BY PAUL KAIHLA — Ojai, CA is to spirituality what Silicon Valley is to technology. Due east and a 40-minute hop inland from Santa Barbara, Ojai has more mind-body spas per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. — probably, the world.

How does Ojai pull that kind of rank? For one thing, it’s got a tiny population: 8,000 souls. For another, Ojai was the North American base of the great Indian mystic, J. Krishnamurti. He underwent one of the most famous enlightenments in history at Ojai in 1922.

Krishnamurti chose an estate there, granted to his foundation by patrons, as his part-time home for the next six decades (The great sage died in Ojai in 1986). “Krishnamurti put Ojai on the map,” says Judy Gabriel, who runs Retreats of Ojai, a site featuring Ojai’s mind-body venues.

In fact, you can sleep in the same house were Krishnamurti slept for $55 a night if you call the Krishamurti Retreat, which sits next to the Los Padres National Forest, and express an interest in the great teacher’s library and archives that are housed on the property.

But there’s only three rooms. Far more options are available in Ojai’s newer retreats, some run by teachers who have indirectly followed in Krishnamurti’s footsteps.

Across the street from the oak grove where Krishnamurti once held forth to hundreds of fans is an artisan bed and breakfast owned by Ronda LaRue (right),  Ojai Soul Arts, which has spa features like the “Dreaming Bed” in the image up top.

LaRue isn’t just an inn-keeper: she also happens to be one of the hottest therapists in town. Like this site, she has a post-modern approach: art therapy, energy healing and contemplative meditation.

“It is actually the creative alchemy of change that the arts offer,” Ronda told Soul’s Code, “the antidote to the mind, when we’re not present, that keeps one stuck in trying to ‘get enlightenment.’ “

The boutique resort in Ojai with the most spa trappings is Shangri La Paradise (they won’t reveal their address until you’ve made a reservation). But the big kahuna in town is the 308-room, 31,000-square-foot Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, a country-club destination. They offer every stripe of massage and manicure you could imagine, and not coincidentally, post this as one of their claims to fame: “a favorite escape for Hollywood stars.” No wonder even the most lackluster room starts at $400/night

If you go to Ojai, here is a stanza of classic Krishnamurti to inspire you for your retreat:

The unknown is not measurable by the known. Time cannot measure the timeless, the eternal, that immensity which has no beginning and no end. But our minds are bound to the yardstick of yesterday, today and tomorrow, and with that yardstick we try to inquire into the unknown, to measure that which is not measurable. And when we try to measure something which is not measurable, we only get caught in words.

 

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GUEST COLUMN: RONDA LARUE — More and more people have been asking me lately, “What do you mean by the word mystic?” There’s a lot of confused thinking out there and some outright misconceptions about the term. In a very real sense — and because mysticism concerns the essence of life — it is audacious to even try and define it. Words are insufficient and often get in the way of understanding.

Mysticism is a quality of presence that is quite literally beyond and before any words. Nevertheless l, like others, feel compelled to at least try to frame mysticism in words. Mysticism is terribly misunderstood by mainstream culture, and it always has been. Many people think being a mystic means some kind of odd occultism — someone who studies magic or renounces life and goes off to live in a cave. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The mystic is one who consciously enters into the sacred journey that all the world’s great religions speak of: Some call it becoming awakened, enlightened, born again. It is an inner journey. It is the true meaning of being born anew. It is the process of letting our stale beliefs die so that we may live in the fullness of each new moment of Creation. It is the understanding that conditioned patterns, belief systems and memory are not living, but dead moments. It is the realization that true living can only move with the current of Creation — forever open to each moment and teeming with new potential.

To let go the illusions of ego and stand naked before our true nature often requires removing oneself from typical ways of living and thinking (at least for a time). In sacred literature this is often referred to as entering the wilderness, facing the dark night of the soul, annihilation of the ego or dying to oneself to be born again. It is a fundamental transformation of conscious understanding that the mystic acquires.

