How did you get (to) COOL?
drumminmama
In setting the guidelines (for lack of a thesarus) for COOL, I was curious how each of us got here, to this site, these mind frames that put us in alignment with "hippydom."
What was your seeker journey?
how old were you when you started, and how old should you have started paying attention to the rustlings in your soul?
what have you been involved with?
what have you studied?
How important is your faith in your view of the world?
please, let’s respectfully agree to disagree. I’m curious about the process of seeking as much as the plateau of results.
me: seeking began with a copy of Life’s World religions.
It focused on the Big 5, but had translated scripture.
read it everytime I was at my grandparent’s home.
I began to seek mythological texts in the library. My age is unclear, perhaps fourth-fifth grade (I was unable to reach many of the library shelves. I remember asking for help and getting lectured. Maybe as young as third grade.)
fast forward a couple of years to 1980 and the death of John Lennon..hold on, it’s part of the path… A silly 12-year old, suddenly exposed to all this music (Lennon, Beatles, Harrison solo) got interested in Harrison’s outlook and voila, a bhagivad gita is in the house. Add a new stepmother who has a guru and teaches yoga and a new stepfather who has lots of the social alternative media of the era of my birth, in the form of record albums, and I was ripe to start devouring texts from many faiths and the social resistance to status quo.
I come to the conclusion that conflict solved in violence creates more problems than it solves (I am sick in my neshema, my soul, with the Israel-Lebanon ordeal right now) and proceed to live the only nonviolent model of relevance to me at the time: "hippydom." My older acquaintances called us freaks. I even had Hell’s Angels and Banditos around. I called Sonny Barger Uncle for a few years.
Now, I was raised on folk music, came to the Dead through the back door, a reverse of so many of the grass and folk heads I know.
From John Denver to Woody G to the Smithsonian catalogue. More social history. Now I see that Bread and Roses is a noble goal (along in here I solidify my vegetarian path, that I strayed from from time to time, but here, in feeding all who hunger, was born my current social conscious, attributable to my spiritual studies.)
Skip again and I’m 23 with a new life dependent upon me to feed body, mind and soul. How am I going to do that? I knwo intellectually that I’m Jewish, but I ‘ve also been a kirtan bunny. I have a friend who is Pagan (wiccan at the time) and she brings me to CUUPS, a division of a church of all things. (I’ve attended a smattering of services at churches related to family and friends. Never resonated with me.) Grated, it’s a UU church, and a fellowship without a leader at that.
So I investigate Paganism and while Divine Feminine is warm, the rest is rote and dogmatic in my heart.
They are brothers and sisters yet, but I retreated to the bikepath of my own journey.
Somewhere along the way I returned to judaism. I’m at Chabad now, for its outreach to the culturally inept. and boy am I inept.
I recently read Rav Shachter-Sholomi’s Jewish with feeling (he’s an instructor at Naropa) and I will be seeking out his shul.
A Lubavitcher once himself, he is looking beyond the edges himelf.
What I’ve learned:
faith is asking big questions
You might not like the answers, but many traditions have good questions.
powerful organizations tend to get political.
politics are transitory. The quest is eternal.
Judaism has a concept of tikkum olam: repairing the world, all of the world.
I see it as a daunting task, but one that if approached with love and humor, will suceed.
I think it all started with Disney’s version of PeterPan… .
Other early influences would probably include the Lone Ranger TV show.
Then I ran into books by Alan Watts, Carlos Castenada, D.T. Suzuki, Ram Dass, E. A. Burtt, Swami Prabhavananda, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Tsu dudes, Edward Conze, Aldous Huxley, etc., etc., and so forth.
LSD was undoubtedly the thing which first alerted me to other levels of consciousness and reality and set me off in search of some satisfying teaching or explanation of what I was experiencing with this substance.
