Paradigm and Purpose

Sublime intent, a feature of life lived constructively and creatively, reflects and requires a balance between the sacred and divine dimensions of life, which in turn reflects and requires a constructive and creative paradigm.

A paradigm conditions the course of a life to either reflect or produce a purpose. "Life is a beach" is one such paradigm. If life is a beach, then I would do well to follow my bliss. Consequently, the purpose of such a life is to contain and carry whatever keeps me in a state of bliss.

"Life is a game" is another such paradigm. If life is a game, then I would do well to play it with consummate skill. To play it with such skill might mean to win at all costs, to advance as far as possible, or to come out on top at the end - all of which condition the way I live, love, and learn.

Here's a chicken-and-egg question for you. Which comes first: the purpose or the paradigm? Do I already have a purpose waiting to be found, and so choose a paradigm that serves to realize this purpose? Or do I choose a paradigm and then find a purpose from within the paradigm?

As an exercise, complete this sentence stem: "Life is a ..." Keep going until you feel completely satisfied. For example, life is a beach, life is a game, life is a puzzle, life is a journey, life is a mission, life is a contract, life is a vision, life is a .... Choose one that resonates with the heart of your soul.

And then, complete the following sentence stem, and keep going until you feel completely assured: "Knowing that life is a [ ], my purpose in life is to ...”

From Prosaic to Sublime

We attract what we attend. More precisely, we attract more or less, the more or less we attend.

So, for example, the more I dwell in peace, the more I give my love, the more I share my joy, the more I follow my bliss, the more I conduct myself with grace, the more easily and quickly I tend to attract peace, love, joy, bliss, and grace into a place where I can make them manifest.

The key word here is "place". Ekos.

"Into a place" might mean "into my body" or it might mean "into my home" or "into my office or clinic or lab" or "into my car or truck" or "into my own private space" - into any place where I feel at home, where I feel "in-place". The more I value this "place", the more sacred I treat it, the more "in-place" I feel.

And the more "in-place" we feel, the more easily we can use our places as vessels of transformation, as containers for creative and divine expression.

When we feel safe and secure in our places, we feel free to explore, to examine, to elaborate, to explain, to express - creatively and productively, effectively and efficiently. When we feel safe and secure in our places, wherever they might be for us, we feel called to meet a purpose beyond need.

With needs met, our desires have a better chance of providing a means by which we can know a purpose. When we feel at home - in our bodies, in our places of residence, in our workplaces, in our own private spaces - we have the confidence to find, to know, and to meet a purpose.

To begin to balance the sacred and divine, we simply need to find our places, keep them safe and secure, and give our desires free reign so that we might find a purpose that resonates with our sense of place, before striving to meet this purpose creatively, productively, divinely.

A prosaic life need not remain prosaic. Any sacred place that supports a divine purpose can (and will) transform prosaic need into sublime intent.

How might we realize a purpose and still keep our balance?

For me, at this time, this is the million-dollar question.

Balance, Sacred and Divine

We attract what we attend.

If we find ourselves in the habit of saying, "I don't need this" or "I don't want this", then the image or feeling associated with [what it is we think or feel we do not need or want] builds up a charge, attracting the very thing we do not need or want, compelling us to repel it all the more forcibly.

In a vicious cycle.

Is there a way out?

Unfortunately, this situation is not a simple matter of letting go, of releasing the sense of not needing or wanting what it is we do not need or want. We might release repeatedly many such instances of this sense of not needing or wanting as they arise. And still, they return to invade our peace of mind.

What to do?

Basically, we take a stand with what we choose to attend and attract.

Ultimately, the answers lie in cultivating two habits of mind: (1) gather impressions of increase with a focus on quality, clarity, and vitality; and (2) prevent impressions of decrease with a selective ignorance of loss, lack, and limitation.

To make it easy to do this consistently requires two compatible frameworks: religious (Ekos Sacred) and spiritual (Eros Divine).

For me, it's not enough to simply cultivate the sacred dimension of life and it's not enough to simply celebrate the divine dimension of life. Putting too much emphasis on one at the expense of the other does not bring us balance in both satisfaction and fulfillment, which is what we ultimately desire.

I would encourage anyone to be mindful of this balance.

More to come on how to strike the balance.

Purpose, Practice, Presence

It has been said that the present moment is all that really exists.

But it just isn't so.

Existence encompasses so much more than the present moment.

Think about it.

When I sit, dry and content, and watch rain fall, in front of an open window, I can allow the present moment to saturate my awareness of myriad sights, sounds, and smells occasioned by the rain.

There is no past, present, or future to think about: no encounter with depth, no involvement or engagement with breadth, no experience of height.

