One of the Main Reasons for Being Here is to Build Our Communities

Those of you who have been following this blog for some time realize it has gone through quite of few changes especially in 2011. These changes were all reflective of internal changes that have been occurring within myself. This year has been a big one for such things.

When I changed the name of the blog to Moyo Aflame I shutdown the facebook page connected to the previous name of the blog that had several hundred "fans." When i opened the new facebook "fan" page I didn't invite hardly any of the previous fans to join the new site. So my regular readership has gone down significantly. And that's OK. Life changes. I go with the flow. The content is much different now anyway.

In the last month I have received several emails and facebook messages from various people around the globe who seem to at least somewhat appreciate what I am trying to do with Moyo Aflame. Cool. Thank you for your support and the sharing of your thoughts and ideas. I am hoping to make some upgrades to the blog in the early part of 2012. A quarterly newsletter will likely also be added. Exciting times. Also, if you desire to show your support in the form of donations, that too is very welcome. There is a donation button on the page.

This blog is tangentially connected to a non-profit I work for in Southern California. This blog represents part of the social justice/sacred activism expression of the non-profit which is part of the mssion. I will also be opening up a Northern California site of the non-profit in the next couple of months. So when you make a donation, it will be tax deductible. The Tax I.D number is 3193341 and the name of the non-profit is A.H. Non-Profit.

Thank you for your continued support of and interest in Moyo Aflame. And may all of us have a conscious and peaceful 2012.

Ashe'
sage

Do Not, If You Can At All Avoid It, Accept Assistance From Someone Who Is Mired in Scarcity Consciousness.

There are many useful and practical applications for having a very deep awareness of scarcity consciousness and abundance consciousness as well as having some understanding of how they manifest and interact with each other in our modern world.

Over the years, one of the applications I have used in my day to day life is using my deep awareness of scarcity and abundance consciousnesses as an aid in certain types of decision making. More specifically, I use it regularly to make decisions around who I will and who I will not ask for many types of help and assistance from in my life. I attempt to base such decisions on whether or not I view someone in my life as coming, in their essential philosophy of and approach to life, primarily from either scarcity consciousness or abundance consciousness.

There are many difficulties and potential traps with attempting to determine this. One must be very mindful with this pursuit.

First, it is my firm belief that there are currently considerably more people on the earth who are coming from scarcity consciousness as opposed to abundance consciousness. I believe scarcity as a personal life philosophy--whether it is conscious or unconscious--to be far more prevalent than abundance consciousness. I have done a number of informal, completely unscientific experiments over the years that seem to add at least some credence to those beliefs and imaginings.

I have also discovered that things are definitely not what they appear with regard to this issue. Stereotypes cannot be strictly relied upon. For example, I have discovered that people who exude a perceived energy of deep warmth, kindness, compassion, caring and love are often people who are also coming from an equally deep scarcity consciousness. Conversely, I have also discovered that those who may appear to exude a cold, businesslike, unfeeling and self absorbed energy can easily be people who are coming from some of the most sincere and authentic places of abundance consciousness I have encountered. Superficial appearances cannot be relied upon here. 


In general, it seems that many people who come across as exceedingly "nice" all the time, can often be people who may literally be putting on this face of kindness because they have a deep seated desire to be perceived as such. They have a deep need to also be liked. I have learned over the years to be leery of many such people. That being said, it has generally been my experience in my personal dealings with people that the more financial wealth someone has, the less likely they are to assist me and others close to me, financially. Similarly, I have repeatedly, in this life, been shocked at how often someone who is just a half a step better off than myself, or in some cases, less better off than me, is overwhelmingly the one who open- heartedly offers me assistance far more readily than those I know with deep resources.

As I have said in the original writing on this subject, extremely wealthy people can be coming from a place of abundance consciousness and people who are poor can be coming from a place of scarcity consciousness and visa versa. I have also learned that what could in reality simply be a finely tuned business acumen, a sharp business sense combined with a social and/or fiscal conservatism can easily be misconstrued as scarcity consciousness. Similarly, people who are very clear and resolute in their desire to take care of themselves and those closest to them first, are not necessarily coming from a place of scarcity. They very well could be. But it is not an automatic assumption one can make.

It can all be so confusing.


You may be wondering why it even matters. Here is why this discussion matters: There is no such thing, no matter what anyone or anything, including history books tell you, as a self made person. This is the truth. Anyone who has achieved anything in this life did so through the assistance of numerous people in numerous ways. So all of us need some help some of the time. Period.
Let me back up a little and explain a little more clearly why I have in fact made the decision to try to only ask for assistance in some of my life's more intense life challenges from people I believe are coming from at least a basic abundance consciousness life philosophy. I have found that when I have asked for assistance from those I now know to be people who are coming from scarcity consciousness, as opposed to those who are not-- the experience was so substantially and incredibly less positive that there was huge cognitive dissonance between the two experiences. One experience joyfully lifted me up. The other one practically threw me in a fire of despair. I have been working with this energy so long in my life at this point it simply is not worth it and is completely counter intuitive for me to seek assistance from those I know to be coming from scarcity consciousness. 

