Tuesday, September 24, 2013

New Release: User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality

Here is the Introduction to my new (ninth) book, User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality, available now from Amazon.com:

By “User’s Guide,” I mean a text that makes vital information accessible, to help you get the most out of some enabling technology, a text that explains that technology in a way that empowers you. In this instance, the technology is your own extraordinary incarnation, with its numerous vehicles and powers.

By “Human Incarnation,” I mean the journey from the first breath to the last, the span of an individual lifetime, all that befalls us between birth and death, and in all our bodies (i.e., physical, mental,emotional, energetic and spiritual).

By “Yoga,” I mean a methodology by which those of us willing to dedicate ourselves to practice can cultivate healing and conscious evolution in all our bodies.

By “Primal Reality,” I mean the miraculous power and beauty of human existence in its totality, from our basic animal needs to the highest states of human consciousness, all of what and who we are in our utter nakedness.

The book is divided into four parts, “Part I: Divine Nature, Human Experience,” “Part II: Human Nature, Divine Experience,” Part III: “The Aghori Within,” and “Part IV: Mapping Primal Reality.” Much of the content in these sections is transcribed from a series of seven talks on “Mapping Primal Reality,” delivered at the San Francisco Theosophical Society Lodge between August 2012 and April 2013. Interspersed between these four sections, I have included small groupings of three or four “Epiphanies,”as well as a larger such grouping of “Epiphanies” at the end, to provide further experiential context for the main exposition.

There is need for this new User’s Guide to Human Incarnation.

We misunderstand so much about who and what we are in this extraordinary space between our first breath and our last. Human incarnation itself is the spiritual path. At the moment of birth, we are not dropped into exile from the life of spirit. Quite the contrary, we are dropped into its greatest opportunity and, potentially, its fullest expression. This physical body is not a curse, it is a remarkable instrument of divine will, adorned with extraordinary faculties and capacities, e.g., the senses, the mind, the sex organs. Seekers should view them as siddhis, rather than as impediments or distractions.

The personality that develops in relation to the world around us is not a prison to be escaped, or some monstrous impostor to be slain, it is a magic mirror in which we can see divine playfulness reflected in human folly, and divine nature reflected in human virtue.

This life is a laboratory in which we are, individually and collectively, researching the chemistry of ignorance and intelligence.

Physical existence is not a limitation imposed on our spiritual life, quite the contrary, it is an exercise in freedom, will and expression that is highly coveted on the other side of the veil. This world is where the action is. Our life is of vital importance.

Human incarnation is divine revelation.

There is also need for an articulation of the Yoga of Primal Reality.

Yoga is not a methodology for uniting human and divine, or resolving the human into the divine, it is a methodology for realizing the union that already exists between human and divine. Yoga is a methodology for reveling in the truth of who and what we are, i.e., pure being (Sat), consciousness (Chit) and bliss (Ananda).

This being-consciousness-bliss is our spiritual reality. But our material reality is one of animal needs, ego, creativity, desire, and so much more.

These are not two distinct realities. They are not separate. They are not at odds with each other. They are one, and they are our PRIMAL REALITY, i.e., the full spectrum of divine nature in human incarnation, all of it, from flesh to spirit, in light and darkness, from birth to death, in joy and sorrow, all of it. This Yoga of Primal Reality embraces all of it.

For me personally, this particular book is like some extraordinary cliff from which four mighty rivers pour into one deep,rolling sea.

The first of these four rivers spans the fourteen years I spent in apprenticeship to my “Yoda,” the legendary American sage Joe Miller, as well as the twenty-one years since his death in 1992. I have spent these years since his death, integrating what I learned from him, and expanding upon it in my own voice and from my own perspective.

The second river is the knowledge and experience that flow from a decade-plus healing journey, under the guidance of a brilliant somatic psychotherapist named Staci Haines. With her, I went on a quest into the hell realms to retrieve those chunks of my heart and psyche lost during a childhood shattered by profound abuse. (I will share this story sometime down the road.)

The third river began as an offshoot of the second. As Staci and I began to peel away layer after layer of trauma, and I began to get in touch with my real feelings, my real thoughts, and my real body, I realized I needed some auxiliary avenue of exploration.

In addition to our weekly hour together, I needed some further outlet in which to stumble toward embodiment.

So I walked into a yoga studio south of Market Street, and took a noon hour class in Ashtanga Yoga, and as I was lying back in Supta Baddha Konasana, somatic information began to rise up from my opening hips, and I knew that this powerful practice was going to become an integral element of my healing process. And so it was. For several years, I studied with the infamous Larry Schultz, a.k.a. the “Rocket Man,” who Prattabhi Joi had playfully christened the “Bad Boy of Ashtanga.”

Larry taught me so much. He taught me to curl my toes up in Downward Dog, he taught me never to go longer than seventy-two hours without yoga. “Don’t lose the burn,” he said. And in that studio crammed with sixty or seventy people on mats, he saw my first full Urdhva Dhanurasana and called out to me from the other end of the space, “BE U TEA FULL, Rich.” (No one calls me “Rich,” ever, but Larry got a pass.) Yes, I had survived and kept my sanity through the power of a warrior heart, and that evening on Folsom Street, my warrior heart found its home, and I found my signature pose. Back bending is heart opening.

