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Andrassy Utca

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Janet

I finally managed to start language classes this week! They’re private lessons, not group lessons, like I’d prefer, but hey – I’m in Hungary and I’m learning Hungarian, only half of which was true last week.

My first lesson was on Monday, after which I decided to take a stroll down Andrassy Utca, or Andrassy Avenue. Andrassy is the oldest and most important boulevard in all of Budapest and is known locally as the “Champs Élysées” of Budapest. The name is apt, as the Opera House is located on this street (with several other playhouses located just off it on the cross streets) along with high-end retailers, chic restaurants, and hip coffee shops. The Opera House is said to be quite beautiful, though I haven’t been in it yet.

The buildings along the avenue are exceedingly ornate and mostly adhere to classic-esque designs. I’m told there was a law that applied to all buildings built along the avenue when it was created in the late 1800s that 20% of the cost of the building had to be spent on external decoration. 20%! Can you imagine?! Some of the decorations are jaw-dropping in their extravagance – huge carved stone figures of people or angels holding up entablatures(?) over the entryways and intricately carved facades.

Storefront on Andrassy — One of the more ornate building fronts on Andrassy.

And these are often just basic residential buildings or commercial storefronts today. For example, here are a few pics from the apartment building I’m staying in:

The lobby ceiling of my apartment building.

Small courtyard in the apartment building.

Detailing on the external walls of the courtyard.

One of the sights to see along Andrassy is the Terror House – a museum dedicated to remembering atrocities committed by both the fascist and the communist regimes that ruled in Hungary in the mid-20th century:

The building makes quite the impression, with the tall, black walls stretching up the sides of the building and towering over the sidewalk with the word “TERROR” cut out in large block letters. The walls actually extend down and out to the sidewalk, with door-sized cut-outs to walk through as you pass by the building. It’s a bit terrorizing. I have to speculate the Hungarians are really into recreating the feeling of the bad times. They have an underground museum in the Parliament square, dedicated to the memory of the Soviet massacre of hundreds or thousands of Hungarians protesting there in 1956, where you can have a 3D experience of what it’s like to be gunned down by a Soviet soldier.

Andrassy is about 1.5 miles long, and at the end stands the massive Heroes’ Square:

Heroes' Square at the end of Andrassy utca. — Heroes’ Square.

Heroes’ Square is dedicated generally to those who have fought for Hungary. At the top of the column in the middle is the angel Gabriel, and at the base are representations of the chiefs of the 7 Magyar tribes that settled the region over 1000 years ago. The colonnades in the back house statues of other famous or important Hungarians in history.

Andrassy Avenue stretches behind me in the pictures of Heroes’s Square above, but on the other side of the colonnades is the huge city park, which houses a big zoo, botanical garden, circus, lake (ice skating rink in winter), a thermal bath (I think), and several museums, including one housed in a castle. I only breached the very entrance to the park on this adventure, so I’ll have to go back and see the rest some other time. Fortunately, there’s a metro line that runs length of Andrassy Ut., a site of historical significance itself as it’s the oldest metro in Budapest and the oldest metro on the European continent (only London has an older metro system). All of Andrassy Ut., including Heroes’ Square, have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Once I reached the park, I pulled up a piece of grass by the lake to sit and study what I’d learned in my Hungarian lesson that day. Despite the strange man that decided to take a dip in the mossy lake near where I was sitting, it was quite peaceful.

I decided to walk back along a side street to see what it had to offer. Budapest is full of narrow little streets lined by old (or old-looking) buildings that pretty much share walls, like in San Francisco, and which are all about the same height. These streets usually curve here and there so you can’t see where they’re leading you. It’s quite charming.

I found it interesting to pay attention to the building facades along the street. Some of the buildings clearly look old based on the ornateness of the building decor and the materials used. Others look old, but it’s harder to be sure. 80% of the buildings in Budapest were damaged or destroyed during WWII, so it’s sometimes hard to tell whether a building is old or whether it just looks old. For example, is this building old or old-looking:

Notice the intricate sculpted image of a man under the small balcony and the gargoyle near the top in the above picture.

In this picture, notice the detail in the carving of the two statues on the right side of the picture, along with the ornate decoration under the balcony over their heads. These are the things that suggested to me a legitimately old building. However, I don’t think it is. The building is in too good a condition and the decoration a little too uniform to be carved – it all looks poured or molded, like it’s made from cement or something similar. I think this is a modern building that the owners put a little extra money into making look historic and interesting. Most of the modern buildings trying to fit in with the older architecture have molded faux-stone facades nowhere near as intricate as this building.

Here’s another one that had me guessing:

If you really want to know whether a building is old or not (and by old, I mean pre-WWII), you pretty much have to look for the battle scars:

Like in most European cities, buildings that survived WWII are often left with evidence of the battles that took place here. The little street I was walking along, Aradi Ut., had many buildings with what looked like bullet holes or shrapnel damage.

I finished my day with some “Jewish street food” in a pleasant outdoor eatery in the Jewish quarter:

The Jewish quarter is pretty cool – old, with quaint, narrow streets, inviting pubs and outdoor eateries, street art, and unique little boutiques. It also has a couple pubs housed in building ruins (I have yet to visit these). Very bohemian.

