Category Archives: Spirituality

Hestia, Goddess of Eternal Light

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Hail Hestia!
Goddess of Eternal Light
By your presence I am restored

Blessed is I,
who knows myself
and Blessed is the love
I bestow upon me

Holy Vesta!
Goddess of the hearth
Warm my heart,
allowing me to simply be.

Let me introduce you to Hestia. We are good friends.

Historically she is a Greek/Roman goddess that tended the fires of Olympia. Sister to Zeus, she refused all suitors and vowed to remain forever unmarried. In earlier history, devotees of Hestia practiced sacred sex as part of the healing aspect of the divine feminine. They were “virgins” in so much as they were not married, but they were certainly not celibate. In later times, under the Roman Empire, the high female priestesses of Hestia/Vesta were called Vestal Virgins and were indeed celibate during their 30 year service period. They had rights and liberties not usually associated with women at that time. The service they provided to the community afforded them with more prestige than royalty.

Hestia is an interesting lady, being associated with the home and hearth and yet, not being a mother or caretaker. She invokes the energy of self-love. She is all about knowing oneself intimately and caring for oneself with kindness and self-nurturing. She stands apart from social customs and comes forth as a great individualist.

When we invoke Hestia, we are calling forth that eternal spark of our being. We are connected to our primordial nature and our source. This is how Hestia restores us by her presence. She reminds us of the blessed nature of all of life. She reminds us that all beings and things have that sacred spark of eternal light.

Drawing on my studies of Buddhist world view, I penetrate even deeper into the idea of inner light and wisdom. Hestia can assist us in realizing the deceptive nature of ourselves and conventional reality. When I say she helps us know ourselves, I not only that mean that we know our personal preferences, desires, passions and aptitudes, but that we know, ultimately, that we don’t exist independently. We truly do not exist in the way we appear to exist.

We can call on Hestia to help us remove the constructs that obscure the truth of our being. She can help us penetrate the false ideas that have been perpetuated upon us. Her refusal to partake in the convention of marriage, is an open invitation for us to question conventional ideas and make different choices from the norm.

How does Hestia, “Warm our hearts”? The warmth of love and of self-caring is spread through our bodies and beings once we let go of judgments. Following Hestia’s lead ,we learn who we truly are and we honor that. We learn that all judgments are arbitrary and simply choices. Peace and deep contentment and connection can only come with the demolition of all judgments. A careful investigation reveals that this is truth.

Following the path of inner nurturing, we can begin to let go of the judgments that keep our bodies locked up and our minds closed to receiving. Starting with ourselves we choose to appreciate everything we are. We let go of self-hate, criticism and harmful self talk. Then we begin to expand the circle. We let go of the judgments of our friends and family. Allowing them to be exactly who they are. We are practicing sacred respect. And finally, can we let the world be exactly as it is? Perhaps we can become empowered to stand for ourselves while not standing against any other.

Sometimes called “enlightened self-interest”, our new attitude provides us with freedom from trying to control and change everything and everyone – which is probably outside the realm of possible anyway. The ultimate health treatment is letting people be as they are without judgment: tension falls off our bodies and we experience greater peace and joy.

In this new place, we are able to act or not-act, but are not compelled to react or live under the influence of the emotions of hate, frustration, anger, sadness, and resistance. Are hearts are warmed by the the ever present hearth within us.

Spiritual Bypassing

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In 2009 I was living at a meditation center below Tucson, Arizona. Many times I drove from my old home in Northern California to where I was developing myself as a meditator. When I first made the trip, I used maps and my best guess on the quickest route to go, since GPS wasn’t a thing yet. However, while the major highway went through Phoenix, I quickly learned to take Route 85 as the “Phoenix bypass” since traffic through Phoenix, especially at rush hour, could literally be a real drag.

A bypass is a way to avoid or circumvent an obstacle or a problem. A road that goes around a busy city is called a bypass. It avoids the problem of getting stuck in slow moving traffic. Certain practices that circumvent mental and emotional obstacles could be considered a bypass as well. The highway could be called a physical bypass and the mental practices could be called a spiritual bypass. A bypass is always a good thing in my estimation.

I am beginning to focus my attention on doing more spiritual bypassing. The process of coming to know ultimate reality can be considered a clearing away of obscurations or weeds in the mindstream. However, I think there may be a bypass. Instead of focusing on pulling out each weed, perhaps, one can plant so many flowers that the weeds are choked out.

I have some rather large weed trees growing in my mind. I’ve tried to cut them back, sometimes almost to the ground and they just seem to sprout back in a new season. Other trees are so large and entangled with desirable trees that I can only seem to cut branches out. Its so thick that I don’t even recognize them as weed trees. Instead I think they are just a bad branch on a good tree. In the past, I’ve mostly focused on identifying and getting the weeds (false beliefs) out of my mind’s garden.

I know this is not the most efficient way to go. I’ve heard that a single moment of direct perception of ultimate reality will cut the root of every false weed tree. And the way to encounter that illuminating moment is to meditate and investigate how the self is created. That is what the Buddha did. However, so many weeds have taken over my mind I find it hard to have a stable meditation. I have been discouraged.

Now I am choosing to stop focusing on getting rid of the “bad”; to stop focusing on getting rid of the effects of ritual abuse trauma; to let the crazy arising and passing of emotions just be; to stop looking for the uncomfortable in me and the misbeliefs creating my world. Instead, I am embracing the “good”. I am expanding into all that is. I am focusing on simply whatever opens my heart and my mind.