This was all back in the 70’s – before punk hit the scene, back in the ‘hippie era’, and there was a definite energy around then which I naturally enough hooked into. I read Tim Leary’s ‘Politics of Ecstacy’ when I was about 18 and as they say, it blew my mind. Here was someone who was saying what I both wanted and needed to hear. (Later on I read Leary’s later work, and that’s another story.) These days I wouldn’t recommend ‘PoE’ because it was a crazy and wildly over optimistic acid driven vision it portrays. But at the time it didn’t look that way.
So I began gradually to read books on mainly eastern philosophies like Buddhism and Hinduism. For a while I became interested in Krishna Consciousness, but got put off by the scandals etc in Iskcon.
I beagn to read other stuff – western occultism such as Crowley influenced me quite a bit during the 1980’s, but I was also becoming interested in mystical Christianity, the ideas of G.I.Gurdjieff, and Indian teachings from Sri Ramakrishna, Yogananda, Sri Aurobindo and others. Oh, and Sufism too, up to a point. Also interested in the I Ching, and the tarot, although I can’t do divination with the cards.
Other people who I’ve found interesting – Aldous Huxley, John C. Lilly, Ram Dass, Casteneda, Amit Goswami, William Blake, and many artists, writers and musicians old and new. I could compile a huge list.
These days I’m very much into the idea of a Divine Femminine – the Goddess, the Divine Mother, the Shakti – many names from many different traditions. I see this in a sense as one way of compensating for the exclusive preoccupation with male deities that has characterized the last 2,000 years of the patriarchal religions, and authoritarian government.
In ancient times, and up to this day, many tribal and shamanic people worship the Mother.
But I also have reverence for other forms of the Divine – and that which is beyond name and form, so I’m happy to join Krishnas chanting from time to time, or go into a church and say a hail Mary….but mostly I stay well away from organized religion.
The old religions need to change or to go IMO. The only hope for the earth seems to be a new consciousness.
I met Bhagavan Gurudeva, another of the famous eleven – it was that meeting that turned me off Iskcon. But still, I know some good devotees too.
In ancient times, and up to this day, many tribal and shamanic people worship the Mother.Indeed, the sacred feminine is a very important element missing from today’s organized religions. Only paganism and hinduism seem to acknowledge and respect this concept. We males have all lost touch with our feminine side, and as a result we are a much more aggressive species it seems.
I would like to see COOL acknowledge both the Yin & Yang energy that provides balance in our lives. It’s the over emphasis on Yang energy that has created so many crises in the world today. The missiles falling today on Lebanon and Israel are symbolic of this. Why negotiate when you can have war and shoot off deadly phallic symbols at your enemy?
then i never accepted that adulthood ment throwing out innocence, the utter nonintention to cause harm, with the bath water.
that’s almost all of it really. the heavin of not being robbed of our calmness only exists by not robbing each other of our calmness.
whatever else may exist, well there’s noting to stop anything from doing so.
existing or anything else. or if there is, it is beyond our knowing about it.
is wisdom more then to avoid self deception?
every deception of ourselves we discouver and remove, each time we see a little clearer. if there is an end point, a penultimate, to this, i have also not seen it.
it doesn’t matter what we call this
there are things that do matter. how what we do effects what everyone including both ourselvs and everyone else experiences in existing is one of them.
wherever i may have gotten, in my thoughts, in my beliefs, this seems to be pretty much what has gotten me there. that and going for long walks in the woods by myself as a very young child and witnessing nature’s marvel of diversity.
also as a very young child my parrents had to move arround a lot because of my dad’s lack of seniority on the railroad for which he worked. and because of that i could see that this marvel of nature’s diversity was everywhere. whatever differences there were from one place to another, in every place, diversity remained the nature of what was (and is) real.
=^^=
…/…
What was your seeker journey?
I was never a seeker…the journey found me.
how old were you when you started, and how old should you have started paying attention to the rustlings in your soul?
Around 20; I can’t say that I should have started at any specific time.
what have you been involved with?
