Uninspired

I have three hours to get my monthly blog out, but I have been in a state since the beginning of spring that has left me so spiritually and creatively strained, the past few blogs have just been like fighting myself to get them out.

So, here is a list of things that I am hoping to write about in the near future.

1) Freemasons are evil, and it will take a water war for us to even begin considering who they really are, and what they truly represent.

2) Angels are messengers, and do not have wings.  Lesser gods are co-creators, and we are currently in the reign of Satan.

3) The Christ will not begin to be recognized until the Masons, mostly from the political side that we know as Protestantism, begin to fall.

4) How the institution of the Eucharist is the main line of defence against sorcery. 

I will leave you with a YouTube that someone posted on my Facebook wall.  Enjoy!

Angels and Aliens

For whatever medieval reason, Blogspot doesn't allow coding that will show links in new windows.

Little gods

I’ve been contemplating (or warring in my head, whichever) Catholicism and New Age, specifically (Kundalini) Yoga, and their similarities and differences. This is because I have been led to believe that the two schools are incompatible, but I through years of dedication have found concrete similarities.

What I consider to be the greatest factor that both links and severs the two theologies, is the topic of divinity: who has it, who can get it, and who is just shit out of luck.

The biggest connection on the topic of divinity in the Bible and in Yoga, is in the Book of Wisdom, which says that we are created to be immortal. However, there is no further canonical explanation (that I have found), which is perhaps how our recognition of divinity dwindled off by the time the New Testament came around.

And though Catholics beatify humans, and elect them as divine, it is really only in the Eastern Churches where we see a dialogue on theosis - the deification of man - and even then we recognize only those who have performed miracles. Yoga, on the other-hand, says that we're all misled gods.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he states that Satan is the god of this world, and in his letter to the Hebrews, he claims that Jesus was made lesser than the angels.  And incidentally, this is why we observe Lent - the Temptation of the Christ in the desert.

Is it possible that to be a god is to be a co-creator? Humans are called co-creators in Catholicism, because they make little humans. If humans are lesser than the angels, then imagine what a lesser god could create!

It would be so much easier to feel more comfortable in our mortality, in understanding the evil that we do unto others, in the unseeable that we claim to know as Truth, and in the emptiness that we all ultimately feel, if we understood what it means to be a god, a saint, an angel, a demon, a host of the Holy Spirit…

Imagine if we had it all wrong about Yahweh and his status as "Primal Source", or "Father". If humans are co-creators, and if angels can fall, then why wouldn’t anyone question if Satan is the one who made this world? After all, this is his world, and there is more than one reference to his status in scripture.

Unfortunately, there are pretty much no texts on this anymore, even though angelology and demonology was an academic study during the Renaissance. Regardless, I believe that it’s time to “Fear the Lord” as that term is meant to be used – to respect that there is something greater than us, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. And why not - we see this in the simplicity of the weather nearly every day!

So if we "respect" the Lord, instead of "fear" him, perhaps we can start to question what I for one consider to be grossly important in living a peaceful and justified life. I am pretty sure if we did have some access to feed inquisitive minds, even if it could only be through our own pondering and dialogue with each other at this time, we would be a lot more similar, a lot more gnostic, and a lot more god-like than we’d at this time like to admit.

The Sick

A week ago I was at my family doctor’s to have a cyst looked at, so that I may be referred to a specialist.  Both doctors have seen me about this reoccurring issue, but the last one was in 2002, and my family doctor does not have the record anymore, so I needed to be re-assessed. 

I left without a ‘script, as it didn’t appear infected, as with the previous two times.  Still though, I was warned that there could be a waiting list to see this doctor who in theory can help me.  The specialist said that if this happened again, he would sew the pocket up. 

Now it is infected, and I have heard nothing yet this past week, not even that the specialist was contacted.  Fortunately, I have a great dermatologist, and I remembered this past long weekend that he can most likely help me, as he treated cyst-like pimples on my chin when I went through an awkward phase of adult acne on my chin in my mid-late twenties.  He is a great doctor, and one of the few who I trust as well.

