One Mystical Monkey

Travel light,
live light,
spread the light,
be the light.

Gotta love it when your teabag hands you a Spiritual reminder while you’re still trying to pry your eyelids open!

Light is everywhere and is in everything. Everything we see and experience is an expression of Light, manifested physically. Even in the darkness, there exists Light - whether in the specific lessons that the dark brings, or in the contrast of the dark against the light which makes the Light seem all the brighter and helps provide us with a gauge by which to measure such things.

When we are truly connected to the Light, what wondrous peaks we humans can reach! In order to reach these peaks of human potential, it takes a bit more than just the realization of the Light and our connection to it - we must also have the ability and willingness to apply it to the physical world, and we must be personally responsible for ourselves and our actions. This combination of realization, responsibility and willingness to act (physical potential), enables us to act according to our higher nature and higher ideals. This is what manifests Light in our daily lives.

Without the personal realization and connection to Light, we are directionless, and easily lead astray from Right, moral action that is one of the goals of the Spiritually inclined. Without personal, conscious responsibility, we can not even see the Light or our connection to it and can not, therefore, express it in order to reach our higher nature; We are lost to the world, to ourselves, and to each other, and we are crippled in our ability to express our highest human potential. And without our willingness to act in accordance to the Light, we can not manifest it here.

But when we can combine the knowledge and insight of Light, personal responsibility, and our highest human potential for action, there is little we can not accomplish! When we act in this manner, we climb mountaintops, soar through the skies, cure disease, help pull others from the brink of disaster with the sharing of a smile, seek to understand our higher calling, ponder the meaning of life, and so very much more!

May you walk in the Light, my friends… and let us manifest it here!

Namaste,
-OMM

It’s used a lot these days in the metaphysical circles, but what does the term ‘Light’ really mean? Surely, it means the greater, omniscient, omnipresent Spiritual Essence known as God, Nirvana or as any number of other names. But ‘Light’ also means the essence of Spirit that resides within each of us - that “core” or “seed” of the Spirit of which we are reflections -in all our humanity- as we go through this human existence.

Spiritual texts -across a multitude of religions and cultures- support this idea of individuals being part of a greater, spiritual whole, and these same texts, time and time again, encourage us to first look within ourselves to discover our true essence -our individual connection to Spirit/God/Nirvana/Light.

The practice of ‘looking within’ reconnects us to our spiritual centers, but the process also encourages a certain self-examination of our behaviors, actions and emotions. With continued practice, we learn a number of things - patience, love, compassion, and respect, self-responsibility, and a certain consciousness of our actions among them. We become more connected and aware of each moment, we become more self-reliant and more independent while also becoming more and more aware of our interconnectedness with others. We discover that we really are reflections of this Spirit -this Light, and we strive to reach our highest potential as human beings in this life, and beyond.

So what is ‘Light’? It is our connection to Spirit, our connection to ourselves and others, the ability to be fully human, and the ability to reach our highest potential as reflections of Spirit/God/Nirvana. ‘Light’ is also the human potential to excel, to succeed, to be independent and responsible, to become aware, to expand… and yes, to evolve naturally.

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.
- Dalai Lama

The kingdom of God is within you.
-Jesus, The Bible

En Lak’eck
-OMM

… Change of Pace
……. Change
………… or No Change?

Several comments have been made to me recently about the apparent change of direction for this blog, and it is something I’ve wrestled with for a while. Yes, many of my more recent posts have had a political slant to them which is highly unusual for OneMysticalMonkey. But is this really a change of pace or a change of heart for the content of OMM? … Is it a change at all?

As spiritual beings, we are drawn to follow the Path to greater insight and knowledge both of ourselves and of the world around us. Read the rest of this entry »

We are all influenced, to some degree or another, by each other, our cultures and societies, by the press and the media and governments and the modes of recreation (most notably television and movies) in which we participate. But we must break out of the influences thrust upon us and become the critical thinkers we are really meant to be. We must think -really and truly think- about the messages our news and media are giving us and those things put before us which serve to condition us into thinking and feeling a certain way or to believe a certain “party line”. We must listen to our hearts, think with our heads, and evaluate the legitimacy of each thing for ourselves, as objectively and critically as possible.
Read the rest of this entry »

What qualifies a person or personality as “normal” these days? Well, like most things it’s highly subjective and based around the opinions and judgments of others, according to various things which have influenced them. There are cultural and societal influences - the issues of cultural taboos between aspects of society, religious beliefs, levels of education, etc.

