Monthly Archives: June 2018

What If I’m Wrong?

This question can elicit from deep within us a terror of the worst sort, for it requires a forthright examination of our suppositions and suspicions and shines a light on dark places that we would much rather remain shadowed.

What if the ideas and hopes, the positions and assertions we hold dear are shown to be flawed or otherwise unreliable? What if those things in which we have invested our Energy, that we have defended and even promoted, turn out to be a house of cards? What, then, do we have? What, then, do we do?…

It is certain that we hesitate to question our beliefs because our culture preferentially rewards the “right” answer or the “right” action and summarily castigates and sanctions those which are “wrong” or “unacceptable.” It is this inculcated aversion to incongruity that can lead us to avoid the difficult work that may well reveal that which we would prefer to not acknowledge concerning our most cherished convictions. To put it bluntly, we find it embarrassing to be wrong. Embarrassment, however, is insufficient reason to cling doggedly to our inherited cultural mythologies or the mythologies we have painstakingly formulated and collected about ourSelves.

Then there is the doubt.

Should we discover a breach in the ramparts of our certainty, it is then that we may find our confidence is shaken and the poison of doubt has started to seep into the crevices of our Self-esteem. Doubt can be the most caustic and debilitating of adversaries.

The antidote to doubt is the recognition and acceptance of the verity that, so long as we are willing to be proven wrong, we can find peace (and even excitement!) in the knowledge that there is always more to see, always more to feel, always more to experience, always more to learn. “Wrong” does not have to be forever. Being wrong or mistaken or misguided is not an irreversible condition.

To ask “what if I am wrong” is a daunting question. It is a question, however, that the Self in search of integrity and a Life grounded in mindfulness of the Real must be bold and courageous enough to ask, over and over and over again.

©Billy Red Horse

What New Age?

As I related in my most recent post entitled CHOICE, I have no aversion to controversy, so I see little reason to waste your valuable Time today with preface or needless prevarication. Though it might make those who consider themselves to be at the cutting edge of the New Age Movement uncomfortable, I have come to an inescapable conclusion: the New Age is no longer new and no longer relevant. (Feel free to draw and quarter the messenger if you must, but this will in no way alter the veracity of his message.) What began as a heartfelt and determined desire to cast off the manacles of institutionalized religion and reclaim a mystical connection to Divinity (and humanity’s corresponding Divine Nature) has over Time metamorphosed into a confused mishmash of conflicting and efficaciously questionable practices often characterized by cults of personality. Given some of the things many practitioners of New Age spirituality often are willing to believe or do or pay outrageous sums of money for, is it any wonder that mainstream conformist society tends to consider such practitioners to be, at best, humorously misguided eccentrics or, at the worst, dangerously delusional psychotics?

Defending the “no longer new” aspect of my statement is done quite easily and in short order. Though there was never a fountainhead, several names consistently come to mind when considering the emergence of the Aquarian New Age Movement. Bailey, Blavatsky, Cayce, Crowley, and Fillmore were Occidentals who paved the way for the introduction to the West of many Eastern teachers and mystics, with but two examples being Paramahansa Yogananda and D.T. Suzuki. The people mentioned above lived and worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. No matter how you look at it, there ain’t a thing new about an Age that has been extant for (give or take) well over 100 years. ‘Nuff said.

As for the admittedly provocative “no longer relevant” comment, I base my position on a dispassionate assessment of an observable lack of results. For every person that achieves a genuine awakening or personal healing experience within some branch of the New Age paradigm, there are hundreds, even thousands, who do not. As a result some give up, others return to more orthodox religion or medicine, while many continue to graze at the spiritual buffet in an effort to find even a morsel that will satisfy their hunger. It can be argued that the fault lies with less than dedicated students, not the teacher or the discipline. While this position has situational merit the question should be “what degree of practical and consistent efficacy does a given teaching and approach possess?” All around I see people who have spent hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars on workshops and various otherworldly accoutrement for the stated goal of improving their lives, yet nothing (other than being lighter in the pocketbook) has changed. They are just as bereft/ill/miserable now as they were the day their search began. This is the crux of my contention.

