Christian who had a profound WakingUp experience, but who was still at a mythicliteral level of conventional development, believed
that the Bible was literally true, word for word—that is, that all of the myths in the Bible were actually true: Moses really did part the Red Sea, God really did rain locusts on the Egyptians, Lot’s wife really was turned into a sack of salt, and so on. The fact that they had had a profound enlightenment experience did not change how they interpreted that experience when using their mind—and in this case, it was a fairly immature mind functioning at a relatively low level of Growing Up. Fowler found people at all six of those stages. The most inclusive, most comprehensive, most all-embracing stage was the integral stage, but studies have shown that less than 5 percent of the population has reached that stage. Ideally, of course, someone who was pursuing Waking Up would be doing so through an integral stage of Growing Up—because the WakingUp experience in itself does not change one’s stage of Growing Up. Those two paths are independent. You can be highly developed in one of them, and very poorly developed in the other, or vice versa, or basically any combination thereof. Having a Waking Up experience will not necessarily increase your stage
of Growing Up—which is a bit of a shocking finding. Further, these stages of Growing Up are actually very hard to spot, which is why they really weren’t discovered until around 100 years ago—and this is why not a single major spiritual system anywhere in the world has any awareness of these stages of Growing Up. As only one issue, this is why we find mystics who can be so deeply awakened and realized, and yet they are also in many ways very immature, childish, or deeply neurotic. The reason for this that these new discoveries suggest is that they are quite developed in Waking Up, yet poorly (or even pathologically) developed in Growing Up. (And, of course, the opposite is possible: you can have very mature individuals who are totally ignorant of spiritual realities.) There is no way that, for example, Buddhist theorists, had they been aware of these stages of Growing Up, would not have included them in their teachings on Waking Up. It doesn’t really help to have a profound satori or enlightenment experience, and yet interpret it through the mind of a twelve-year old. Yet studies have shown that with Zen masters—who are being fully transmitted in a tradition of Waking Up—a significant
With reference to the major founding texts of any great religion, what would the writers of those books say differently if they had access to all the new truths that have been discovered since they wrote their books? KEN WILBER
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CONSCIOUSNESS
MEET THE AUTHOR
KEN WILBER is the founder of Integral Institute and the cofounder of Integral Life. An internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, he is the author of over twenty books, including Integral Meditation, A Theory of Everything, Integral Spirituality, No Boundary, Grace and Grit, and Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.
On the web www.kenwilber.com www.integrallife.com
percentage of them are nonetheless still at a mythicliteral stage of Growing Up. Buddhist theorists, had they known about this path of GrowingUp development, would have jumped all over it, and worked to develop paths of development that helped not only with Waking Up but also with Growing Up, so that a fully awakened mind could be interpreted by a fully comprehensive mind, and not an immature, conformist, or mythic-ridden mind. Thus, in the future, I suggest, spiritual pathways will be devised that help human beings grow and develop through both of the developmental pathways that they have available to them—both an ultimate pathway of Waking Up, and a relative pathway of Growing Up. Because ultimate nirvana and relative samsara are ultimately not-two, then fully addressing both sides of that street is the only wise course for humans to take. And our religions of tomorrow will know this.
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Bookshelf THE RELIGION OF TOMORROW: A VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF THE GREAT TRADITIONS - MORE INCLUSIVE, MORE COMPREHENSIVE, MORE COMPLETE BY KEN WILBER, published by Shambhala, Hardback (816 pages) SUMMER 2017 • WWW.WATKINSMAGAZINE.COM • 15
I
n the middle of the night on August 2nd 2016, Neale Donald Walsch found himself drawn into a new and totally unexpected dialogue with God in which he suddenly faced two questions: Is the human race being offered help by Highly Evolved Beings from another dimension? Is there a key role that humans are being invited to play in advancing their own evolution by joining in a mutual mission to assist the planet during the critical times ahead? He was told the answer to both questions is yes. Then he was given 16 specific examples of how Highly Evolved Beings respond to life differently than humans and how adopting even a few of those behaviours could forever change the course of world history for the better.