Grew up moderately conservative Christian but always questioning; then some drugs…LSD and Mescaline total half-dozen times, social weed smoking with friends, last psychedelic use around age 23 and was not a marijuana user after that age…have smoked maybe five times since then. Early general reading about Hinduism and Eastern philosophy: Autobigraphy of a Yogi, Christopher Isherwood, Hesse, three or four versions of Bhagavad-Gita; also a small amount of Buddhist writings…never was attracted to Buddhism.
ISKCON around age 21 was first meaningful involvement with Eastern spiritual culture and has been my principal religious involvement throughout adult life.
what have you studied?
What I previously noted, plus reading and study of Srila Prabhupada’s translations of Vedic scripture, books and articles by other ISKCON and Gaudiya Vaisnava authors.
I joined this forum and became a regular because of the intelligent and outward-looking perspective; I’ve expanded my spirtually-based reading, dialogue with others, and spiritual world view as a result.
How important is your faith in your view of the world?
Inseparable fom my world view. I’m still a member of the ISKCON spiritual culture but have gradually made a transition to a universal and all-encompassing spiritual viewpoint.
Drumminmama: I met Kirtanananda on one occasion and was not impressed with him; this was before I had any personal knowledge of his unsavory activities.
Bill: I saw Bhagavan at a Hare Krishna festival about 20 years ago, but had no basis with which to form an opinion…didn’t hear him speak.
Fortunately, my personal-level involvement with ISKCON has been nearly 100% positive. I’ve never been under the influence of a bad leader and have had lots of association with some very fine devotees.
To find something that worked for me.
how old were you when you started, and how old should you have started paying attention to the rustlings in your soul?
I started about May of 11th grade…sooo…umm…2 years and some months ago…though it seems like longer… but perhaps I did start younger but my world view just expanded then…
what have you been involved with? Well…I was born Roman Catholic and I’ve never been always keen on all the rules (that I think I learned from my grandmother when I was young. If I ever knew a mystic…I’ll bet my grandmother was one… 🙂 ). In about 11th grade…I got really heavy into the Beatles and then George Harrison and I set out exploring. And when I learned of Krishna…my world turned around. I learned of ISKCON but it was more of a jump start than anything else…and then I read "Autobiography of a Yogi" and my world changed forever and my heart expanded to understand the connectedness of things. When I came to college, I learned of the rituals of Hinduism and I understood their beauty and I began working with the Woman’s Interfaith Action Group (WIAG) and met some people who will change my life continuously.
What have you studied?
A lot of Hinduism books: AOY, Bhagavad-Gita (many versions), working my way through the Upanishads and Ramayana, many stories from the Puranas both that I have read online and people have told to me (some in this forum; some orally in one very good conversation in the student union); Yogi Sri Krishnaprem, Ramatirtha, Ramakrishna, Vikenananda, M.M., Ma Indira Devi, Pravananda, Dilip Kumar Roy; tons of poets ; Also I have read: Ralph Waldo Emerson, H. D. Threaou, Annie Dillard, Rumi, Thact Nhat Hanh, Herman Hesse, St. Thomas Aquinas, H.H. The Dalai Lama, Howard Therman, ML King, MK Gandhi and even more assorted poetry…all of these things in some kind of combination have formed my world…
How important is your faith in your view of the world? There is no difference…kindness and love is how I attempt ot live my life… and peace is how I’m working for this world…and also interfaith…
I consider myself lucky to never have had a religion shoved down my throat during my youth. My mom believed in God, but not clouded by religious "dogma". So I easily picked up on that. She passed away & I was on my own, and at university by the age of 16.
That year, I started experimenting with drugs, marijuana and hashish and soon synthetic mescaline (fucking GREAT!) and LSD. That is what opened my mind and lifted the veil. So that was 1970, 36 years ago. I have NOT done LSD since the late 70s. I believe it’s taught me what I need to know, and I haven’t found the need to return to that experience again in all these years.
I have done magic mushrooms over the years until they started to affect my digestive system negatively, so I don’t do those anymore either.