And, just for giggles, here are some pics of a shop sign that made me lol:

TL;DR: Another fine day in Budapest.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Day 27

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Janet

Okay, so you’ve burned yourself out on something you’ve decided is no good for you. You want to give it up, but it still tempts you. Warren offers some pretty sound advice for defeating temptation in Day 27.

First, Warren advises that we not try to fight our temptation, but ignore it – fill our minds with something else so the temptation can’t get traction. I don’t think I’ve ever actually tried this tactic with temptation – I’ve always preferred to dwell and wallow in my misery for some reason. Intentionally filling my mind with other thoughts seemed dishonest, somehow, like I was avoiding dealing with the issue – if I was tempted, it was for a reason, for my growth in some way. That’s how I saw it, so the idea of intentionally turning my attention to something else repelled me. That said, I’m sure we’ve all had at least of handful experiences in our lives where we were able to distract ourselves from something unpleasant – whether temptations, thoughts, or emotions – by focusing our attention on something else. These experiences are testaments to the power of intentionally choosing what we think about.

Second, Warren tells us to confess our struggle. YES! Nothing frees you from your struggle like admitting to the fact of the struggle. I have written here about my struggles with resisting change, anger, hate, fear, self-pity, shame, dishonesty, and probably a few other unflattering flaws. Admitting my struggles – to myself by writing about them and to you by publishing that writing – releases me from them, releases them to the Universe to be dealt with there. Not all at once, of course, but bit by bit. The act of admitting that I struggle with hate actually reduces the power of the hate over me, and the next time it arises, it’s not as intense and dies away more easily. With each admission, its power is further diminished until it ceases to have any power over us at all. It’s only in admitting the power of our flaws, or temptations, over us that we are able to diminish that power.

Third, Warren tells us to “resist the Devil” by accepting Christ and refuting the “Devil” not with logical argument, but with Biblical Scripture. The only thing I’m going to say about this is that our egos are ingenious at creating solid logical arguments to justify any and all behavior. When we feel ourselves being led in a direction we don’t want to go, there’s no point in trying to argue with our egos because our egos will win every day of the week. Instead, you have to know what you stand for and what you want to manifest in this world, whether that comes from Scripture or other spiritual teachings or wherever. You can’t outlogic your ego, but you can know whether you’re ego is guiding you toward what you want to manifest or toward what you don’t, and you can agree to follow it or not.

Lastly, Warren tells us to realize our vulnerability and avoid tempting situations. None of us want to admit that we can be led down a path that we didn’t choose ourselves, which leaves us in a pretty vulnerable position when we do put ourselves in tempting situations – when we find ourselves in a place we didn’t intend to go, we either have to admit that we were fooled and led astray or (the more common response) decide that we really did want this and actually chose this and proceed further down the path of our own pain and misery. Of course, knowing your own vulnerability is a discovery process, something learned over time and through making mistakes (perhaps many). Knowing your vulnerability means intimately knowing, and accepting, yourself.

TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life – Day 26

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Janet

In day 26, Warren tells us that we can grow through temptation when we “realize that it [temptation] is just as much occasion to do the right thing as it is to do the wrong thing.”

I’m going to skip past the bothersome judgment and shame inherent in notions of “right” and “wrong” and jump right to my objection – we grow through temptation when we burn ourselves out on whatever it is that tempts us, not by saying “no” when what we really want to express is an emphatic “YES!” This is what it means to learn from our mistakes. We learn a lot more from the mistakes we make – even, and perhaps especially, those mistakes we have to make a million times before we get it right – than we learn from the mistakes we avoid. True spiritual growth and maturity comes through learning, not avoidance of learning by adhering to dogmatic notions of right and wrong because we are told to.

Warren says:

We think temptation lies around us, but…it begins within us. If you didn’t have the internal desire, the temptation could not attract you.

This is absolutely true – we cannot be tempted by what we do not desire. Desire isn’t inherently a bad thing, but when we talk about temptation, we’re talking about desiring something that we shouldn’t. Well…says who*? Who gets to say what we should or shouldn’t desire?

Not that all our desires are for our good – they’re not. Sometimes we desire things that are bad for us. And when we get what we desire and the thing we desire is bad for us, that’s called making a mistake. We may not realize we made a mistake. We may not realize that getting what we wanted harmed us. We may have to make the same mistake over and over and over again before we start to see that a desire is harmful to us. This is how we learn. This is how we gain knowledge. It would be nice to simply be told “if you do X, you’re going to get hurt” and to believe it and to never do X and trust that our lives are better off as a result. And that’s what Warren advises us when he tells to let the Bible have authority in our lives and say no to temptation. But each of us have to discover truth for ourselves. Trust is not based on someone else’s word, but on our own experiential knowledge of truth. Part and parcel of gaining that knowledge is making mistakes – that’s the human condition.

All that said, spiritual texts are necessary tools for our spiritual growth. We can’t uncover our shadow on our own – we need help. If we’re deeply illusioned about the world, we need help. An illusioned mind trying to disillusion itself is the blind leading the blind. We need help. Spiritual texts are one source of help. Like good friends or therapists, spiritual texts challenge what we believe to be true and give us a different perspective to consider. If we are blind to the fact that we keep making the same mistake over and over and that that mistake is making us miserable, we need help in seeing our mistake. Spiritual texts can provide that help.