What I have also found is that many people who are coming from a scarcity consciousness cannot easily escape the type of anxiety and general sturm und drang that is a strong byproduct of it. If you ask for assistance from such people, even if they assist you, they will bring that anxiety along with their assistance. If you ask them for money, they will be overly concerned with when they are going to get paid back, even if the terms of the agreement were clearly spelled out around that at the onset. It doesn't matter. They are about scarcity not abundance or even common sense. If you ask them to assist with some project, they will consistently bring an energy of high anxiety around their time, concern about the duration of the project and perceived expectations around it all, etc. If you have an emergency and need to go to the hospital, for example, they eventually almost always find a way to make the whole exercise about them--how much time they had to spend, how their life was upended to help you, all the things they had to put on hold in order to help you, etc. If they don't share these things with you directly--and many at least have the common courtesy not to--they will certainly share it with people you know in common and it will eventually get back to you. The examples I could give are literally endless.

I don't know if anyone reading this has any desire to like me, ask for assistance only from people you perceive to at least be attempting to be coming from a space of abundance consciousness. If you do desire to do such a thing, with all the difficulties I've outlined in accurately assessing such a person, you may wonder if its even possible to recognize these people in your life. The answer is a resounding YES! Part of the difficulty is that we may not want to see some of the people in our lives for who they really are. Scarcity consciousness cuts across all relationships--mother/child, siblings, best friends, spouses--all of them. There can be a very steep learning curve here, mainly because many of us are trained to believe that nice and kind also equals generosity and abundance. And as I've said, that's often not the case. I have learned to primarily go with my gut, instinct and intuition on this one. Still, I have some pointers. Here is what I have learned:

1. People who are coming from abundance consciousness tend to find some way to make themselves available to us even if it is not in the ways we requested. People who are coming from scarcity consciousness will often give us excuses or if they do assist us they will make it a point to inform us of all the other people they need to also help or all the other things they also need to do.

2.  People who are coming from abundance consciousness may not always be the first to respond to any "cry for help" we've sent out. When they do respond however, it is usually in a concrete and helpful way. People who are coming from scarcity consciousness will often be the actual first people to respond to us, but not in a truly helpful way. They will more likely be quite anxious to tell us why they cannot assist us though usually in a superficially "nice" way.

3.  People who are coming from abundance consciousness are generally people of action. If we have a crisis, they are the people who will most likely make a list of all the things we need to do, all the people we need to call and who is the best person/people to address each item on the list.

4.  People who are coming from abundance consciousness do not make our crises about their ability to ferret out the real underlining issues in the crisis, which are almost always presented as our inadequacies, our incompetence, our poor money management (unless that's appropriate and still it won't usually come across as their primary response to us about the whole thing), our flaws or our "incessant" dependence on others for assistance, etc.

5.  People who are coming from scarcity consciousness will tell us very quickly why they can't help us with no other advice. People coming from abundance consciousness will process with us how they might be able to help us or how someone else might if they are unable to help.

6.  People coming from scarcity consciousness will remind us how they have helped us in the past and how that didn't really work out for them so well in their view (or they won't do this but they will tell this to other people in the form of complaints/gossip about us).

7.  People coming from abundance say the word "yes" alot.

8.  People coming from scarcity say "yes, but" alot.

9.  Abundance consciousness people tend to have alot of contacts and tend to be very generous with those contacts.

10. Abundance consciousness people are constantly praying for us, sending healing energy our way and performing other rituals for our benefit either with or without our knowledge.

We are all learning and growing at our own perfect pace.

May All Beings Be Free. 
The other installments in this series:


1.  Questions for Sage: Scarcity and Abundance Consciousness

2.  Scarcity and Abundance Consciousness (con't)

Sage Words 08.29.11

Some people are simply going to be frustrated, annoyed, irritated, mad or angry. They have decided either consciously or unconsciously that these are consistent and legitimate energies they want to put out into the world. Some of these people will label themselves as activists. Many who label themselves as activists will frame their reactivity as an important element of what they will tell you is what brings authenticity of their activism. These people will wear these things (frustration, annoyance, irritation, anger, etc.) as a sort of badge of legitimacy for their activism. The most frequent expression I have seen of this in some activists is what is called righteous indignation. From my perspective, righteous indignation is almost always an expression of ego disguised as some pseudo form of compassion or empathy.

Some people have the spiritual awareness and development to know that these states (frustration, annoyance, irritation, anger, etc.) are not beneficial nor helpful to them. Some are clear about this. Still, out of laziness or something else, we will not rise to our own spiritual development in our interaction with life. Rather, our actions and ultimately who we think we are will reflect this "lower" consciousness that in reality is not who we really are.

There are a lot of very good and even some relatively awake (whatever that means) people in the world who look out into that world and primarily see unfairness, greed, corruption, pain, sadness and the like. We then somehow trick ourselves into believing these things are far more important and real than they really are. Or we pretend there is mostly shadow in the universe and relatively little Light. More importantly, we develop belief systems and ways of being that reflect this trickery. We forget there is a constant interplay between light and shadow and that ultimately they spring from the exact same seed. This is one reason there are many highly intelligent people, many in the helping professions, who have become pessimists or worse.