So at age 16 I was immersed in University studies where I quickly dropped out of a special business program (they wouldn’t let me open a cooperative, student run, cheap on-campus store!), and became an anthropology major instead. I took an interesting philosophy course with the professor who I’d heard did the most LSD of anyone on campus. Unfortunately he was sooooo out there, his lectures were incoherent (he was probably on acid during class – he’d pause for as long as minute trying to catch up with his thoughts!). But nevertheless he turned me on to some great works including P.D. Ouspensky (In Search of the Miraculous, Tertium Organum, A New Model of the Universe, the Fourth Way) and Teilhard de Chardin (The Phenomenon of Man) and Gurdjieff of course.
That pretty much gave me a starting point and perspective on the "great mysteries", those truths that have been hidden or repressed by religions over the centuries.
After 2 years at SUNY, I moved out to California and studied at three colleges/universities there. I majored in psychology (took courses like psychology of religion, environmental psychology, etc.). I ended up graduating cum laude from UCI with a major in Social Ecology.
My studies included reading Hindu texts like the Bagavad Gita, The Mahabarata, Christian texts including both testaments and things like the Essene Gospel, the complete works of Carlos Castenada, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Jane Roberts (the Seth books), Pramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi) and many more.
I’ve actually hung out briefly with Seventh Day Adventists (made veggie meals for them), Jehovah Witnesses (got suckered in thanks to their doomsday shit – but left the moment they said fornication was bad!), the Vedanta Society (visited their monastery for a College paper about Utopian societies), managed to escape the clutches of Moonies in Berkeley back when few ppl had even heard of them.
I still practice Ahimsa, Hatha Yoga and Karma Yoga.
I’ve traveled around the world – twice! I got to hangout and live in places like Bali (Hindu Animists), Thailand (Buddhists), India (Hindu & Muslims), Morocco (Muslims), Israel (Jews & Muslims – the muslims were much friendlier and way more polite!), Germany, Netherlands & Scandanavia (mostly atheists), Spain (Catholics), Australia, NZ (christian), Fiji (hindu, muslim, christian). So I’ve experienced these cultures and religions first hand and learned a great deal about them, as that was a major motivation for these travels.
I’m now able to see the advantages and disadvantages of them from a social scientist’s perspective. What kind of society does each religion create? How does each religion enhance individual freedom of thought and action? Which are the most restrictive or liberal? What social problems do each religion create or ameliorate? I can answer these questions for those cultures/religions I’ve experienced.
I’ve met some remarkable people over the years. Some great living sages. They have inspired me as much as my psychedelic experiences, travels and studies. These enlightened beings have taught me as much by example as by discussion.
I studied astrology for years and was a busy professional astrologer for several (no time for this anymore).
I’ve worked in successful cooperatives so I’m used to sharing responsibility and power with others. I know the benefits and pitfalls of these kinds of organizational setups.
Unfortunately, with all the study and traveling I did, I never found a religion I could call my own! Until now I guess… 😉
My background is a bit checkered. Given my assumption that the membership here has been chosen in part because the individuals can be trusted with truth I will give a revealing history of my sometimes but not always parallel paths- physical and spiritual.
I was subjected to enforced religious observance… but only after age 14, when I was placed in a foster home. Before that chapter, my life was domineered by an violent, alcoholic father and a mother who was unwilling to protect her children. When delusional dad began, with some measure of glee, detail how he planned to use his pistol to kill me I took a set of bruises (something I regularly acquired from this style of "parenting") to a school guidance counselor. The state was called in and intervened on my behalf and the second chapter of my life, as well as some healing, began.
I respect peoples’ need and desire to belong to a church organization although I can’t in any good conscience ascribe to such doctrine. The church is man’s institution designed to serve man’s needs. The fact that some people can achieve a level of spiritual fulfillment by attending is not lost on me but I can’t go along with practices to to me seem inherently hypocritical. This doesn’t diminish the notion that we are spiritual beings- having a human experience- to paraphrase one signature here at the boards.
