A common but short sighted interpretation of karma (also common psychology btw) is as follows:

They’re hurting because it’s their karma (aka their fault). I’m hurting because it’s their fault. I’m happy because of my good karma (aka I did well). They’re happy because things went well for them.

This is easy because it only makes the good things that happen to us OUR business, while it makes the bad things that happen to us the result of circumstance. This would be fine if we thought the same for other people, but generally we don’t. Generally we blame others more easily than ourselves, both for the bad that happens to them and the bad that happens to us. 

If you look at the situation from a Chittamatrin (*) perspective things get a bit trickier. Those of you who’ve studied ‘The Law of Attraction’ may see some similarities, though there are also differences. 

In Chittamatrin philosophy everything we experience is the result of our own karma. If you’re happy, that’s your karma. If you’re sad, that too is your karma. However, it gets a bit murkier when it comes to how you see other people. 

If you see others as unhappy, that is your projection and therefore that too is your karma. That is: you co-produced their unhappiness. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean (and this is where The Secret is wrong) that simply ignoring it means it’s off your back. When you actively ignore other people’s suffering, it’s like ignoring your own pain and that merely hides it. Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do – just be aware you’re doing it. 

This means that – if it’s within your power to help that other person, by all means do so. You can’t use the law of karma to get out of compassion. 

Of course other people have their projections and their experiences. Often how we see someone and how they experience themselves don’t add up at all. This means that ‘helping others’ is usually not as simple as it sounds, unless it’s things like food and shelter, of course. 

The first lesson of karma is to take responsibility for all you experience. The second… to realize we’re all in the same boat. We might as well make it easier on all of us and replace indifference with kindness. 

 *) Chittamatrin = Yogachara = one of the schools of Buddhist philosophy. My teacher Geshe Sonam Gyaltsen has been teaching us about the Chittamatrin, though the above is purely my interpretation. 

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On Valentine’s Day, I walked into our bedroom and a bird flew up in my face.  He panicked, back and forth fluttering off the walls.  I quickly opened a window and guided him out.  But that’s not the end of the story.  This bird has spent every day, for the last five weeks, pecking relentlessly against the windows of our cottage.  I can hear his repetitive tapping even now.

Some believe when a bird flies into a house it is a portent of death. Is he a messenger from the spirit world?  What is he trying to tell me?

The day the bird arrived was the day my dear friend, mentor, and spiritual teacher, Dewa Nyoman Batuan, died.  I met Batuan when I was twenty-four.  He welcomed me into his village compound in Bali and was my host for nearly a year.  Even though he was very poor, he shared his house, food, and knowledge with me.  We’ve watched each other grow for over forty years.  He book-ended most of my adult life.

I returned to Bali over twenty times and Batuan was always my first stop.  But often he beat me to it.  Wherever I stayed he would always find me, his face beaming and his arms outstretched.  We’d walk through the rice fields or sit for hours nursing our glasses of Bali coffee made simply with hot water and coffee grounds.  He would talk enthusiastically about spiritual connections he’d made and soon pull out his mandala paintings to punctuate his impromptu lecture.  “Why do I paint mandalas?” he asked. “Because it can hold everything.  Earth, air, fire, water, ether, animals and people.”  He work expressed his quest for enlightenment, made his life more beautiful and let him enjoy learning, practicing and passing it along.

A month after Fate first drew me into his village he set up Pengosaken Community of Painters.  His idea was that a handful of master painters could teach children and teenagers to provide much needed income for the village. The proceeds from sales would go back to the community, which in those days before the island’s over-development was how everything worked:  community first, then family.  Thinking about yourself first was unheard of.

Batuan’s generosity was unlimited. He was always giving. He was a schoolteacher, community organizer, and for many years, the head of the village.  A traditional but also a modern man, he was able to discriminate between the values of each.  I may have been among the first Westerners to meet Batuan, but over the years his reputation became international and he befriended artists of all kinds.  Even though he and his wife raised six children and had seventeen grandchildren, and even though his spiritual devotions meant spending much of his day in temple duties, he was never without several canvases in progress. Over the decades, I watched his compound overflow with an endless stream of kaleidoscopic mandalas which he painted whether tourists bought them or not.  (But many did; both Queen Elizabeth and Ronald Reagan valued and hung his paintings.) More about Batuan

In 2009, I published an art book of his life’s work called Mandalas of Bali: Our Place in the World, which features 140 color mandalas and includes Batuan’s writing about the spiritual and cultural aspects of Bali.  It’s a wonderful expression encapsulating the wisdom and art of this extraordinary man. In 2011, Batuan appeared in my film TALKING WITH SPIRITS: Journeys into Balinese Spirit Worlds.

