Comfort and Discomfort in Everyday Discourse

Someone asked me very recently if one of my goals for this blog is to make people uncomfortable. The person asking me this question is someone who knows me very well and who also greatly respects me. So I know, to some extent, it was a rhetorical "in jest" type of question. Nevertheless, I think it is a good question. It is one I have addressed before in other venues. It is a question whose answer I have an extreme degree of clarity about.

Neither I nor this blog are here to make people comfortable. This, I am extremely clear about. I am also not here to make people uncomfortable. I am equally clear about that. What I attempt to do in my life and in my writing is to simply be authentic and to tell my truth as best as I am able. I am very aware that my particular brand of authenticity and truth telling can potentially push some people's buttons and can be interpreted by some as being the stimulus that brings about reactivity and certain negative emotions in them. Luckily, one of the many lessons I have learned in this life is that no one "causes" another to become reactionary. No one causes certain emotions in another to come to the forefront. In both of these instances both reactivity and the the seeds of various emotions already lie within the person. These may be triggered by other people, places, situations, other stimuli, etc. But no one outside the person him or herself creates or causes these things to come out or about. It reminds me of the classic line we've all heard before---"Why do you make me hurt you?"

Many of us are very highly invested in not taking responsibility for our own thoughts, behaviors and actions. Conversely, we are very highly invested in projecting all of that onto any convenient other that is around. Both comfort and discomfort naturally arises and falls in everyone based on a complex amalgam of stimuli. However, it is mostly an inner process. This is why things that infuriate one person have absolutely no impact on another.

Because I'm extremely aware of all of this and strongly incorporate that awareness into how I am in the world and how I interact with others, people do tend to get pissed off at me. I have come to understand that a fair percentage of that comes about because I have some unpopular or unconventional ideas and approaches to life or simply don't agree with some people and have enough self esteem and self confidence to hold my ground and not be bullied by those who then react to all of that and try to hold me responsible for their reactivity and emotional outbursts. The good thing is that I am also clearly aware of the fact that I don't know everything. I am very open to being wrong and to learning new things even from people I don't particularly respect. So that's a good balance to it all. However, I will not be bullied and I will not allow others to hold me responsible for their stuff. Those realities do eventually place me at odds with lots of different people.

Questions for Sage: Minority Group Status and its Impact on Spiritual Awakening (re-posted from 11/19/09)

(Q) What role, if any, does being a member of a minority group play in the prospect of one having an awakening experience?

(A) As I have stated many times before, and often by paraphrasing Eckhart Tolle, an authentic awakening experience is an act of grace. It cannot be planned for. It often takes one by surprise. One cannot “work” on becoming awake. Now, with that being said, I still am going to answer your question and perhaps even at length. This is because I believe there are some clear roadblocks that can make it far less likely that one may have such an experience and one of the major roadblocks exists primarily for people who have membership in one or more major minority groups.

First let me give a very simple definition of a so called awakening experience. Here it is. It will not make sense to some. That is OK. It however, is the best I can do at the moment--the mind stops, either temporarily or permanently and we cease identifying with all forms, including thought forms and also simultaneously we become what I call inseparable interconnectedness.

Creating an identity out of anything is one of the most significant roadblocks there is to authentic awakening. This is so regardless of one’s membership in a minority group or not. By and large people who belong to dominant classes, cultures and groups face pretty much the same obstacles here as those who do not. The big difference is this: If one belongs to a minority group it is far more likely that we have created some sort of a solid identity out of that minority status. I AM gay. I AM black. I AM a woman. I AM a Christian. I AM the richest person in the world. And creating an identity out of anything is an act of ego, nothing more, nothing less. So creating an identity out of something becomes a very significant and additional block to awakening that members of minorities face more than members of dominant groups. With this you may be thinking “but members of dominant groups can also make an identity out of that, can’t they?" Yes they can. The difference is that most members of any dominant group have not had their membership in that group supremely reinforced in the same ways that members of minority groups have had our membership in minority groups reinforced. 

For a number of years I taught cultural diversity classes. One of the exercises I always had my classes do was one in which people had to identify a specific group they belonged to and then present a list of distinct traits and attributes, positive or negative, of that group. Without fail white, male, Christian, heterosexual individuals always had the most difficulty doing this exercise. White people in general always had extreme difficulty with it. Often white peope would come up with groups that were notexclusive to the white experience such as being an “American” or being a “mother” or being a “father." However, they would try to present those as somehow being distinct to the white experience. It often had the feel of desperation in classes filled with ethnic minorities, gay and lesbian people who readily spoke volumes about those experiences and how they were indeed distinct to membership in those specific groups. So for all the presumed power that white, heterosexual men have in the world, they certainly were often completely unable to connect that power to those elements of their experienced personhood that were responsible for their power. Fascinating stuff. Conversely, ethnic minorities and LGBT people were instantly able to identify how their membership in their respective groups were a source ofdisempowerment and they were extremely competent in connecting all the dots as well.

This does not mean that white privilege and male dominance do not exist in the world. They certainly do. What I am saying is that for the average white, male or heterosexual person, this power does not exist as an extremely conscious thing. Indeed, people who work in fields were the study, examination and understanding of white privilege, male dominance and heterosexism will tell you this right away. Just like people who work in these areas I tell you, the average person who belongs to a major dominant group on the planet does not spend much of his or her waking moments being in a state of conscious awareness of his or her power as a member of such a dominant class even though the power is absolutely endemic to membership in that dominant group. This, in fact, is one of the core elements that defines concepts such as white privilege and heterosexism. One's power that is derived from membership in certain groups is so taken for granted one doesn't even have to think about it or develop any degree of consciousness around it. Members of major minority groups however, spend almost every waking moment of our lives being incredibly conscious of our lack of power or in some relatively few cases, the presence of power because of or much more likely, in spite of membership in the minority group or groups we have membership in. And it is exactly this difference where the role of the ego becomes extremely important. 