Again, that’s not to say spiritual texts – or any text – should be taken at face value and trusted as God’s Truth on their own merit. In fact, asking, and expecting, people to blindly follow any spiritual text, and then judging them (or yourself) as “sinners” for following the dictates of their own heart instead, breeds resentment, fear and shame – hardly the fertile environment to encourage spiritual growth. Furthermore, how can you know the truth in a spiritual text unless you know it experientially? Any interpretation of spiritual text not based on experiential knowledge is guessing at best or a reflection of the ego’s wishes or fears at worst (think of all the times the bible has been used to justify trashing the environment, sport hunting, sexism, racism, homophobia, and hate of all kinds). Rather, having been posited a “truth” previously unknown to us, it is our job to find out whether it is in fact true.

Warren makes a good observation about not identifying with our disturbing thoughts – thoughts that we may find bizarre, disturbing, scary, or that make us feel ashamed. We all experience these from time to time, sometimes at the most inappropriate or inopportune times, and Warren advises “Instead of condemning yourself with “How could I think such a thought?” treat it as a distraction…and immediately refocus on God.” This echos the wonderful Buddhist teaching:

Good-humoured patience is necessary with mischievous children and your own mind.

-Buddha

It is so easy to become identified with our thoughts. We think that if we think something, then we must believe that thing, and that must be who we are. But our minds really do have minds of their own, and we have lots of random, inexplicable thoughts all day long. I like this reminder not to identify with our thoughts.

*This conversation excludes desires to hurt ourselves or others. Others may end up getting hurt (emotionally) as a result of how we choose to live our lives, but this is different from desiring to hurt another person (or yourself).

TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.

Hungary/Travelogue

#nighttimecastling

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Janet

It turns out Budapest has a HOPPIN’ swing dance scene. I went to an outdoor dance event they had tonight, and I knew it was on the Buda side close to the Buda Castle, but I had no idea what I was in for:

This was the stairwell I had to climb to get up there:

Of course, once I was up there, and after the Lindy Hop was over, I decided to do some exploring. The Castle grounds are left open at night and lots of people flock there to drink and enjoy the view. In fact, it turns out we weren’t the only dancers at the Castle that night – the Tango dancers arguably had the better location:

And the better view:

Here are a few more pics from my day’s adventures:

The the building that houses the Lukacs Baths, where I enjoyed the thermal pools today.

IMG_3066 (2) — Famed view of Budapest looking south from the Margaret Bridge. You can see the Parliament, Liberty Statue way in the back, immediately beneath that is the white suspension bridge named for Hungary’s Queen Elizabeth, in front of that is the Chain Bridge, then the Buda Castle, and the tall spire of the Matyas Temple on the left, surrounded by the Fisherman’s Bastion.

Does it look like they’re gassing the citizenry? It did to me. This was in front of the Parliament – many misters in the ground create this foggy effect. That building is not the Parliament building (which is behind me), by the way, but some other ornate, probably government, building.

IMG_3100 (2) — Sunset over Buda. This was taken in front of the Parliament building. You can see the tall spire of the Matyas Temple on the left side.

Panorama of the Pest side from Buda Castle. From left to right, you have the Margaret Bridge, Parliament, Chain Bridge, Four Seasons, St. Stephen’s, the Ferris Wheel and, in front of it, the Intercontinental Hotel flanked by the Sofitel and Marriott, the Elizabeth Bridge, the Green Bridge, and the high statue on the far right is the Liberty Statue, which sits on Gellert Hill on the Buda side.

The beautiful Chain Bridge with the Four Seasons hotel and St. Stephens Basilica behind.

The two toungless lions that guard the Chain Bridge. The second arch of the bridge is visible through the first.

One more shot of the Chain Bridge. It’s just so beautiful – it begs to be photoed. The St Stephen’s Basilica is just visible in the back, to the right of the second arch.

Hungary/Travelogue

Enjoying the Present Moment

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Janet

Before coming to Budapest, I researched language schools and dance schools in the area. I intended to sign up for group Hungarian lessons starting first thing Monday, and I wanted to study Csardas, a traditional Hungarian dance. Neither of those things has happened yet, leaving my days quite open and free.

I had grand plans for my day yesterday, including stopping by the language school I’ve been in contact with (email hasn’t gotten me anywhere) and finally arranging some language lessons. When I woke up and the clock said 8:30am, I did an enthusiastic “YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!” complete with elbow pulled back, armed tucked to the side, fist clenched, knee in the air, and leaning back for extra flourish because I was excited about getting an early start to my day.

Then I dove right back in bed. When I woke up again, I took my time eating breakfast and reading, eventually falling asleep for a few-hours nap. I considered going to the language school when I woke up, but I didn’t. I kept reading.

I was enjoying my day. It wasn’t what I had planned, but it was I wanted to be doing in each moment. I did feel a bit ashamed of my laziness – of not moving forward on my goals, of not getting out and exploring Budapest – but I was still enjoying my lazy day. Then the doubts started to swarm in.

What am I doing here? Did I really come to Budapest to lie in my apartment and read all day? ‘Cause I can do that at home. And also, I’m real happy for you that you’re enjoying “living in the moment,” but you can’t do this forever. You’re going to run out of money at some point, and what are you going to do then?

I felt conflicted because, while I enjoyed spending my time that way in the moment, when I thought about it later I feared I was wasting my time. I only have so much money, which means I only have so much time – shouldn’t I make the most of it? Have something to show for it at the end? Something I had to travel halfway around the world to find? Sitting in my apartment reading doesn’t really fit that bill.