So after calling him this morning, his assistant, who is just about as awesome as he is, made an appointment for me for tomorrow morning – even the very earliest one so that I won't be late for work!  Thank you God, because I need help fast now, no more messing around.  I can tell that it is starting to get infected, all of the old signs are back, inability to walk, sit, or lie down in any comfort whatsoever.  I look like I am in pain, even though I am trying not to.  Even my chameleon talents aren’t sufficing now.

The past week, along with the inability to get help due to the long weekend (Even though it was Easter – praise be to God!), I realized that for 33 years, I have never not been able to get a doctor.  I am one of the most healthy people who I know, yet I have nine doctors saved on my phone.  Now I understood what it is like to need medical assistance, and to not be able to get it.

I spent the past week and weekend, in my own disbelief of this very potent stress on a very delicate part of my body, and my inability to get it looked at, also thinking about the millions, maybe even billions, of people who cannot get aid when they are sick.  For the first time, I have a new compassion for a new cause – our health care systems. 

The sick.

We have all been sick, even if just with the common flu, which is in itself incredibly painful and toiling.  Can we really imagine what it would be like to not be comforted, relieved, or cared about when we are at our most vulnerable?  Maybe I needed to be in this position to understand.  Maybe we can only feel compassion through that same experience that leads to the pity, or maybe we are not all meant to fight the same causes, but rather disperse and fight what we can, due to our own interest and thereby allocated energies.

So I now have a new grassroots cause, and right on time.  A couple of times my penance has been to pray for the sick, and next Sunday I begin to administer the communion to the sick after Sunday Mass.

So many people are talking about this "cosmic consciousness".  There IS no consciousness!  God help us if those of us who recognized this are attached, bound down, by these New Age idiots.  If we were all connected, how can we be so oblivious from the one thing that actually IS common - getting sick, needing help in recovery, and for a lot of us, not getting that.

The scandal in Parliament

Below is a letter that I just wrote to one of my best friends, after a quasi-debate with him last night regarding a scandal that helped to cause a non-confidence vote, spiralling  Canada into an election, less than three years since the last one. (Along with the requirement to dissolve our government on the same day that we led a NATO mission in one of the most violent places on earth right now).  After verifying the facts with my would-be political co-worker, this is what I wrote:

"I verified what happened with the scandal in Parliament.  It was in fact a matter of question phrasing. 

Bev Oda was asked who signed the document, and she said 'I don't know' because she passed the document off to one of her assistants, or whoever it is that is a level below who does that sort of administration.

The second time, which caused the scandal, the question was, 'Who commissioned it', to which she answered, 'I did'.

They were two totally different questions, but the public was led to believe they were the same, and that she back-peddled.  Do you really believe that our Prime Minister, Conservative or Liberal, would allow perjury?  Especially with a ton of witnesses? 

As you don't believe that I should choose a party for it's ideology, but rather follow individual politicians, I don't believe that you should listen to the media, over what is said in Parliament.  If you care so much about what is being said on the Floor, you should watch channel 71 instead of channel 3.

And the Green Party will drive this country into a chaotic mess.  Europe will fall in 10 - 20 years, because of their beyond liberal ideologies.  The Green party, or even NDP, do not deserve a place in Parliament.

We will never not be at war; I will make sure that I at least support a party who will protect our country and our soldiers.  All Liberals will go to war, even the Green party (Several years ago when I supported them, I still noticed they took no side: and you know what they say about those who don't take a stand).  Liberals, though, are hypocrites - sheep in wolves clothing.  They will send our soldiers, but they will send them unsupported, to die."

Who is strong enough to be US' neighbour?  Only those who are not afraid to look like assholes.  Stand for nothing, fall for anything.  We need a leader, and thanks for a poser coalition - that wants to take power, not earn it - we have civil servants running one of the biggest counties in the world during a time of war.  Amazing.

Zero

I saw on CNN this evening fourth and fifth generation Americans protest the building of a mosque a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero.

These people argue that Muslims are terrorists, that their culture and religion will be compromised, and that constructing an Islamic site near where the World Trade Centers once stood is a mockery to the 9/11 victims.