This is an expression, among other things, of coming from a place of scarcity in one's understanding of life rather than coming from a place of abundance. We believe there is not enough of the things we might call the "good" things in life and too much of those things we might choose to call "bad." We have temporarily (hopefully) lost our way and are (hopefully) using all of this, consciously or unconsciously as a way of returning to the path of wisdom.

Sage Words o8.17.11

Quite a few people seem to have difficulty distinguishing between arrogance and self confidence in others. And given how often I read about or hear people labeling others as arrogant and to a lesser degree, confident, there seems to be quite a bit of interest around these concepts for whatever reasons.

Like many areas of and examples in life, I believe understanding ourselves is far more useful and beneficial than trying to understand others. I believe this is one of those cases here. That's where I place my own attention in this matter and that's where I will place my attention here in this post.

Here is my simple understanding regarding arrogance vs. self confidence. Those of us who frequently identify arrogance in others are likely projecting our own disowned or unacknowledged arrogance. Those who frequently identify confidence in others are likely able to do so simply because we have embraced our own acknowledged self confidence.

Some Elements in the Process of Getting to Know Ourselves Better (re-posted and remixed)

I have noticed, mostly through my engagement on facebook, that there are a whole lot of people who get anywhere from mildly to greatly aggravated when they encounter someone else saying or writing something they perceive to be self-congratulatory, "ego" based, arrogant or in violation of some completely made up projection-based law of humility. I have noticed many such people seem to have a reflexive, almost knee jerk need to take such people down a peg or two. Often it seems these people are in the service of some seemingly sanctimonious, self righteous holy call to systematically conflate self confidence with the wildly more horrific (in their eyes) sin of egotism.

 I have also witnessed people's resistance to referring to themselves as a spiritual teacher. There is also the seeming need to temper any self-acknowledgments with at least twice as many self deprecatory statements.  There seems to be to be in many, some fear of being seen as taking oneself too seriously or some such thing. And there is this trend I have noticed to consistently emphasize the awareness that "everyone" is enlightened or that "everyone" is a teacher or that "everyone" is their own most important guru, and as a result somehow believing that  acknowledging ones own gifts in these same areas is out of alignment with the universal awareness of these same things. 

I don't mind admitting, this all seems rather silly to me. I don't really see anything admirable in it or humble or gracious or egoless. But do read the last paragraph in this piece. To the contrary, I see it as more likely being very egoic. All of that stuff about "everyone" is true of course. Still, I believe something else more fundamental is going on here. I believe one thing that is occurring here is that people are engaging in the practice of disowning their own divinity on some level, usually subconsciously. Something or someone, I imagine, has successfully guilted and shamed such people, somewhere along the line, into believing they are not completely worthy of the awarenesses they have achieved in this life even if they are recognized and highly respected spiritual teachers. With the disowning of one's own divinity of course, comes the requisite difficulty of comfortably witnessing or "holding the space" of someone else expressing their own divinity about themselves in any way whatsoever. It doesn't matter if the person who seems to be expressing their own divinity is a truly evolved soul or someone who is truly full of him/herself. This is a case where it is not about the other person at all. It is totally about us. If you don't believe me, test it out the next time you get an opportunity and see what you discover.

 I also believe something else is often going on when we feel the need to make regular self-deprecatory remarks while constantly making references to "everyone's" enlightenment and while also diminishing or downplaying the seed of enlightenment within ourselves. There seems to be a type of embarrassment happening that is ironically, I believe, from within the same energy frequency of the ego expressed as the need to criticize someone else's comfort with their own gifts and achievements. We are embarrassed for ourselves and we are embarrassed for others for their naiveté in not knowing or knowing and not obeying the completely made up rules of how a good awakened or awakening person "should" act. So we choose to play the role of the humble student of life and "act" in another dramatic production instead.

 The problem with embarrassment is, as I have suggested, embarrassment is not typically an emotion that frequently accompanies a conscious state of awareness. Embarrassment is a product of that part of the ego, that part of us, that judges. This means it is a product of that part of the ego that ultimately is invested in separation and hierarchy. This or that action is embarrassing. This or that one is not. There is the hierarchy. There is the judgment. Embarrassment does not typically come from that part of the ego that is particularly beneficial to us.

 Ultimately all of this criticizing of others, judging of others, disowning of our own divinity, embarrassment and drama is all about being engaged in the lifelong and graceful and beautiful process of getting to know ourselves better and very deeply (or not). Despite the occasional melodrama, this is a very worthwhile process. The things I've discussed here are the "shadow" expression of something that also has a very intensified "light" aspect as well. Once we get to a certain point of self-knowing, all of the melodrama tends to fall away like the brilliant leaves on a maple tree in autumn. What we have left, however, is something far less ephemeral and far more eternal than falling leaves.

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.

How to embrace or at least hold seemingly opposing narratives (as well as people who seem to have polar opposite philosophies)...

1.   Let go of the need to be right.

2.   Practice compassion.

3.   Stop judging as many things and as many people as possible.

4.   Practice self forgiveness and forgiveness of others.

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What if...

