alxindia

An eclectic spiritual & inspirational place to heal, learn, feel & expand. Heart & soul first. Miraculous experiences from India as well as the life & times of a spiritual healer/teacher in the U.S. Miracles, saints, sages, gurus, healing, life & death... and more...!

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

philosophical Q & A today


an online friend and I were having a discussion about spirituality and philosophy, and the beauty of love versus the mind... so I thought I'd post a part of it, my response to a question he asked, here.

Q: how can philosophical reasoning be a cornerstone to an open mind and spiritual understanding?

A: I'd much rather talk about dissolving.... but, okay, sigh, back to the mind stuff.

philosophical reasoning CAN be (isn't, necessarily) the cornerstone to an open mind because it subjects the mind to more than one point of view about how the world operates. like, building the muscle of the mind to flex in many directions, to be, as it were, flexible. also, philosophy asks questions, the critical questions, about the purpose of human life, etc., which are pretty much the identical questions spiritual characters also pose -- so the overlap is there for the taking.

the other point about philosophical reasoning is that it allows for questions without definitive answers -- ie, 'we don't know everything there is to know'. to my mind, that's a healthy basis for creating an open mind.

however -- I don't think that an open mind alone will lead to a deep spiritual understanding. that requires a leap of something beyond the mind, and definitely in a realm where thoughts are not the most prevalent characteristic. it takes heart, and intuition, and guts, and -- that ineffable quality of adventurous humility, ie, I really don't know but there are mysteries and I want to discover what lies behind them, even if the reality I discover totally blows my human mind.

I studied with one of the top British empiricist philosophers, an avowed atheist his whole life, great colleague of Bertrand Russell and friends with George Orwell and the like -- logical positivist. when he was in his 70s, he had a near-death experience that suddenly shattered his whole life's belief system that there was nothing after death, and seriously brought his atheism into doubt.

so -- the philosophical meanderings can also turn rigid, into posturing and a solidification of belief systems, like any religious dogma. at the same time, if one has a direct experience that completely challenges the belief system -- or overturns it, even for a brief instance.... having had a philosophical background can, I think, help one accept that something mystical just happened rather than some superstitious hocus-pocus of self-hypnotism.

the biggest challenge of all, I think, is not an open mind, but having an open heart -- and I doubt that philosophy can teach that quality.

just two rupees on the subject as a former philosophy student.

oh, and a last word on the subject from the immortal Bard, from Hamlet:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Saturday, March 14, 2009

a facebook story


Baba altar
Originally uploaded by alxindia




since traveling to India and back during this February and March, there have been many high divine experiences and healings I've been involved in, but this is a story I really want to share by way of an example of the universality of the divine energy, and how interlinked, interwoven, interrelated, all souls are -- whether people have ever met one another in person, or not.

I came on Facebook almost a year ago, because a number of folks I went to college with, in the '80s, were on and wanted me to join the party.

so I did, and was amazed at how many of my former colleagues from Bard College (in upstate New York) were on Facebook.

over the months, I've become friends with a lot of people I barely knew in those days, and renewed friendships with folks I did know.

but -- one lady wrote on her profile about a week and a half ago that she needed prayers.

and then sent a message asking for same.

well, my ears pricked up -- that's something of a department I recognize, more than debates about good beers, bbq sauce, or clubs in NYC.

she lives in Athens, Greece, and we knew one another in passing at Bard, probably exchanged about 5 sentences over the years.

so -- she's asking for prayers, and it turns out that the dearest person in the whole world to her, a first cousin, who's 26 years old, is dying from Hodgkin's disease, coupled with pneumonia

he'd been at stage IV for nearly 12 years.

unimaginable.

anyway, she was really upset and it looked bad. she sent me a photo of her cousin, and I started (from India) sending distance healing for him. to him.

and talking to her about, well, maybe she needs to prepare herself to let go.

it was pretty obvious he was on the way out. and had really suffered a long time.

we talked a bit about the soul, what happens at death, why it's important that people close to a person who's died don't hold on to them, or be overly sad -- it impacts on the soul, causes it some pain. it's off to a much happier place, is finally free.

the best thing we can do for someone who's died is to wish them well, and to send our love. and not to be sad, or attached, to them staying in their physical form.

anyway, she then mentioned that people from all over the world were sending their thoughts and blessings to her cousin, and that she would go to the hospital (she hadn't been able to, has fragile lungs herself and it's a danger to her own health) and read their messages to him.

so I sent something, can't even exactly remember what, but along the lines of 'you don't know me but I'm an American lady traveling to California from India, via Paris, and thinking of you, a Greek boy I've never met in person, and I'm grateful to have this chance to 'meet' you.'

I continued to send healings, from India, from Paris, and then from California, to him.

anyway, she called me two days ago. he'd died peacefully, and the funeral was over, and she wanted to reach out to someone.

she wept and told me that Taso had always wanted to travel the world, but had been unable, because of his health, to do so.

she talked about going to his bedside, and reading the messages from all over the world, all her friends sending him love and blessings.

and she said, "I'm really calling to thank you for sharing the message that you did.he was very frail, his eyes were closed and he was having a hard time breathing.

but when I read your message, Alx, he woke up, his eyes flew open, and he listened intently. he was stunned that an American woman he'd never heard of would send love to him in the midst of traveling."

and she said -- crying -- "because of you, he got to travel the world. your note took him with you!

and he died, peacefully, the very next day."

of course I was teary-eyed, too by the time the conversation came to that point.

it was so beautiful, to feel the peace of that soul, and to imagine a few stray words typed in an email message could cause a dying man to open his eyes wide and listen, really listen, to the shakti and the blessing that was imbedded in those words. and to receive it, that blessing to his soul, before dying a peaceful, serene death.

and that's my healing story for today.

I'm grateful to be able to share it.