I talked out all my doubts with my Self, all my fears about what I’m doing and not knowing what it’s leading toward. This grew into my negative beliefs about myself and how I project them onto others and how I do not want to do this anymore. I cried. I prayed. I calmed down and determined that I would try harder to accept wherever I happen to be, whatever I happen to be doing in the moment, and not worry myself about what I should be doing or what the point of it all is. I felt much better.

Then I got up, got dressed, and went out for a nighttime bus and boat tour of the city. And I didn’t worry about how I’d spent my day, or how I should have spent my day, or how I was going to spend the next day. I just sat in the bus (and boat) and took in the sights.

Budapest is beautiful at night. It’s beautiful anyway because it has so many ornate buildings and cupolas piercing the sky, because hilly Buda is topped by the grandiose Buda Castle, sugar-castle-like Fisherman’s Bastion, and gothic Matyas Temple, and because the height restriction on buildings leaves the Parliament building and St. Stephen’s Basilica dominating the skyline in Pest. But at night, the city lights up, so light bridges appear to span the Danube and the intricate detailing of the building facades are exaggerated by the shadows cast.

Daytime view of Budapest taken from Gellert Hill on the Buda side and facing North.

Nighttime view of Budapest taken from the same location, but a slightly higher perspective. “Disneyland” came to mind when I stumbled upon this view.

Daytime view of the Parliament building.

Nighttime view of the Parliament building.

This is the bizarro art that greets you as you come across the Chain Bridge from Buda to Pest. I think he’s shooting a slingshot, though he’s aiming at the Royal Palace, so probably not the best idea?

That same bizarro art at night. That gorgeous building behind it is currently the Four Seasons Hotel, though the building has a more storied past.

I got to bed super late last night on account of all my napping during the day, so I woke up late this morning, as well. I ate breakfast, read for a bit, and meditated before heading out for the day. I intended to hit up the language school today, but I also had a walking tour in the castle district in Buda that I didn’t want to miss, so language school fell by the way yet again.

The Fisherman’s Bastion with the tall spire of the Matyas Temple behind. The Fisherman’s Bastion was built in the early 1900’s in tribute to the fishermen who lived in the area and defended this section of the castle wall in the Middle Ages. It has 7 spires representing the 7 Myagar (Hungarian) tribes who settled the land that is now Hungary.

The Bastian walls with a piece of the Matyas Temple just visible on the right side.

This gate led to the Buda Castle and is the only part of the “original” palace left standing. I say “original” because the palace was destroyed and rebuilt several times, so I’m not sure how old the wall actually is. The current Royal Palace was rebuilt after WWII, which destroyed some 80% of the buildings and all the bridges in the city. It is no longer a Royal Palace, as Hungary is no longer a monarchy, but houses museums.

Buda Castle, taken from the Chain Bridge.

My walking tour ended around 4:20pm and a summer thunderstorm broke out. It downpoured for a good 45 minutes straight and even hailed. I got caught in the storm at the Fisherman’s Bastion and took shelter under an overhang that led to the Hilton parking garage (yes, there’s a Hilton located at the Fisherman’s Bastion, just a few feet from the Bastion and the Matyas Temple). After about 10 minutes, when it became clear the weather wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, I popped into the Hilton for some goulash and Hungarian wine (did you know the Hungarians are famed for their wineries?). I enjoyed my meal while watching the rain come down through a massive window that looked northeast past the Fisherman’s Bastion to the Parliament building. The rain cleared up while I was eating and I was back to sightseeing.

Just down the hill from the Fisherman’s Bastion, to the east toward the Danube, there was a free cultural event going on outside the Hungarian Heritage House in Corvin Ter. At the Hungarian Heritage House, you can catch performances of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble, among other cultural offerings. This free event included music by a group of 4 musicians and lessons in Hungarian folk dancing. Wanting to study Hungarian folk dancing, I found out about this event and made a point to go.

It was so much fun! I imagine the dances can get quite complex, but for this event, they were mostly simple and repetitious – we would learn one or two 8-counts of steps which would be repeated over and over throughout the song. Most of the dances were done in large and/or small group circles in which everyone held hands, though there were a few partnered dances as well (also done in large circles without the hand-holding). There were some line dancing, square dance, and polka-esque elements to the dances. I thought it was interesting that, in the group dances in which you hold hands, two women standing next to each other would hold hands, but two men standing next to each other (which only happened if there were more men than women in the circle) would put their free arm behind their backs and not hold hands. The hardest parts was not tripping over the uneven stone we were dancing on. I really had to pick up my feet to avoid getting my sandals stuck on the stone, but I still got caught up several times.

This is TMI, but the event went on for about 2 hours and my clothes were literally drenched by the end. I could take a handful of material from my back and wring it out, that’s how sweaty I got. Of course, everyone got that sweaty – it was about 90 degrees when we were doing this.

After that I came home. Did I already tell you about the excellent location of my apartment? I can walk to any of the major sights in Budapest in 30 minutes or less. It’s fantastic.