To me, this existence is a finite path where each of us has something to contribute as well as something to gain that can only be achieved in the flesh. I believe that our incarnation is intended to knit us together but that modern culture and politics is working against this. Each of us has a unique path where we are supposed to learn and practice forgiveness and to not intentionally inflict evil on others. Pursuit of personal wealth is not part of this and constitutes a distraction. Spiritual fulfillment involves connecting with others and giving- NOT money as the giver has as much to gain (status, ego) as the recipient, but giving of yourself; time, wisdom… let someone benefit from your experiences.
My history with drug use mostly involved marijuana. While I no longer partake, I’m not anti drug. I do believe that there is a distinction between use and abuse- abuse not necessarily implying addiction. I got little out of my pot smoking beyond the high- there were no real spiritual or intellectual revelations; just munchies and laziness. Drug use hasn’t aided in my search for self. Life’s journey includes ongoing self-discovery. Each experience alters who we are. The ideal religion to me not only enlightens me to who I am, but also to who I have been and who I’m becoming.
I was very fortunate to be raised in a home where beliefs were an individual choice. As I got older I asked my mother "why was I never baptized?" Her response was very honest "it was not my choice to make." To this very day I thank her for it.
I have attended worship in church & in nature. I prefer nature. But that is just the start of my journey. Do I believe in a all knowing, omnipresent being? Ah that is the question isn’t it. Everybody finds God in a foxhole!! Call it what you will, Christ, Ali the Sacred Feminine or one of many other names.
What I have learned, in seeing the good & sometimes very ugly side of humanity is that we are all connected. Connected to ourselves, one another, this planet & all that is on it. Our actions effect everything that is around us. Do I believe that there is a force that looks after us. Yes I do. There have been events in my life that I can only attribute to divine intervention. I feel that at this point in my life it is spirituality I seek. The term "Religion" tends to make me feel uneasy anymore. I prefer guidance and enlightenment to control.
I had studied other cultures in school. Obviously, there were great men (and women) of peace, highly enlightened individuals, outside the Judeo-Christian tradition? Why couldn’t I follow their example? My family tolerated my questions, but saw me as a defector. It appeared that I was turning from the only correct path. (they still see it that way) To appease them, I first looked at other denominations that were familiar. I tried Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, even Foursquare Gospel, and yet it wasn’t right for me. I started reading everything I could find about other religions. I stumbled across a book called "Things to Ponder", published by The Theosophy Society. It changed my life, by answering many of my questions, and showing me that there is more. I continued studying other religions, and now embrace many "disciplines". I enjoy learning from all of you. There is much knowledge exchanged here. Thank you for letting me participate.
Thank you brother skip for pointing me in the right direction, and to all my brothers and sisters, I am more than willing to help with whatever, whenever, just let me know and I’ll give it my bet shot!
Wishes for blessed peace and good karma
peace
raysun
My spiritual path has been a long one that I will not go into too heavily. Suffice to say that I have never found a religion that is entirely false. Even renowned occultist Aleister Crowley can be quoted as saying ‘love is the law.’
Although I was raised Southern Baptist, my guides have always been open minded and promoted the same mindedness within me. My upbringing in the church helped me to develop a very strong spiritual backbone to the degree that today, spiritual studies is a way of life. There is some truth on all paths and while no knowledge is completely revealed, our blessing is that we are each given the answer to every question once in our lifetime-yet our curse is that they are then hidden in memory. To know all answers at all times would destroy the ego(get back to the garden) and where is the fun in that?
Jerry once said, when an interviewer asked his thoughts on religion, "Let’s not use the word religion. That’s such an ugly word." One Love spirituality. Once spirituality is categorized into a religion, no matter how broad, dogma will follow, judgements imposed, and social status seeps in.