Eckhart Tolle, in his groundbreaking work “A New Earth,” definitively and I believe successfully challenged the myth that a strong ego is only to be found in those who are coming from some place of demonstrative ego inflation. He states very convincingly that someone who has, for example, a “poor me” complex is also coming from a place of extraordinarily inflated ego. This person essentially believes they are so important the entire world is conspiring to undermine them. And so what looks like very low ego strength is in fact just another expression of the same thing that exists in people who have what is referred to as an inflated ego. And then they often go on to create an identity out of the belief that everything or many things are a conspiracy against them. That can be an extremely powerful identity for someone the thought they they are so special the entire world is conspiring against them. This however is what many ethnic people's and LGBT people strongly believe and they will think you are completely crazy if you try to challenge those beliefs.

Now, I want to list four minority groups. A few of them might surprise you. I’m not going to speak very specifically about them. I mostly am simply picking these out of the very large number of minority groups in the world as examples. Here we go. There are ethnic minorities in general. There are sexual minorities. Here I am specifically speaking of members of the LGBT communities. In other words I am speaking of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. There are the extremely rich. And finally there are the extremely powerful people in the world.

Let me restate my thesis here. My thesis is that being a member of one or more minority groups presents a unique challenge in the area of prospective awakening. And that challenge is because being a member of one or more minority groups can easily become an identity for those who claim membership in such groups. 

I also want to be clear here that I am not just speaking of a mere acceptance of one’s membership in such groups nor a healthy level of self-esteem about it. I also may not be speaking of some low level or low-grade type of pride in being Italian, for example. Although I’m not sure about that. It could be that even the lowest levels of what we think of as ethnic or other group pride have already been strongly infected by the ego. However, I am speaking of people who have really "taken on the mantle" as it were of membership in one of those groups.

You may wonder why I have included the very powerful and the very wealthy. You may also wonder why I have separated the two. I have separated the two because one may be very powerful, such as The Dalai Lama, and have very little personal wealth. Or one may be very wealthy and have relatively little power in the way I am meaning here. Such examples would be the heirs to vast fortunes such as some of the children of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, who are billionaires but who seemingly exert no real perceivable nor unusual power in the world aside from that which comes from having a lot of money, which can be tricky to separate I realize. Finally, I have included both categories in order to raise consciousness around the extreme diversity that exists in what are the earth’s "minority groups."

Most of us, I believe, can think of someone in our life who has created a solid identity for him or herself because of membership in one or more of those four groups. I believe it is exponentially more difficult to be a member of multiple and significant minority groups and to also have any kind of authentic awakening experience. That is part of the reason why people like Oprah Winfrey, The Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela are such inspirations to me and so many other people in the world. They each belong to multiple minority groups that each contain very strong pulls toward creating an identity out of that membership and/or to becoming relatively unconscious as a result. Oprah, I believe, has arguably had to overcome the most to achieve what to me is an obvious level of awakened nature. It is extremely difficult to achieve any level of awakened nature, I believe, while simultaneously maintaining membership in several of the groups she maintains membership in. She is a woman. She is a black. She is a black woman. She grew up in an era where the best job a back woman could hope to obtain was being a maid to a wealthy white family. She is powerful. She is wealthy. She is more or less a self made person. The mere fact that she is not an absolutely certifiably deranged fire breathing dragon woman from hell, crushing every single person she encounters under her 7-inch Louboutins is enough to be very impressed with. The fact that she has obvious compassion and caring towards her fellow humans is inspiring, to say the least.

The one category of the four I’ve selected that I have very strong personal experience with is LGBT people. I know a large number of LGBT people of almost every age group, ethnicity, socio-economic status and spiritual or religious persuasion. Many clearly seem to have created an unhealthy level of identity out of their membership in this minority group. It is, I believe, the single strongest impediment to an awakened experience for LGBT folks that I know of. It can be a major trap. Such a potential trap strongly awaits anyone who belongs to one or more minority groups.

Still, there is a silver lining, as there usually is with most things in life. And that silver lining is that the stronger we identify with any expression of ego, the more likely we are to eventually end up in some form of extreme mental-emotional pain. And those who are in extreme mental-emotional pain often find themselves at a crossroads where the choices are to either wake up or die. And through another expression of grace in the universe, most people don’t die when things get to that point.

Questions for Sage: Scarcity and Abundance Consciousness

(NOTE: Several people of late have shown great interest in the three part series I ran here at the beginning of 2011 on "scarcity and abundance" consciousness. It also seems to be a very timely issue here in the states at least given the recent political discourse around the federal budget and the US debt ceiling. So for these reasons I have decided to run the series again. I will begin with the first installment in the series and will run the next two installments within the coming week.I have done some significant editing to the series since its first appearance here.) 


Question: What exactly is scarcity and abundance consciousness? Can extremely wealthy people be coming from a place of "scarcity consciousness" in their lives? What about people living in poverty? Also, is it possible for an extremely wealthy person to be coming from a place of abundance consciousness? What about people living in poverty? And where does scarcity consciousness come from?

Sage: So, we Human Beings tend to embody all kinds of energies, all the time, if you will, and around a whole lot of different things. So most people embody some type of energy that resides somewhere on the abundance/scarcity continuum. Given the acceptance of those foundations, here's a definition: At one end of the continuum we have the idea and mental formation that I personally do not have enough and/or an embodiment of the idea that there is not enough in the world (cosmos, universe, metaverse). These are the ideas and mental formations that represent the basic and core philosophy that underpins scarcity consciousness. And at the other end of the continuum we have the idea that I personally have enough and there is also enough in the world (cosmos, universe, metaverse). These are the ideas and mental formations that underpins abundance consciousness. 