Save the depth, breadth, and height of my awareness saturated by the effects of a downpour.

When I am present to the present, the present blesses me with presence. In the presence of Presence, serenity and clarity are most welcome.

But again, existence encompasses so much more than presence in the present.

Practice, especially transformative practice, requires moving out of, and away from, the present moment, into involvement with the past and engagement with the future. With practice, I am called to involve (at the very least) my awareness with my memories and to engage (at the very least) my awareness with my intentions.

Perceptually, I can only be aware of my memories and my intentions in the present moment, but conceptually, these memories acquire a past and these intentions create a future when I move my awareness out of, and away from, the present moment for the sake of practice with a purpose in pursuit of knowledge, skill, and experience.

Perceptually, I make contact with the present moment through the sensations of my body. Perceptually and conceptually, I make contact with the past through my memories and the future through my intentions. Perceptually or conceptually, my sensations are no more real than my memories and intentions.

Which means that the past, present, and future exist in equal measure when I give equal attention to my sensations, memories, and intentions.

To say that the present moment is all that exists is false; to say that the past and future exist only in the present moment is false.

Celebrate Eros Divine

Eros, in the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche, is the god of a particular kind of love, the kind of love infused with desire, in anticipation of meeting sensual or sexual desire. In the psychology of Freud, Eros is construed as the sum of all instincts that preserve life, manifesting as impulses to gratify basic needs, to protect and preserve body and mind. In the philosophy of Plato, Eros is conceived as a fundamental creative impulse infused with a sensual element.

The archetypal, psychological, and philosophical faces of Eros, respectively, speak to the necessity of desire in relation to love. Love, by itself, is virtually lifeless; desire, by itself, is all but loveless; but when you blend love and desire responsibly and creatively, you find your divinity. Celebrate Eros Divine is really just a shorthand way of saying, "celebrate vitality of spirit through the experience of love and desire, balanced responsibly and creatively".

The key word here is experience, both as noun and as verb. Where encounter is sacred, experience is divine. Where the depths are sacred, the heights are divine. Where the orientation of sacred souls is downward vertical, the orientation of divine spirits is upward vertical. Where the sacred masculine essence goes, the divine feminine spirit follows, and where the divine feminine spirit goes, the sacred masculine essence follows. Where encounters with mystery are sacred, experiences with mastery are divine.

Encounters of soul and experiences of spirit take on a whole new perspective when viewed in terms of sacred and divine, but the orientations of soul through Ekos Sacred and the orientations of spirit through Eros Divine move in fundamentally opposite directions. Are these orientations reconcilable? Can they be balanced? If so, how might they be reconciled? How might they be brought into balance, both from above and from below?

For lovers of life and masters of mind, these questions are essential to lives lived well. In essence, what seductive wisdom is required to find and keep the balance between Ekos Sacred and Eros Divine?

Cultivate Ekos Sacred

Cultivate Ekos Sacred? What does this mean?

By way of explanation, I might begin with the term Ekos, which is a variation on the spelling of Ecos, found in such terms as ecology and economy.

The ecology of a habitat and the economy of a nation, for example, both imply systems - one natural, the other contrived. With systems, we can talk about the totality of a system, with its interactions and exchanges - interactions and exchanges of organisms (in the case of ecologies) or interactions and exchanges of information (in the case of economies).

On a smaller scale, we create more personal systems in miniature, relative to larger systems like habitats or societies, such as residential areas, places of worship, areas of business, and centers of information or entertainment. The scale most amenable to cultivation on the individual level, however, is one that allows cultivation of body, home, office, and mode of transport.

For my purposes, I wish to concentrate on the most personal, and potentially, the most sacred of these objects: the body and the home (whatever or wherever that might be for you), each of which have their own Ekos, their own ecology of ends and economy of means.

The catchphrase, Cultivate Ekos Sacred, is really just a shorthand way of saying, "cultivate quality of soul through body and home as if they were sacred". In light of this statement, we might say that a neglect of soul shows up as a neglect of body and home or that a neglect of body and home are reflections of soul in neglect.

With the cultivation of attractive bodies and homes, we see significant degrees of personal worth invested in body and home. From a universal, evolutionary perspective, this makes a great deal of sense. When we treat body and home as sacred instruments of soul, soul can make a healthy appearance, suggesting both quality and fitness.

When we treat body and home as sacred embodiments of soul, not only can soul be nourished, but personal worth can be expressed peacefully through these projections of soul, providing places of stability for soul to acquire meaning, manifest its purpose, and provide the required weight for spirit to set its direction in harmony with soul.