| INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this
writing is to delineate the nature of "spiritual teaching" from
the perspective of the cosmology and ontology from which I teach it. By
cosmology I mean the structure of reality in terms of space and time and
the energies which interact to produce reality (seen and unseen). By
ontology mean the way in which we perceive and are aware of this reality
and in particular the way in which we view our own existence, our
relationship to reality, ... and the meaning of life that we derive from
this. It’s purpose is to clarify the direction in which my teaching is
taking people so to put minds at ease about the journey.
To begin, one of
the best ways to do that is to say what I clearly do not mean by
"spiritual". I do not mean anything relating to theology or
religion. Spirit is separate from religion. It is personal and independent
of theological doctrine. The elements contained within "spirit"
are applicable to all religions, are contained within all religions and do
not contradict most religions, -except perhaps the ones that demand
central authority and are disempowering rather than empowering. (Certain
evangelical religions are afraid of spirit as they find anything they don’t
understand as threatening.)
I also do not mean
anything that has to do with the occult or with witchcraft. Spirits are
often synonymous with ghosts or tarot readings. This is not the study of
the "spiritual" that I am proposing here.
Our view of the
spiritual is based on the premise that our perception and awareness of
reality is limited by our physical senses and our ontological framework.
Our ontological framework is our perception of reality. It is the order
and meaning that we have come to give shapes we see. The interpretation of
this order and meaning gives rise to the motivation and purpose behind our
decisions and actions.
What we regard as
spiritual involves being aware of what may exist outside of the paradigm
of modernism, which is the scientific paradigm currently ruling our
interpretation of reality. We do not profess to know exactly what is
there, but can state with certainty that there are realities beyond which
we can see which are accessible and desirable. The first chapter deals
with the proof of this statement, developing an extended view of reality.
In simplest terms,
our approach to the spiritual realm is an "expansion" of
awareness. In the discipline of tracking it is easy to demonstrate
gradations of awareness. When somebody first begins tracking they are very
limited as to what they can see on the ground. As they put in more dirt
time and learn more skills, they go through periods of growth where
suddenly there are things that they can perceive that previously were
invisible. Where once there was incommunicative ground, all of a sudden
there are many tracks, telling how long ago, what sort of animal, action
and state of mind. Tracking is more than just finding one track after
another to follow an animal. It provides far more information, depending
on how much awareness that the tracker may have. But in the development of
a tracker’s skills, there are walls or "veils" that the
student must get beyond. They are walls of awareness, and once they are
passed, the attention of the tracker can "see" things that were
always there, but which they could not see before. Once the veil is
passed, this new ability to see is part of the student. Their ability to
see is permanently enhanced. Their awareness is enhanced and their
attention is more acute. This expansion of awareness in tracking is an
accurate parallel to the growth of awareness of reality in general. In
fact, tracking is an excellent means of training awareness. People who
make gains in tracking perception often find that their awareness in
general develops and benefits. We will discuss the general benefits of
increasing awareness in a future chapter.
When I began
writing this collection of essays during the Christmas break of 2000, I
was combining a lifetime of inputs and synthesizing my ideas. The inputs
came for my study of everything from Phenomenology to Taoism. The
philosophy and experience of the spirit and the Tracker school and my
wider examination of Native culture also acted as a catalyst. The
resulting synthesis does not reflect any one of these areas absolutely,
although I predominantly use the Tracker model and methods.
Subsequently to
beginning this I began to spontaneously encounter other similar works. No
sooner had I begun writing than I happened upon an article about Robert Sheldrake
in the UTNE Reader. What a
coincidence!! Of course, as we shall
see, coincidence is often
not what it seems, and it may be more accurate to term this event a
synchronicity.
As such, I just
want to say that I defiantly am not presenting these ideas as being
exclusively mine. Many inputs went into my mind in the formulation of
these ideas, and there seem to be many others out there who have similar
ideas. I will attempt, at the end of each chapter, to present a
bibliography of suggested reading and some web links that will help the
reader expand knowledge base and understanding.
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