"Absolute warriors, ideal warriors, don’t struggle. Their actual inspiration comes from the situation as it is. If the situation becomes more and more overwhelming and powerful, that much more energy goes along with it. It’s like judo: you use the situation as your power rather than trying to fight with it."
- Chögyam Trungpa
7 years ago to the date of the beginning of Russia's attack on Ukraine, I posted the above quote on Facebook. The significance of seeing this quote again, on the very day that war in Europe had begun, inspired me to share more about what this quote means to me.
This talk is about actual, tangible actions you can take that will influence the outcome in Russia and Ukraine through prayer and spiritual practice.
I encourage everyone to learn from all the thoughts, beliefs, and actions that led to this world crisis. By all means possible, do what you can do to help those in Ukraine and all the refugees displaced by this war.
Donate money, and write your elected officials and representatives—realize that many right now do not have the freedom to do those two things. Practice love and integrity. Do the hard inner spiritual work. Plumb the depth of your heart, mind, and convictions as you experience the reality of war in Europe.
Commit yourself to live and speak the truth.
Confront lies and misinformation by living as love and openness in all you do.
Actual spiritual practice at this level will cause lasting change for yourself and the whole world. This article is about how to do this.
The universe is conscious
God, the knower of all that is known, is the one source behind all consciousness.
God is the consciousness that witnesses and sees all, and which knows all from the inside because God is one, indivisible. The universe is all connected and one through its shared origin. Coincidence? Intergalactic unity through shared origin means all that is observable is one.
Big Bang. What was before? What is after? Who or what would know?
Where are the traces of this origin? They are all around us. We are part of it. It continues to unfold, revealing what it is. We experience it through consciousness.
When two or more people are together and aware of this God-consciousness within themselves and their brothers and sisters, an understanding of their true identity as sons of God is present, just as Jesus was aware of his connection to this one Father-consciousness.
Remember that Jesus never said that he was special or separate — he said that we are all children of God.
Know who and what we are: children-consciousness same as the source father-consciousness.
Seeing this in your fellow man awakens the heart. This is the sacred truth that Jesus embodied. It's the awakening of the Christ consciousness. It's knowing that our true nature is not separate from the Father-consciousness. In fact, we are never separated from this overarching consciousness. We are children of this one knower — unless we temporarily forget. But it is inevitable that we will remember the truth because that is what we are.
You can never be separated from God because God is the same consciousness that is aware you are alive and experiencing anything. Whether awake, sleeping, or dreaming, young or old, you are the same you that existed in your earliest childhood experiences. You — the experiencer, are ageless. Sure, you've grown in age and learned much since birth, but the you that experiences your life is consciousness, unchanging, always ever present. This perfect knower of whatever is happening has been with you for as long as you can remember because it is you—at depth.
God is not some abstract thought or being; God is the root of being itself. Your being. Everyone's being.
God IS one.
Resting in the depth of naked being, without adding anything else, is to know God.
Powerful prayer arises from this identity. Spontaneously. Endlessly.
Disconnection is suffering
In Vajrayana Buddhist nomenclature, an impersonal primordial consciousness is the source of all consciousness. It is referred to as the Dharmakaya. The Dharmakaya is absolute truth, the conscious part of you that's aware it's aware, but that exists without form, substance, or even concept of any sort. It's the essence of the universe, the unity of all things and beings, manifested beyond existence or nonexistence and beyond concepts. It's an endless expanse of interconnected awakeness permeating space and time. The Dharmakaya has been called the basis of the original un-bornness, the omnipresent awareness that existed before your birth, which will be unchanged by your death. It is nothing whatever, but everything arises from it. The ancient Chinese called it the Tao.
Without understanding the nature and source of consciousness, we believe it is possible to be disconnected from our source, and this false belief manifests within our lives as suffering. It often feels like it comes in cycles – we move past one personal crisis and another comes immediately after, and we don't know how to break free from our own version of Groundhog Day. We are untethered from our center, chasing after our own mind-generated dramas until we see ourselves as linked to everyone else and thus we share in their pain and success.
This cycle of suffering is exactly what’s happening right now in Europe. What is forgotten is that personal, spiritual liberation is achieved through knowing that you are consciousness itself. Again, you can never be separated from God. You can never not be held in the universal mind that is our divine source.
Methods of prayer to an infinite consciousness
Knowing this, the question that often arises in spiritual practice is, how can we pray? How can we align our consciousness with God's, knowing that we are in fact consciousness? And that God is that very consciousness we are reaching out to be seen by? How can this ever-present consciousness even see humans? To answer this, I want to draw our attention to a classic prayer often referenced in times of turmoil: the 23rd Psalm:
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”
Read that again, and maybe even speak it out loud to feel the power within it.
Through these words, you can feel the terror that people in Ukraine are experiencing. You can feel the fear of the soldiers, of the civilians, of everyone whose life is being upended for reasons beyond their control, far beyond their desires.
Thou (consciousness) art (you are) with (in combination) me (awareness). How? The I walking through the shadows is mind, consciousness, your "I", that has momentarily forgotten who and what you are. When "I" orient my awareness away from the seeming crisis and turn it toward the source of awareness — which is consciousness — then in that very instant that we know this, we rest in God's presence. We rest in our source condition, which will be unaltered even by death.
All near-death experiences confirm this. In NDE's, there is a witness, an experiencer present, even after the body clinically dies. You may try to dismiss those experiences as spikes in DMT and hallucinogenic states, but what is being experienced? How are those phantasmagoric experiences even possible? We know about them because the experiencer was conscious of them. Even dreaming requires something to be conscious of the dream. The ultimate experiencer of any experience is consciousness itself.
Knowing is the way we experience anything by consciousness.
We can use this seat of authentic depth and power to pray with power and certainty.