The fourth great river emptying into this spectacular canyon, and further deepening this new sea is the current of knowledge and experience that flows from the Shamanic dimension of the psyche.

Like the river of Hatha and Tantra, this fourth river branched off from the river of Somatic Psychotherapy, and took on a life of its own, as all of the Wild rose up toreach out to me on my healing journey. Yes, the trees, the rocks, all that slithers, all that flies, all that scurries on four legs. Much of this opening occurred in the forests of Sonoma, and there were also profound initiations visited upon me on the Big Island, and on Kaui, and in Yosemite, and Death Valley, and at Uluru.

I will just tell one of these stories here.

A decade or so ago, I visited Hawaii. The islands surprised me, and seduced me. The visit provided a forward impetus into the new Shamanic understanding that had already begun to open up for me in Sonoma, in Yosemite,and in Death Valley.

The Hawaiians, a Polynesian warrior people, had enjoyed one thousand years of feasting, fornicating, hunting, fishing, surfing and fighting – before the bible-thumping, gun-touting Anglo-American exploiters destroyed their way of life with ant-like relentlessness. I visited Kauai, the oldest island (3.5.5 million years) and the Big Island, the youngest island (0.75 million years). These islands told me secrets …

In the heat of the day, hiking a coastal trail on Kauai, my companion was up ahead of me, around the bend and out of sight. I heard a strange female voice, cackling and cursing, coming toward me, from a distance farther on. “Get away from her! She’s a criminal,” the voice shrieked.“You and all your people are criminals!” Whoever it was up ahead was accosting my companion. In a few moments, around the next bend, I was face to face with an insane old hag with a small white dog. But she did not curse me, or cackle at me. “You can drink it, she said loudly, but not shouting anymore, “It won’t poison you.”

Several days later, on the Big Island, leafing through a book on Pele, I read that although she was best known for taking the form of a dark, exquisitely beautiful young woman, she also occasionally manifested as an old hag with a small white dog. Of course, for many years, I had been drawn to the image of Pele, the beautiful dark goddess of the volcano.But I hadno idea she would sometimes take the appearance of that old hag with a little white dog. Pele had indeed come to me.

“You can drink it,” she had promised, “It won’t poison you.”

So in the text, all four of these currents are present: experiential knowledge of Shiva-Sakti Yoga and Vajrayana Buddha Dharma, a powerful healing journey into somatic psychotherapy, a deep embrace of Hatha and Tantra, and a Shamanic awakening to the voices of the forests, mountains, deserts, and oceans.

All of these rivers had been separate flows, but here they empty into a vast inner canyon to become one rolling sea, and I have named this sea, the Yoga of Primal Reality. It’s not another system, not another school. What I offer is a unique perspective, a vision, some practical insights, and what I hope is some new and empowering language.

Every hour of every day, we lurch closer to oblivion, and the future is urging us to rescue our selves, our civilization and our natural world. There is only one way to perform such a rescue, and that’s from the inside out, one conscious breath after another, one loving heartbeat after another, one embodied asana after another, one moment of authentic prayer after another, one moment of authentic meditation after another.

My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

A Great Peace Has Descended ...

Dorothea Tanning - Self-Portrait (1944)

A great peace has descended. In this wilderness.
The space between. What was lost. And what is yet to be.

The reverberations of such tenderness roll on until the end of time.
The rays of such beauty travel to the edges of space.

A great peace has descended. In this wilderness.
The space between. What was lost. And what is yet to be.

As the great wheel turns. Ceaselessly.
The medicine flows. Between center and circumference.

In this wilderness. A great peace has descended.
The space between. What was lost. And what is yet to be.

Only truth. Only beauty. Forever.
The medicine flows. Always. Only love.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

True Power

Odilon Redon - Cup of Mystery (1890)
The power of the Buddha is the power of abiding in stillness even as you are consumed with fire. The power of the Christ is the power of moving forward with an open heart even as you are betrayed and forsaken. Gautama Buddha was not a "Buddhist," Jesus Christ was not a "Christian." The legends that surround those two men are not what is most important.

Furthermore, it is irrelevant that Jesus and Gautama were male. Buddha and Christ are gender-neutral terms. They are synonyms, really, for the Clear Light, for SAT (Being) CHIT (Consciousness) ANANDA (Bliss). And as such they apply to both male and female humans.

It is simple awareness and unconditional love that make you a Buddha or a Christ.

Not gender, not supernatural predestination, not the tall tales of those who make their livelihood off the legends.

In this life, each of us is called to realize our own Buddha nature, our own Christ nature, our own true nature. Are you running from your own true nature? Or groping toward it? Are you settling back into it? Or struggling to keep yourself apart from it? Are you straining to avoid the consequences of what you will see if you look unflinching in the mirror of your behavior?

The power of the Buddha is the power of abiding in stillness even as you are consumed with fire. The power of the Christ is the power of moving forward with an open heart even as you are betrayed and forsaken. Nothing more, nothing less.