I will now speak the unspeakable: It is not without good reason that the New Age movement has long carried the stench of snake oil. For every method or teacher capable of delivering what is promised there are innumerable incompetents and outright frauds that can’t. New Age franchises tend to attract the intrigued and the gullible, and it is those who are the most easily hornswoggled. The innocent, the desperate, and the lazy are usually the most susceptible to the charms of the quack or the crook. Though the charlatans have done much to damage the integrity of a movement that began with such noble intentions, the blame for its persistent dubious credibility can be spread evenly between the mountebanks and the dilettantes who enable them.

My goal here is not criticism for its own sake and I will not presume to tell anyone what qualifies as a fraudulent discipline; that is for you to decide. (I will, however, submit that it is never a bad idea to keep the phrase caveat emptor in mind.) Neither am I challenging the purveyors of any method to prove to little-ol’-me that their approach is effective. My challenge is to you, the genuine seeker, to not be blinded by the feel-good nonsense that is so readily available in the spiritual marketplace. Any practice that demands nothing of a seeker beyond great quantities of cash and (sometimes) adoration of the teacher is, in the view of this heretical mystic, suspect.

Pumped up power-of-positive-thinking drones that, though thinking positively, take no ACTION to change their state are deserving of the limited results their feeble efforts bring. And you can have all the psychic readings and chakra cleansings that money can buy but, if you don’t make changes to the way you live your life as a result of the knowledge you gained from those readings and capitalize on the benefits of those purifications, you are wasting your money and your Time. Nothing will ever replace the Time-honored and provable approach of sound theoretical knowledge combined with diligent and persistent work.

Instead of continuing to call an esoteric or mystical approach to spirituality by the outdated and meaningless handle New Age, maybe it would be better to call it Objective Mysticism or Practical Spirituality. Unless, that is, the objective and/or the practical is not what you seek. Unless, that is, the status quo is good enough for you.

©Billy Red Horse

Choice

“Far more than our abilities, it is our choices that show what we truly are.”
– Albus Dumbledore

To be called a heretic is an experience I have long savored and over the years I have had many opportunities to indulge my perverse enjoyment of being thus maligned. No matter what spiritual discipline I have learned and taught, there has always been someone close by to wag a finger in my general direction and tell me just how wrong I am, how I am corrupting the teachings. It must be said that, when the textbook definition of the word heretic is considered, I truly am one! A heretic is a person who holds controversial opinions, especially ones that publicly challenge officially accepted dogma. That’s me all over! It should therefore come as no surprise that I identify strongly with the Greek root of the word heretic. That root is hairetikos, which means “able to choose.”

In the final analysis, everything comes down to choice. The great motivational speakers all state that the quantity and severity of challenges we experience in our lives is of little importance. How we choose to perceive and respond to those challenges is what matters. Where others might choose to be victims of circumstance, it is the Spiritual Warrior who responds with life affirming choices (and actions) rather than reacting as though everything is beyond their control. It is the simple choice between being at the cause or at the effect.

Most every choice we make is a point of departure that will lead to an inevitable destination. The demand upon us to make choices is as incessant as it is unavoidable. To quote a line from lyricist Neil Peart, “[Even] if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.” To claim the power inherent in conscious choice is to simultaneously shoulder the burden of responsibility for the consequences of those choices. It is this burden of responsibility that so frightens the average person and the reason so many prefer to let others make their choices for them.

We do not live alone in this world and no matter how considered one might be with regards to choices made, it is certain that those choices can and will be effected by the choices of others, those we know and those we don’t. Is it not fair to ask that those who, as associates, friends, and coworkers, have the greatest access to (and, therefore, influence upon) us be at least as concerned with making conscious choices as are we? This should give a person all the more reason to be selective about the company one keeps.

It may seem that in trying to consider the myriad of possible outcomes each choice could bring one could be easily overwhelmed, even to the point of mental and/or physical apoplexy. This doesn’t have to be the case. Gentle persistence is generally the best course when learning a new skill. Learning how to make wise choices is no different. Be aware of your choices and don’t be afraid to follow your instincts.

All humans are possessed of a dual nature that is equally adept at expressing the utmost love or manifesting lurid villainy. What separates the killing fields from Elysian Fields is choice. Whether we determine to Love or to Fear, to act or react, create or destroy is a function of how we use Energy. It is our choices that send us down the infernal path and it is our choices that can redeem and Awaken us.