An Interview with NEALE DONALD WALSCH
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Conversations with God Book 4: Awaken the Species The author of the best selling series ‘Conversations with God’ talks to Watkins MBS about his latest book that outlines achievable global changes and opens new avenues for personal expansion and expression 26 • WATKINS' MIND BODY SPIRIT • ISSUE 50
MBS: We don’t mean to be irreverent, but we were under the distinct impression that your title Home with God was to be the last of what you have called “dialogue books” in your Conversations with God series. Now come this new dialogue, ten years later. Did we misunderstand something? NDW: No, you are perfectly correct. I was absolutely convinced, based on the messages I was receiving, that the book you mentioned was going to be the final two-way exchange between myself and my understanding of God that would be published. This new conversation came as a complete surprise to me. MBS: How does one “surprise” oneself with the writing of a book? Sorry, are these fair questions? NDW: Very fair. If I was actually sitting down to author a book that I had planned and was now writing, I would, indeed, be hard pressed to describe it as a “surprise” to me. But that’s not how this process occurs with me. This was not a book that I was writing, this was dictation that I was taking, based on questions I was asking and comments I was making in what I experienced to be a two-way communication with The Divine. MBS: So you mean God shocked you by showing up in your life again in such a personal way? NDW: Not in the sense that you’ve phrased the question. I’m having conversations with God all the time, just as I believe everyone is. So I was not shocked by this personal interaction, as it is really normal for me—and for all people—to have this connection. What took me aback was the knowing that this particular interaction was to be extremely lengthy, not a short or casual exchange, not a quick thought or a moment of inspiration—and, further, that it was meant to be shared publicly. I thought that this particular kind of interaction with the Divine was a thing of the past.
INTERVIEW
MBS: In short, you didn’t think there were any more books coming out of your connection to God. NDW: Not what I have called ‘dialogue books.’ No more book-length exchanges that I was being invited to publish. I thought those days were over. MBS: Why do you think this all began again? NDW: I’m clear now that it grew out of my desire to find some way to be comfortable with all the changes I was seeing in the world; to calm myself in the face of the tremendous upheaval, widespread disruption, intense turmoil and abrupt shifting of global realities— social, economic, political and spiritual—that I was seeing around the world. It seems as if everything is turning upside-down, with the established order of things undergoing a seismic shift—more than I have seen occurring all at one time in my lifetime. MBS: Did this newest conversation with God bring you that comfort you were looking for? NDW: Yes. It allowed me to view this everywhere-present sea change as a Positive rather than a Negative; as something good for humanity rather than a threat to humanity.
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MEET THE AUTHOR
NEALE DONALD WALSCH is the author of ten books in the Conversations with God series, which have sold over ten million copies in 37 languages. He has also written 28 other books and had eight books on the New York Times bestseller list. The creator of the School of the New Spirituality and founder of Humanity’s Team, a non-profit organization supporting global spiritual awakening, he devotes his time to sharing the messages of his books through writing, lecturing, and facilitating spiritual renewal retreats. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.
On the web
nealedonaldwalsch.com
MBS: What does this current dialogue have to say that hasn’t already been said in the first three Conversations with God books? NDW: A great deal. It contains a specific invitation to every reader that deals with the state of the world and how each person can contribute powerfully to changing it by changing our personal lives. It lists sixteen specific behaviors we can each change, outlining the difference between how the vast majority of humans live their lives in an unawakened state, and how we would move through lives if we were an awakened species. It offers us seven powerful tools for integrating those sixteen changes into our daily experience. And it explores the metaphysics of what we call “life and death” in a way which opens up new avenues for vast personal expansion and expression. Finally, it contains a startling revelation. MBS: And what is that? NDW: It reveals that humanity is being helped right now in its collective evolutionary process by highly evolved beings from off the Earth. MBS: Are we talking about beings from outer space? NDW: In a manner of speaking, yes.
MBS: Even though some of the things that have been happening have caused many people to suffer. NDW: I very much wish that wasn’t happening.