 What if many of the words we now commonly and casually use to describe ourselves and others were strategically placed into our cultural parlance and consciousness by forces or people who have a conscious desire to weaken our self esteem so that we can more easily be controlled and deliberately distanced from our own innate greatness. Some of the words I am speaking of may point to "real" physical or emotional states. But do the words themselves reflect the real or true essence of those states or merely some made up presumed negative interpretation of what is at the core of the condition. What message do these words send? What is our true purpose in so easily attaching them to someone else? Do we even know what some of these words mean? Why have they become so enshrined in our culture? I am speaking of words and phrases like...

codependent

passive-aggressive

psychotic

bipolar

manic depressive

anxious

arrogant

self-centered

crazy

illegal alien

attention seeking

attention whore

antisocial 

energy vampire

referring to someone as having a "fear of intimacy"

Bitch

Asshole

Is it possible that any of these words and phrases below can be used as better descriptors and more accurate descriptors of the people we attach some of those former labels, words and phrases to? How about something like...

codependent could become, "soulful angel whose actions may or may not be slightly misguided but whose intentions are not."

passive aggressive could become, "people who need our love because they don't always trust their own"

bipolar and manic depressive could become, "people whose hearts are so big they tried to encase the world but found out they couldn't."

having a fear of intimacy could become, "flowers that were picked too early to be visited by the honey bees but not too early to be appreciated by the Bodhisattvas who have come in from the fields."

illegal alien could become, "paperless butterfly made of babies breath, not paper."

Why are we so attached to creating the most negative interpretations of the human experience as possible if not to control and attempt to take people's lifeforce away from them? There is another way...

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For Anyone Going Through A Particularly Difficult Time....

Know that you are not alone. I too am going through a difficult time. I am not making that up. It does not feel difficult though because I do not believe in difficulty. I believe in challenge and challenges. And challenges are a natural part of life. Difficulty does not have to be a part of life unless we insist on making it so. In life, pain is inevitable. Suffering however, is optional.

Pain in inevitable. Suffering is optional. And pain can heal. Suffering? Much more difficult.

You may feel like you are in prison. And you may be in a real or a customized prison made specifically by and custom fitted for you. It doesn't matter. I have to tell you something-- the key to your prison cell has been thrown into the river and all rivers lead to the ocean. And the ocean is very, very vast. And I have something else to tell you--your lawyers have all been let go. Their jobs have been done. And there's more still--your bail has been paid in full. Yes, your bail has been paid in full. PAID IN FULL, baby! The prison guards have also been relieved of duty. You are FREE to go. That doesn't mean that life will magically become a cakewalk for you. It may. Or it may not. But it really doesn't matter. You may choose to stand in that prison cell with the door ajar and that would be a legitimate choice if you choose it. But can you hear the wind blowing past you inviting you to follow it? Your bail has been paid in full and the ravens are calling for you too...

"Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we have been waiting for"
                                           Hopi Elders

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Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

There is an interview with me on Rick Archer's TV program, Buddha at the Gas Pump. For the program Rick interviews various spiritual and related types of teachers and gets information from them about our life's journey and any insights that may have been received along the way. This interview is approx 2 hours in length. It has been uploaded several places on the internet. For anyone who is interested in watching part or all of the interview, the easiest way is to go to the BAPGAP website and view it here. sage (raven)

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An Important Type of Spiritual Teacher (Re-post)

When most of us think of the term spiritual teacher we often think of the sages and avatars, gurus and saints around the world who have acquired large followings as a result of his or her living example of wisdom, charity or presumed advanced states of presence, awareness or spiritual development. In some cases they are viewed as spiritual teachers mostly because of their incredible ability to strategically market themselves as such.

Still, there are other types of spiritual teachers who are far closer to us; they are also far more numerous and prevalent and they are always available to us; always right under our noses and their teachings are always spot on. Yet these spiritual teachers are seldom recognized for their astounding, miraculous and life changing spiritual teaching abilities, consistency and availability.

These teachers are the people in each of our lives who daily or regularly rattle, enrage, annoy, infuriate, test, confuse and sometimes even make us physically ill simply by gazing upon their sickening faces. It is the man or woman who thoughtlessly cut you off at the busy intersection yesterday. They are our micro-managing and high maintenance supervisors. They are the people we imagine are at the absolute polar opposite ideological pole from us and not only that, they are the ones who often represent everything we believe to be “bad” or “wrong” about that very “opposite” ideological pole. They are the people we would like to believe embody everything we are against. Or they are the people who simply refuse to act, say or do what we want them to act, say or do. These are the people we are often verbally aggressive toward as well as the people we might even fantasize about being physically violent against. 

If you have such people in your lives- meet some of your spiritual teachers.

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Just For Today...

I believe every person on the earth is dealing with some type of pain or hurt. This pain or hurt may have been experienced yesterday or a half a century ago or both. The pain may have been experienced personally or may come through membership in an historically oppressed group. It may be expressed primarily as an indirect pain or hurt that comes mostly from the oppression of the group as a whole but that is also experienced personally in some way. The pain or hurt could be experienced as a mental illness, a physical illness, a mild, moderate or strong emotional disturbance or a spiritual crisis. The pain could be imagined or real. It doesn't matter.The pain can be located anywhere on the path toward healing and resolution and still impact us on a daily basis. It could be hidden or placed on display for everyone to see; either intentionally or unintentionally.