The meaning of Life is really quite simple: Life is about choice. Nothing has more influence on our lives and our happiness than the choices we make. We are here because we choose to be. Our life has the meaning we choose to give it. Whether we live in the awareness of our elemental nature as a part of the world we inhabit and our spiritual nature as the offspring of Creation, or as victims of circumstance who are out of balance and out of control can only be decided by the individual. Creation gives us sovereignty. It is we alone who abdicate that sovereignty. The Choice is ours.

There is so much darkness in the world, so very much pain that it often overshadows the Joy. This does not have to be. We are not condemned to the mire. Beauty is but a choice away.

©Billy Red Horse

Darkness

Several years ago yours truly was engaged in a short email exchange with a friendly acquaintance. For several years I had been an on again/off again counselor and confidant to this particular young lady and the exchange in question was precipitated by an earlier face-to-face encounter where I mentioned to her that she appeared to be down. Below you will find our resulting electronic conversation:

—–Original Message—–
From: Doe, Jane

I am in a dark mood today and it is spilling out. I am sorry. I will be better.

———-
From: Mystic, The

I enjoy my dark places. In them I find elements of my Self that move me, that inform me, that steel me. I freely admit that my greatness is forged in Darkness but is invigorated and given Life when I shine forth my Light. Do you embrace the Darkness?

———-
From: Doe, Jane

No.

———-
From: Mystic, The

Then you should know, my dear, that this rejection is the source of your misery. In this you deny your Self.

Like most, my acquaintance rejected the darkness in her Being as inherently unpleasant and base, viewing it as something to be (at the very least) ignored or (if at all possible) conquered.

That evil is ascribed to darkness is an almost universal phenomenon, one that cuts across cultural lines and religious traditions. We are indoctrinated from childhood to believe that in the darkness we will find only pain and suffering and all manner of sinister things. We are given night lights to ward off the monsters that dwell under our beds and in our closets. We are taught to fear darkness, explicitly and by example, not only in the physical realm, but the darkness that resides within our own Beings.

Should the truth be told, it is not darkness per se that people resist; it is the force of evil which is believed (rightly or wrongly) to inhabit the gloom that hobbles so many. It has been my experience that, when observed and considered objectively, darkness and evil are not necessarily mutually inclusive. More often than not, it is the unquestioned acceptance of darkness as the province of the wicked that perpetuates and promulgates the myth and continues to give it odious life in this so-called age of enlightened thought. The benefits to be gained in the acceptance and integration of those valuable elements which abide in darkness far surpass (in this Mystic’s opinion, at least) the unreasonable cautions borne of an uninformed historical prejudice.

In my tradition the western energetic on an Earth Gate (Medicine Wheel) is viewed as the location of darkness and is identified by the color black. Represented by the element of Earth, it is the looks-within place of introspection and intuition, is the realm of the human body, is considered negative/receptive, and is the matrix of feminine energy. It should, therefore, not be surprising that most of the traits which were just mentioned are in whole or in part looked down upon or viewed in a disparaging light by a wide assortment of religions and philosophies and the people who subscribe to them. To the partisans of superstition and ignorance nothing of value is to be culled in the shadows and the loss, quite deservedly, is their own. At great peril they reject a valuable aspect of Reality in deference to their preferred brand of intolerance and bias. Perhaps there truly IS a legitimate reason for these individuals to shun the darkness, as there is no night light which can ever shine brightly enough to protect such misguided souls from the inner demons wrought of their own creation.

For the traveler committed to a fuller understanding and experience of Life, it is vital that the darkness be explored and mapped in studied detail. There is much to be learned there and even more to be gained if we can set aside our fears and acknowledge That-Which-Is. It is when we deny and suppress the darkness that we engender strife, for in our denial we tend to feed and antagonize the beast most wish to remain quiet and hidden safely away in its cage.

Now, I no more suggest a wholesale cleaving to darkness at the exclusion of light than I espouse the rejection of darkness for the fanciful delusion of light as some manifestation of romantic mythical perfection. Extremes are tinder for the fires of that most palpable of evils, fanaticism.

Seek balance and, through it all, don’t be afraid of the dark.