I was very fortunate that my young eyes were opened by Batuan’s genuine concern for my unfolding.  His spirit was, and still is, an inspiration to me…and as persistent as that little bird tapping at my window, “Don’t forget me”.

Guest post by Michael Wiese who is a publisher and filmmaker.

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Jung grants that self is more than mere ego, but by this he refers to the collective or many selves. The purpose of individuation is not to leave the world behind as is the goal of the Eastern mystic, but rather to gather the world to one’s self. Here lies the parting of the waves between East and West. Remember the Janus image mentioned earlier? East looks inward while West gazes outward towards the world.

Certainly there are parallels between Jungian thinking and that of Vedanta. In fact, it is likely Jung took the term, Self, from Indian texts. However, according to Barbara Hannah, Jung felt “the East was too far above everyday reality for us (Westerners)” (Jung xxiii). In his Kundalini Yoga lectures, Jung speaks of the process of individuation:
It is the withdrawal from the emotions; you are no longer identical with them. If you succeed in remembering yourself, in making a difference between yourself and that outburst of passion, then you discover the self; you begin to individuate (Jung 39).(...)
Read the rest of Atma, Self and Individuation – Jungian Psychology and the Advaita Vedanta Philosophy (part 2) (1,606 words)

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“Consciousness going out towards objects is mind.
That which turns towards the Self is pure Satva.”
—Sri Atmananda{1}

In 1938, C. G. Jung on his only trip to India was scheduled to travel south and meet the great householder sage, Sri Atmananda (Sri Krishna Menon). The trip was arranged by Dr. Roger Godel, a noted heart specialist and friend of Jung’s. Alice Godel, his widow, later related this story to me in India. The night before their departure, Jung had a dream which persuaded him to leave India early, thus canceling his trip to south India. If it seems strange to us that a well-educated, professional man such as Jung should take a dream so seriously, we must recall that Jung had grown up in a family of psychics and trained under Sigmund Freud, all of whom paid significant attention to dreams.(...)
Read the rest of Atma, Self and Individuation – Jungian Psychology and the Advaita Vedanta Philosophy (part 1) (2,011 words)

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In the law of karma motivation is front line and center. Do you do for yourself, your own wealth, success and fortune? Do you do it out of compassion, because you know that person can use the help?

It’s the most basic psychological process: our motivation, why we do what we do. The hard part is that usually we have all kinds of reasons for doing things. You take care of yourself when you’re not feeling well, not only because it makes you feel better, but also in order to be able to go to work tomorrow. That work serves the people who depend on it.

You might be a volunteer in a retirement home because you need something to do, to have some company, but also because you care for the inmates.

Tibetan Buddhist teachers stress that you can rejoice in all the positive things you do, including the positive motivation you feel. That rejoicing is a sort of motivation in hindsight.

Similarly, the karmic consequences are, so it’s said, less of you honestly regret doing a negative action.

It makes sense: if you rejoice in the positive things you’ve done, chances are you’ll do them again. If you regret stealing something, chances are you won’t steal again (or as often).

In reverse: If you regret every little bit of generosity you display, chances are next time you won’t give as much.

The point is to get clear what your motivation is – the layers of your motivation. Not in order to beat yourself up over every time you put your own needs first, but in order to be realistic. Realistic enough to take care of yourself and avoid overwork, for instance. Realistic enough to give that dollar to that beggar this time around.

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Somehow the law of karma has people in all sorts of mental knots sometimes, so I thought I’d start out with the basics:

• When you help someone today, they will be helped. You will get the blessings later.
• When you hurt someone today, they will hurt. You will get similar problems later.
• When you avoid negative actions today (murder, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse) – that may be tough today, but you will feel better later.

Some people use the law of karma to feel a bit better about the good things they’re doing. This is a good thing: not only are you helping people, you’re feeling better as well. Win-win.

Some people use the law of karma to justify indifference. Does that person have troubles? It’s their own fault! It’s easier to ignore the things they might do to help. Often we can’t do all that much, but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore or justify the suffering people experience.

For instance: voting parties that support helping those at the bottom of society, may mean laws get implemented that do actually help them.

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For several years, I’ve been exploring the relationship between shamanism and Buddhism.

The indigenous expression of Bon shamanism and Buddhist practices are historically interwoven in Tibet. The current form of Tibetan Buddhism is a near seamless synthesis of the two traditions.

One way of viewing shamans is that they are the cultural creatives of their communities. Whether they are providing healing through plants, balms, tonics, antidotes, chants, art-objects, music, story-telling, dance, and ritual, the shaman liberates a Cosmology for a collective according to interdependent forces and variable technologies.