I had two glorious days yesterday and today, though they looked very different from each other. What made them both glorious is that I was doing what I wanted to be doing in each moment – enjoying the present moment, each and every moment. Yes, I’m still conflicted over how much to be here now and how much to plan for – and worry about – my future. Hard core spiritual texts say there’s no need to plan for the future at all and that doing so is totally fruitless – just be here now, be in this moment, follow Truth’s guidance now, and the future will take care of itself. That kind of faith isn’t easy to come by. It’s true, when I’ve put myself in the Universe’s hands, I’ve always been taken care of, never left out in the cold. Still, I have my old doubts – what if I’m not so lucky next time? What if I’m missing something and I end up screwing myself over? What if it was all just coincidence?

Those are my struggles. That’s what I would like to rid myself of. Truthfully, I would love to have total faith in the present moment, in doing what brings me joy and knowing that my future is secure just by doing so. And I’m working on it, but I’m not there, and I don’t know that I’ll ever totally get there. There’s that pesky little thing about money…it’s easy to be comfortable living by the seat of your pants when you have a slush fund to fall back on. Real faith is found when you’ve depleted the ego’s store of control tactics, those sweet nothings the ego whispers in our ear to delude us into believing we have any semblance of control over any of this. I suspect that is where real joy is found, too. But I’m still too scared to find out.

TL;DR: Still learning to be here now, still conflicted over whether that’s the right approach to life, but cannot deny it produces smiles for miles.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Day 25

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Janet

In day 25, Warren asserts that we are “transformed by trouble” and “God has a purpose behind every problem.”

I declare a wholehearted “YES” to these statements, with the usual caveats you should be used to by now if you’ve been reading these posts regularly. Warren says “God uses problems to draw you closer to himself.” I read this as “when we perceive that we have a problem, this is the Universe (Being, Love, Light, Truth, God, whatever you want to call it) reminding us that we’ve gotten sucked back into the illusion and telling us to snap out of it.”

I’ve touched on the idea of illusion in many places in this blog, but I’ve been remiss in explaining what I mean by that. There is a spiritual philosophy – shared by every spiritual tradition, as far as I can tell, though imperfect human interpretation has led to much discord over this – that says that this physical world and everything in it is merely an illusion. There is only Being – Truth, Light, Love, God, whatever – and we are all a part of that Being, members of the body of Being. The belief that we are separate from anything else in existence – separate from each other, separate from the earth, separate from the plants and animals, separate from the rest of creation – is the illusion. We believe we are separate, and so we perceive separateness, including a separate mind and a separate body. An extreme demonstration of this is found in a story told by Deepak Chopra about a saint – an enlightened person – in India who was known to walk around behind cows eating their feces.

…

The notion that we are all of one being is what underlies the concept of the Body of Christ, what underlies the notion that we are all brothers and sisters, and what Christ was referring to when he said “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” This is not a parable or an analogy – Christ meant this literally. The physical world is merely an illusion, one propped up by our belief in it. When you stop believing in the illusion, it stops having power over you, and you literally can move mountains (or eat cow feces) because the mountains literally don’t exist. Of course, once you’ve reached this point of understanding, you wouldn’t bother moving mountains because doing so would be pointless – what’s the point of relocating what doesn’t exist in the first place? There are miraculous physical feats described in the Bible, such as Moses parting the Red Sea and Jesus walking on water, but you can see how these acts were expedient and useful at the time, not merely showy displays of faith. Perhaps Jesus would have moved a mountain had he a reason to do so.

So, that’s the illusion. The ego, and the mind, are the perpetrators of this illusion. They divide us from our Being – the one Being, of which we are all a part – and convince us we are separate from everything and everyone else that we see, the external world. We come to see the external world – created in the perception of our mind and filtered through our ego – as being meaningful, as being more meaningful than the internal world of Being, as being reality. And, when that happens, the universe comes along and thumps us on the forehead: “Hey! Snap out of it!”

Inherent in this philosophy is the idea that we have always existed and will always exist – we are not merely our physical bodies, and we do not perish when our physical bodies die. This was the point of the Resurrection – we do not cease to exist just because we have left our bodies. In fact, our bodies, which contribute to our sense of separateness from the rest of creation, are just another part of the illusion – they are not real. Every spiritual tradition recognizes this, whether death is followed by reincarnation, freedom from reincarnation, or an eternity spent in “heaven” or “hell.”

The natural question that follows is: why do we believe in the illusion? Why do we choose to believe in what’s not real? Why does it feel so real? If we’re all one being, why can’t we read each others’ minds? And on and on… I don’t have an answer for you. Christianity’s answer is the Fall, and I’m sure other spiritual traditions have their own answers. From everything I’ve read, we started believing in the illusion – the separation from Being – when we created the ego. But why did we create the ego in the first place? I don’t know. This is one of those things I’m taking on faith because the alternative hasn’t done me much good and, when I haven chosen to stop letting my ego dictate my decisions and let my internal guidance system – Being – lead the way, I’ve always come out of those situations better – wiser and more at peace – than I entered them. Warren says “You will never know that God is all you need until God is all you’ve got.” In my darkest days, it wasn’t until I had expended everything I had in my ego’s arsenal and failed to find a workable solution to my problems that I let it all go and turned it over to the Universe to handle it for me. The moment I let go and started going with the Flow instead of fighting for what I wanted and what I thought was right and what I thought I deserved was the moment things started getting better for me.

As far as reading minds, or being of one mind, goes, I think this is what the internal guidance system is about. I don’t need to read your mind, I just need to seek the truth within me. Finding the truth in me, I find the truth in you, as well. Of course, I’m an idealist and I believe in universal, not personal, truths, so that all fits very nicely together for me. You’re welcome to disagree (and I’m sure many, many of you do).

