Soul's Code

During the last week of May, the most popular (emailed) article among online readers of the New York Times was a feature-length story debating the utility of meditation called, Lotus Therapy.

If you read sites like Soul’s Code, and others that we point to, about the only thing you’ll learn from it will be data points like:

The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

If you embrace the New York Times as the free world’s newspaper of record, the other thing you might realize is the degree to which the mainstream media has embraced a reductionist, Cartesian view of reality — and how far behind they are. These guys make Oprah look like the Dalai Lama!

GUEST COLUMN: VICKI WOODYARD

Vicki is a spiritual teacher and writer who lives in Atlanta, GA

We have all watched the Mastercard ads where narrow slices of life are branded as “priceless.” What I’ve come to learn from those whom I’ve loved, and have died, is that what is truly Priceless is an essence that animates each of us — and which I still know in those whom I’ve “lost.”

When was the last time you looked at the truth of your being and rejoiced? Most of us look at ourselves with jaundiced, weary eyes — and look at bonded-teeth and hair-weaves with envy and a sense that we will never look “perfect.”

I remember when my young daughter was dying of cancer. She lost all of her hair to chemo at age four.

Show us! *Not* the money. We want your Peak Experience

Enter the first (but not the last!) Post a Peak Experience photo contest!

The Good News: You don’t have to write anything! (Well, just a couple of lines).

Here’s how to enter . . .

(Left: Cinque Terre , the Italian Riviera)

BEING THERE: DAVID RICKEY — I have always thought of “AHA” moments as those times when suddenly we “catch on” to a deeper reality, when we suddenly “get it” – the “it” being a deeper truth, or a clearer insight into “ultimate reality.” These experiences are sometimes caricatured by a light-bulb turning on. Suddenly we see something that had been invisible, or un-graspable before.

On a personal level, the “A-Ha” may be an answer to a problem or question that has been plaguing us; a sudden awareness of a solution or a new perspective that hits us, seemingly from nowhere, or “out of the blue”. From a deeper level, however, “A-Ha” moments, I believe, are breakthroughs in consciousness where an old, more limited, perspective gives way to an expanded awareness of what is really going on, our part in it, and then a summons to change our choices, behaviors, intentions to align better with this new awareness. Spiritual teachers speak of “waking up”, indicating that what came before was a state of “sleep-walking”, behaving and choosing without awareness.

Both Oprah and Obama were members of Reverend Wright’s church. She quit out of careerism, early. Less calculating, Obama hung in until he ran for president

BY PAUL KAIHLA — Whenever I open my mouth about Oprah!, scud missiles rain down upon my space (link to the Led Zep-tune, Kashmir).

Usually, those scuds form their craters during conversations with women who are totally focused on their careers.

Maybe . . . probably, it’s a projection. Do we feel a “missing-ness” in our jobs, yet throw so, so much of our energy into making them so, so good?

What does this have to do with Oprah? She pitches to that careerism that’s alive in each of us, and reflects it. She’s the most successful double-minority, media careerist on earth.

The shadow side of careerism is a sense of missing-ness. Missing this, missing that. Missing that which we really love. Because we’re at work, and selling our precious time for a pay-check. Are the highest highs you’ve ever felt in life produced by your job, an experience at work ? Not bloody likely.

The reason I do not trust Oprah as a trusted source on how to resolve that tension, and instead see her as a self-serving opportunist, was reinforced by this week’s Newsweek.

It shows once again how deeply Oprah is cathected in a self-image that morphs into fame and fortune. Like Barack Obama, she too was a member of Jeremiah Wright’s Chicago church. But unlike Obama, expediency prompted Oprah to cut out after a couple of years — while the future presidential nominee naively hung around for 20.

From Newsweek’s Oprah kiss-up: “Something Wasn’t Wright”:

“Oprah is a businesswoman, first and foremost,” said one longtime friend, who requested anonymity when discussing Winfrey’s personal sentiments. “She’s always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn’t be smart.”

It’s natural to take offense, defend Oprah — and have affection for her. You want to be rich and famous? Great! Memo to Oprah: Don’t strike a pose as spiritual, a way of being that — by definition — is aimed at obliterating and undermining the very identifications that holds a mass audience in your thrall.

I follow Oprah’s movements, I respect Oprah — I do not trust Oprah. I trust the women that this site calls The New Female Mystics.

What’s the difference? Spiritual teachers like Byron Katie, Pamela Wilson and Catherine Ingram seem like they have surrendered what Oprah has not — and have little interest in promoting a self-image.

Why isn’t the same deference, fierce loyalty and emotion that Oprah enjoys extended to the likes of Byron Katie, Catherine Ingram and Pamela Wilson ?

They occupy a place of peace and acceptance that media celebrities can only imagine. They have a knowing. They do not have money, or media profile.

Is is that what they have is actually not wanted — and what they do have, really isn’t?

To this petition and appeal by Debby Dernberger of Menlo Park, CA, we add our prayers:

“I am in search of a long lost relative, my brother. His name is Michael Jay Dernberger and he was a vagrant and homeless alcoholic living on skid row in Washington State. It is tragic what happened to him, and he is not the only one. I just want to find my brother.

“Is he alive or dead? Is he in jail, or is he OK? No one has heard from him since 1990. By posting this, it would help get the word out.”