Mastery, of course, varies as it would in any field.

It is to Ayahuasca (a dark bitter brew that some Amazonian tribes drink) that I want turn to within the context of Buddhist meditation and offer some perspective on it.

There is a record of Bon shamans ingesting “entheogens” to bring medicines, power, and knowledge back to their tribes as they interact with various “worlds.” Ayahuasca, in many circles, is revered as a Master Teacher.

The sense of awe, power, and mystery that is available at Deity-like scales during an Ayahuasca journey can serve a practitioner who wants accelerated access to states of consciousness such as detailed in The Flower Ornament Scripture, which Wikipedia notes as describing “a cosmos of infinite realms upon realms, mutually containing one another.”

Much of the accounts of communion, interdependence, participation, and personal humility that we find in spiritual/religious texts throughout various schools are experiences that Ayahuasca can provide. Mind you, Ayahuasca is not Shamanism. It is a “tool,” just one of the many technologies available for positive transmorphing.

I recall that my Vajrasattva practices during and after Ayahuasca experiences, the Sky gazing techniques of Dzogchen, the cutting through, the immense sense of compassion, gratitude, and peace that were part of my conscious practice with Ayahuasca left me blissful and as one with All That Is.

The sense of belonging, possibility, and deep affection that is the afterglow of many Ceremonies is enticing and hard to release. The shamanic sangha is quite the love and beauty fest. “Ceremonial” experiences have impacted my art and dying, but only because I have been a practitioner for several decades.

However, as I got invited to co-chair ceremonies with established Ayahuasqueros (also know as Curanderos and Vegetalistas), my sense of the overall value of this technology led me to the following awareness:

I am more comfortable with the term “hallucinogen” as opposed to “entheogen” (that which releases the divinity within) since I see the word entheogen now as just a psychedelic-politically-correct way to refer to these substances that casts them in the most positive light. There is an unquestioned dogmatic structure operating minimally on the surface of the term that pervades as an “attachment,” even though it is to god realms.

Curanderos are not gurus, spiritual leaders or even necessarily brilliant thinkers. They are quite often afflicted with traumatic developmental histories that remain unresolved after decades of imbibing the brew. They can be invested in power hierarchies, and are often impaired in the areas of intimacy and emotional maturity. In many ways, their level of insight is no greater than the seekers that come to them for illumination and relief.

I have come to view true transformational technologies as being deeper and more thorough than what the volatile ethno-botanicals can deliver on their own. We can bring meditation, therapy, yoga, transversal ontologies, and so on to our practices in styles that enrich us and help us attain greater degrees of participation in a fully self-expressed life. Our syncretic moves are a benefit to Upper Amazon curanderismo without a doubt. And yet, we invest an enormous amount of positive transference to the curandero though what they serve is a plant concoction where we provide most of the psychospiritual ornaments along with extraterrestrials, brujos, and zombies. Is this actually liberating?

Curanderismo is also an incredibly lucrative business and assistants in the money chain, including the ones that host the curanderos in the United States, make enough (tax free) cash to keep invested in it. Let us not forget that for most of the planet N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the psychoactive ingredient in Ayahuasca, is a controlled substance with severe penalties being levied against those who’ve been successfully prosecuted for its distribution.

If you are a Buddhist or mystic of any type, yes, study the role of hallucinogens in your life, whatever that life stage, ponder the variety of motivations and reasons, and differentiate from there what is of durable value to you. Ayahuasca, at best, can be seen as one of many catalyzing agents that can pry out that which is already clamoring for attention and expression. However, sustained transformation requires a discipline that a tireless pursuit of healing through these concoctions cannot sustain. If you do not integrate this into your awareness, you will remain in a bardo of sensation and fascination. Welcome to shamanic Samsara.

Most of the effects of these substances can be achieved by other means, hence the power of contemporary cultural creative practices. Given the indiscriminate spread and increasing use of Ayahuasca (and other hallucinogens), I believe that most new users are not prepared psychologically or emotionally to reap any long-term enduring benefits from them. The reasons for this are a general presence ontological-existential immaturity and also because there is no adequate language for referring to these experiences afterwards. And because there is such a variety of modes of partaking of the substances, that it is not possible even to objectively evaluate what the deeper positive changes, if any, have been.

On top of it all, with the grotesque and carnivalesque expansion and proliferation of the Amazonian brew outside their natural contexts of use (even if geographically still in the original regions and countries), what we have now is a free-for-all groping, manipulation, ego-tripping, and narcissistic posturing of both old and new hands. Despite all the enthusiastic claims to the contrary, there is a lot of amateurism in these tropical destinations of so-called “healing” and “spiritual” work. It’s an exotic tourism for some and easy money-making opportunity for others. Contrary to the general impression of growth and expansion (true at the most obvious level), there will be more “accidents,” bad trips, abuse, and malpractices in this unregulated wild frontier — not a very healthy or sane environment for “enlightenment” or “healing.”