Rather, I think that we only began to notice Muslims ten years ago, and now it’s time to realize that they are also American, and need a place to gather.  In fact the right to assemble is basic democracy.

I do sympathize with the older generations who ultimately know nothing other than their own ancestry - that since their grandparents are buried down the street, it is “their” neighbourhood.  I understand that this is a shift in their own backyards, and change is frightening.  Being frightened is being vulnerable.  And being vulnerable make us all too aware of our own mortality.

Ultimately though, what these people are protesting is not only the unrefined animal characteristic of hoarding (which is also defined as a mental illness), but also their sense of entitlement is so great, that they ignore, forget, or are simply unaware, of why they are even in America in the first place.

North America is the poor man’s land.  We are ALL here to live in a dignity that we did not have access to before.  Some obtain much more than a survivor’s wage, and some don’t make it off the streets, but no one on this continent should be exempt from humility, meekness, compassion, and of course, obtainment.

I have judged Muslims, I have believed that they are wrong in their faith, that they hate Westerners, that they think Western women like me are whores before God.  But then I realized that I was projecting.

We must accept that this is no one’s land, not really.  Where on this earth did we develop this ridiculous sense of entitlement?  We are forever at war.  At least one war every ten years.  If a country more powerful invaded, this would become their land.  Then what do we really have?

I am not a liberal: in fact I am voting for Harper in May, and encourage all Canadians to do the same.  I am no humanitarian, I am merely a woman - a woman in a sexist, depraved, insulting, undermining, and perverted world, where not much is fair or justified.  A world where Muslim women across the Atlantic have to cover themselves from head to toe like how Europeans once did, lest they be raped.

A passion of mine is women’s rights.  I found something in me that could separate the line socially sketched between me and the orthodox Muslim woman.  I began to understand why we do things one way, and why they do things another way, and that we are not really that different after all.  I believe that in a couple of generations, we will grow more and more alike.  Western women will become more dignified, and Muslim women will begin to feel safe and shed a layer of material or two.

   

If we do not find something in us that can identify with the “other”, then we will always feel violated, always feel that we must gather, prepare, scheme, defend, fight - that we will win or lose.  What kind of existence is that?  We will forever exist within a zero, within nothingness.

America is for everyone, and I have it on good authority that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.  So now what.

The Word

My yoga teacher went out of his way to invite me to a workshop that he put together for Saturday, which was about the Shabad Guru, (intelligent) sound that helps us to transform into god-like beings; we understand this as mantras in meditation.

I told him that I had previous engagements, but that I was interested in learning more, as I did not learn it to my satisfaction in teacher training.  Out of desire to please my teacher, mixed with a bit of self-consciousness, I said that I could only make the last two hours, including this information knowing that there would be no point in attending when the workshop was from 9 am to 6 pm.

He then contacted me a third time by the end of the day on Friday (the first was through e-mail, the second a phone call, and the third in a text message), saying to just make it for the end.  So, rather begrudgingly, I accepted the invitation, I was surprised to see the lengths that he was taking just to contact me.

I arrived for the last hour and a half, and I walked in at the end of an exercise that the girls were doing (and it is a tough one for me, since I have a curve in my lower back, I was glad to have missed it).  Then we started a meditation where we sat on our left heel, had the right foot planted on the ground with the knee pointing toward the ceiling, and the arms stretched out in front, fingers stretching forward.

We chanted an advanced mantra that I learned in teacher training, but never memorised.  It’s called Chattra Chakkra Vartee.  We each had a sheet, and I placed mine on my left thigh, and  then pretty much gave up on it.  I was so upset to be in this horrible posture that was probably not good for my ballet muscles. and tendons.  I also acquired an injury in my shoulder blade in ballet about two years ago, working with my port de bras wrong (movement of the arms), and this posture was really pulling on that; I had also just come from a ballet class, so it was probably already a little inflamed. 

