Spiritual Journeys – Linda Dove & Lisa Ellison

Experiencing the Divine Through Every Day Life By Lisa Ellison

HUU Spiritual Journey’s Service March 27, 2011

Spiritual journeys are often long and winding roads. There are often forks in these roads and blind curves to navigate, but I believe we all possess an internal compass that shows us the way. I grew up in a Lutheran, Catholic, Buddhist family. Needless to say I was offered many different entry points on my spiritual journey; yet, all of these thresholds contained preset roadmaps. Fortunately my parents let me explore and choose my own way as I grew up. I can’t say that everyone was always happy with my choices, but I can say they were always mine to make. I think that people have aha moments in their lives when they hear things that speak to their inner truth. These experiences of truth originate deep in the gut unsullied by rational thought. Sometimes people mistake them for indigestion. But these moments offer important information that can expand our world view and show us something different. However, the messages we receive do not always coincide with what others may expect of us.

I spent a lot of time contemplating these three religious traditions as a young child. I liked the holidays and the sense of ritual I found in my grandmother’s Catholicism even though I wasn’t big on the idea of wearing frilly white dresses. Plus the whole idea of bread into flesh and wine into blood scared the crap out of me. In the beginning Lutheranism meant cookies, juice, and crafts. This was really enticing. I loved glue. But, when I was around seven years old I was told that I had to go to the big church service upstairs. My heart sank. Adult church was long and boring. They did not serve cookies and juice. Most of the time I sat quietly and contemplated the huge wooden cross suspended in the air above the pulpit. I wondered where the wood came from, how strong the wires were, what would happen if I tried to climb it. Wondering about all of the possibilities hidden in that huge cross gave me the patience to sit still while the preacher delivered his sermon. Everyone was very nice at this church, but somehow the practice did not speak to me. I had a real problem with original sin and needing somebody to forgive me for things I hadn’t done.

So when I was eight and my mother became a Buddhist, I was intrigued. No one at the Buddhist meetings told me I was bad or needed to be forgiven. Instead, they told me I possessed this inherent Buddha nature and that my job was simply to allow it to manifest in my life through chanting, mediation, and activities that promoted peace. There was something really attractive about this, despite the fact that this practice required considerably more than simply showing up on Sunday, or wearing fancy dresses. This was my first aha moment.

I think the thing that appealed to me more than anything else was the act of chanting. In this form of Buddhism, recitations of chapters of the lotus sutra are recited twice daily along with chanted mantras in an archaic form of Chinese that creates a beautiful spiritual song you can get lost in. When I would sit in the middle of a room full of people chanting and reciting gongyo I could feel the vibrating energy between us. There is a Buddhist term for this – Itai Doshin, which means oneness of mind and body. In those moments we were many in body but one in mind. That was amazing. For me, nothing compares to such a direct experience of the divine.

It took me a really long time to learn certain parts of this prayer. I remember the summer I turned eleven my aunt said “and now you’re going to learn the thus come one chapter.” It was her belief that if something was difficult, you must have something to learn from it. For two months she had me sit by myself and struggle through the five morning prayers including the dreaded thus come one chapter. Some days I would mumble. On others I would sigh. Most days it took me around two hours to complete this practice. I often felt like giving up. Yet, somehow I believed I must have something to learn from this struggle so I kept going. Eventually I got it.

I practiced this form of Buddhism until I was twenty-six when I experienced a crisis in faith. Our religious leader really wanted us to explore the concept of the mentor disciple relationship and to examine our own abilities to join fully with our spiritual leaders. I took this seriously and spent a lot of time in contemplation and mediation on the mentor disciple relationship. Unfortunately I came to the conclusion that their leader wasn’t my mentor so I left that faith. This was another aha moment, though it was not the kind I wanted to have.

Leaving a faith can be a painful process. It left me disillusioned and dismayed. How could I come to such a conclusion when the exact opposite should be true? But that’s the thing about the inner voice we all carry. If we listen closely, it lets us know which way to turn at the fork in the road. It tells us what we need rather than what is easy or desired. I still believe in many of the basic tenets of Buddhism – karma, reincarnation, equanimity, non-attachment, striving for world peace, and the importance of struggling with difficult lessons. I continue to read texts by Buddhist scholars and to practice meditation, but I also allow myself to study and borrow from other traditions when they speak to me. I find that what I need typically lands in my hand at the right time.

In the time between my crisis of faith and my next spiritual turn I had many ups and downs in my life. My brother committed suicide three years before this crisis and I still experienced a considerable amount of grief that I hadn’t processed. It was probably the darkest time in my life. In our darkest moments, our need for spiritual light is most deeply felt. On the floor, huddled in a ball, crying out into the night, we are at a crossroads where we can choose hope or crushing despair. Sometimes it takes the light of others to help us out of our inner darkness. I am fortunate to have learned how to lean on others and let my higher power speak through them during the times when I’ve needed it most. In a moment of utter despair during that difficult time, I prayed for the right person to show up and offer me the hope I needed to ignite my light. That person stood on the other side of the doorway. She took me far into my own healing journey. I will never forget that moment because it was the first time I really talked to my higher power within the universe and felt the answer. My higher power is my definition of god. It is the genderless divine energy of the universe – an entity we can’t really fully understand, but that we can tap into and experience in our lives. I have had lots of discussions with my higher power about life and my struggles. However, sometimes the answers I am given aren’t crystal clear.

I was in a bad car accident in 2005. I tore all the muscles in my shoulder and upper back. I couldn’t turn my head for months. At the time I was really afraid that I would be disabled for the rest of my life. I often said why me? While there are still times when I experience pain, this event was a huge blessing for me. This injury brought me to yoga where I have really learned to quiet my mind and practice expressing my inner peace through movement. Shortly after my accident I got divorced. That time on my mat was my greatest gift. It was the gentle aha of relief to a troubled soul. Had I been completely healthy I wouldn’t have paid the money to go to yoga because it felt like too much of a luxury. My accident made it a necessity, and as a result I now have another avenue where I can speak and practice my truth. Happily, through the chanting of Om and other mantras within some classes I can still experience that wonderful vibration of connection that I loved in my former practice.

In 2007 I attended a talk by his holiness the Dalai Lama. This was one of those bucket list moments for me. I had wanted to see the Dalia Lama since I was seventeen. He is a tiny funny man who exudes peace and a childlike happiness despite the many struggles he has endured. One thing he said during his talk really spoke to me: He said that to have inner peace you needed three things: passionate enthusiasm, optimism, and self-esteem. This struck me as so profound. For most of my life I had been seeking serenity and inner peace, believing that if I could just find it, then I would possess these qualities. Yet as I sat in his presence I realized that the more I worked on myself and built up those aspects of my life independent of my search for inner peace, the more inner peace found its way into my being.

As a future counselor, I have many reasons to work on my serenity. It’s funny. There is a way that I am deeply attracted to spiritual gurus and leaders like the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, the Buddha and many others because of their spiritual wisdom, yet I find that it’s the day to day interactions I have with ordinary people, particularly difficult people, who really help me deepen my spirituality. I worked with children who have behavior disorders for seven years. This is a very challenging population with huge needs. Children with emotional disturbances and behavior disorders have a tendency to elicit things in you because that’s all they know. Yet, no matter how they behaved, or what they did, I had to find a way to love my students so I could walk by their sides for as long as I was needed. I learned early on that I had to pray for their happiness and inner peace if I wanted to make it through the day.

I believe that difficult people, particularly those I encounter through helping relationships, are in my life because they need my prayers, and I need them to help me stay in contact with my higher power. I figure that no matter how crazy things get, I can offer them my prayers and continue my dialogue with the universe. This sounds a lot easier than it is. Sometimes people irritate me to the point where the best I can do is say “I pray,” but at least it’s a start. For those who are most challenging, I’ve learned to offer an even more difficult prayer – help me understand how we are alike. Sometimes I have to start that one with “help me.” But it never fails that when I sincerely offer this prayer things change – either we have a breakthrough, I feel different, or the person moves on. I’m able to see the universal experience we share. This allows me to go back to those hard cases and retain my sense of peace and hope.

On bad days I also ask for a surprise from the universe. If nothing else, it helps me search for the good in the day. I always know when I’ve found it. Looking for the surprise, allows me to become quiet and hear the voice of god within me. It sounds just like my own voice only wiser and calmer. It comes from a place deep within. I don’t hear it all the time – in fact I have to intentionally work towards hearing it, but I’ve heard it enough to know it’s there and so I keep talking even when it doesn’t reply.

I read many different books that I find to be spiritual. Some are religious, some are fictional stories that express the truth to me, and others are a mixture of the two. In the Neale Donald Walsh book Meditations on the Conversations with God he writes:

I am going to tell you this: there are no “rotten apples.” There are only people who disagree with your point of view on things, people who construct a different model of the world. I am going to tell you this: no persons do anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.

I am working to understand and accept this truth in my life – that people are doing the best they can given their world-view. Accepting this truth does not mean that I have to condone heinous actions or that I don’t have to work to correct social injustices. It simply means that I need to allow myself to sit in the shoes of those I may disagree with and see the world through their eyes before I proceed. I need to see the fear in anger, hatred, and bigotry, and the desire for dignity, respect, and protection within those who have agendas I don’t understand and move forward compassionately, seeing more of how we are the same rather than how we are different. When I am not able to do this, I will try to accept our inherent similarity as a possibility, and that the problem is that I am not seeing the light.

One of the characters in a Paulo Cohelo novel Brida said, “I’ve learned that the search for god is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that’s hardly a surprise really, because for each of us day is a dark night. None of us know what might happen even the next minute, and yet still we go forward. Every moment in life is an act of faith. You could choose to fill it with snakes and scorpions or with a strong protecting force.”

My spiritual journey wanders through this Dark Night. I hope that it will continue for a long time. Being quiet, listening intently, and making connections with others will lead me on my way. I am still looking for my spiritual mentor. I believe I’ll recognize him or her when I meet them. Perhaps it will be many people rather than just one. Maybe one day I’ll just ask the universe for a surprise and that right person will be there standing at my threshold. In the mean time, I will have faith and put one foot in front of the other, confident that my foot will make the next right step.

Shanti, shanti, shanty, Namaste.

My Spiritual Journey -  Linda A. Dove

March 27. 2011

How many of you have walked on a trail relentlessly because you were curious—compelled even—to see round that next bend, and the next?

That’s how I’ve been. Yearning to know more about what’s real, what’s ethereal, who I really am, and what’s the meaning and purpose of it all.

And my spiritual trail’s been rocky at times. I’ve struggled uphill, slid downhill and fallen into ditches flat on my face.

But, looking back, I see no dead-ends. Every turning has meant a step forward, even when, as a child, a teenager and younger adult, I wasn’t yet aware my journey was even spiritual.

I should say, though, my progress has been nothing special. I haven’t been a quick learner and I’m still struggling to put what I’ve learned into practice. And listening to the spiritual wisdom of many in this congregation I find awe-inspiring and humbling.

I’m going to skip over my story as a teenager and young adult. Anyway, many of you have been there done that:

the misery and guilt over not having faith or “believing”

the confusion between being religious and being good morally.

So, let me summarize where I stand at this stage of my life?

I’m constitutionally incapable of having a faith in any religious doctrine.

I find some compelling insights and useful spiritual practices in most religion traditions, but I don’t need to believe them.

I’m an atheist in terms of a God up there on his throne, or suffering on a cross, or commanding jihad, or intervening in my affairs on a daily basis.

I’m agnostic because I can’t know anything about the existence or nature of God if that entity is all–knowing, all-powerful, or eternal. By definition, eternity puts God outside time and space and, therefore, my human experience. So, don’t ask me if God sports a halo, or has 6 arms, or forbids gay marriage, or wants me to go to Mecca, or, for that matter, blesses America.

In the broadest way, I’m a deist. For me, God is the fall-back concept to use because we can’t explain the creative spark of the material and immaterial universes. So far, science hasn’t found a final cause of all-that-is. So for me, “God” is the concept outside all-that-is that fills the gap.

Finally, I’m a transcendentalist in the sense that I choose to see the creative energy of the life-force in everything—in nature and in the super-natural. It is in me and in you.

If all this leaves you confused, just hang on to the notion that I use spiritual ideas and practices that I find comfortable and supportive of the spiritual growth that I aspire to, wherever they come from. And, by the way, I am grateful to have found this community here because the UU principles are fine signposts for leading the kind of life I aspire to.

My purpose in life is like so many of yours—to develop my humanity to its full potential by putting my values into action. When I die I want to know I did the very best I could.

In the few minutes I have, I’ll take you round just one or two of the many learning curves on my spiritual journey. Today, I won’t talk about what I call my outer work, my journey with the world but l’ll tell you a bit about my inner work. That involved an introspective journey that I began very consciously over 20 years ago after a particularly long and dark night of the soul. I needed to heal my soul and find what I call my true Self.

Have any of you ever done a survey of your critical life events and memories? That exercise certainly helped me realize that my whole life had been a series of events that I could use as spiritual lessons.

For instance, my mother told me I was reluctant to be born (I was born marooned in a house in a snow storm) and that I didn’t seem comfortable in my skin as a child (I remember wondering even as a child why I was so moody). I still retain a faded childhood memory of having done life before and feeling reluctant to take on this one. And as an adolescent I felt displaced and yearned for a spiritual home.

As a young adult, I felt an overwhelming desire to know everything. (Perhaps I wanted to be God?) I know this sounds arrogant but it was actually a driving force. I was especially taken up with philosophy for a while. I studied the various disciplines of knowledge, scientific method, phenomenology and logic, as well as social sciences and economics. All this contributed to my confusion about appearance and reality, and my then unsteady sense of self.

With this handicap, it amazes me that I’ve been reasonably successful in my life. But it also helps explain why I got pretty depressed from time to time.

And then, after a lot of reflection on my experiences, especially the painful ones, and the help of some loving mentors, I finally gained awareness of two things that made me feel more liberated.

I realized that, though I may be influenced by my background, even my core personality, I can choose not to be a victim of them; and,

I saw that I was free to take responsibility for my own spiritual growth.

(I was in my 30s by this time. I told you I was a slow learner).

In my 40s, trying to grow into my true self became a very conscious purpose. Many of you are familiar with Arjuna’s long conversation with Krishna in the Hindu saga, the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna helped me move forward spiritually in understanding the (little) self and the (spiritual) Self.

David Hawkins wrote, “Human beings wander about in their endless conundrums.” And I hated conundrums. But I knew I needed to lighten up. So I consciously changed my attitude. I decided to enjoy the search and the sense of mystery round that next bend on the trail.

Also, I began to search for spiritual meaning not with my head but with my heart. I studied intuition, synchronicities and dreams and learned to listen to my heart’s wisdom. I began to trust my inner guidance as a valid form of knowing. I owe a lot to the heart-math foundation for that.

I was also attracted to the notion that spiritual guardians, seen and unseen, appear just when I am ready for them. Looking back, I saw there were one or two high school and college teachers whose love and care kept me moving forward at tough times. And there were many well-known spiritual voices too. Thomas Merton the Trappist monk, Helen Luke, the Jungian philosopher and farmer, and Mary Oliver, the poet. I spent some years with a spiritual teacher too. She eventually told me that my spiritual guide was within. I must mention a very significant spiritual teacher for me, the 16th century saint, Teresa of Avila. Though she spoke in Christian terminology, she became a close friend who bravely took on the powers-that-be, denounced self-serving among Church leaders, and persevered in her own difficult journey through the spiral hallways of the Interior Castle (her soul) to reach her Beloved (her God) in the innermost chamber.

I learned too that even difficult people are my spiritual helpers. I can think of several coworkers whom I allowed to push my buttons. They certainly showed me the shadow side of myself. I was a professor at the time, so that experience was valuable in keeping me humble. Now, at least in my more generous moments, I try to deal with difficult folk as if they are offering me a gift to grow spiritually rather than trying to frustrate me.

Later, I worked in complex projects in education and public health in Asia, Africa and the Middle East where many things could go wrong. This was a source of chewing worry for me. I found the Hindu ideal of letting go as the beginning and end of spiritual practice very helpful. The Christian image of the lilies of the field, and the Buddhist pursuit of nirvana or emptiness, are close to this idea too. Having no expectation of outcomes for projects I was managing or from encounters with country counterparts helped me remember that I am not in control. The Tao Te Ching wisely says, “Do your work, then step back: the only path to serenity.”

I should mention two practices that I find helpful. Regular meditation helps me center myself so that I can retain an inner quiet no matter what nonsense is going on in the outer world—or in my mind. And chanting is powerful for lifting me out of myself—ecstasy, in fact. I used to do that regularly with a group, and I miss it now.

I could take you round many more bends on my trail but, finally, let me share a major turning point in my journey, beginning in 1993. I have had several what I call numinous experiences. These have put me in touch with my childhood sensibility of other realities again and have deepened my sense of meaning, purpose and connectedness.

In one very vivid, powerful dream, Krishna sat on my knee as a small child (blue as always) and told me he was searching for me. I felt incredibly nurtured by this. I knew without a doubt that I was loved and looked after.

In another dream I was in a light that spiraled upward and I felt incredibly inspired and grateful. In one of the numinous experiences in nature I felt an overpowering love. It was an ordinary winter’s day. I bent to look at a thorny bush. It glowed. The experience transfixed me. But experience is not the right word. For it was there and gone in an instant. Even that it not quite right. For the love I knew then was not a moment in time at all. It was suffusing, solid, and real. And it is not now a memory or a belief. It is the home where I really belong, an all-encompassing presence. I was outside time and space for an instant. Such rare moments as these have given me a kinesthetic knowing of a larger reality beyond material existence that is without question for me.

So the term “spiritual journey” means much more to me now. I know there is more to my true self than I can access in this life; and more to reality than we can know on this earth. I no longer feel I am wandering in “endless conundrums.” I feel that if I choose to make my life purpose to learn and put into practice the wisdom I have learned, then I am aligning myself with a larger reality beyond human comprehension. That gives the journey meaning.