Let me ask you this: are not the rampant modern mythologies around the so-called “teacher” or “healing” plant, ”plant spirits,” and “dark/malevolent entities” part of the Legions of Mara as well? Who is the self that believes in any one of these?

Until there is a true, sophisticated, rich, and critical synthesis of the best of the original (native) practices with the best of the western advanced interdisciplinary epistemological and therapeutic methodologies, insights, and knowledge, I respectfully suggest you let go of these dubious contemporary playgrounds of/for the psyche. They can be fun, certainly, but also dangerous for many. Or, just a plain waste of time.

Meditate, don’t hallucinate. Balance between reason and intuition is the Great Mystic Health.

Guest Post by Alberto Roman, who has shaken out the spirits with Bradford Keeney, studied soul retrieval with Elena Avila, and sat until dawn in Peyote rituals with Lakota elders. He has endured the fire rounds in Sweat Lodges, circle-danced with Matthew Fox, been in trance in Balinese rituals, drummed with Sufis and African Masters, participated in Dying practices with Joan Halifax, and participated in many various mystical practices with countless others, known and unknown. He has partaken in and assisted Ayahuasca rituals with established Vegetalistas. He has degrees in Psychology and Philosophy.

Alberto’s book (with Michael Wiese) is, The Shaman & Ayahuasca:Journeys to Sacred Realms.There is also a movie.

Alberto was the translator of the book, The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms from the internationally respected Peruvian shaman Don José Campos and edited by Geraldine Overton. There is also a movie by Michael Wiese.

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About 5 years ago, when I decided to give up on teaching math, I took a vow of poverty. Not formally, just as a resolve. That seems weird now, as my next tax return will declare me one of the better earning people in The Netherlands.

I don’t really remember what I meant by that vow any more. Perhaps I meant that money would be less important than studying religion and spirituality and thinking about life. Perhaps it meant that I would not let my lack of funds bother me.

Now that worldly success has definitely come – though the internet is the kind of place where one can never be sure it stays – I find myself remembering the determination I had as a 19 year old NOT to go into ‘religious studies’. I wanted to do something practical. I wanted to live in the world, contribute something useful. Having a scientist as a father had it’s roundabout effect, I suppose, even though at 19 I could not really imagine a life in which I was NOT a scientist. Weird what a 19 year old can imagine about her life. Looking back it’s also clear I was more definite about what I did NOT want, than about what I did want to be or do.

Looking back on the long roundabout road I took to where I am today, 19 years later, I see that I was very determined to take care of myself. It took a lot of failed experiments for me to cut the cord of expecting myself to take some job and to choose instead the insecurity of running my own business.

On my father’s 67th birthday yesterday I toasted ‘being richer than most’ to my family. My spiritually inclined artist younger brother frowned at me. What are we celebrating? Just that you’re making lots of money? Yes. Just that I’m making more money than I need.

He lives in a squatted school – legally squatted, which is possible in The Netherlands. He is nearly finished studying Mime and will start a life with his wife this summer based on the ‘most stay nearly destitute’ economics of being an artist.

He’s my financial conscience, I guess. He lives what part of me expected to end up as when I decided to take that vow of poverty. He’s also 7 years younger than I am. That’s the part that’s always hard to remember about younger siblings.

However, I honestly rejoice in having enough money to contemplate buying a house. Part of me is capable of relaxing a bit more, knowing that I make enough not merely to make ends meet – I always made ends meet somehow – but to buy a dress on a whim as well.

In an old Tricycle Magazine from 2004 I read an article by Noelle Oxenhandler, a babyboomer about how there are two kinds of baby boomers: the kind that stuck to their principles without worrying about money and the kind that ended up rich and successful, re-discovering spirituality in their 60s.

In a way I am both. I started studying religion and spirituality at 19 and never stopped. But I also started meditating (on a cushion) somewhat seriously only when I made enough money to not have to worry about it any more.

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As I said in my previous post, it’s time for looking back. I know I’m a month late, but that sort of consideration never stopped me.

I’m celebrating having over 500 subscribers on this blog and here’s some of the stuff you all loved most.