MBS: Can you clarify that? NDW: The dialogue discusses beings from another dimension—a non-physical dimension— as opposed to entities from another planet. A major portion of the book describes those beings and how they live and why and how they are working to help us advance in our own evolution.
MBS: So how did your dialogue cause you to see this as a ‘Positive’ rather than a ‘Negative’? NDW: Suffering per se is not a positive, but the dialogue caused me to see that the global turmoil and political, spiritual, and economic disruption that has caused it to occur has arisen from, and is now creating, the perfect conditions for the advancement of our species, in evolutionary terms. MBS: Suffering is required for our advancement as a species? NDW: It is not required—and that is the whole point of the book. And it can be changed, altered, and avoided in the future if we simply shift some of humanity’s behaviors, which is the second point of the book. But the fact that it has been occurring on such a broad scale is what is at last waking a larger and larger portion of humanity out of its collective stupor. We’re seeing perhaps more clearly now than ever before what we are doing to ourselves as a species—and we’re not liking what we’re seeing. The ubiquitous nature of our global social networks is making it impossible to sweep humanity’s suffering under the rug anymore. So in that sense this is the perfect time for our advancement, because the conditions all
over the planet are requiring our advancement, demanding it, calling it forth as part of the process of our evolution.
MBS: Interesting. You said there is a specific invitation that this dialogue places before its readers. What is that invitation? What is it inviting readers to do? NDW: Awaken the species.
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Bookshelf CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD BOOK 4: AWAKEN THE SPECIES – A NEW AND UNEXPECTED DIALOGUE BY NEALE DONALD WALSCH, published by Watkins (UK) & Rainbow Ridge (USA), Hardback (224 pages)
MBS: One final question then. And again, not to be cheeky, but isn’t this just a bit grandiose? NDW: I asked that same question, and the answer I got took grandiosity out of the equation completely. MBS: How? NDW: You’re asking me to summarize an entire book here in just a few minutes, and I can’t accomplish that and do this dialogue justice. I’m going to invite you to read the text. MBS: Thank you for this interview. NDW: You’re very welcome. SUMMER 2017 • WWW.WATKINSMAGAZINE.COM • 27
THE TIBETAN BOOK
of Living and Dying
I
25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
t is now twenty-five years since The Tibetan Book of LIving and Dying was first published. In this book, I endeavored to share something of the wisdom of the tradition I grew up in. I sought to show the practical nature of its ancient teachings, and the ways in which they can help us at every stage of living and dying. Many people, over the years, had urged me to write this book. They said that it would help relieve some of the intense suffering that so many of us go through in the modern world. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has pointed out, we are living in a society in which people find it harder and harder to show one another basic affection, and where any inner dimension to life is almost entirely over-looked. It is no wonder that there is today such a tremendous thirst for the compassion and wisdom that spiritual teachings can offer. It must have been as a reflection of this need that The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying was received with such
34 • WATKINS' MIND BODY SPIRIT • ISSUE 50
Sogyal Rinpoche reflects on the impact of his spiritual classic since its original publication
enthusiasm around the world. At first I was astonished: I had never expected it to have such an impact, especially since at the time of writing this book, death was still very much a subject that was shunned and ignored. Gradually, as I traveled to different countries, teaching and leading workshops and trainings based on the teachings in this book, I discovered the extent to which it had struck a chord in people’s hearts. More and more individuals came up to me or wrote to tell me how these teachings had helped them through a crisis in their lives or supported them through the death of a loved one. And even though the teachings it contains may be unfamiliar, there are those who have told me they have read this book several times and keep returning to it as a source of inspiration. After reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, a woman in Madras in India was so inspired that she founded a medical trust, with a hospice and palliative care center. Another person
BUDDHISM
