Deeper Reflections on the Arizona Sweat Lodge Incident

I was talking to a girlfriend who I sit with every Friday in “Women’s Lodge.”  We were reflecting on the Arizona Sweat Lodge Tragedy with James Ray and I was telling her I had just written an article about this.  The irony is we were also celebrating my CD “Emergence” going to manufacturing that day.  And the theme of “Emergence” is really about the emerging of the feminine into her rightful place of power right along side of the masculine.

The masculine energy is all about the push.  It is about the “doing!”  There is a place for pushing and doing but there is also a place for surrender and being.  These qualities have gotten a bad rap in our primarily patriarchal society.  James Ray is a prime example of focusing on the “push” to get ahead in life.  And for so many people “financial gain” is what it is all about.  It is the financial gain that gives people a sense of worth and value in their lives.  The more money one has the more admiration he/she receives.  It is the ultimate sign of success.

Spiritual enlightenment and the ability to sit still and reflect don’t figure very prominently in the average persons view of success.

From the information I have gathered James Ray’s Spiritual Warriors program was not about success but rather survival.  It was a survival program and several did not survive.  Did this make them weak?  Did it make them failures?  Or did it make them a victim of a man who was playing God? Read the rest of this entry »

I have spent a number of years focused on Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the absolute destruction it causes those who are involved in that Web of Illusion.  The deeper I went into the dark world of narcissism the more I learned about myself and how I relate to the world around me.

Where I once looked at narcissism as a personality disorder and the people afflicted with this disorder as the narcissist, I now look at narcissism as the egoic illusion one erects in order to protect himself from the judgment of others.   The more deeply we are wounded and the more abandoned our inner child feels the greater we feel the need to protect ourselves.  The more we choose narcissistic behavior to protect ourselves the greater our narcissism.

We live in a narcissistic world.  It has evolved to a place where every man is out for himself.  There is little real cooperation as leaders of the world are focused on their own image, greed, power and control.  We are forced into roles of competition and slavery in order to fit into the world.  Love is something we often feel we have to manipulate others to get.  We often feel we have to look a particular part, or play a role in order to be perceived as “good.”

We get so entrapped in our roles that don’t even realize we are playing them.  We judge ourselves as superior or inferior depending on external appearances.  This is the grand illusion.  Our ability to be at peace in our own skin is not factored into our ideas of success.  Instead we focus on material accomplishments, i.e. degrees earned, money accumulated, assets, homes, cars, titles, physical appearance, sexiness, associations, and accomplishments.  If one sits under the bohdi tree for twenty years and achieves enlightenment society will deem him crazy; a fool, stupid, wasting his life away, and worthless.  For in his sitting he has achieved no material assets. Read the rest of this entry »