Within the scope of One Love spirituality is the one who saw, in a vision, their god pinch from the waterfall of eternity-our universe, and saw it spin out into existence. From a place beyond the chains of time, he saw a future where the cosmic energy of humanity come to a head as each heartpath found its way back to Love and Love burned thru the fabric of the Universe and created in its place a new creation, blindingly bright with the Light of Love. Profound, but in the same way the demise of a sand castle is erased by the tide. There is much good in the sand castle that is our universe but none of it will last!! Love will soon burn thru it all as we herald in the new Aquarian age of awareness.
Duane Allman: not revolution, Re-Evolution
Merry Pranksters’ motto: Nothing Lasts
Also within the scope of One Love is the one who saw, in a vision, the alien jellyfish from which all humanity was sprung, populate the Earth and said jellyfish still give regular counsel from the alcoves. Which of the 2, if either, is correct? Both and neither for the answer to all questions come from within and it is always different in each heart. That is part of the beauty of humanity. We are diverse and strength comes in when diversity is appreciated in each other. One Love encompasses all beliefs and adheres to none of them. There is some truth upon all paths.
True beauty comes from harmony, not the blending of the colours of humanity into one mind of thinking or one skin colour, but the harmonies achieved when acceptance and understanding allows different subscriptions to work together for the benefit of Love. Every element of humanity, each race, religion, profession, even gender, has its own magnificence that is an important part of the Universe.
After mentioning visions here, I feel a need to point out that on My path, I have found psychedelics a critical element in peeking ‘beyond the curtain’, or natural Universe, into the spiritual world. This is a practice that has been implimented throughout the ages of mankind in diverse cultures through mainly natural psychedelics. A path back to the Creator(s) from each human’s heart is revealed when the portal within is opened. I found this out on my own and have since learned that many in the world of psychedelics have discovered this as well. I was selling mushrooms a few years back at a Ratdog show and having completed the day’s work, took what I thought a mildly generous dosage myself. Later calculations put this amout at at least 12 grams dry or 6 strong doses. I dozed in and out a dream state and was shot into a place where all my fathers interacted with me, my Creator made Itself known, and all knowledge ran before me like a stream. Since this life changing episode, my recreational use of psychedelics abruptly stopped. I now see psychedelics as an important gift to see the truth beyond this dimension. Psychedelics have the power to cleanse the inner-vision and find the path from the heart to from whence we came. Love is the path back from the heart and it is from whence we came. It is God and it is within You!
I esp. like the line: "One Love encompasses all beliefs and adheres to none of them."
I think COOL will take that to heart. I’m for people finding their own path. We can illuminate the various paths available to people, but they must make their own choices along the way. Eventually all paths lead to the same place, and as we get closer to that place, the paths merge and become ONE.
Many of us are already far along these paths because we have indeed "lifted the veil" and seen where these paths all lead.
When I look around I see so many who’ve gone the psychedelic route (hey I’m living close to SF!, waddaya expect!), and these are the people I can really relate to, far more than most of the others who’ve never had these experiences.
Even today, you can look in someone’s eyes and KNOW, just like you did in the 1960s & 70s that they KNOW what you know. They’ve taken the same trip as you and experienced the mind expanding enlightenment of psychedelics. These are our true soul brothers and sisters.
It does seem that us older ones have reverence for these sacrements unlike many of those generations after us who’ve taken them as a party drug.
We now realize that the psychedelic experience is a healing one. As a society, we have lost our respect for our planet, our fellow men and ourselves. Psychedelics put us back in touch with the reality that our society has blinded us to. We must now create new communal organizations that restore this reality and help us to heal ourselves and our society. COOL is just one of these.
Glad to have you with us, Wandrnshaman!
Obviously, the lessons you’ve learned in your wandering have served you well.
There is a great warm wisdom to your words.
I look forward to sharing lessons from the road(s) we’ve travelled.
Peace to you my brother..and welcome
Sounds like a Motto (or something like it) to me.
I’ll get to the story of my Journey in a day or two.
Posted by: skip
Notes: