Soul’s Code

Byron Katie is a post-modern mystic = someone who has realized an elevated state, and done so in the maelstrom of contemporary American society — incubated totally outside of organized religion, essentially by spontaneous combustion.

With the release of her third book, A Thousand Names for Joy, Katie receives standing ovations usually reserved for rock stars as she tours U.S. cities. But this isn’t an Oprah-ego personality cult. This material is challenging stuff — not feel-good, ratings-boosting melodrama.

An excerpt from the new book: Here is Katie’s way for un-plugging from the pain of 9/11, an American drama that lives in us with the power of a group induction or spell:

I read an interview with a well-known Buddhist teacher in which he described how appalled and devastated he felt while watching the planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. While this reaction is very popular, it is not the reaction of an open mind and heart. It has nothing to do with compassion.

America is far more protective of her astro-babes than her mayors. Even so, Lisa Nowak has been turned into a poster caricature of an American Psycho, the hooded Alpha-female version. The mind goes, ‘wow, and she’s an Annapolis grad, just like Jimmy Carter. . . .’ In this week of high-profile betrayals and love triangles, you can’t help but think Nowak’s co-conspirators got a free pass from the media.

There is scarce coverage or chattering-class-chatter about the Other Man, astronaut Bill Oefelein: here’s his NASA blog (wonder how long this will stay up?). And even less noise about the other woman, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, who was the object of the dude’s two-timing desires.

Eckhart Tolle, the Grandmaster Flash of spiritual teachers, has been living the reclusive and contemplative life we kind of expect of a post-modern mystic. He hasn’t made a public appearance for more than two years. (One of the very last was recorded as this talk in the fall of 2004 in Santa Rosa, CA). His publisher, Penguin, blew eight head valves when he declined to do a single signing, speech or interview to promote his 2005 book, A New Earth. And we loved it! There’s a definite symmetry between that style and Tolle’s teachings, which revolve around the connection between being and silence.

But today, Tolle entered a new phase when he posted the itinerary for a speaking tour that will take him from Dallas to Denmark — and a fundraiser on Feb. 22 in Beverley Hills that has stars like Rosie O’Donnell, Ben Stiller and Paula Abdul attached to it.

Gavin Newsom fulfilled a universal ego ambition. Out of 350-plus mayors in the United States, it was he who made the New York Times on Friday. But not for reasons the ego would conspicuously approve. Newsom had an affair with a 33-year-old woman who’d just had a baby — and she was married to the mayor’s equivalent of Karl Rove. In fact, both the married woman and her husband were on Newsom’s payroll.

But don’t ask Soul’s Code to lead with black-and-white moral indignation (we save all of that for Dr. Phil!). To pass judgement on this guy is to turn him into a blotter for our own downside projections and denied dark matter.

Newsom acts out of the same collective database, so to speak, that feeds all of our experience. And love triangles are one of the most primal plug-and-play programs coded into the human psyche, from Helen of Troy-Paris-Menelaus to the lovers Tomas, Tereza and Sabina in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Actually, Newsom’s triangle sounds similar to the affair that the patrician Walter Lippman had with the wife of his best friend and colleague, Hamilton Fish Armstrong.

A Bible-belt newspaper goes nuts and attacks Zeus worshippers because their god had multiple wives, fought with his Dad, was neglected as a child — Hey, it almost makes Zeus sound like a stereotypical televangelist type:

His view of marriage would fit in pretty well today too. He worked his way through three wives while fathering so many kids with so many other women that most of them didn’t even know one another. That’s something to worship for sure.

Dr. Phil, the official mascot of Oprah, has a permanent page on the site for his own TV series called “Be on the show” to solicit victims to air their soiled psychic baggage — and boost his ratings. Is it any wonder that people like Gavin Newsom and Lindsay Lohan go mad in this mad, mad world that Dr. Phil helps make more mad?

We excerpt brother Phil’s language whereby he seeks to facilitate an episode about marital discord and reconciliation. Direct quote, courtesy of Dr. Phil:

“CA ONLY: Know an Evil Bitch?

Do you know an evil bitch? Are you married to one? Do you constantly get in arguments over who’s more evil – you or them? Does it drive you crazy how nasty this ‘evil bitch’ can be and you want Dr. Phil to put them in their place? Tell us your story.”

http://drphil.com/plugger/respond/?plugID=11081

The Immaculate Reception… and the 9 other sports miracles [Beliefnet]
Spoof: God charges bank administrator $25 late fee [TheSpoof.com]
Liberal Jews blamed for anti-semitism [NYT]
Slide Show: Gandhi’s last days [Slate]