The journey a mystic takes to successfully deconstruct the layers of conditioning that block true awareness — or what emerges from it — can often look and sound very mysterious (if not down-right confusing) to the uninitiated and linear mind. But in truth, it is the deepest meaning upon which the world’s great religions were founded. It is the journey to discovering and experiencing a direct relationship with/as God or the Source of All Creation. It is each individual soul coming to directly know itself within the Divine. It is the fulfillment of our purpose: “I and my father are one.”

So you see, a mystic is one who, above all else in life, desires to know the deepest Truth of existence. A mystic is one who senses more to life than making a living or being of service in the world — although these things are both necessary and good. The mystic looks to something beyond survival and self-actualization desires: he looks to discover the deepest truth of our being as incarnate souls; to understand our greatest potential as reflections of God; to realize our wholeness within the Ground of All. The primary interest in life for the mystic is to discover truth, to know God, to see into man’s whole nature. The mystic sees all of life as an abundant opportunity to discover, realize, and express the Divine.

Mysticism springs from an insatiable curiosity for understanding the essential questions of Life: matters of God, Creation, the Infinite — and the human potential for knowing Truth. The mystic is the ultimate scientist who, looking beyond the obvious in all matters, asks: “Is this that I am seeing reality or illusion?” “What existed before this sense of reality?” “What existed before my mental constructs, my beliefs, my self-identity?” “Who is this that observes and self-reflects?” “What is at life’s very source?” That is the mystic.

Great Mystical Teachers of the Present and Past: Jesus, Ghandi, Job & Jung

Throughout history, mystics have been our guides; those who go before, those who see beyond, those who (so often) speak in riddles.

Every religion the world over (both of the east and west, orthodox and liberal) has at its origin the way-showing wisdom of one or more great mystics. Indeed, the men and women throughout history who have had the greatest spiritual integrity and direct authority are rightly called mystics: Jesus of Nazareth was a true mystic, as was Gandhi, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, William James, Thomas Merton, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrisna, Lao-tse, Shankara, Vivikananda, Abraham, Job, Carl Jung to name a mere few.

The Great Common Denominators

If you study the life of past mystics you’ll find they share several things in common:

1) They all speak of an induction – or of a need to learn/realize a new level of understanding. They all speak of a fundamental shift in consciousness (be it called awakening, realization, divination, or being born again).

2) They all tell of a journey into and through despair, of being “undone”, as the precursor to arrival — be it through experiencing 40 days and nights in the wilderness, starving under the Boddhi tree, facing the dark night of the soul, or the hero’s journey. This journey is the metamorphosis that all mystics have undergone in some way.

3) It is an inner journey that must be navigated alone. This is a hallmark of the mystic’s realization: The reason the journey must be alone is because that which must be faced, seen, and surrendered in order that something new can emerge, is only possible through sustaining the fear and despair process of being alone and meeting the ultimate and fundamental fear of “non-being” and of annihilation.

4) They all realize the frustration of being misunderstood by those who have not yet been through the awakening. A great deal of the mystical writings are devoted almost exclusively to the fact that fundamental spiritual truth cannot be understood by the intellect nor correctly put into words. It is known on a level that is before and beyond the mind. This is something unfathomable to those who have not yet had this breakthrough revelation – and particularly so in a culture that reduces our understanding of intelligence to that which is sensory, measurable and linear in nature. (Life isn’t only or always linear. In fact it rarely is, except in man-made constructions and habituated uses of the mind.)

The (mysterious) language of God

There is literally a new language/understanding that accompanies spiritual realization. The same old words now have entirely different, deeper layers of meaning and significance within the new framework. In fact, no words can encompass that which has been realized. That is why when the words of our world’s great mystics are heard through the common language of those who have not yet made the mystic’s journey, they are invariably misunderstood (misconstrued and misused). That is why Jesus was crucified. It is why we have “religious wars.” And it is why we have so much religious politic and prejudice corrupting the universal truth that one has to enter into alone.

That is why we see so many people (vainly) trying to “practice” their way into spiritual realization with all sorts of dogma, belief systems, religious structures, postures, and prayers. The reason these things don’t work is because the need to grasp something (the very mechanism of the mind that needs to hold on to anything for its salvation) is the very thing that has to be let go of!