Live this.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

Its Like Will Not Be Found Again

Gustav Moreau - Night (1880)
The future emerges from the darkness. It is a mystery.

New Moons are for beginnings.

Welcome this opportunity. It beckons you to feel for the wheel, and move with it.

Within you, new life is awakening.
Be tender with it, and invite it to sing; it knows a song that you have forgotten.

There is medicine in this song.
Don't just drown it out with some lesser tune.

ALL is fleeting. And that which is seemingly the most fleeting is perhaps the most vital.

So listen to the song, and taste the medicine.
It was made just for you, and its like will not be found again.

New Moons are for beginnings.

The ending will come soon enough, why not savor a few more moments within the mystery?

We cannot control any of it.

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

3 A.M.

Pablo Picasso - Les toits de Barcelone dans la clair de lune,
trans. "The roofs of Barcelona in the moonlight" (1903)
 Waking at 3 a.m. 
Night itself is the goddess.
Turning on my side to meditate.  
Silence is music. Emptiness is beauty.

You are So Much More than Some "Soul" in a "Body" Living Out an Incarnation on a Straight Line ...



Edward Curtis - Pima Burial Grounds (1906)
You are so much more than some "soul" in a "body" living out an incarnation on a straight line from some point in the "past" to some point in the "future," whether you see that journey as a one-off event ("Christian" concept) or a cycle of returns ("Buddhist" concept).

You are so much more than any of that. You might as well compare the Grand Canyon to a shallow ditch, or Victoria Falls to a garden sprinkler.

It would be more accurate to say yours was a "body" within a "soul" rather than the other way around, but it still cheats you of the amazing truth.

You are an utterly unique point of radiant flame, not separate from the one star whose energy fuels all life. You do not have one "body," you have five or seven (depending on the system you reference), and each is just a sheath, like Salome's veils.

They do not hide your naked beauty, they highlight it in subtle hues.

The breath, the senses, the belly, the heart, the mind, these limbs, your sex, so many siddhis are already yours. Cherish this. Live this truth.

-- Richard Power

Power's eighth book,  Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in an Era of Global Peril , is available now in soft cover and Kindle versions, from Amazon and elsewhere.



One Foot in the Light and the Other in the Dark

Graffiti of 2PAC in Ipanema, Rio De Janeiro.
Photo Credit: Mary C. Salome/Wikipedia
"Perhaps I was addicted to the dark side / Somewhere inside my childhood I missed my heart die ... / Remember me, as an outcast outlaw / Another album out that's what I'm about, more / Gettin raw till the day I see my casket / Buried as a g while the whole world remembers me / Until the end of time ..." -- Tupac Shakur, Until the End of Time

A spirituality that does not embrace the shadow is a feeble, stunted thing.

Walk with one foot in the light and the other in the dark; you will need both to journey into the wilderness of truth and beauty.

The Yin and the Yang flow into and out of each other, they cannot be siphoned off and separated, together they shape the circle of life. Evil is that which has fallen outside the circle of life; it is not dark, it is not Yin (and it typically disguises itself as "light" anyway).

A spirituality that does not embrace the shadow is a feeble, stunted thing.

Walk with one foot in the light and the other in the dark; you will need both to journey into the wilderness of truth and beauty.


-- Richard Power

Power's eighth book,  Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in an Era of Global Peril , is available now in soft cover and Kindle versions, from Amazon and elsewhere.



Even If You Know the True Price ...

Gustav Klimt - Beethoven Frieze: Longing for Happiness Finds Repose in Poetry.
Right wall, detail. (1902)

How do you choose to live your life? How do you choose to love?

After it is all over, and the jackal-headed god weighs your heart, he will not add in what your best friend told you to do. The scales will only report on how you lived, and how you loved.

Is your love some imagining of the way it once was? Or do you embrace love as it presents itself to you, here and now, on this path? Is it easier to simply re-write the moment and pretend it is all something less than what it is?

Do you argue with unconditional love, because its very freedom threatens the imaginary structure in which you have enshrined your self-image?

And what is your relationship with poignancy itself? Is it something that you stumble upon now and then, and relate to awkwardly, and only for as long as is required of you? And do you then rush off to immerse yourself in the agenda that you have drawn up, unwilling to accept that you do not have to choose between them? Or is poignancy a state of being that you have stepped inside of, and vow never to leave again, no matter what the price?

To feel, to truly feel, and revel in that realm of feeling, boldly, with laughter and tears, yes.

Are you willing to declare beauty when beauty arises before you, even if you know the true price of such a declaration? Are you willing to become an expression of the tenderness you feel, even if you know that very tenderness is an all consuming fire?

How do you choose to live your life? How do you choose to love? After it is all over, and the jackal-headed god weighs your heart, he will not add in what your best friend told you to do. The scales will only report on how you lived, and how you loved.

To feel, to truly feel, and revel in that realm of feeling, boldly, with laughter and tears, yes.

-- Richard Power

Power's eighth book,  Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in an Era of Global Peril , is available now in soft cover and Kindle versions, from Amazon and elsewhere.