But in a culture where up to 20% of school-age kids are medicated to keep them docile and under control for long intervals of boring lectures and academics instead of running around personally experiencing the world around them… where most individuals (adults and children alike) are chronically sleep deprived… 9.5% are clinically depressed during any given one-year period… 31% of Americans are technically obese… we are conditioned to be constant consumers -mere followers of pointless fads… ‘educated’ to pass the required tests, to regurgitate the appropriate rhetoric and largely useless information on cue (instead of asking questions and positioning ourselves as clear-thinking leaders in society)… war and violence surrounds us on a multitude of levels… the ‘news’ is highly biased… and we’re force-fed our beliefs and morals by the media to which we’re addicted… the definition of “normal human” seemed awfully skewed to me.

But thinking about ‘normalcy’ in America (and the World) lately has brought some rather disturbing thoughts to mind… thoughts which I’ve wrestled with for a while now and thoughts which, I’ve realized, need to be voiced. These are thoughts which, although not purely spiritual in nature are part of our overall awakening -for part of our evolution is physical and involves the “here and now” in ways beyond personal mindfulness and responsibility. Part of our evolution as a species includes examining those illusions away from which we’ve shied and at least considering that what we’ve been taught (on some very basic levels) may not actually be true. It is taking the glasses off, so to speak, and really seeing what’s going on in our world… then taking the gloves off and doing something about it.

This evolutionary shift is about breaking the illusions which bind, communicating and sharing with each other on levels that just don’t seem to happen any more - levels of honesty, and trust, confidence and heart-felt communication. It is about communication, brainstorming, community, and developing better paradigms than those which have been in place for so long now. It is about being willing to shatter our illusions, knowing we’re not alone while we’re doing it, and then being willing to pick up the pieces with our hands, our heads, and most importantly of all, our hearts. Without our hearts to guide us truly on this path forward, nothing changes after the pieces are swept up - and things need to change. We need to change. Time for our evolution is here…

Will you come with me?

“Man’s mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

After spending so much time delving into and evaluating the Inner world, I’m suddenly drawn to looking at the Outer one once more. This shift in attention is partly due to the changes being wrought in the physical World and the dissolution of the artificial boundary between the inner and outer realms. It is time to make changes in the way we do things and the way we interact with each other. And these changes are happening. As a whole, we are shifting -evolving- to a more responsible, compassionate and sympathetic species.

Read the rest of this entry »

Television is a chewing gum for the eyes. -Frank Lloyd Wright

Television. The great American past time. When television took over that spot from baseball, I’m not entirely sure, but I am reasonably certain that the passing of that torch was not a good thing. Did you know that, among other things (sources provided below): Read the rest of this entry »

Our world, as most would agree, is a fast-paced, technologically and mechanically complicated one, with a wide assortment of distractions and entertainments from which to choose. We frequently fill our hours playing video games, surfing the web, or watching mindless drama on television or in the movies. And, like most things these days, these amusements come hand-in-hand with an assortment of biased media, propaganda, marketing ads and other claptrap largely intended to overwhelm us and undermine our self-image, making us vulnerable and desirous to purchase the products placed before us - the marketed “solutions” to the fabricated “issue” or “problem”.

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems the universe has been conspiring again! Several years ago it saw it necessary to relocate me halfway across the country to an area very close where there is located a metaphysical college. So what is somebody on the Path going to do, after a couple good nudges in the direction of the college? Take a course, of course!

Read the rest of this entry »

……… continued from yesterday’s post ……..

Is it human nature, or a socially-induced end result, that encourages us to look for external approval to such an extreme degree? Is it some concept of civilization which indicates acceptable decisions and social interactions and which defines these things further with legal consequences for unacceptable actions? Perhaps it’s a matter of physical comfort in our modernized countries and no longer having the minute to minute fight for our lives that has encouraged us to instead seek permission for and social approval of our actions instead of finding creative ways to think, grow and live? Or perhaps nothing has changed at all. The hunter dragging the kill back to the clan was often rewarded with approval, wasn’t he? The difference, I suspect, is that while the hunter was out actually hunting, a myriad of decisions faced him - any one of which may very well get him hurt or end his life. Simple, mindless, regurgitation of ‘fact’ of how to hunt, without any independent or creative thought, under these kinds of circumstances was a dangerous thing.

Read the rest of this entry »