Scarcity Consciousness can easily be found in both the very rich and the very poor. Here is a very oversimplified explanation of why this is so. In the very rich the accumulation of wealth can be a direct result of the fear of being poor (in other words, a deep experience of, "there is not enough" in the world). In this case it is more specifically a fear that there is not enough money in the world. And so great amounts of energy is invested in amassing large sums of money as a direct result of this fear.

In the very poor, poverty can be a direct result of the fear of being or becoming rich (in other words a deep experience of, "there is not enough in the world"). In this case it is more specifically a fear that there is not enough money in the world. And so there is not enough money for them to personally amass great amounts of it. Usually along with this is some accompanying self fulfilling prophecy story like, "I'm not worthy of the things I deeply believe to be the good things in this life."  


Please take a few moments to either re-read those last two paragraphs or to think about them more deeply. It is possible they seemed confusing and/or contradictory upon first reading them. They are neither confusing nor contradictory. Most of us are simply not use to seeing those concepts represented like that.

Similarly a very wealthy person and a person living in poverty could also each be very clearly and consciously living their lives, each of them, from a place of abundance consciousness. In the case of the wealthy person, they likely have set a rather pure intention of having alot of money and the purity and clarity (and usually really hard work aswell) of that intention has enabled them to make it so. My guess is that such people also have a very basic and very strong life motivation and purpose for their wealth of using it to better the world in very significant and astonishing ways very specific to their vision of how that may be accomplished.

In the case of a poor person who is living a life of abundance, it is often someone who has sincerely and usually with some very clear and deep spiritual foundation, decided to live life at the level of need only or to be a steward of the earth or someone who has become extremely devoted to sustainable living, etc.

The woman the world knew as Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Norman) is a very good example of the type of person described in the above paragraph. She lived the largest part of her life at what she determined to be her personal need level, which was expressed as rather extreme frugality from the viewpoint of American consumerist culture. You can find more information about Peace Pilgrim by going here, a website that is dedicated to continuing her work and message to the world. A copy of her book, compiled by friends after her death--Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words can also be downloaded from google books from this site as well. Additionally, this YouTube video is also an excellent introduction to her work and life, if one is unfamiliar with neither.

So as you can see from my answers here, neither economic wealth nor poverty alone are the ultimate determining factors in whether someone is living their life primarily from a place of scarcity or primarily from a place of abundance consciousness. Unfortunately, for those who like things very simple and straightforward, it is more complex than that. 

There are many social factors that impact a persons ability to gain wealth or not in the material world. Some of these are sexism, racism, white supremacy and white privilege, geography and there are many more. These social factors are extremely important when discussing this issue from many various angles particularly from socio-political angles. However, when discussing this issue of scarcity and abundance from a place of consciousness, these social issues become unimportant because we are speaking of a person's inner world not their external world. From this perspective a person who is very poor economically can be extremely wealthy in every other respect and a person who is extremely wealthy can be absolutely impoverished in every other way imaginable.

As for origination, I would say many people inherit a scarcity consciousness from their biological parents or whomever were their primary caretaker(s) in their formative years. This inheritance can be either in the form of genetics, socialization, learning from modeled scripts, some other energetic inheritance platform or some or all of those.

Once this initial inheritance has been passed on, the culture at large does a very thorough and complete job of reinforcing a scarcity mentality, at least here in America and most of The West. One of the biggest culprits is the advertising industry. Other notable culprits include the insurance industry, mainstream media, most of the world's organized governments, formalized educational models, the banking industry-- finance, mortgage and related areas; Wall Street and all its international equivalents, organized crime and the vast majority of conventional work settings in the US and Europe and in other significant parts of the world.

Essentially, one has to have some rather powerful experience that allows one to radically question and then one by one systematically become disillusioned, at least to some degree, with each and every one of those entities to have a good chance of moving strongly away from scarcity consciousness. My completely unscientific guess is that fully 3/4 of the world's people are living some very real expression of scarcity consciousness. Conversely that would mean only one fourth of the world's population is primarily living from a place of abundance consciousness. I could be way off with those numbers though I don't believe I am. 

Question for Sage: Being Black, Being Gay and Being a Spiritual Teacher (Remixed)

(NOTE: In the time since this piece was originally written (April 29, 2010) I have generally stopped referring to myself as a "spiritual teacher." I do however still view myself as an elder, wayshower and carrier of wisdom.)

Q). How does being black and gay influence your spiritual teaching work? Or does it?

(A) (Sage) 

Both my ethnicity and my sexual orientation most definitely influence my teaching work and I imagine they also influence every other aspect of my life as well. 

At the most fundamental level these "things about me" are things I understand to be rather unique, at least as far as the spiritual teaching community is concerned. What I mean by that is that I am not aware of a large number of either African American (outside of mainline Protestant church ministers, who are also often over-the -top homophobic and/or heterosexist) nor openly gay or same gender loving spiritual teachers out there presently. And so at the most fundamental level I am keenly aware of that. Perhaps more importantly, I am aware that the people who might be the audience for anything I produce or teach will also be aware of this, whether these awarenesses are on a conscious level or not. I am also aware that given the level of pretense that exists in most spiritual circles, these are things such people may want to pretend they don't notice. Then there is the whole issue of what such people may choose or not choose to do with that information if and when they do allow themselves to notice it. Race, ethnicity, gender identification and sexual orientation continue to all be strong and often contentious areas of social and other expressed energies in the world, perhaps more so in the USA than in comparable country's such as Canada (where gay marriage is legal) and Europe, that also boasts a number of country's that recognize gay marriage.

There is a saying in the black community particularly among blacks whom American society might consider successful or blacks who are in types of work or professions where there have not traditionally been high numbers of African Americans. That saying goes something like, "If you are black, you can never forget that fact."

I have heard many story's over the years that bear witness to the truth of that above saying. One that has always stuck in my mind for some reason is a story Whitney Houston spoke openly about once on a television talk show i just happened to catch. Houston recounted that at the absolute height of her popularity and fame, she attended a formal event of some kind. She was wearing a very expensive designer dress, was dripping with the jewels of her success and was embodying her "Diva-ness" to the fullest. Suddenly and without any warning an elderly white woman attending the function came right up to her and calmly and with complete seriousness said something to her to the tune of, "Excuse me darling, would you be a dear and get me a refill on my champagne?" For the uninitiated, the punch line is meant to indicate this elderly white woman's belief that Whitney Houston, pop diva extraordinaire, was in fact none other than one of the servers at the party and not one of the guests. Houston assumed this "mistake" was made only because she was black and that no matter how much fame and success any black person achieves, there will always be those for whom we will remain simply just another...well....you get the picture. Who knows where the truth lies there. My own life experiences however, informs me that Miss Houston was correct in her assumption.

I believe there is some fundamental truth expressed there, in that story. And I have heard numerous black superstars express essentially the same story, experienced by them in their own unique way--Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby, just to name a few. That fundamental truth is neither experienced as particularly burdensome nor negative for me however. At least not most of the time. Rather, it is one of the many things in the world that keeps me grounded in general and grounded in this human form I am in specifically; a form that includes the color of my skin and the fact that I make love to men.Some days are clearly better than others however. There is no doubt about that.

At another level these things about me bring an awareness that both my ethnicity and sexual orientation are things that have been marginalized by many cultures and many people and for a very long time. I am very aware there are people in the present day who also may attempt to marginalize me or view me as "lesser than" or even physically harm because of one or both of those "things about me." There are not many spiritual teachers out there, I believe, who have to include in their consciousness, when they give a public teaching, for example, the thought, "Oh yeah, there just might be someone in the audience who may throw a racist or gay slur at me during the talk." I don't believe Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson or Wayne Dyer have ever had to go there. Nor have many, many others. I have experienced marginalization on numerous occasions during my time on the planet. I have been called a faggot to my face in public. I have been called a nigger to my face in public. And I am certain some of the people who engaged in those acts were spiritual or religious people. As I have said in another piece I wrote, I have been called a nigger to my face, in public exactly five times in my adult life. Four of those five acts were committed by openly gay white men, in public spaces and in one of the world's most recognized progressive and spiritually diverse city's---San Francisco, California. And in every single case (being called nigger and faggot) these incidents were, from my perspective, completely unprovoked, except by the anger and self loathing that was present and lurking in the consciousness of the person behind the words. So there's all that as well.

So there are many ways my own awareness of my ethnicity and sexual orientation could potentially influence my teaching work, both negatively as well as positively. The way I believe these awarenesses most impacts my work is that I believe there is a clear socio-political and sacred activism element to my teaching work and most likely always will be.

While I can be just as positive and "woo woo" as the next person, it is not long before some reference to political or social challenge and struggle in the world and the interest in the transformation of those challenges comes into my work. I make an absolutely clear association between such challenges, transmuting them and what I consider to be authentic spiritual practice. For me there is no such thing as an authentic spiritual practice in the 21st century that does not include sacred activism work on some level.

In a nutshell, my teaching work is heavily influenced by the consciousness and underlying philosophies and teachings of both Liberation Theology and Engaged Buddhism. My life and work are steeped in them to the core. My personal spiritual practice is also heavily influenced by them both as well. So my teaching work has a very clear Sacred Activism element to it that is both fundamental and fundamentally related to both my ethnicity and sexual orientation. 

At another level still, these things about me influence my teaching work in ways that are a result of the fact that I, in no way, have consciously disowned anything about these two aspects of who I am. In other words, I accept them. I embrace them. And so I bring the history, cultural elements, personal life experience, dramas, personal and collective pain and everything else about being a black, same gender loving man into my teaching work. I however, do not believe I have created an "identity" out of either. It can be very difficult to explain in words the difference between fully accepting something about ourselves while not going so far as to then create an identity out of that same thing. For me my awareness that I am far more than the sum of any of my parts helps me to successfully navigate that sometimes slippery slope---most of the time.

Questions for Sage: The Grieving Man and the Spiritual Teacher - Student Relationship

I was participating in a web-based discussion forum for men who also have some sort of concrete spiritual practice, when someone participating in the discussion asked me this very specific question: 

"Sage, I understand you have written quite a bit about what you call "The Grieving Man" archetype. Do you think this comes into play in any way in the teacher-student relationship when both the teacher and the student are both male? I was recently reading about a male student who broke with his male teacher in a very public and acrimonious way and got the sense that something else that was not spoken of was going on there."

Sage responds: I am glad you asked me that question. I have a lot to say there. First, here are my most basic ideas about what I term, "The Grieving Man" and part of what I see as being at the root of it:

I believe most mens primary and in many cases lifelong grief experience is deeply connected to their relationship (or lack thereof) with their fathers. I believe this can also be true even if the man believes he has/had a wonderful relationship with the father (or father figure). I suspect however, the vast majority of men, at least in western cultures, have not had a good relationship with their fathers. My intuition tells me that this is also more or less the case for men in other parts of the world as well. I simply do not have enough personal or research experience there to say this with as much authority as I do for men who live in The West.

Men are essentially grieving because we do not know how to love other men, half the world's human population. And we need to know how to love men to lead fully productive lives. This is all directly related to the experience of not feeling loved by the father or feeling abandoned or not understood or not accepted by the father, etc. Most men realize this on some level, mostly subconsciously.

So the grieving man is grieving in my view, largely because of a disconnect from at least a perceived loving and supportive relationship with the father or the primary male father figure in the young boy's life. And so a primary result of this particular disconnect is a propensity for men to then look to women to teach us how to love, regardless of the man's sexual orientation.

That is the most basic background stance I have.

Now lets superimpose the teacher-student relationship onto that. My first observation here would be that many men who seek out a spiritual teacher or guru are likely to be men who have experienced at least some kind or degree of longing for a more satisfying relationship with the father. So at the most basic psychodynamic level the Zen Master, spiritual teacher or guru can become a substitute father in the conscious or subconscious mind of the student.