The meditation just wouldn’t end.  Every time we finished the stanza, we went again.  After about ten minutes, I wanted to take a break, storm out, curse my teacher...I was so angry.  But he has devoted his life to this yoga and is a master; which means you simply do not fail when you are before him.  I shot frustration from my eyes at him, he tilted his head, widened his eyes, and in this sing-song energetic voice bellowed out the first line commencing yet another round.  I just laughed, released a bit, and truly began to chant.  He always seems to make it better.

I called upon the strength to breathe into stress points, which I fully realized in White Tantric.  When I had to do a day long meditation event during TT, I suffered in the last hour of meditation.  I didn’t want to give up though, because the entire point of white tantric is to join energy fields in a “Z” like formation, and to not break it.  I told myself, that day the pain came from God, and I was simply going to give it back to him, and it worked.  I again just rested into the awkward position, and it did get better.  Note: now that I am a Catholic, I am not certain anymore that pain comes from God, but I will definitely let him take it away from me!

At the end of the Shabad Guru workshop, we were given about ten minutes to write a poem on the Word, and our experiences that day.  Since I was only there for that meditation (less another one that isn't really blog-worthy), I wrote about the release from the pose during the workshop topic, the sacred mantra, thanks to breathing, and the spirit:, and lastly, on the true Word - Jesus Christ.  That last one went over interestingly, but maybe I was just projecting.  My yoga teacher talking about the BS about Christianity the next day at the beginning of Sunday yoga class tells me not, though.

Ultimately, I wrote this blog on paper in the laundromat yesterday, as a sort of background to my poem that I wanted to share, though now I am thinking that it is a little too dark and revealing at this time. 

But what I experienced in meditation is a reminder to the strength and the frailty of the human body and mind.  Though we should always know what we are chanting, the act reminds me that our souls will always remain untouched, for it is God’s alone, and that the Word can remove our blocks and heal us.  Truly, the Word is the battle cry of the saints: their blood, sweat, and tears shed, given back to God.

The Church and the New Age movement

Response from A Christian reflection on the New Age, and the official document from the Vatican.  (They do not open in a new window).

Note: New Age is defined by the Vatican as "ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on...(and) is not, properly speaking, a religion, but it is interested in what is called 'divine'...(with a) preference for Eastern or pre-Christian religions".  This article will be using yoga as the subject when addressing the New Age movement. 

I became a yogi before I became a Christian.  And though I am now trying to become the best Catholic, a saint really, I don't want to turn my back on Eastern approaches to God, though I no longer practice yoga in any religious way.  The Vatican accuses people like me of cherry-picking, but I know that I am true, and that there is no harm in growing as a physical and spiritual entity through both avenues.  That said, New Age is very much closer on the side of the anti-Christ than not, and it has taken me years to learn how to balance what is outside of Christ, to bring me closer to Christ.

I started yoga strictly as a cross-trainer for dance, and I was only looking for something inexpensive, while being entirely oblivious to any sort of teaching.  I found a class that ran for 10 weeks or so at a middle school that is supported through Toronto Parks and Recs.  I sat in a dirty lunch room, completely disillusioned with what I assumed yoga was after seeing Madonna endorse it.  I will never forget my future spiritual teacher telling us, "you have no idea what you signed up for".  I then began the rest of my life.

Kundalini yoga taught me how to feel better about God through learning to be compassionate, through clarity, through strengthening my intuition by the training of mysticism; it taught me how to sit and meditate, which now helps with my Christian prayer life, it taught me about living holistically and to be a part of the environment, not against it; it even taught me to bless my food and to give thanks!  It truly served my deepest and neglected spiritual needs, so after I achieved my desired flexibility, I stayed.  I even went into teacher training; but it was there that I became Christian-bound, through no real choice of my own, but through God's.

It is important to note, that while I can understand why yoga is attracting so many people, I did not come from a church, so my eagerness might have been more susceptible to  yogic philosophies than someone who is rooted in a Christian background.

Though I have heard for years that the body itself retains memories, I only realized during the recent Advent that the asanas (postures) in yoga heal our bodies on the unconscious level, because when we experience distress, our bodies store that information forever, even if we don’t always physically experience pain at that moment of burden.  So asanas are specifically designed to release that stored up pain, in hope that when practiced honestly, we might release from our own limitations and become something greater than we are.  And when we finish with a meditation and centre ourselves after the yoga (this is at least how it is practiced in kundalini), God will speak to us: he will give us clues to what we are seeking.