I believe the greatest amount of these pains and hurts that I am speaking of are hidden. They are hidden behind genuine or false smiles. They are hidden behind masks of contentment and social convention. They are hidden behind the desire to appear strong or invincible or grounded or spiritual or because there is a belief that we cannot allow our children to see what is really there for fear that somehow they will not be able to believe that they can have deep personal pains and hurts, move forward and still have a happy life.

One of the benefits of spending the largest amount of my life in large urban centers is that the experience has afforded me the opportunity to be around "strangers" a lot. I have been around people I did not know personally on public transportation, in parks, in long lines at the grocery store, walking along crowded sidewalks at lunchtime, at countless restaurants, in bars, in hotel lobby's, at amusement parks and multiplex theater complexes.

I have been both blessed and cursed (it seemed more a curse in my youth. It is now perceived as more of a blessing) with the ability to very strongly sense people's current emotional landscape simply by being in close proximity to them. When I was a child I thought it was something that made me crazy. As an adult I have learned it is a very common human ability. It is simply amplified in me perhaps because I was born with some form of heightened sensitivity around such things. I have also built on that possible heightened sensitivity through the areas of study I have chosen in this life.

When I was a child I tried to avoid large department stores and grocery stores as much as I could. When in such places I was always bombarded with picking up on people's feelings of sadness, anxiety, pain, frustration,disconnectedness and sorrow. I often felt overwhelmed. In time, especially after becoming a Reiki Master, I learned how to create appropriate boundaries around all of this for myself.

Though the years of experience with this, the most valuable lesson I have learned is that because of my awareness of the pain and hurt so many of us are experiencing in our day to day lives, I have endeavored to be kind to or at least to try to smile at every single person I come in contact with on any given day. I do not want to add any additional suffering to anyone else through my conscious actions or careless thoughtlessness or self-centeredness. This is very difficult to do at times. It is especially difficult to do when I encounter someone whom I perceive as being mean spirited or abusive toward me in some way. But then I remind myself, it is exactly such people who need my smile and my kindness the most. It is these people who need my smile and kindness the most. Yes, it is these people who need our compassion and understanding the most. Just for today at least.

©Sage Mahosadha

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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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Degrees of Entitlement

Once upon a time I saw attitudes of entitlement as being equal no matter who expressed them. I did not, for example, make a distinction between the apparent entitlement of the homeless person who approaches passersby very aggressively demanding they both interact with them and give him or her what they wanted from them and say-- the entitlement of the CEO of a fortune 500 multinational corporation who intentionally and knowingly, through his or her corporate leadership and the company's practices is doing their level best to destroy peoples lives and the planet earth solely in the name of profits and getting a seven figure bonus in the process.

Over the years I have come to see the error of my previous thinking. I have come to see there are degrees to entitlement.

Level I: There are some people who have been a member of one or more traditionally oppressed groups in the world or in a specific culture who can develop a certain kind of entitlement. This can include women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, members of certain disenfranchised groups of every sort, etc.

One of the clear examples of this type of entitlement I've witnessed in my life so far is the attitude of entitlement that is present in some, mostly white, though it is not an exclusively white thing-- gay men in large, über progressive, gay mecca's such as San Francisco, California.

The creation of this particular type of entitlement seems to be related to an experience of internalized guilt, shame and/or inadequacy around the issue or issues that places the person in one or more oppressed groups. This is then often combined with some real or imagined temporal or perceived permanent emancipation from the deepest, darkest forms of the oppression the specific group can experience. For example, San Francisco, a city I lived in and around for more than 10 years, has a significant number of quite wealthy gay men. I noticed that a lot of these wealthy gay men who live in and around San Francisco frequently display this type of attitude of entitlement. In this case, the wealth seems to give them a real or imagined belief that they have been emancipated from some or all of the more horrible aspects of the oppression that can often come from being a member of an oppressed sexual minority. There then appears to be this lapse into a belief that many people in the world, mostly non-gay people, are really quite literally "less than" them. In essence, these men seem to believe their wealth has bought them some strong amount of freedom from this oppression. Sometimes this seems to translate into that well known syndrome where an oppressed group gains power, overthrows the oppressive king, one of them then takes over the throne and becomes a more oppressive king than his predecessor could have ever dreamed of being.

More interestingly to me at least, is that I also observed many gay men in San Francisco who were not wealthy at all, some even being quite destitute, who displayed this exact same attitude of entitlement. For them, it seems, just being in a city that is so incredibly gay friendly, where there are so many beautiful and powerful gay people and where gay people make up such a large percentage of the population-- unleashed this entitlement demon that was inside of them.

I've seen this type of entitlement demonstrated by members of many other oppressed groups other than gay men, of course. I just saw such a strong and persistent pattern of it in and around San Francisco, specifically among gay men (curiously I rarely observed this specific dynamic in lesbian women) that it is simply one of the forms I have had a lot of personal experience with. And of course it goes without saying though I'll say it anyway--there are multitudes of gay men including gay men in major, worldwide gay meccas, who don't display this type of entitlement whatsoever.

Level II: I call this type of entitlement, "Everything new is old again." The hallmark of this level of entitlement is a person obtaining something new such as a sudden and very large sum of money, a new doting and adoring significant other, or a new fabulous and fabulously paying job, for example. This new acquisition then has the impact of making something manifest that had been in dormancy before--namely, a fierce sense of entitlement.

It seems with these people the seed of entitlement was planted in their psyche some time ago but there was nothing to really bring it to the fore until they had obtained something they believed justified this dormant entitlement thing inside of them being birthed into their reality. One of the symptoms of this type of entitlement is a form of pretentiousness that's really quite easy to observe.

Level III: I call this type of entitlement, "Everything old is new again." This type of entitlement seems to primarily be the purview of those who were born into money and have always been use to having a lot of privileges and other life perks that others may not be so naturally accustomed to. Often this type of entitlement just seems to come with the territory. This seems to be so much so that when I meet someone from generations of old money who still has it (money) and doesn't have this particular air of entitlement (and there are likely many in the world who don't) I almost always find it quite refreshing.

This level can also include people who may not have tons of generational money but may just have people in their lives who have spoiled them and/or treated them as if they did have tons of money and all the rights and privileges that can come with that.

Level IV: This final level of entitlement seems to primarily be reserved for essentially sociopaths who have also found themselves with an incredibly dangerous combination of money, power and influence. When all those criterion come together, it seems that the lust for profits and the seven figure bonuses that can come with the work they do can create personalities that can truly believe they are so entitled that no one else on the planet really matters. And the planet itself also doesn't matter. Everything and everyone is literally just a pawn for them in a giant though real and potentially catastrophic game of monopoly.

People at the first three levels of entitlement can be irritating and very annoying. I however, see them as essentially harmless. Those at this fourth level on the other hand may seem very charming, gallant and sophisticated to the untrained eye but are in reality sometimes quite lethal. These people are usually surrounded by so many people to shield them from everyone else, it is rare for the general pubic to really find out just how lethal they are while they are still alive. Bernard Madoff seems to be an exception in this regard. Many of history's more notorious dictators probably are exceptions to this as well. Most infamous dictators however, who are at this level, often find a way to flee to some sort of safety right before their true lethality is revealed to the masses. These people, at this level of entitlement are people I believe we all would do well to pray for and send great quantities of positive energy to.

My purpose for developing some degree of awareness around all of this is the same as my purpose and motivation around everything else I observe in the world I might choose to label dysfunctional. I see these forms of entitlement displayed in people to be opportunities for growth and healing and perhaps a specific call to action for me. As a healer and spiritual teacher I am always looking for opportunities to gain greater insight, to some degree, into why things are the way they are; why people are the way we are. I realize there are many things in the world and in the human experience that are mysteries and may always remain so. There are however, many things that are not mysteries and that can be transmuted. If we have some insight into the possible reasons why some of these things exist, we may be able to better transform them, if they are indeed things in need of transformation.

From my point of observation, attitudes of entitlement are some of the many things on the planet at this time that contribute to the consciousness of separation we see and experience in the world. I believe the consciousness of separation in the world is one of the things that healing energy can be directed toward. That healing can help provide the type of transformation I believe most people who are engaged in the type of work I do wish to see and to help create.

The Depth, Breadth, Pain and Liberation of the Surrendered Life.

Suicide is not an option for me. Destructive addictions and over indulgent behaviors that many other people use as escapes and crutches are not options for me. Self pity is not an option for me. Depression, depressive episodes, high anxiety and anxious episodes are no longer options for me. Emotional, psychological and spiritual drama, chaos and disassociate states are no longer options for me. Blaming others, projecting onto others, creating false stories about myself and others are no longer options for me. Denial is not an option for me. Anger and fear and angry acting out are options but they run their courses very quickly for me these days because I know they are ultimately hollow straw men. I simply know too much and have progressed too far in this life both spiritually and psychologically to pretend any of these things are truly valid options for me anymore. That admission is not some negative nor trickster aspect of the ego expressing itself there. I know this. Unlike so many people, when I go through a Dark Night of the Soul or even plain ole difficult times, I have to completely, truly go through it. I do not have a choice. I do not have the luxury of any of those other options. All of those other options have been completely and totally unmasked and revealed for me and so I fully recognize them as the absolute illusions they truly are...

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I am

I am that which cannot be contained within words, stories nor descriptions of neither deep derision nor high praise. The melodious symphony; the amorous love song; nor the strikingly hued painting further capture that with which I am. I am more. And I am also less. I am that which is beyond your and my own understanding. And that is how it most certainly was meant to be...

Who are you?

sage mahosadha

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My Personal Black History in the Land of the Free. Part II

I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. I lived in the same house from just after my birth until I left home at age 18 to enter the seminary to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. The house was in a predominantly black, middle class neighborhood. I believe it was one of the first predominantly black middle class neighborhoods in the city. It was built in the 1950's when blacks, as a group, in Lexington, first really dared I believe, to indulge the thought that they could achieve something approaching equality with whites.

When I grew up the neighborhood was a very nice one. Kids from other, nearby, less middle class neighborhoods would tease those of us who lived in "The Village" (the nickname for our neighborhood which was formally named Saint Martin's Village, named after the Roman Catholic Saint--Saint Martin dePorres--a citizen of Lima, Peru who was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a black former slave.) I lived on the main street of the subdivision; dePorres Avenue. The kids who teased us called us "the rich kids." (O Lord if that only had ever even had a whiff of truth to it I would have been ever so grateful.) Today, it is one of those neighborhoods where pizza and Chinese delivery places refuse to deliver to for fear, I am imagining, that the delivery person might be robbed. My mother still lives in the neighborhood albeit in a different house and on a different street from the ones I grew up in and on.

When I was in high school, two separate events occurred separated by perhaps a year-- though I believe it was less-- that directly involved four black men from the neighborhood--two sets of fathers and sons. Both events had a lasting impact on me. It was years however, before I realized just how tremendous that impact would be.

In the first event a young man who lived in the neighborhood who was a year ahead of me in school got into a violent confrontation with his biological father one evening. Somehow a gun was pulled and the son was shot. He died at the scene. Even today I can remember the shock people at our high school and in the neighborhood were in. It was very surreal. In those days, our neighborhood was exceedingly quiet and safe. Donnie had also been a varsity football player. The father never served any time in jail. The death was ultimately ruled an accidental homicide. My family knew Donnie's father quite well. Over the years my family would report back to me on how this man was doing after the death of his son. Their reports were that he was never ever the same person after this event; that he was less than a shadow of the man he once was. In essence, two black men had died that night.

The second event involved another young man from the neighborhood who was also a year ahead of me in school, except I knew Kevin much better than I had known Donnie. Kevin had been a friend when we were growing up--until it became uncool for him to be hanging out with someone who was a high school freshmen to his sophomore reality. And again, his family and my family were close. In this event Kevin had been driving home one night and had been stopped by a white police officer for some reason that was either never made entirely clear at the time or that has escaped my memory after all these years. What ensued however is something I clearly remember. There was some sort of strange confrontation between Kevin and the police officer that had resulted in Kevin receiving multiple bruises and a few minor injuries. The police officer sustained no bruises and no injuries. Kevin had been "roughed up" by the police officer for apparently no reason. Reports in the community very quickly had it that this had been a case of Kevin simply "driving while black" way before that phrase became part of the cultural landscape here in America. It is my first memory of being aware of a potential hate crime perpetrated on a contemporary and peer of mine. It would not be the last. This story also had a particular twist that was so over-the-top at the time it would have normally only been thinkable in our community, as a plot twist in a daytime soap opera of the day. But here it was in full unadulterated truth right before the entire city, our neighborhood and our multi-ethnic high school to look at. That twist--Kevin's father, at the time of this incident, was serving as Lexington's first black police commissioner. I can't make this kind of shit up even if I wanted to. I don't have that much skill as a non-fiction writer. Some heads did roll in the Lexington Police Department after this incident. But like Donnie's father a short time before him, Kevin's father was also forever changed after this event involving his son.

Breathe In, Breathe Out.

After these two events shattered a certain innocence that had existed in my life until they occurred, I went about my little life as if two thunderously momentous events had not seriously altered the course of that life--like that 19th century series of New Madrid earthquakes and tremors had altered the flow of The Mississippi River. I had read in books and had talks with my grandfather about the historically and highly treacherous plight of the black man in America. I had even been called a nigger to my own face a time or two by that time. But reading about two 8.0 magnitude earthquakes and living through them are...well...two very different things.

Photo Credit: This is me (Coyote, which is my biker name to this day) on my 2000 Harley Road Glide when I was the President of an Oakland, California based Motorcycle Club (MC). Circa 2005

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On Believing and Accepting What People Show Us About Themselves

There have been hundreds perhaps thousands of self help, psychology and other type books written putting forth elaborate and complex theories about why troubles develop in every kind of human relationship.

As I have gotten older I have come to realize that most troubles in human relationships come down to a few very simple explanations. Here is one of them: We meet or experience another person and that person very early on gives us a very clear, very complete indication of who they are, so to speak---what their values are; what their strengths are; what their weaknesses are; what their core wounds, challenges and injuries are, etc. We then take all that information in and then promptly choose to forget or pretend to forget almost every single shred of it (except for the parts that serve our hidden agendas). "Trouble" then ensues because the people themselves refuse to go along with our little game of amnesia. They tenaciously continue to religiously be who they have shown us to be all along.

We however, deny that, try to change that, won't accept that or want to believe that somehow what they have shown us simply cannot be "true." The trouble then is essentially our failure to accept, what is.

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"Lovable?" | From The Inside Out Mag. - For Personal Healing, Spiritual Growth & Development

This is my latest article, sort of in honor of Valentines Day, in "From The Inside Out Magazine" Click the link below to be taken to the original article.

"Lovable?" | From The Inside Out Mag. - For Personal Healing, Spiritual Growth & Development

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My Personal Black History in the Land of the Free. Part I

I don't believe I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the trajectory of my life. Today however, is the fourth day of Black History Month 2011; my 51st birthday is less than 48 hours away; and perhaps most importantly, this morning I
also awoke from a very life like dream in which I was back in a place I haven't been back to in real life, in any meaningful way, in nearly 30 years.