This is the energetic point where I believe a lot of problems can potentially begin. I imagine it can also be the place where a lot of healing can also take place. In my observation, I have seen the former occur more often than the latter.

However, for true healing to take place there has to be some concrete awareness of there being something in need of healing. I believe, with a lot of men, there is not the conscious awareness that there is some major injury inside of us connected to our relationship with father and therefore, something there being ripe for healing. There may be anger, rage, emotional distance and all other kinds of emotions, emotional states and attitudes toward the father, the father/son relationship and even around constantly revisited memories of that relationship. None of that however, necessarily translates into a conscious awareness that there is a need for healing there.

So, as often is the case, we will have a student who likely has many or some unresolved "father issues" who has sought out a man--who often is actually the approximate age of his own biological father--and who himself may have an equal number of unresolved father issues, agreeing to embark on a relationship that in many ways is an approximation of the father-son relationship. This can be and often is a recipe for disaster because neither man may be prepared for what will likely be stirred up inside of him as a direct result of this relationship.

At some point I want to do a thorough investigation of well known male teacher-student relationships that have ended in very or semi public displays of outrage, finger pointing, mutual accusations and over-the -top vitriol. I have no doubt I will have lots of stories to cull through. I have witnessed several such blowups in my own lifetime. When I read of these I almost always have this thought--"ahhh, unresolved and unconscious father/son drama is being played out here on the public stage." A few times in Buddhist circles I have witnessed the distraught and outraged student getting an article published in a distinguished Buddhist journal describing his version of the relationship with his, in his view, manipulative, condescending and self-promoting teacher one month and the frustrated and confused teacher having an editorial or article of his own in the next issue of the same Buddhist journal. Perhaps some healing is also taking place in such a scenario that I'm not privy to.

I have been involved in spiritual circles long enough now to have even witnessed this telling chain of events: A male student leaves his esteemed male teacher in a public and dramatic and vitriolic huff. That student, some time later then becomes a teacher in his own right. A few years later one or more of his own male students leave him and his organization in a public and dramatic and vitriolic huff. One of these departing male students a few years later becomes a student in his own right and the exact same drama is repeated yet again. This scenario gives us some indication of how unresolved father/son issues can go on causing havoc for generations and impacting many people beyond the initial duo. The same process occurs in biological families, corporations, governments, etc.

So this is just one way I am able to talk about how The Grieving Man archetype, when combined with the student/teacher relationship, as it is found in many of the world's spiritual and religious traditions, can play itself out.

Finally, I want to make it clear that my motivation here is not to criticize nor dishonor men. I am a man whose entire adult life has been devoted to the understanding, healing, transformation and celebration of The Sacred (Divine) Masculine. It is a fundamental aspect of my life's purpose. My motivation is still the same. it is understanding, healing, transformation and celebration of the Sacred Masculine.

Questions for Sage: Learned Helplessness vs. Sacred Surrender

(Question): Is there a difference between learned helplessness and the spiritual concept we call "surrender?"

(Sage): That is an excellent question. Because I am going to place your question on my blog I am going to include a link about learned helplessness here for anyone who might not know exactly what that is. That link is here.
 
My answer comes from both my own personal experience with both of these concepts as well as my observation of this same dance in others. In short, I believe learned helplessness is an expression of the shadow aspect of sacred surrender and sacred surrender is an expression of the Light aspect of learned helplessness. Each contains the seed of the other within it, very similar, I believe, to the traditional depiction of the yin yang symbol.

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Questions for Sage: Sexual Imagery and Commentary

(Question):   I have been following your blog for a while now. I enjoy it and generally like what you have to say. I really appreciate your "spiritual posts." Lately, I've noticed you've been spending alot of time posting things related to sexuality; sexual imagery, transsexual images and other sexual stuff. I still follow your blog. But I prefer the spiritual writings. The sexual stuff--not so much. Why are you spending so much time on this sexual stuff right now?

(Sage): Thank you for your openness and taking the risks you took in making your comments and asking your question. We live in a very defensive world right now. You must know that even some people who have done alot of work on themselves and are even working as spiritual teachers, are not immune to this type of defensiveness. I have sometimes observed spiritual teachers respond to questions in ways that let me know they interpreted the question as a personal attack or affront to them and/or their teaching. So again, thank you for your vulnerability and risk taking.

Your observation and question is a good one. I also view it as very legitimate.

First, I would say that everything I post here is spiritual, I believe. I have a saying. It is this: Trying to find the spiritual part of life is like trying to find the wet part of the ocean. I really believe that.

Second, I would say that one of my underlying reasons for creating this blog is to present my brand of nondual teachings to the world. Because sexuality has played such an important role in my life, primarily because of being labeled by some as a sexual "outlaw" or "rebel" as a result of being an openly same gender loving man now for more than 30 years. Through this experience I have gained some insight into the nature of duality. Again, on a very fundamental level I am also someone who simply celebrates human sexuality and "The Body Electric."

With this blog, one of the principal things I am attempting to do is help overcome is the separation of sexuality and spirituality that is prevalent in many parts of the world and in many various expressions. Again, I view this as a duality and I see it as a duality that has been brought about primarily as a result of fear; a fear that has at its roots, among other things, from a desire to control that which I do not believe needs to be controlled.

One aspect of the nature of duality is a sense of separation. One interpretation of the male/female split that is represented in the different physical forms that we know as the physically male human and the physically female human is that these two forms are inherently separate. Ultimately I do not believe this. I also do not believe there are just two genders on the planet. So the things I post on this blog that deal with multiple sexualities and particularly transgenderism become a prism through which some kind of understanding of the essential nondual nature of humanity may be approached. Sexuality, for me, becomes a pathway to understanding the nondual. And for me, understanding the nondual aspect of life that I believe always coexists in relationship with the dual (the realm of form), is always a spiritual endeavor.