To facilitate this, I’ve adopted the practice of Spiritual Mind Treatment. It is a form of affirmative prayer. The first step is recognition of ultimate truth and who I am in the big picture. Then there is a place for affirming the truth about the world – there is abundance: limitless energy, limitless love, limitless good; while denying falsehoods – there is nothing to fear, crave, or resist. Finally the prayer ends with rejoicing and a sense of surety.

The prayer can be long or short. It is followed with the practice of keeping the mind continuously directed to truth. This spiritual bypass focuses on truth and the multitude of possibilities as a way to elevate the mind, emotions, and spirit to starve out habitual limiting thoughts and false beliefs. Here is my Spiritual Mind Treatment for knowing greater peace and freedom:

I know there is one ultimate reality that encompasses everything. This truth of life flows through, within, around, and beyond everything. The world I experience is a deceptive reality that obscures the simple truth that I am that one life, that one power, that one reality. And since I am all that is (given duality is just an illusion) I know that it is impossible for me to lack anything. I am limitless peace, energy, love. It is impossible for me to really be separate from anyone and anything. It is impossible for me to be traumatized, just as it is impossible to traumatize the one life. Right here, right now, I choose to release all habitual tendencies to reify myself and the harm I experienced. I let go of the notion that I have to work to clear away obscurations. I simply affirm the truth that I am pure spirit and everything that is not true falls away. I rejoice in my new freedom and the great peace I feel. And so it is.

Five Obstacles

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Buddhism has done a nice job of describing the five obstacles to meditation (or spiritual development, recovery, healthy behaviors, etc).

OBSTACLES

  1. Doubt:
    • Does it work?
    • Will it work for me?
  2. Not wanting to do it (laziness or lack of motivation)
  3. Attraction to worldly things (or unhealthy behaviors or drug of choice)
  4. Resentments, ill will, aversions
  5. Worry, restlessness, distractions

The good news is there are remedies that can be done to rid oneself of any of the obstacles.

REMEDIES

If you have DOUBT about the activity you want to do then:

  1. Get more information about the activity
    • Talk to people
    • Read up about it
    • Search the internet
    • Experiment or try it out and see how you like it
    • Explore the pros and cons of the activity
  2. Consider other options  (e.g. If I eat crappy food instead of healthy food what will my body be like in 20 years.  Will I like that?

If you LACK MOTIVATION to do a new, healthy behavior then:

  1. Find out about the positive results others have doing it
  2. Hang out with people that do the new healthy behavior
  3. Think through the next 20 years with your current lifestyle
  4. Focus on what you want in your life and how the behavior helps you to reach your goals
  5. Choose to become good at what your aspiration is
  6. Make the efforts needed to get good at your target behavior
  7. Experience the physical and mental pleasure of doing the new behavior.

If we are ATTRACTED to OTHER THINGS and we forget to do the new behavior because life happens and we are swept away by it, then we must develop mindfulness.  Mindfulness is being consciously aware of what we are doing, when we are doing it simultaneous with awareness of the consequences of that action.  In the case of forgetting the behavior because we are swept away by attractive situations, opportunities, and things, mindfulness is the process of remembering what your intention is and letting go of the distraction.  Mindfulness is a skill that is developed by continuous practice. 

AVERSIONS, ILL-WILL and RESENTMENTS can also block our development of new healthy behaviors.  In this obstacle we start focusing on what we don’t want. Maybe we desire a strong body, but we don’t want to exercise in the cold or rain or too hard or … you get the idea. We have an aversion to part of the practice. We don’t like the food we have to eat, or the work we have to do, or what we have to give up. We resent our choice and we resist part of it. Or we resent our parents, our boss, the world… for making this change so hard. This, ultimately will lead us to stopping the practice if we don’t nip it in the bud.  The correction is to be watchful for the aversion to arise and recognize it doesn’t serve us and bring our attention back to our thoughts of the benefits of the change.

RESTLESSNESS, WORRY and BEING DISTRACTED arise when we are living a hectic life or we are not acting in integrity.  We become preoccupied, mentally agitated and lose focus.  In terms of making a positive change, a distraction is getting swept up by the day’s activities and forgetting to do the activity that will create the positive change. Maybe you leave the house without food planned and you end up somewhere hungry without good choices. Or maybe your day was so full you forgot to leave time to exercise. Sometimes we just forget to reflect on our life and choices and get swept along in habitual patterns of reacting.  In the case of restlessness, we need to consider what we need to put down or let go of.  If there are activities or people that prevent us from making a positive change, then we ask ourselves what action we need to take in those areas to prevent us from getting mentally agitated and distracted.

SUMMARY

While all five obstacles are different, the solutions are really the same. It is all about focusing on what you desire and what will bring you what you want and turning your back on the activities and things that will not bring you what you want.  Keep your resolve strengthened by contact with people with similar goals and by reading about what you desire to achieve and people achieving it.

I was once living with a teenager and we were studying internal martial arts. I always just pushed myself to practice even if I didn’t want to. He was an example of more skillful means. He would turn to YouTube first and watch master martial artists. It didn’t take long before he was inspired to practice. This is certainly a good way of applying an antidote to not wanting to do it, and the other obstacles.

Finally, be gentle with yourself.  Sometimes knowing is not the same as doing.  We are not our subconscious mind, but the habits and beliefs that reside in our subconscious are influencing everything we do.  Part of the path is loving ourselves without judgment.  We move to take right action without making anyone or anything wrong – including ourselves. If what we know would be best, is outside our capabilities, then it is not the best action. Choose something that takes less effort and is pointed in the direction you would like to go. Each day affirm your commitment to positive change. Listen to an inspiring podcast or YouTube video or take any action you know that will get you excited. Then end each day rejoicing about what you were able to do for yourself.

In case you’d like to listen to this topic , it was covered in episode 34 of Positive Change with Dorena.

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