Emotional Wellness

One must approach the conversation about Religion carefully. The concepts of God, faith, belief, dogma, spirituality, mythology, spiritual psychology, xenophobia, revelation, psychosis, and mind control, spirit possession, channeling, occultism, somehow all seem to fit somewhere in the conversation. And all of this seems to pollute something so simple as our fundamental, spiritual and emotional connection to the mystery of life and the mystery of death, and our innate and intimate connection to Nature.

            As long as we are fixated upon a view of the world where everything is outside of us, and we are just another object in the universe, we will remain an object that is at the mercy of a multitude of unseen forces. Because of our natural insecurity concerning the ‘unknown’, we are prone to setting up a system of hierarchies and superstitions to help us placate ‘the gods’ and win their favor so that we will have a better chance at survival, and ultimately at thriving.

            I am not particularly interested in discussing the pros and cons of religion, and the control that religion has had over mankind for eons, as well as the havoc that it has wrought upon humankind forever in the name of God and religion. First, we need to have a conversation about consciousness, and about how we deal with our intellectual inability to penetrate the mystery. For eons, human beings have attempted to penetrate the unknown, "the great mystery", Nature, first with the occult and superstition, and then with science.

"Hey Mr., can you spare some change?" You feel the change of seasons? Don't go changing. I can't believe they changed my password again. The change in time always messes me up, can't figure out which way to turn my clock, forwards or backwards. I didn't realize they changed the flight time and there isn’t another one until tomorrow.  Boy, have they changed!

            In every moment, everything changes. The entire universe is in a constant state of flux. Even your physical body is different today than it was yesterday at this time.

            Our job every day, as the embodiment of consciousness, is to constantly and rapid organize all of this information coming into our physical senses, and make intelligent meaning of it all. It is the ego that is organizing all of this information so that the world makes sense to us, and makes sense to us according to our specifications so that we can avoid fear and pain and have more joy and happiness.

Of all the art forms, Music is by far the most mysterious. As human beings we live in a predominantly visual world. Science tells that 70% of the information we rely upon for our survival and existence is visual. We are visually dominant. We rely upon sight, and therefore upon light, to extract enough of the proper information from reality to ensure our survival on every level and on an everyday basis.

            In a more primitive world, we might have relied more upon sound than we do now for our survival due to predation; however, in the modern world, we feed our ears lots of ear candy, probably to ensure our emotional survival.  Other art forms such as painting, sculpture, and architecture, even dance and theater rely solely or at least heavily upon vision as the primary sense of perception.

It’s not everyday that we get to sit down with the one and only James Hyman. But this rare event took place last week, and we were able to discuss into great depth this thing called media. James held nothing back, just as we hoped, and gave us some extremely deep insights into just how media is used globally, what it means for humanity, and how we must use these resources as a means of growth, while continuing to balance our individual and collective existence in this world.

Once again, a highly informative and charming conversation unfolds between Hyman in Los Angeles; William May in South Florida, and Dr. Joseph Kenneth in central Chile, as each of them share their thoughts and experiences, making for a quite unique and entertaining special feature.

Life is a mystery.  Our existence as physical beings is beyond comprehension.  Mind and consciousness are perpetually attempting to unravel the great mystery, or at least come to terms with it through the belief in science and the application of technology on the one hand, and a blind, almost superstitious, childlike belief in mysticism and fantasy on the other hand.  The belief in science is as faulty and blind in its attempt to describe the nature of reality today as once was the Catholic Church and its philosophy in the time of the dark ages.  And, reliance upon a false mysticism is like a terrified child in the night telling itself that Superman will be here soon.

This mystery, this unfathomable, haunting uncertainty, this almost unnoticeable sense of emptiness, sometimes bordering on a subtle sense of doom, is embodied in the idea of our impending fate, i.e. our Death.  Everyone that has ever lived has died.  Everyone living today, every baby that is born in this world today will grow up and will eventually meet the same fate.  And for the most part, there are only two ways to die.  One, you have to get very, very sick, or very, very old.  The second way is that one-day, you just find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and some kind of accident or tragic event occurs that ends your life.  Even in the reading and speaking of these things, one tends to experience a slight tremble in the innermost recesses of their being.

Okay, we get it, and on some level we accept it, even if we don't understand it or what any of it really means.  We will die someday!

As I write this short article, I have the great privilege to be on the other side of the wall to my daughter's room.  What makes it significant is that there are seven teenagers, ages 15 to 18, in her room right now enjoying the living presence of Youth Culture: music, conversation, and the things a teenager might do to enhance music and conversation… especially since school is out in a week and a half.  For the moment this will address the youth culture of today.

            As for the youth culture of yesteryear, (anywhere from 500 BC to my own youth in the 60s), I will tell a story.  One day in humanities class during my freshman year of college, the professor was reading an essay written by a mature adult writer “of the time” written about the current youth culture “of the time”.  You must remember that this was in the mid 60s, and the youth culture of that era was smoking pot, protesting the Vietnam War, dressing like flower-children, and rebelling against anything of the established, prescribed order.  Music and free expression were far more important than grades and deciding upon your life’s profession or career.

Hello, my name is James Hyman and I have been asked to contribute an article to this very fine and interesting publication.  As I write these words, it is five o'clock in the morning here in Los Angeles California.  It is mid-August, and the light of this new day is just emerging. 

We live in such an interesting time.  It is a demanding time.  It is a time that will require the highest, the best, the intuitive, the critical, and the love and patience that is in us all.  In case we haven't noticed, it is a great blessing to be here at this time, to be on a spiritual path, and to be committed to the awakening of consciousness that actually ensures that there will be future generations.

Many of us around the world have been on a spiritual path most of our adult life and yet many more people are just now emerging into this energy of awakening. It is important to remind ourselves that we are not actually doing the process of awakening.  The process of awakening is actually working us, moving us and molding us along the path of liberation, not just for our personal gain but for the evolution of conscious awakening on planet Earth.

Understanding this experientially allows us the great freedom of letting go so that we can relax and experience this "present-time” freedom of being.  “Letting go” you say, what does that mean and what does that look like.  When we look at and contemplate the world outside of ourselves, we can become very perplexed, almost paralyzed.  We can become discouraged, and often times feel powerless to affect any real change in the world in a way that supports the peace, the love, and the light of consciousness that we are so ardently looking for.  And so we look away pretending that if we don't pay attention to the world it won't affect us.