I have also discovered that which offends us (me), makes us (me) uncomfortable, makes us (me) defensive, makes us (me) squirm, so to speak, also has the very strong power to also set us (me) free, spiritually speaking.

I would also say that I have always, as far back as I can remember, had an appreciation for those things in life that have us questioning some of our strongest assumptions. One strong assumption many people make is that there are only two genders on the planet.

I also believe transgender and other sexual minorities and sexual mavericks are highly misunderstood and are also rendered invisible by large segments of the world. I have personally taken it upon myself to bring visibility to many of these people because I see it as part of my life's purpose and because I have so many people whom I love very deeply in this world, who fit into those categories---transgendered, transsexed people and sexual mavericks.

I also understand and fully accept that this blog is not for everyone.

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Questions for Sage:The Relationship Between Socially Maligned Group Membership Status and Awakening

(Q):   In a couple of your writings you have mentioned that being black and queer have contributed significantly to your awakening. Can you say more about this? Do people who belong to minority groups always have some kind of "edge" when it comes to awakening?

(Sage):   One, though definitely not the only motivation for awakening, is suffering. At the depths of suffering there seems to be only two really viable choices for a person. Those choices are to die (literally and often one is faced with the choice of death by suicide) or to awaken. And as I have said before, I do not view awakening as a static event. I view it as an ever evolving process. There is however, I believe, a significant difference between being asleep, being half asleep and being awake, even though I believe there are stages to the awakened state.

People who are members of some of the more intense minority groups on the planet and that have equally intense prejudice, discrimination, hatred and anger directed at them ---gender minorities, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities, people who are persecuted for their religious and spiritual beliefs, people living with disabilities, people who have certain diseases (including obesity and mental illness) and such do have a tendency to suffer more than most. And so yes, this suffering, when it occurs, is an asset as far as the awakening process is concerned. This is because such people have a better than average chance of experiencing suffering to the degree where one gets to that point or believing they have gotten to the point of facing the choice to either die or awaken. This is increased when one's membership in such groups is multiplied, such as someone who is a blind, openly lesbian, Buddhist practitioner living in Iran, for example.

So the opportunity for awakening is greater for such people. That is the blessing, if we can call it that. That however, is where the blessing ends. From there the curse takes over.

The curse is that when one belongs to one or more such nearly universally maligned groups and also experiences personal suffering as a result, there is an extremely strong urge to create some kind of identity out of one's membership in such groups. What I mean by creating some kind of identity is that a certain kind of attachment to one's membership in the group begins to take over and one begins to define themselves more as a member of a particular group or groups than in any other way. One becomes a card carrying member of oppressed group consciousness. Gay Pride, Black Pride, Latin Pride and such can serve as a way to gain self acceptance and dramatically increase self esteem around one's minority status. They can also just as easily be the beginning of a certain type of prison that many people have no idea they have been locked into. It often becomes a life sentence for many. The keys have been thrown away. White Pride, as in white supremacy groups, can also have the downside at least, in terms of creating an identity. I have not met too many members of white supremacy group though--and perhaps surprisingly, I have met several--who seem to also experience an *authentic* expression of the increased self esteem part.

There are probably few things one can experience that is a larger impediment to awakening than creating an identity out of anything, not just membership in a real or imagined maligned group.

So while yes, experiencing suffering as a result of membership in a discriminated group or class of people can lead to awakening, my experience is that it more often, at this point in time, leads to the creation of an identity around those things and then subsequently becomes an extremely strong obstacle to awakening.

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Questions for Sage: Conscious Living

Question: I have seen many of your posts on mutual friends facebook pages. I follow your blog as well. I have to admit, you seem to live in some other world of love, peace and harmony. So many of your posts speak of a type and degree of acceptance of other people's flaws, unconditional love, forgiveness and such, in a way I don't believe most people are capable of. Do you believe most people are capable of the things you seem to speak about so frequently?

Sage: Thank you for your question. I believe it is a good one. Its also one I get fairly often. To jump to the chase, yes, I believe all people are capable of unconditional love, compassion and empathy far beyond the confines of anything I have ever written. Just the other day I placed on this blog a quote from spiritual teacher Adyashanti. Perhaps you saw it. The quote was, "The biggest barrier to awakening is the belief that it is something rare."  

I realize you have not asked me about "awakening" or have you? I would have to say that living from a place of deep or even approximate unconditional love is probably a pretty good definition of awakened or conscious living. I often use those two phrases interchangeably. So really you are asking me if people can awaken. And so once again the answer is an unqualified yes. 

When it comes to awakening and living a conscious life there are literally dozens of books out there on the subject. There are probably hundreds in fact. Maybe even thousands. So there are many people who have something to say about this and there are probably just as many techniques and approaches as there are people and books about it. 

One of the things that seems to be a big hindrance to awakening or conscious living is the various "stories" we tell ourselves. Most of us have many egoic and longstanding stories about what we believe is real for us such as, "I am not lovable," for example. If we do not believe we are lovable it becomes very difficult to believe anyone else is truly lovable or deserving of love or is an expression of love, etc. And if we do not believe any of that, reconciliation, forgiveness and true acceptance of others also become near impossibilities.

One spiritual teacher out there who appears to be doing some good work around teaching people to identify their stories and then to have them deeply explore the truth, the relative truth, the relative non-truth or the complete non-truth of them is Byron Katie. If you click on her name there in that previous sentence, you will be taken to her primary, international website.

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Questions for sage: Authenticity

(Q) As a teacher, is it more important to speak what you believe to be true or is it more important to be sensitive about saying something that may offend?

(Sage) It is more important for me to speak what I believe to be true whether I am speaking as a teacher, a human being, a student of life or one who has limited knowledge about the topic at hand.

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Questions for Sage: Who Are You?

