Bias serves no purpose on the spiritual path.
Why denounce the Truth of one religion, when that Truth is identical in another religion, except the language has changed, and the narrative is different? Heal the divergence that lies between religions. Heal the division of culture, language and custom. See the unity that is inherent in the spiritual path. Learn from every saint; absorb every teacher; for what one teacher lacks, another may explain clearly. What one narrative fails to make understandable, another narrative might lead to understanding. If parts of Buddhism confuses you, then lean on Taoism, or seek knowledge in the Catholic masters of prayer. Know the unitive state is the final goal.
Teaching spirituality is going back to the beginning and remembering the unrealized state.
Seeking spirituality is going back to the beginning and remembering the realized state.
In every state, we must return to the beginning.
The cause and the effect are the same.
Let us Connect Buddhism, Toaism, and Teresian Prayer
Emptiness is a common theme in all religious traditions. But what is emptiness?
Emptiness is the Source, the Truth, the Reality. Learning to disengage from our identification with the external or material reality, we are able to pull far back, until we recognize the quiet humming Reality of Energy or Spirit that lives within us.
The five aggregates are:
- form (external material image)
- sensations (feelings, received from form)
- perceptions (internal ideas based on form)
- mental activity (thoughts arising form)
- viññāṇa (awareness of self based on form, or "false self" or "little self")
After you detach from the 5 Aggregates, then you move past emptiness into wholeness. Emptiness is not empty--you feel the baseline, the Self that resides within you that does not cling to any external attribute. You take that energy, and you cultivate It.
In Catholic terms, this is the prayer of union. This is the state St. Teresa of Avila reaches in the 7th Mansion of The Interior Castle. It is the chamber where God resides within you as True Reality--uniting with this Reality is transformation of the soul. It changes the Self and purifies consciousness.
What happened during my Awakening at 12? And what happened later, when I was 25 and I received my vision of the Tree of Life? It happened inside of my life energy. A massive amount of internal energy was released through my heart, up into the head, that blew out any falseness or ego that had accumulated. Salvation, Enlightenment, Liberation--it all lies in energy.
So see yourself past the 5 aggregates. See how you continue to exist even beyond thought and conception. Hold on to that existence, that Self, the "I" of awareness, until it expands outside of the body, through space and time, and ceases to identify with anything but being.
Now take that energy, and focus it. Feel it focused in your heart. Build it up. Allow it to bubble up into your body like a wellspring of purity. Allow that Life to dwell richly within you, in solitude, in silence, until it lifts you up, carving pathways to the top of your head, where the Nirvana chamber resides at the crown. Feel this pure spirit of life refresh and revitalize you. Do this, continue to do this, year after year.
Eventually, something will connect in your heart. It is not in the mind, but in the heart, where the connection happens. Everything will open, and you will see True, Unitive Reality. You will enter into the Presence of God and receive Salvation. And then you will know the constant. Peace will enter your heart and become stable. Reality, as well, will stabilize, as you see everything in the True Self.
What is the constant? It is as St. Teresa of Avila tells us: it is the peace of knowing God's presence ever in your heart. It is a wellspring of Spirit, the True Self, residing in your body. Then you will know Reality for what it is. Then you will be Tathagata. And then all of Reality will respond do you, because the servant shall be One with the Master.