Warren continues:

We are like jewels, shaped with the hammer and chisel of adversity. If a jeweler’s hammer isn’t strong enough to chip off our rough edges, God will use a sledgehammer. If we’re really stubborn, he uses a jackhammer. He will use whatever it takes.

It’s is my sincere belief, based on my own experience, that we perceive problems in exactly the measure we need to show us that we have sunk, once again, back in to the illusion and need to snap out of it. When Warren says that God has a purpose for every problem, I understand this to mean that the purpose of every “problem” we experience is to remind us that this is all just an illusion and to snap out of it. And the degree of difficulty we experience in our “problems” will be in proportion to just how immersed in the illusion we have become.

It’s not that that those who are more illusioned actually have more or worse problems than those who are less illusioned, but that they perceive their problems as greater or more difficult than other people do. I’ll give you a personal example. I’ve written before about my angry driving and the steps I took to not be such an angry driver. Do you think road conditions changed when I decided to drive more reasonably? It’s possible they changed a little bit. It’s possible that my own sane driving exerted a peaceful calming affect on the other drivers around me. But, I suspect that influence was negligible just based on my own history of taking advantage of safe drivers rather than joining in their efforts. No, I don’t think the road conditions changed much at all, yet I perceived driving to be much less problematic than before. When I was deeply, deeply illusioned – when I saw myself as entitled and everyone else as in my way – I was assaulted by egregious offenses everywhere I looked. When I gave up that illusion, I still observed the same “offensive” behavior on the road, yet I was much less offended by it. It simply didn’t have the power over me that it used to. I didn’t believe in its offensiveness anymore.

This thought occurred to me weeks ago when I was driving from SLO up to Santa Rosa. It was a longish drive, plenty of time to zone out and forget that driving is just something I was doing as a means to an end, not a fundamental aspect of my personality. From time to time, someone would cut too closely in front of me, forcing me to brake suddenly, and I would, of course, be annoyed. Karma was on my mind for some reason… I think I’d recently read some thoughts on karma by Deepak Chopra. Chopra says that all events are karmic events, whether that’s drinking coffee, cooking dinner, or plotting against your enemies. While on the road, it occurred to me that these events – the inconsiderate driving I was being subjected to – were also karmic events.

We’re all familiar with the concept of “karma” – cosmic payback. Punishment for a bad deed, a universal eye for an eye, reap what you sow, what goes around comes around… If we think about karma at all, we tend to view negative karmic events in our lives as something that we just have to suck up or as reminders of how imperfect we are (that we are all sinners, if that’s your preference), like cosmic (or divine) guilt trips. These concepts are fine for understanding what karma looks like and how it plays out in our lives, but they’re not very helpful in understanding how we can relate to our karma in the moment in a positive and helpful way. They might bring to our awareness the realization that what goes around does, in fact, come around, that you reap what you sow, but they’re focused on the past, on things we can do nothing about, and there’s an inherent element of judgment to them – divine punishment for a mistake or misdeed. There’s a real potential for resentment to grow out of negative events if we feel powerless to do anything about it.

So, while driving that day, and realizing the potential for another driver’s actions to instantly trigger my rage, a new perspective on karma emerged – that any negative event (or positive event, really, but I prefer to focus on negative events for the purpose of this discussion), anything one might think to label as “karma,” is really just a wake-up call, the universe saying: “Hey! Snap out it! This is all an illusion, remember?”

This, to me, is what “transformed by trouble” is all about. It is a positive way of looking at our troubles – our negative karma – so that we can grow from them instead of simply seeing them as punishment. Having bought into the illusion, you perceive trouble. That “trouble” is really just a wake-up call from the Universe telling you to snap out of it – the deeper into the illusion you’ve sunk, the louder the wake-up call will be. The transformation comes when you hand those troubles over to Being – Truth, Light, God, whatever – to handle for you.

But, you really have to let them go and hand them over and stop worrying about them. The letting go and letting “God” must be complete. Otherwise, you’ve merely retained your troubles and no transformation occurs.

Uncategorized

Transformation

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Janet

One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

-Henry Miller

That quote comes from this article about solo travelling a friend shared with me recently. I love this quote because it’s wonderfully insightful and absolutely true. It’s “neat” to see new places, famous places, old places, glamorous places, but it’s only meaningful if you are transformed by the experience. Travelling gets old fast if it isn’t about more than just saying you were there, seeing another old building, eating another new type of food, drinking a new kind of alcohol, sunbathing on another beach, golfing on another course, taking in another festival…unless, those things have personal meaning for you beyond mere entertainment and distraction.

Of course, transformation means being broken down and rebuilt. You can’t stay old and become new at the same time.

I am in a breaking down phase right now. I’m struggling to make sense of pretty much everything. I feel a lot of confusion and I can’t really gather my thoughts around all of it.

This is affecting my writing, of course. I can’t seem to give voice to the thoughts in my head, and everything I write feels jumbled and imprecise, sophomoric and pedestrian. I thought about taking a sabbatical from blogging on account of this, but I’ve decided not to do that. This is where I am right now and I wouldn’t be very true to the purpose of my blog if I were to walk away because I don’t feel like writing about it/in it/through it. I’m going to keep writing, but it might not be very good for a little while – long-winded and directionless.

You’ve been forewarned.