(Q) I have been following you on facebook since I sent you a friends request several months ago. I read your page everyday. I try to read everything you post. I find much of what you post on your facebook page and on the “The Whole World is a Single Flower” page to be comforting and calming for me. Now I want to know a little bit about the man behind the words and I also have a few other questions. I hope I will not ask too much. I hope you will be able to answer all my questions. First, what is your training? Are you a spiritual teacher? If so, are you accepting students? Do you have a training center? Also, I notice on your facebook page that you often post things that are clearly speaking to our higher God-like selves. I also notice that you sometimes post things that sound pessimistic to me. That confuses me. Can you clarify? I also took notice a few months ago of your decision to stop posting “negative news stories” on your page, why did you do that?

(Raven) Yes. Thank you. I am able to answer all your questions.

I have undergraduate degrees in sociology and cross cultural/diversity studies. I hold an advanced degree in clinical psychology. So by academic and professional training I am a psychotherapist. I have done many things under that designation including having a private practice for more than ten years and working in the area of HIV/AIDS education, prevention, research, program development and program evaluation for another 10 years. I have also worked extensively in the areas of domestic violence, substance abuse and hospice/death and dying within that 20 year span. I am also a Reiki Master.

All of this education and experience has served me extremely well in my life. I use the training daily. However, I no longer consider myself a psychotherapist in any real functional shape or form. When people ask me today what I am, my first response is that I am a writer. If they persist I may also say that I am a spiritual teacher. So yes, for all intents and purposes I do consider myself a spiritual teacher. I am a non-aligned spiritual teacher. This means in my teaching work and in my life I am not formally bound to or by any specific spiritual or religious tradition.

As for formal students and a practice center---I do not take formal students and I do not have a practice center. These two things are not likely to change. I have been asked numerous times to do both. There are many spiritual teachers who have, as part of their spiritual teaching purpose, the taking on of formal students and/or the desire to establish some sort of spiritual center, church or formal ministry of some sort. Such things are of little importance to me and are not a part of my purpose as a spiritual teacher.

As for my style of posting things on my page, your observation is very astute. You are correct in it. Now I will shed some light on the meaning of it. When I am in my aspect as a spiritual teacher there are two principal levels I am speaking on. I am constantly alternating between the two. On the one hand I am drawing attention to either the individual or collective false self or ego or the general and pervasive unconsciousness in our world. This is important so that we can recognize it, see it for what it is and also know that it is ultimately not who we are nor who we are collectively either. These are the writings you referred to as “pessimistic.” I am imagining you now see they are not in the least bit pessimistic. They are pointing out that which on some level is “that which is.” Underneath that energy however, resides a glimpse towards the spirit and reality of transformation. This glimpse blossoms into a full flower in what you refer to as my writings that are “speaking to our higher God-like selves.” That is the second level of communication I regularly use. I am affirming and validating those of us who already live anywhere from sometimes to continuously in this awareness of transformation and I am providing an alternate paradigm for those who don’t regularly live in it at all.

My decision to no longer post items on my facebook page that speak to or reflect the lowest and most destructive expressions of ego consciousness on the planet was made for several reasons. Chief among these reasons is my awareness that it had become inauthentic for me to continue to post such items. In other words, such items no longer reflected my head-space nor consciousness. Second, such information is readily available everywhere. My facebook page does not need to be yet another outlet for the dissemination of such information.

The Primary Purpose of Romantic/Intimate Relationships

 
The Principle purpose of all romantic and intimate relationships is healing potential. This is true if the relationship is mutually happy, mutually unhappy, viewed as "failed" (which BTW, with the understanding of healing as the primary purpose of intimate relationships, is never the case) or even abusive.

When we engage in an intimate relationship that turns out to be a "negative" experience for us, we are engaging in our own potential and prospective healing process. This is true whether we are consciously aware of this or not. Most times, I am imagining, we are not aware of it on a conscious level.

Often, when we are in an abusive relationship, the healing that is taking place extends far beyond ourselves and our partner. How is this so? Here is just one example: Sometimes abusive relationships become known to the general public. This may happen through a number of circumstances. The extreme or vicious nature of the abuse may be such that it finds its way into the media or the general or social consciousness of the masses. Or the victim or perpetrator of the abuse or both may be well known individuals or celebrities. And so this particular spin is what brings it to national or international attention. Or there may be some other circumstance or nuance about the degree, type of or nature of the abuse or the relationship that brings it into the spotlight.

The ultimate goal of any healing process whether it be physical, mental,emotional, social, psychological or spiritual is wholeness.

I saw the film "What's Love Got To Do With It," which chronicles the physically abusive relationship between Ike and Tina Turner. One of the many thoughts I had afterward was, "I wonder how many women/young girls got out of their abusive relationships after viewing this film?" I have no doubt this occurred. Perhaps it is as much as tens of thousands or even more. Wouldn't that be impressive. So with this example it becomes easy to see how what we might otherwise view as a horrible story that ultimately has a good and redemptive ending (Tina Turner goes on after the time period covered by the film to an almost unprecedented level of musical and international stardom and fame) contains the strong ability to heal not only the protagonists in the film but perhaps thousands of people who see the film or hear about its storyline. Healing is a powerful energy that is hard to contain once it builds momentum.

Why some of us choose the things we choose as our particular path toward healing is one of the many mysteries of The Universe and of choosing to live in the form we call human. If we try to understand it with the mind, it often doesn't make sense.

There are many possible interpretations though. We could be participating in the healing of generations of hurt, pain and violence. We could be healing future generations in our immediate families, our ethnic communities or participating in the healing of an entire generation of people who are living in the present moment. The possibilities are endless. The only thing I am certain of is that all romantic and intimate relationships are formed primarily as a vehicle for healing of some sort. Because of this they are all also Sacred.

May All Beings Be Free!

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 1)

Almost everything I've learned about enlightened romantic relationships I've learned from Eckhart Tolle. Well, that's not completely true. I have likely learned just as much about enlightened romantic relationships from my own bumbling, clumsy and unenlightened misadventures in love, as much as from anything I've ever read or not read. Tolle has definitely been a major teacher for me though, in this and other areas. For those who want to get right to the jackpot without buying the lottery ticket, read the section entitled "Enlightened Relationships" in Tolle's "The Power of Now." Tolle, as has already been implied, heavily influences my positions on this topic. It however, has also been shaped by my own life experience. So perhaps both reference points will be beneficial for those who seek some clarity on this issue. Like the format used in the book, “The Power of Now,” I am going to use the question and answer format for this. I believe that will work best. All of the questions are actual questions specific people have asked me in various settings. Some of the answers however,were constructed from a compilation of answers given to different people at different times.

(Q) I don’t like the word enlightenment. Can we have this discussion without using the word enlightenment or the phrase enlightened relationships?

(A) Yes, of course we could have this discussion without that word or any of its derivatives or synonyms. I am going to continue to use this phrase though. I am going to continue to use it for two main reasons. One is because I like it and I believe it applies to the subject matter at hand nicely. Second, I don’t want to encourage your tendency to get bogged down in words you don’t like and then to use that as an excuse to miss the forest for the trees, as it were. But you are right. These are words and concepts that are largely misunderstood and/or misused especially in the West.

So let me start by demystifying the word/concept as much as I am able. Lets then try to go from there. Enlightenment is not a destination. It is an ongoing journey. With this awareness, no one is ever truly totally enlightened. It is a journey we are all on whether we are aware of it or not. Our physical bodies grow in some form or another throughout the course of our lifetime. Our mental bodies (or what might conventionally be called “our minds”) continue to grow and develop in some form or another over the course of our lifetime, even after and if some form of dementia happens to set in. So too does our spiritual "body" continue to grow in some form or another over the course of our lifetime. This spiritual development and growth could be called a process along the path of enlightenment or awakening. So like those other processes, it is a developmental process. It is not a destination.

Let me now dispel some other myths about enlightenment that may also be the source of some of your dislike for the word. Enlightenment or consciousness, another word I like, but unfortunately, that word is just as disliked and just as misunderstood, does not come from outside us, but rather from within. In other words, this process is not automatically or by design connected to the number of Dharma Center retreats one attends; nor the number of hours of meditation one achieves; nor the number of yoga poses one has mastered; nor the amount of prayer or church, mosque and temple attendance one engages in. It is not even directly related to the good and beautiful acts one does. Some people who are thought of or said to be “enlightened” may have demonstrated great degrees of all of those things. They may have spent thousands of hours in meditation or in various asanas. But none of that is in any way a necessary aspect of the enlightenment process. Again, the process is an inner one. It could be aided by all kinds of outer things, people, situations, practices, etc. None of that however, is necessary.

Another thing to know is that the term enlightenment is fairly culture bound. It has different, greater or lesser meaning and importance depending on the culture one resides in. In the West I would say, if a person who has also grown up in Western culture refers to him or herself as enlightened, it is a statement of the ego a majority of the time, rather than a statement of spiritual growth. Still, no one will truly know this except for the speaker. In this way it’s like many other great and obvious truths. Caution may still be a good practice here though. How many times does one hear a great genius in a field say, “I am a great virtuoso musician” or ”I am the greatest nuclear physicists alive?” It doesn’t happen that often. Truly great achievements truly speak for themselves. So a highly enlightened person usually has no need to point this status out to anyone, typically.There are numerous exceptions to that however. Again, ultimately it is a form of judgment for someone else to try to figure out what is going on when someone refers to him or herself as enlightened. Best advice--just go with the flow. Eventually the way the person "is" in a lot of different situations will become rather illuminating.

And finally, as alluded to earlier, do not get bogged down in terminology. If this word truly is an obstacle to you moving forward, throw it away or replace it with some other word that does not bring about such reactivity in you. As I said, I am going to continue using it because I like it.

(Q) Ok, so what do me and my partner need to do to move toward having an enlightened relationship, as you call it?

(A) Your partner doesn’t need to do anything.

(Q) Okaaaaaay. What do I need to do?

(A) You don’t need to do anything either.

(Q) I’m confused. What do you mean?

(A) Each human language comes with built in wisdom, gems and depth that are the essence of great spiritual teaching, just in the mere seemingly innocuous words they contain. In the case of English, one of the greatest universal and divine spiritual truths lies simply in the words in English that are used to describe what we are. We are Human Beings. We are not Human Doings. It is usually far more important how we are being in any given situation in life than what we are doing in any given situation in life. Know this and this alone and put it into action and your life will improve 50% instantly.

So your partner truly doesn’t need to do anything. You truly don’t need to do anything. Your partner doesn’t need to Be anything either. You however, do. You need to Be present. You need to Be alert. You need to Be conscious, tricky word there, I know. I’ll explain. And there is actually one thing you both could do together that will vastly help your chances. What you could do is to make an agreement with each other; an agreement with the greatest amount of depth you each individually and collectively can bring to it. That agreement is that you each will view your partnership as a spiritual practice. Then you will also want to act every moment on making that agreement a living agreement in your relationship however the term “spiritual practice” is defined by you both.

Now, I said you need to Be conscious. What do I mean? Really, it means you need to be aware. In popular parlance this means you need to be aware of “your own stuff.” You need to be aware of your emotional injuries, your reactivity, and the inner pain you are carrying inside you that could very well go all the way back to toddler age or earlier. And you need to be conscious of not projecting any of that onto your partner and pretending that it is his/her stuff when in fact it is your own. Even if it totally, absolutely, without question looks like your partners stuff. Trust me. It is always your own stuff. What is the main litmus test to know if it is your stuff and not your partners? If it is something that causes you to get upset, angry, rageful, depressed, anxious or withdrawn. He or she typically has more than enough of his/her own rightfully earned stuff to keep him/her busy enough.

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