• 10 simple mindfulness exercises
• On how to stay celibate
• “Love is the opposite of fear” ?
• Are humans meant to be vegetarian?
• Buddha on Good and Bad Karma (quotes and explanation)
• Karma in the Bhagavad Gita
• Best Buddhist Blogs
• Did Buddhism win the best Religion of the world award?
• Regret, Guilt and changing your life
• My disillusionment with Jiddu Krishnamurti

Since the stuff that drew most search traffic is all from 2011 and older, I’ve also compiled a list of the top posts from 2012:

• Our experienced reality – aka Buddhism and The Secret
• The unity of observer and observed – various perspectives
• Anatma, no Soul, Buddha Nature, Vedantins vs Buddhism
• How desire feeds on itself
• Spirituality and Madness – aka are the mad really prophets?

In the mean while on Katinka Hesselink Net the following pages drew crowds – mostly quotes:

• Rules for a Perfect Day
• Quotes on perseverance and spiritual strength
• Pick a Random Spiritual Quote or Saying
• Buddha’s World: Buddhism quotes and articles
• When I Say “I Am A Christian”…
• Beautiful Sufi Quotes
• Buddhist quotes on Love, attachment, Sex and Relationships
• Your Children are not Your Children, by Kahlil Gibran
• Short Wisdom quotes and Spiritual Aphorisms
• Short Inspiring Christian Quotes

On Squidoo too it was mostly quotes pages that draw traffic to my spiritual pages. Not exclusively though. Some debates are also popular, as are spiritual books:

• Christian Spiritual Quotes and Inspirational Sayings
• Spiritual Quotes on Life
• Rumi sayings and quotes
• Spiritual Quotes and Wisdom Sayings
• Love quotes – spiritual, romantic and religious
• Short Inspirational Religious quotes and sayings
• Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often – Quotes Gifts
• List of Lao Tse quotes from the Tao Te Ching
• The best spiritual books of all time
• The Ultimate Questions – religion and spirituality

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I’ve been busy cleaning up. Literally: my house and Figuratively: administration and business stuff.

It’s time for an overview of my spiritual activities online for 2012. In fact, I think it’s time for an overview of my online activities over the past 15 years.

It’s been a good year. Yeah. Seriously. According to Feedburner 495 people are now subscribed to this blog. According to WordPress there are 10. That ads up to over 500 people who want to get this blog in their inbox. I’m honored. Really.

What’s more – my online activities make me enough money to start contemplating buying a house. It’s not my spiritual stuff that pays most of my bills though, it’s gift pages like this. Just so you know.

Spirituality took me online 15 years ago or so. At the time the web was empty and it was easy to see that more could be put online. This month two students asked me, one sounded rather annoyed, very specific questions about theosophical history – noting that nothing about it could be found online. I referred both to an old fashioned institution: a library, with actual physical books and magazines and archives. I know, you can’t search them easily. I know, you have to read (or glance at) every page. I know, you can’t rely on those old fashioned indexes. And yes, I too rely on the net for research a lot. Still, when I want to get serious about a topic, I read books. And most of them in my field are not available in a digital format yet, let alone for free online.

It’s a very different web these days. When I started I was ahead of the curve: many people didn’t take the internet seriously. Some people even thought it was subversive and saw only the online pornography, while of course not actually LOOKING at it, one presumes. Not much was online and anything one put online was likely to be found by Google.

In fact, it was early days for Google when I started.

My first internet searches were on Altavista I think and all you could hope for was to find a nice link-list on a websites somewhere pointing to the relevant sites on a topic. I found the old theosophical newsgroups that way and learned a lot.

The internet was just about empty. Organisations didn’t realize yet that they had to have a website. People like me created hobby sites to fill a need. Doing so we broke every copyright rule on the planet. I did so under the assumption that spiritual people would not mind their material being published online. On the whole I wasn’t wrong: only a few people did ask me to take their stuff off – and it was usually people who had previously OFFERED me that same material for online publication.

Today it’s a different story. Organisations put online what they want to give out for free and the rest is clearly meant to stay behind the pay-wall of kindle, magazine subscriptions etc. I’ve grown with the net and no longer publish anything I don’t have copyright over. That usually means stuff I write myself, like this blog.

However, I’ve left my site katinkahesselink.net up – and do think it rather funny that it’s filled mostly with articles and quotes other people have written. If I’d thought from a PR perspective when I started the site, it would have gotten a different name.

This is another way of saying – don’t expect new material on Katinka Hesselink Net. It will change only in so far as I link TO stuff I write on this blog and elsewhere. Though of course it IS open to quality material other people write. However, you could just start a blog. And yes, I host that site and plan to keep it up as infinitely as everything else I put online. I’ll link TO your blog articles when I think they’re up to the standard I set on Katinka Hesselink Net.

Do you all remember the early days of the web?

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