With my desire to practice yoga, and my desire to be a mystic in the Church, I am interested in what the Vatican says about the New Age worldview.  Below are points that the Church documents against yoga, with my response.

Argument: Yoga is an “either/or” system - that we must choose between Christ or Aquarian (Age of Aquarius).

Response: I too once believed that it was either yoga or Jesus.  This either/or teaching does seem to be a problem in that yoga  is supposed to be of healing and reconciliation, however there is overt opposition to the Abrahamic religions, mostly Christianity, probably because a huge percentage of practitioners are (or were) Christians who feel (or felt) disconnected from God.  Yoga teaches that secrets kept hidden for millennia will be revealed in the Age of Aquarius, (which is a move from the Age of Pisces, the sign of the fish (Jesus).   But of course, Jesus said that all which is hidden will come to light as well.

Argument: New Age involves spiritual masters, and quotes Luke 16.13 which states that man can not have two masters.

Response: The very next sentence in this passage, in that same verse, clearly demonstrates that Jesus was talking about money!  "You cannot be the slave of both God and of money."  I find it discouraging and disingenuous to assume that we do not know better of the teaching.

Argument: i) New Age teaches a connection (or being “in tune”) with nature, ii) which blurs the lines between good and evil. 

Response: i) Being in tune with nature is essential in winning God's praise, for he created a symbiotic world that requires our respect, and it's really for our own benefit.

ii) Yoga does in fact blur the lines between good and evil.   In yoga we are taught that we are  all-good, which of course makes us feel wonderful, but in truth, this is a dishonest teaching (and possibly even a technique used to attract us).  Yoga does downplay our bad choices, and those choices such as murder, rape, sadism, and funding war while our neighbours starve, are beyond making "mistakes" - they are demonic.  However yoga rejects Satan, and instead teaches that we need to release from our dualistic nature, which is a false teaching, for we are dual - life is a constant struggle of choosing good over bad. 

Argument: Yoga gives tools to improve our way of life through self healing, which states that we have the power within ourselves, and thus do not need God's grace.

Response: I do not believe that yoga denies God, however the pantheistic belief in yoga does suggest that we are not dependent on his mercy.  As in the Vatican's concern with the blurring of boundaries, there is also concern as to who or what God is in the New Age movement, possibly because it is an eclectic mix of belief systems that has furthermore been Westernized, and is still not defined as a religion.  Since there is constant reference to divinity, there should be boundaries. Who are we in communion with?  We should know this.

Argument: (copy and pasted from Wikipedia)

* The cosmos is seen as an organic whole, animated by an Energy, Soul or Spirit
* Credence is given to the mediation of various spiritual entities
* Humans are assumed capable of ascending to invisible higher spheres
* A "perennial knowledge” pre-dates and is superior to all religions and cultures
* People are encouraged to follow enlightened masters.

Response: I will simply state here, and welcome argument, that this is identical to Christianity.

Argument: Yoga teaches that God is in us, and that we are one with God - that we have a divine "spark".

Response: Catholicism teaches that we once had immortality, but that we lost it when our first parents sinned in the Garden of Eden (ie. we lost our inheritance).  God then came to us in the form of Jesus, to establish the sacrament of baptism, which washes away the Original Sin, re-opening our connection to God, and life everlasting.

In closing, the real problem that the Vatican is facing, is that Christians are leaving their faith to pursue paganism, and that is concerning to the bride of Christ (the Church).  People who are spiritually weak are leaving the Light of Christ to dabble in the occult, and that is dangerous.

But with yogis who can remain true to the Christ, we can still aspire to be as perfect as our Father in heaven, because yoga can be a tool to cultivate the gift of discernment, as given by the Holy Spirit, and help to release us from the evil that keeps us from righteousness.  As the Vatican hopes might happen, it is possible that in response to the New Age movement, we can effectively spread the Good News once more, and I think, even better than before!

St. John of the Cross, pray for us.