It’s an odd sort of reverse psychology (with a double twist): The path to spiritual realization is completely antithetical to what anyone would call a path at all. It is always the subtle paradoxical opposite of what one tries to see, know, understand. That is why so much of it sounds like riddles. That is why I say it is a fundamentally different language.

That’s as close as I can come to pointing you toward finding your way: realize that we’re talking about developing an ear for a completely foreign language. Start listening into the unfamiliar, the unclear, the uncomfortable. Start living in not-knowing anything (not any thing!). From there, the new Language of Knowing emerges like one of those 3-D picture puzzles where the image is embedded within (and is more than) the dots. Listen in a new way – and not so much for new things (a key).

The word Mystic at its root stands for that which cannot be named – that which is forever before the naming: Source. The word also hints at the path to spiritual realization — to become capable of going into a terrain that is beyond the mind, separate from any belief, any identification or security.

The mystic is anybody who seeks to experience above all else, the direct expression of God/Source/Being in one’s life. He or she is anyone with the deep desire and courage necessary to look — and see — beyond the obvious; beyond the illusions of our self-created identities, and find what lies forever before and all around us, as the One that is All. The path is one of surrendering that which we hold as belief, identity, intellect. What emerges is the full expression of Being within the language of Love.

Ronda is an author and spiritual teacher living in Ojai, CA. Ronda runs Ojai’s Soul Arts retreat, which is featured in the Soul’s Code slide show about spiritual resorts. Her latest book is: “Remembering Who You Really Are: The Journey of Awakening to Soul”. For an expanded version of this article, visit Ronda’s website.

GUEST COLUMN: RONDA LARUE — 9/11 is, and was, a big wake up call to witness the internal machinations of fear, and its multi-faced projections. And as with all tragedies, it is a call to dive deeper under the ruble of suffering, shock, and reaction to reclaim an ecology of the heart.

Spinning on a Prayer…

In our greatest imaginings
who could dream a world such as this?

Who among us can,
even now,
conceive of something as voluptuous
as the gentle commingling of earth to air
that brings an early morning dew?

Or something as delicate
as the spider’s intricate web
cloaked in wet droplets
and standing perfectly fragile
– yet intact and strong -
as it’s caressed by the morning’s first hues;

…a weaver spins her vast universe
within a thousand spectra of color,
and so casting a rainbow of infinite Chance!

Or the glimmering of her shining prisms
that catch the notice of two out walking,
each to his own path.
Stopping: eye meets eye.

Soul sees Heart;

…an impression of something each once knew.

Two from the One emerges, a panoramic palate,
and so spilling a harvest of infinite Choice.

And still, a ceaseless and patient dawn
rises from the endless darkness of night.
This intricate and delicate world
spinning silently on a prayer!
Perfectly fragile – yet intact and strong;

…yielding and accepting
to that which we offer every moment,
each new day,
by way of our touch,
our prayer, and our song . . .

May you be a Dreamer
in the imaginings of a peaceful Heart,
And so may your dreaming come true.

©Ronda LaRue, Author: Remembering Who You Really Are

SPECIAL TO SOUL’S CODE: RONDA LARUE — What does one dedicated to a soulful life do in the days following a layoff or the termination of a job?

What does one do with the shock, the feelings of betrayal, and the confusion — and the paralyzing waves of fear?

How does one survive, find hope, stand strong, and create new opportunity? How can one dare to meet life in a new way — to stay open and not cave in?

As someone who never intended to become sought out as a teacher, but rather, as one who has lived and walked through the devastation of life crisis and its very real de-footing, I am humbled and in awe at what I have discovered about life at its deepest core, and what it means to be “eyes wide open” fully human, while also steady in-love with the still point of a deeper intelligence on the path of true purpose. . .and of what is required when fear stalks close and looms large. . .

Harnessing fear

The paralyzing waves of fear are very real in the moment of shock. Yet if you succumb solely to its voice, you will remain imprisoned — merely applying yet another band-aid to what is an opportunity to mine your deeper soul’s gold (or soul’s code as this web site calls our true groundedness).