And thanks, readers, for your ongoing and awesome support. I love you.

TL;DR: Feeling confused.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Day 24

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Janet

I am fascinated by day 24, which basically says the Bible is literally God’s Word – which Warren equates to Truth – and that we are to adhere to it by the letter whether it makes sense to us or not. He uses lots of quotes from the Bible to support these assertions:

Jesus prayed, ‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’

‘Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.’

Jesus said ‘The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.’

‘God decided to give us life through the word of truth so we might be the most important of all the things he made.’

And there are others, but the point is Warren equates “word” in all of these selections with the Bible – the only place to find God’s guidance is the Bible.

Reading spiritual texts – and I include in here not only religious cannons like the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Vedas, Buddhist Sutras, and the Tao Te Ching, but any writing of a spiritual nature, which for me has included Rick Warren and this book, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Khalil Gibran and others – is a fantastic way to grow your own spirituality. You can read what other spiritual seekers have to say about life and ponder for yourself where truth actually lies. That’s what spirituality is – seeking truth – and it is a never-ending process. We are constantly testing truth and finding new truths, new faces of old truths.

It’s actually a lot like science – you posit a theory (consciously or unconsciously), test it out by making specific choices and engaging in specific behaviors (consciously or unconsciously), and you find out whether your theory holds up (whether you accept the outcome or not). For example, I have often posited that if I could explain to someone the error in their thinking, they would appreciate my insight and quick intellect and immediately forgo their erroneous logic in favor of the clearly right answer. Seeing error, I made the choice to try to correct it with logical explanation. I did this over, and over, and over again. It has taken me at least 20 years of constant experimentation with different people and under different conditions and using different choices of words and tones of voice to understand that my theory simply doesn’t hold water – it’s not true.

And there is not a soul in this world that could have told me that, that I would have blindly believed and given up my fruitless endeavors on account of their word. I had to figure it out for myself. And that’s just one example of the many truths I have run up against and surrendered to. We all have to discover truth for ourselves and in our own time.

I read a great quote recently, something about “you can’t tear the skin off a snake; the snake will shed its skin when it’s ready and not a moment before,” which is meant to refer to any and all spiritual enlightenment – you can’t force Truth on someone, they have to discover it for themselves. That’s what it means to say that each person has their own path, must follow their own guidance. We each know different truths to be real, and we each have our own truths to learn, and no one else can tell us how to do that. That’s also why we shouldn’t judge each other – it’s not for me to tell you what path you should follow because I can’t possibly know, and in judging against you I judge against myself and block my own path unnecessarily.

I like the quote from Jesus above: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” God’s Word = Truth. I’m not trying to make some religious argument here but clarifying that all we’re really talking about is Truth. Forget about God, forget about Jesus, forget about religion, forget about spirituality – this is about Truth. Truth goes by many names – God, Jehovah, Allah, Rama – and those who have really embraced and embodied Truth – Jesus, especially, but also Buddha – have been deified by those who are too fearful and ashamed to realize they have the same capabilities. But it’s all just Truth in the end.

Warren says the only place to find Truth is in the Bible, but I just can’t buy that. I think this belief stems from the idea that God no longer talks to people the way he did in the Old Testament, and so the only place to find God’s guidance now is through Jesus Christ and the New Testament. But I don’t believe that God no longer talks to people. I don’t think God ever stopped talking to people – I think people have a misguided understanding of what God’s voice sounds like. They think if God speaks it must be some booming voice from the sky, as if God were external to us. But God is not external. God is Truth. God is the name given to Truth by people who would rather worship Truth than live it. Truth is everywhere, and it’s in everything, and it’s in you. Truth speaks to you through your internal guidance system – what is known as the Holy Spirit in Christianity. It’s not a question of whether Truth speaks to you, it’s only a question of whether you listen.

The Bible represents the learning of its authors. And, while that learning is great and helpful and thought-provoking and all that, it cannot “have the first and last word in [your] life,” as Warren asserts. Whether you’re reading the Bible, A Brave New World, or The Ethical Slut, you can’t simply adopt the authors’ confidence in the “truths” they promote – you must run them by your own internal guidance system to determine whether they are true for you. Don’t get me wrong – I’m an idealist and I believe only in universal Truths (or perhaps only one Truth), so I do not believe that something can be true for one person and not for another. But, that is entirely beside the point. The point is that you must discover the truth for yourself, not by reading about the truths discovered by others, but by running up against them, challenging them, and ultimately surrendering to them. Yes, surrender, because why would you ever fight Truth? How futile and insane would that be?

Hungary/Travelogue

Budapest

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Janet

I arrived late last night in Budapest, the land of my ancestors. Well, the land of some of my ancestors, anyway. To my knowledge, the family of my paternal grandfather emigrated to the States from Hungary – he was the first of his family to be born in the States.

I didn’t decide until Friday to come to Budapest. I was waiting for clarity – I had many options, but no overwhelming draw to any of them in particular. I was actually thinking about going to Casablanca, Morocco. I found cheap airline tickets on Thursday and almost bought them, but I was on my phone and the website wouldn’t let me purchase tickets from my phone. I decided perhaps I should think on it just a bit more. After some research and talking to women who have traveled to Northern Africa, I decided against it. I mean, I know Muslim countries have very different cultures from western countries with respect to gender relations, but the more I learned, the more it just sounded beyond what I really wanted to deal with. Apparently, it’s fairly common for men in these countries to publicly grope foreign women, even when they’re dressed modestly by local standards and even when they’re with men. Women travelling alone are assumed to be “easy,” and it is incumbent on the woman to prove she is not available for sex by avoiding eye contact and other behaviors normal human beings might normally engage in with other human beings.

