Title: wayfarer

Gender: Male

Age: 51

Chinese Sign: Earth Dog

Location: Santa Rosa, CA

grew up in the south, in that indefinable buckle of the bible belt.
raised in the rapidly transitioning from ultra-conservative to radically liberal episcopal church of the 1960s & 70s (now publicly tearing itself apart in the culture wars)
spent part of my adolescence fending off the advances of my earnest baptist friends who wanted to “save” me
strangely, christianity didnt make that much of an impression on me growing up - i was more influenced by science fiction and rock & roll

began spiritually seeking in my 20s, dabbling in zen & sufism as i was able, when i finally got around to reading the gospels
i was deeply moved by this jesus person, didnt quite know what to do with that, for sure had no interest in conventional christianity

i was really influenced by the brilliant wild man american yogi-guru da (of many names) - made several attempts to connect with his community/cult but never succeeded ( praise Ja for small mercies)

i fell in love & married - committed relationship in all its joys & difficulties is the true foundation of spiritual development if you ask me (no offense to you polyamorists out there or to those who go howling off to become celibate renunciates)

practiced & studied vajrayana buddhism with a genuine tibetan nyingma yogi (who i still respect & love - a heart as wide as the cosmos & truly realized buddha nature) very fruitful & difficult -
the cultural gap was immense & its damned hard to be a yogi in postmodern america - i finally admitted to myself that i couldnt cut it (in hindsight i see that i had set an unreasonably high standard for myself-still it was a hard fall)

wound up moving to northern california (bay area-the Alexandria of the postmodern american empire), rebounded into truly desperate zen practice

then i found my way into the waking down/neo advaita scene of a former student of the above mentioned crazy american yogi
experienced the most profound spiritual openings of my life but was troubled by the arrogance & narcissism exhibited by the teacher/guru & many of the students - people would have very real spiritual experiences/openings, be pronounced as “awakened”, & walk around convinced they were fully realized
american buddhas, babbling ecstatically about “my awakening” but acting like the same old assholes
i finally walked away from this scene with no regrets (i used to be enlightened, but i resigned)

its slowly dawned on me how spiritually challenged we are in the postmodern west - our narcissistic consumer culture taints our every endeavour - when i read Boomeritis it was a knockout punch

i was fortunate enough to attend a series of open discussions on the traditions of yoga led by scholar Georg Feuerstein - a very kind & learned man as well as open hearted spiritual practitioner - i began to examine the presuppositions i held about nondualism, reality, & God - Georg was very much an advocate of finding a connection with a living spiritual tradition

i began to encounter the eastern orthodox church ( of antioch in the middle east as well as greece, russia & other eastern european countries) - the eastern church is grounded in the greek/byzantine culture & thought of the eastern roman empire
its theology is different than the latin thought that formed the western church - instead of proposing that Jesus was a blood sacrifice to ransom our sins from an offended God (thank you anselm of canterbury) the eastern church states that in the person of Jesus, God became man that man might become God
and has a long tradition of meditative prayer, apophatic theology (God is ungraspable to the mind), and spiritually attained saints

i committed myself to the way of Christ at the beginning of this year (06) when i joined the antiochian orthodox church along with my wife - the orthodox way stresses humility, ascesis (spiritual exercise & struggle), love of God, & love of others as yourself, - i am the barest of beginners in this way

i strive to be faithful to the tradition i have chosen & open to the richness of all human searching for Truth

Member Since: Thursday, October 12 2006

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