Fear is a great teacher when we learn to look and see how and why it works, and what lies beneath it. Fear is a catalyst for growth and new seeing power. The times in our lives that bring crisis, fear, and upheaval of our current security, most often herald the possibility of true breakthrough to renewed purpose. . .if we but take the quest.

We’re meant to take on our most challenging life situations and use them in service of a deeper soul’s quest. We’re asked by life at times of radical change to make a determined and conscious quest to discover what it means to be successfully in the world, but no longer imprisoned by our own gripping fear at life’s ever-changing nature.

As my friend, Fran, says, “We’re all gonna die.” So the question becomes, how can we learn the art of being truly and fully alive even when we know we can’t always be in control or keep ourselves out of harm’s way?

How do we take the very difficult “bumps and lumps” of life that threaten our survival (or at least our desired level of security), and discover from these very real hardships the art of being abundantly, creatively alive?

Feel the fear, yes. . .and then take it on as a sacred quest to finally meet your true potential  — before you die. That’s a bold statement. But it is true for each one of us.

To be truly alive is to feel the fear and carry on anyway, as the artist of one’s own life.

Let your crisis become your teacher

When I lost my job and my husband and my health several years ago (whew!), I was devastated and overcome with fear and loss. What did I do in this time of terrible fear?

I suffered with it. . .and I honored its presence and learned how to pick it up and use it as a sacred quest to show me what ultimately matters in life. I used the fear and loss as an ingredient to craft an amazing new menu for living more fully awake and free.

My crisis became my teacher, leading me to become more whole in myself, less victimized by circumstance and unshakably alive to life in all its manifestations. It wasn’t easy, but it was truly miraculous.

How can you make this bold move toward inner freedom?. . .By honoring (not caving into and yet not denying) your fear. Don’t wallow in it, but meet it outside of yourself and let it become your teacher, leading you to new and much greater possibilities awaiting you.

Five steps for transforming a layoff into a sacred quest:

1.  Sit down with a pen and paper and soul-search, coming up with six main “personalities” in you that have run your life. These should be the six key voices that run through your life and that you are aware of right now in the midst of this sudden crisis.

Give each one a name. Some examples might be: Polly Perfectionist; Ms. Oh So Not Worthy; Valium Victim; Nelly Needs Approval; Majestic Mystic; Callous Critic, etc.

2.  Find, make or buy something that stands for each one of these voices. This should be something that actually looks like how they feel when they are active inside of you. Be playful and allow them to come to life in an outer physical form.

3.  Place your six inner voices, now given physical form, in a special place in your home that shows an honoring willingness to hear and see them out in the light of day. By your giving them a playful name and form and special place in your life, I guarantee that you will start to notice more clearly how their voices run and obstruct, or help your daily life.

Simply let them become your teacher and tend to them with curious observation and playfully creative dialogue. Nothing is denied or disallowed — just curious dialogue.

4.  As you engage in this way, you will start to notice the role of fear and all its voices of compromise. You will also find your place of courage and its voice of playful allowing. And something will start to open in your life that is unshakable: Your soul’s own wisdom and flow with life will begin to emerge as your seated authority of self.

5.  As this inner seeing strengthens (as it will, if you engage these little voices with creative, playful reverence) you will start to recognize that life and all sorts of new opportunities are literally rising up out of the ashes of your current crisis. You will discover how to become an alchemist of your life and how to step boldly into each moment of life from a place of authentic truth.

You will be in the “soulful zone”. And as you start to come more and more freely from a place of your soulful authenticity, you will naturally find and follow the path of your vocation and purpose in this ever-changing world.

Ronda LaRue is an internationally-acclaimed spiritual author and teacher who lives in Ojai, California. Her first book, Remembering Who You Really Are, is a contemporary classic on the journey to true self-realization.

Learn more about her private retreats and small group programs at OjaiSoulArts.com.  Read Ronda’s previously posted Soul’s Code articles: A 9/11 prayer and What is a mystic?

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