which, in some countries, the whole field in the United States came to me and of care for the dying has been opened said she was baffled by how a mere book up. Initiatives of many kinds have taken could have, in her words, “loved her so place, inspired by courageous men and completely.” Stories like these, so moving women, for whom I have the greatest and so personal, testify to the power respect and admiration. Meanwhile, and relevance of the Buddhist teachings there have been more and more requests today. Whenever I hear them, my heart for those working in the Buddhist fills with gratitude, both to the teachings tradition to take part in themselves and to the teachers projects and explore how and practitioners who have they can contribute. undergone so much in order A number of my friends to embody them and hand and students have them on. gradually created In time, I came an international to learn that The program based on Tibetan Book the teachings in of Living and this book and Dying had been designed to adopted by offer spiritual institutions, care to the centers, and dying, their groups of families, various kinds, and those educational, who care for medical, and them. We offer spiritual. Nurses, SOGYAL RINPOCHE courses for the doctors, and those medical profession professionally involved and the public, coordinate with care for the dying volunteers, and have begun have told me how they have to work hand in hand with integrated these methods in hospitals, clinics, hospices, their daily work, and I have and universities. We have also heard many accounts of ordinary opened two dedicated spiritual care people using these practices and finding centers, in Ireland and in Germany. that they transformed the death of a What is encouraging is that there is a friend or close relative. Something I growing recognition everywhere that find especially moving is that this book spiritual issues are central to the care has been read by people with different of the dying, and in some countries a spiritual beliefs, and they have said number of medical schools now offer that it has strengthened and deepened courses in spirituality and medicine. their faith in their own tradition. They Yet, I am told, surveys show that denial seem to recognize the universality of its of death still prevails, and we are still message, and understand that it aims lacking in our ability to offer spiritual not to persuade or convert, but simply to help and care for the dying and answer offer the wisdom of the ancient Buddhist their deepest needs. The kind of death teachings in order to bring the maximum we have is so important. Death is the possible benefit. most crucial moment of our lives, and Over these last twenty-five years each and every one of us should be able there have been many changes in our to die in peace and fulfillment, knowing attitudes toward death and in the that we will be surrounded by the best in kind of care we as a society offer to spiritual care. the dying and the bereaved. Public If The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying awareness of death and the many issues has played some small part in helping surrounding dying has been heightened. us look at how we deal with our own Books, websites, conferences, serious death and that of those around us, it is radio and television series, films, and an answer to my prayers, and I am deeply support groups have all contributed to moved and grateful. My original hope for a greater openness toward looking into this book was that it would help inspire death. There has been a considerable a quiet revolution in the whole way we expansion in hospice work and palliative look at death and care for the dying, care, and this has been the period during
Imagine how things would be if we could live our lives infusing them with a sacred meaning.
and so the whole way we look at life and care for the living. Our need for spiritual transformation and to take responsibility for ourselves and others has not become any less urgent these twenty-five years on. What would it mean if more and more people thought seriously about their future and the future of the world? Imagine how things would be if we could live our lives infusing them with a sacred meaning; if our end-of-life care were always lit by a sense of awe in the face of death; and if we looked on life and death themselves as an inseparable whole. What would be the effect of seeking to make love and compassion the measure of our every action, and of understanding, to any degree, the inmost nature of the mind that underlies our entire existence? This would be a true revolution, one that would free men and women to discover that inner dimension so long neglected, and unite them with the fullness of the human experience in all its mystery and grandeur. /////////////////////////////////////////////////
MEET THE AUTHOR
SOGYAL RINPOCHE was born in Tibet and entered a monastery when he was six months old. He received the traditional training of a Tibetan lama from one of the most outstanding Buddhist masters of the 20th century, Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, who raised him like his own son. After fleeing Tibet with his family, Rinpoche was educated in India and Cambridge, England. Since then he has taught throughout the world, developing a unique ability to attune the Tibetan Buddhist teachings to modern life. He is the spiritual director of Rigpa, an organisation devoted to presenting the teachings of the Buddha and to offering support and advice on spiritual care to those facing loss, illness or death, as well as their families and caregivers.
On the web
www.sogyalrinpoche.org
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Bookshelf THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION BY SOGYAL RINPOCHE, published by Rider Books with a new preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn and a foreword by the Dalai Lama, Paperback (464 pages) SUMMER 2017 • WWW.WATKINSMAGAZINE.COM • 35
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