So, Casablanca was out and Budapest came to mind. I’ve always wanted to visit Budapest. The price was right and the exchange rate favorable, so here I am. I bought airline tickets and arranged my AirBnB on Friday and I flew on Saturday.

Remember when I wrote about how scary it was not knowing what comes next? Over it. OVER. IT. Oh, do you detect pride in that statement? Yes, I’m a little prideful about letting go of that fear, it’s true. In fact, I suspect my pride is really a mask for a deeper fear and that life is going to reveal that to me with dramatic flourish in due time. That’s usually how it goes when we get too big for our britches – life comes along and reminds us in exactly the measure we need that we’ve got a bit left to learn yet.

Initial observations of Budapest:

They speak a lot more English here than I would have expected;
They apparently use 3 currencies here – the Hungarian Forint, the Euro, and the Dollar;
Their radio stations play an odd selection of mostly old (like at least 15 years ago) English language music – today I heard Phil Collins’ “I Can’t Dance” and Touch and Go’s “Would You Go to Bed with Me.” I didn’t hear a lot of modern music, and I wonder if this has anything to do with IP laws making modern foreign music too expensive for Hungarian radio stations. In Brazil, I heard a lot of (what I assume were) non-authorized remakes of currently popular American pop music for (what I suspect are) the same reasons.

That’s really all I have to say right now. I still have symptoms of the Herräng flu, and it rained here today, so I enjoyed a quiet, lazy day of nothing here in the cute little studio I’m renting. Don’t judge me, but I’ve been sustaining myself with the popcorn, chocolate, coffee, tea, and fresh squeezed OJ my host left for me 🙂 I’ll go shopping tomorrow! Right now, I’m enjoying being truly ALONE again, washing my own clothes in my private washing machine, and taking a HOT shower ALL BY MYSELF! I’m in a fantastic location though, walking distance from all the major sites in Pest (the eastern side of the Danube River is known as Pest, while the Western side is known as Buda), so I’m looking forward to exploring this amazing city.

TL;DR: Looking forward to what Budapest has to teach me.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Days 22 & 23

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Janet

God’s ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development.

Many Christians misinterpret Jesus’ promise of the “abundant life” to mean perfect health, a comfortable lifestyle, constant happiness, full realization of your dreams, and instant relief from problems through faith and prayer. In a word, they expect the Christian life to be easy. They expect heaven on earth.

…if you fall for the idea that life is supposed to be easy, either you will become severely disillusioned or you will live in denial of reality.

Jesus did not die on the cross just so we could live comfortable, well-adjusted lives.

In day 22, Warren says we are here to become more like Christ. This means “grow[ing] up spiritually” and “transforming your character.” In day 23, Warren describes “how we grow” to become more Christlike.

Take all the religious dogma out of Warren’s words above and the truth contained therein becomes apparent – pursuing a life of creature comforts and expecting life to accord with our ego-ideals is a fast-track to misery and bitterness or an endless, fevered pursuit of ever more elusive pleasure. I’ve been caught in this trap, thinking “I’ll just be happy when…” Except, even when I got what I wanted, I wasn’t happy – my mind immediately turned to the next achievement that would secure my happiness.

The only times I’ve ever really been happy are those times when I’ve been able to put the future (and past) out of my mind and just be present in the moment. Eckhart Tolle says that the ego and time are inextricably linked, that the ego can only exist in the past and in the future, so that the only way to evade the ego’s tyranny is to be intensely present-moment focused. It is in the present moment that we are able to access our internal guidance system. As I touched on briefly here, this is what Christ did – followed the dictates of his soul, his internal guidance system. This is what it means to me to become Christlike – to set aside the dictates of the ego for the dictates of the soul. And, yes, I do find truth in this calling to allow our souls to guide our lives. It is the only way to find peace and joy in our lives – the “kingdom of heaven within.” To follow the tyrannical dictates of the ego is to lead a split life and literally create your own hell on earth. I’ve done this to myself, I’ve watched friends do this to themselves, and the saddest part is our failure recognize our culpability in our own misery.

There’s nothing terribly unusual in Warren’s words on how we grow – basically, you have to want it and you have to do it. This is pretty basic psychology. However, Warren also adds that God has a part to play in our growth, quoting the bible: “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” But, we have to do our part first: “God waits for you to act first. Don’t wait to feel powerful or confident. Move ahead in your weakness, doing the right thing in spite of your fears and feelings.”

In the parlance I’ve been using throughout this blog, I “let God transform” me when I follow my internal guidance system. Most of the time, this guidance is easy to follow. Rarely have I felt guided to take actions that upheave my world. In those instances when I did feel moved to make dramatic changes in my life – as I described here and here – it was incredibly scary, as Warren observes. I didn’t feel powerful or confident, I felt vulnerable and scared. Yet, I also felt supremely convicted that the move in question was the right one, and that gave me the strength to trust that even though I didn’t know what was going to happen next, I was going to be fine.

As I wrote before in this post on letting go, I’ve never been sorry for following my internal guidance system, no matter how scary it was to do so.

TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.

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