I love this potent prayer that came out of World War II, written by James Dillet Freeman. It was the first prayer we taught our children, the Unity Prayer for Protection:
“The light of God surrounds us,
The love of God enfolds us,
The power of God protects us,
The presence of God watches over us,
Wherever we are, God is.”
I invite you to sit in these words, to allow them to wash over you. Just rest as awareness, within a swirling, overarching and interpenetrating divine consciousness. Take time to truly internalize that your mind, your consciousness, is one with God. Aligning our minds with this source enables miracles. You can heal the world through what you see and live — as truth — connected to the source of awareness itself.
Hold Fast
The final concept I want to share about how one prays in these times of turmoil is to view all current political, spiritual, and personal turmoil as a storm.
"One hand for yourself, one for the ship." You can't help your crew on a ship if you've been blown overboard, so while one hand is held out to those around you, the other must anchor you to the deck rigging. In the same way, to help those around you during times of political strife, personal struggle, or spiritual doubt, you must first take care of yourself, grounding in the one thing you know is always ever-present and stable no matter what arises — consciousness.
Your consciousness, which you can meld with God's consciousness by letting go and opening heart, mind, and body — instead of collapsing, retreating or reacting. Simply hold fast as the depth of consciousness centered within the absolute vulnerable center of your heart, feeling innermost self enveloped by the One from which we all came, and ever remain one with.
A common sailor's mantra during storms is to "HOLD FAST." Sailors tattooed this injunction upon their knuckles to remind themselves and others. Stay the course. Bear down. Hold onto the rigging for life, as the result of inaction is death. Continue to believe in and adhere to the life that is living through you. When times get hard, one needs to hold fast and ride it out. It means to stay strong, to see the tough times through for the sake of love.
Practice
To begin, bring your awareness to your breath. Sit comfortably so that your spine is vertical or lie down with your feet on the earth, knees raised. Feel your own body from crown to toes. Locate and feel your beating heart. Connect to the divine source of consciousness within you — the one that is beating your heart. From that place, affirm that you are not alone. You are already connected through the Father-Mother consciousness, through this infinite space of oceanic awareness that we're all swimming inside.
Centered in connection to source, then you can extend a hand to help others, and do so from the fullness of love without holding back.
Surrendering to what is already the case, to what is already true, only costs you your separation and mistaken thoughts.
Let go, and extend awareness outward from your heart. Allow the intensity of any emotions experienced from this war to be fully felt. Cry. Rage and shred pillows if you need to. Find an empty room in the basement, or go to a remote beach and roar, scream, and mourn what you feel happening in Ukraine and Russia.
Cry for justice and peace. Know God is listening and feeling through you. Know it in your body.
Inhale and feel it all — then let go, exhale and send the contrasting energy to those in need. Emotionally send what would heal and comfort them. This is the Buddhist practice of Tonglen. Reverse the typical aversion and egoic separation through yogic heart practice. Strengthen your muscle of love.
Receive.
Inhale and feel the pain, do not push it away. Allow it to melt your heart open. See all the specifics of suffering within your mind's eye and within your aching heart. Inhale the fear, aggression, and impetuousness behind this war's start. Imagine feeling exactly what Putin felt as he commanded his forces to invade Ukraine. This emotional yoga goes beyond taboos—nakedly feel what is happening without obscuring stories about righteousness, justification, or guilt. Dissolve your resistance to feeling. Be human. See what is already the case. Surrender into experiencing your fear/aversion/anger/hate/sorrow/nausea without resistance. Then with the exhale, send outward what you know they need—right now. Emotionally extend the opposite of what you felt during the inhalation.
Exhale compassion, love, tenderness, power, and courage to defend self and country. Exhale freedom and liberation from all that oppresses Ukraine and her people. Exhale freedom and liberation from all that oppresses the Russian people. Exhale Russian rockets and artillery going off course and missing targets, landing harmlessly. Exhale medics reaching those in critical need. Exhale solidarity and comfort to political prisoners. Exhale help to newborns and their mothers living in bomb shelters. Don't just imagine this in your mind's eye. FEEL it emotionally.
Then with the next inhalation, again receive the pain and grief and suffering. You are strengthening the muscle of steady love. The kind of love that holds fast. The kind of love that steadies hearts and the resolve of everyone else on the Earthship with you.
I encourage you to develop a formal meditation practice during this global crisis. One hand for yourself first. Email me if you would like free access to a video mediation course that will guide you through this step-by-step. It's my gift to you. Please accept it and magnify it.
Make sure you go within to find the depth of what you can trust — that strong and steady presence of consciousness within you. Notice that the source comes from beyond you; it arises as a continuously blooming gift. Its location is in the heart. This gift is consciousness itself. At this level, you are connected to all those within Ukraine and Russia.
Through feeling all, let your heart bloom into a radiant, strong, and proud sunflower.
Center yourself in peace, love, and openness. Remember that your inner state of mind and your heart matters, not just to you, but to the whole world. Lead from within your heart. Hold Fast.
Then after your inner centering prayer, where you connect your heart and deepest purpose to the larger life force that is living both you and those in Ukraine, take one tangible action, right now, to help those in need.
Donate money to aid groups serving those in Ukraine and the refugees in Europe. Write your political representatives and ask for specific action. Change your investments to reflect your values. Express acts of compassion toward all those who are suffering. Try Tonglen practice. Choose one. Then do it.
Do not withdraw and only sheepishly watch this war in fear from afar. That is the dreamy call back into contraction and separation. Thoughts are cheap, and intentions are not any more substantial.
Become the embodied prayer that changes the world, one conscious action at a time.
Be responsible for your thoughts and words.
Live a life of integrity where your actions and words are in alignment with truth.
Align the awareness of others around you by the strength of your heart certainty.
Hold Fast.