In the dream I was back at the Catholic college seminary I attended from ages 18 - 22. I was my present age--50-- but had come back to continue my study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. Many of the priests, brothers and seminarians I had known there 29 years ago made appearances and cameos in the dream, even some I know have made their transition. The most interesting thing to me is that I was happy to be back. I was enthusiastic about being back in that place and I distinctly remember feeling in the dream, like I had come home.

The dream primarily had a happy reunion feel to it. The bulk of the dream had me simply reconnecting with folks and us re-telling old stories from decades ago---with joy and warmth. This however, was not exactly reflective of my actual experience of attending that particular institution of religious and higher learning. Or was it?

I woke up from the dream, found myself in my 2011 reality, in bed with my partner in Tuscon, Arizona reflecting on the life I've led in the ensuing nearly three decades since graduating from that place. I started to cry spontaneously. And I had this curious thought enter my consciousness, "My time in the seminary and monastery, studying for the priesthood, was the pinnacle of my life here on earth. Everything that has occurred since has been a representation of my life being in decline...everything"

I looked over at my handsome and sleeping partner next to me whom I absolutely know, absolutely adores me. How many people, I wondered, have a partner who truly and absolutely adores them?

I smiled.

There were a few less tears.

That thought that my life has been in decline since my seminary days was experienced by me as an extremely shocking one and then very quickly as terrifying and then ultimately as an extremely sad thought. I lay in bed with the eerie calm that exists at 4 am and quietly asked myself, "Is that true?" "Do I really believe my life while studying for the priesthood was the height of my purposefulness in this life? Is that even possible?" "What is going on here?"

I am a black, same gender loving American. I am a deeply spiritual, compassionate, emotionally centered and empathic man. I have given my entire life over to the service of others both in my personal and professional life. I have relatively little by way of  "The American Dream" type of things to show for this. I both think that is OK and I don't exactly think that it's OK as well. It's odd.

I have hurt people both intentionally and unintentionally. I have flaws. I know I am both perfect and imperfect in simultaneous never ending co-arising.

I have many scars that are invisible to most and that are an homage to living my entire life in a world full of racism, homophobia, heterosexism, selfishness and greed. I am a black man whom many other black men reject because I am also a gay man. I am a gay man who has been rejected by specific white men, both gay and straight identified and specifically because I am a black man. I have had to suffer through several Republican presidential administrations in my life. I have had to live through a lifetime of crazed homophobic, heterosexist rhetoric from the seemingly ubiquitous "Black Church" in America. I have had to painfully witness the insane hypocrisy of black men like Colin Powell, who while speaking as a black man who broke barriers and also faced race based oppression supported something as bigoted as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (We all make mistakes. He's since changed his tune on this. Still, there are consequences for our past bigotry, no matter what). And I have had to do all of that while trying to be a man working tirelessly for the liberation of The Sacred Masculine in a climate where it seems many men only want to kill one another, enslave one another, tear down each other, challenge each other, argue with one another and attempt to emasculate one another while obtaining virtual graduate degrees in one-up-man-ship.

And I have lived in a world where various men and women, black and white alike have the audacity to use phrases like "man up" in public as if it is an elegant, legitimate and righteous term of ahimsa. My God. It's enough to make a brother wanna holla.

The seminary was far from perfect. The monastery was far from perfect. Both had their own name brand of insanity. At the same time they each contained a fraternity of men who at least earnestly attempted to genuinely love one another and for the most part, genuinely respect one another as well.

There is a reason so many gay men flock to the seminary. That reason, contrary to some degree of popular belief and myth, is not to have a constant supply of other men to have sex with. It is because by and large the seminary and ultimately, if one is studying for a religious order as I was---the religious community of priests and brothers tend to be places where there is a collection of gentle gay, straight and bisexual men who get to live their lives with other gentle gay, straight and bisexual men bound by a spiritual quest to continually strive to fall in love, over and over again, with their god. I miss that. I miss that very, very much. I mourn the loss of that in my life. Nothing in my life has come close to replacing that particular expression of beauty I have had the great joy of experiencing in this life. What has replaced it is a life where men are consistently and deliberately cruel to one another, cruel to me, cruel to everyone; a corporate state made up of walking zombies with seemingly no soul nor compassion to speak of--I understand the reasons for all of that and have great compassion myself for it and have dedicated my life to transforming it--that however, does not lessen the power of the sting of the experience...

To be young, gifted and black, Oh what a lovely precious dream. To be young, gifted and black, Open your heart to what I mean...


I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...


The expression of the face balks account, But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth, To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side...


Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise...


My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountainside Let freedom ring...


Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

1.  Nina Simone, Lyrics, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black." Lyrics by Weldon Irvine. Music by Nina Simone. Black Gold. 1970

2.  Allen Ginsberg, Howl. Howl and other Poems. 1955

3.  Walt Whitman, "I Sing The Body Electric." Leaves of Grass. 1855

4.  Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise." Still I Rise.

5.  Samuel Francis Smith. Lyrics "America/ My Country 'Tis of Thee." 1831.

6.  Matthew 27:46. New American Standard Bible. The last words of Jesus on the cross

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