The Glorious Both/And

separateness and oneness uni dual not non dual and uni viduality the one and the many the one is the many - a oneness of multiplicity the One as two "Unless the many are seen as holy as the one, then we never arrive at the great secret: that the many and the one are a single thing." the absolute and the relative They do not exist apart from one another they're intertwined like lovers “No relative only, no absolute only. We don’t need those traps. They are not opposed but benefit from each other, the way sound and silence dance, making music.”- Jason Shulman unity and diversity unity  of diversity = diversity without division being and becoming Being is becoming The ground of Being  blooming! the Shadow and the light the light can illuminate , without needing to negate the darkness they have one another joy and sorrow intertwined suffering and freedom not freedom from, freedom to  (be fully human) heartache and love the heart broken  open the personal and the universal

This now that feels timeless This present moment Is Billions of years old! It’s the leading edge, this present With an unfathomably epic past Savoring the paradox: This feeling of timelessness is at least 140,000,000 centuries old! Which means that right now the universe is savoring the wondrous mystery of itself, AS ME And the experience of simplicity owes it's nature to an unfathomably complex process that began eons ago These are precious gifts Evolution has given us Everything this moment is, Was once the size of an ACORN Recalling the NOW's past Instantly makes it riveting immerses me more deeply in it in the poignance of ALL OF THIS that the past has led to, That I am now thrillingly, enigmatically, part of. Even small talk is significant When it has the depth of 14 billion years within it A poem I wrote inspired by the awe-inducing view in which which evolution has been the process of Being becoming, and now emerging into a conscious relationship with itself, as human :

"I saw too many untreated anxiety disorders and too many untreated depressive disorders, and too many untreated PTSD sufferers, and it just got to me. I couldn't ethically support what was going on." "Sociology also helped me understand my entry into, and exit from, the new age. I was able to see that I left my new age career for the same reasons I entered it: I was really concerned about the number of trauma survivors there, and how they were being confused and pandered to and marketed to, but not truly helped. I saw too many untreated anxiety disorders and too many untreated depressive disorders, and too many untreated PTSD sufferers, and it just got to me. I couldn't ethically support what was going on. And though I was a voice of dissent and I got pretty far in my years of writing and teaching, I realized that in my 30-plus years in the new age, I had seen no one get truly well. People acquired a better vocabulary for their pain, and they had more ways to soo

"Only the false can be destroyed  so go ahead now and commit egocide." "Die before you die, to realize that there is no such thing as death..." Now I know that there are real things that will be destroyed when we die, in ego death experiences, and physical death. D estroying yourself early, you destroy something very real.  Self-negating spirituality falsely falsifies you and in doing that  convinces you to part with your reality because there's  really nothing to lose  but an illusion, but I see now that is tragically not  the truth. My crippling fear of impermanence and mortality, and burning desire for freedom from my suffering has led me again and again to a fork in the road where I can choose between... To ease my fear of death, die before I die (by ego-cide) before fully living  my  life.  Or, live  more fully before   I  die, letting impermanence reveal the poignancy that each and every fleeting micro-moment is made of God knows how much I've vacill

"Evolutionary" spirituality, as I relate to it,  invites us to wake up to being an evolved expression of the universe, waking up to itself - an increasingly  self-realizin g universe, that after billions of years of evolving unconsciously, can start to evolve  consciously as human    👏🏽 When the universe becomes  self-conscious  - in moments when a person wakes up to being the universe as a person - that person has a unique opportunity to evolve consciously on a personal level, and through their (inter) actions participate in the evolution of the collective, of the universe itself!  The One, a single universe communing with itself as human Perceiving this world of multiplicity as the "One in relationship with itself" (Tim Freke), a single universe manifesting as the many, gives back significance and reality to the relational dimension that reductionist non-dual teachings negate, and gives back that significance 1000x fold! How profound when I perceive everything a