Spiritual Mastery with Josh Reeves

[00:00:01] This is Josh Reeves and you're listening to the Mile Hi Church Podcast. Hey, Saturday, June 20th, 10am, John Pierre is coming to speak to us about the pillars of health. Learn how to take care of yourself, support other people as well. It's in our community center, it'll be a great workshop, it's $20. For more information, go to milehighchurch.org. My message this morning,

[00:00:22] one, spiritual mastery. Three keys to becoming a spiritual master. And it's alluded to, but I don't come out and say it, but giving a talk on spiritual mastery, you might assume that I may. Okay, you said

[00:00:43] it, I would never say it of myself. And I'd like to begin today by embodying that hubris of thinking too much of myself by portraying a bad and then hopefully a mediocre meditation teacher. You open to a little meditation instruction for me? All right, let's try it out. I've got my pillow right here.

[00:01:08] I'm going to sit as the ancients called it, crisscross applesauce. And you can just sit firmly feet on the ground. And then we want to remember from school, sit up straight. Didn't we love hearing that? And just bring your spine and the top of your head all the way up to the sky. So feel like an

[00:01:29] awkward giraffe. Okay, breathe in. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. You can wield great power as a spiritual master. No, let it out. Make sure you change how you breathe completely so you feel more sacred. I am so one right now. I am so one. If you'd like, you can look at me and we're going to create this

[00:01:58] awesome mudra here. Okay, take a look at it. Do you know what this symbolizes? I have no idea. But meditation is all about appearances. No, no, no, no. Close your eyes, but not all the way. Kind of like if you're playing a game of Marco Polo in the pool and peeking a little bit,

[00:02:20] just like this. We make a huge mistake when we enter meditation trying to be someone we're not. Trying to assume some sort of holy position that we think might make us more acceptable. You can open your eyes now if you're closing them. Meditation has nothing to do with appearances.

[00:02:47] It has everything to do with awareness. And if all we're doing in meditation is increasing our awareness of our superficial self. All that we are doing in actuality is pushing our true self down deeper and deeper and deeper. Our meditation isn't helping. It's actually doing harm. Meditation should be like returning home. Every time we meditate should be like coming home.

[00:03:15] Now, I know many of us grew up in dysfunctional homes that didn't feel anything like home should, but we're older now. We can know what home means to us and co-create it for ourselves. What does home mean? First and foremost, it means to be comfortable. Ah, first rule of meditation. Be comfortable. We meditate not to put our makeup on, but to take our makeup off.

[00:03:44] This doesn't mean that we assume couch potato position. Posture is important in meditation, but it's the posture that's comfortable to you, that welcomes yourself home. Coming home means acceptance. Home is that one place, if we can't accept ourselves anywhere in our lives, where we should be able to accept ourselves. I wish I could say that it's loving yourself.

[00:04:13] I wish that everyone here loved themselves, but I know some of you really struggle with that. So if you could just accept yourself as you are, happy or sad, perplexed or clear, struggling or opened up, accept yourself as you are, because acceptance is the foundation for all meaningful change. Until we can accept what was, we cannot step in to what is.

[00:04:41] We will only be wrestling, telling ourselves stories to try to figure out what was. Until we can accept what is right here, there's no moving forward into becoming that much more who we truly and really are. Lastly, coming home is about release. It's about letting go. What do we call to release or let go of? Control. Control.

[00:05:09] See, there may be aspects of what this world calls us to be that may give us an illusion of control. But in meditation, we let the illusion of control go to realize the universe does not belong to us, but we belong to it. And just to allow ourselves to fully release those qualities of being, we at our heart of hearts want more than anything else.

[00:05:34] Love, creativity, spontaneity, freedom, peace. I challenge any of you to demonstrate any of those qualities through control. It's only through release and letting go, returning to the home within ourselves that we create those qualities of home most around us. So again, we're completing the meditation. If you're still holding your breath, you can let that go now too.

[00:06:01] The Tao Te Ching tells us. The master does her job and then stops. She understands that the universe is forever out of control and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao. Because she believes in herself, she doesn't try to convince others. Because she is content with herself, she doesn't need others' approval.

[00:06:27] Because she accepts herself, the whole world accepts her. There's a covert message in the talk today, which is don't go around calling yourself a spiritual master, but guess what? You are one. My message to you today is you might be underestimating your level of mastery, your incredible heart, your beautiful soul,

[00:06:56] your clear discipline, and your awesome compassion. And so I want to share with you today three keys to spiritual mastery. And I'm willing to bet each and every one of you already has these. The first key, the most important one to demonstrate spiritual mastery, is the necessity of having a wandering mind.

[00:07:24] If you don't have a wandering mind, you will never find your way to the true present moment. The great Albert Einstein once boarded a train and he saw the conductor making his way through the carriage, looking at people's tickets. And so he started looking for his and he couldn't find it. And then the conductor came up and said, don't worry, Mr. Einstein, I know who you are. And Mr. Einstein said, yes, but there's a problem. The conductor said, what? And Einstein replied, I have no idea where I'm going.

[00:07:57] Blessed are those who wander. Anyone here have a wandering mind? Oh, look at you Buddhas. Look at you beautiful Buddhas with your wandering mind. Even right now while I'm speaking, some of you may have your mind wandering. Let there be peace on earth and where are we going to lunch? Some of you might be making out with Matthew McConaughey

[00:08:26] on a deserted island. Yes, Sherry, I do have ESP. I can read your mind. Some of you might be thinking about how wonderful Dr. Michelle's talk was this week. It's okay. We should get this old school room way of teaching spiritual practice out. Like I was saying, sit up straight. What does that say to you? It doesn't say be firm. It says there's something wrong with the way you're sitting right now. Sit how you are. Just be.

[00:08:56] The worst culprit of all these, pay attention. Pay attention. I don't know attention anything. Let your mind be what it is. It didn't mean that the teacher didn't have something important to teach us. But if we're learning to live creative lives in the world, we can't go around controlling and telling our mind what it should be.

[00:09:26] We have to let it wander. We have to let it find its own way. As distracting as it may seem, it's the only way that we're going to get there. True creativity comes through a wandering mind where we trust our mind. We don't try to control our mind, but we trust in its inherent and beautiful wildness to organically bring forward the clarity we seek to bring forth the creative spark

[00:09:54] and uniqueness that is the absolute calling and purpose of each one of us. As we set our minds free, they become what Ernest Holmes called spiritual broadcast stations. Each of us is a spiritual broadcast station. And as we find our own disposition, it's then that we can choose clarity and optimism and hopefulness. Not someone else's that's manufactured for us, but our own.

[00:10:24] Holmes shares, we are all broadcasting stations, whether we know it or not. Our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, our faiths and fears tend to make an imprint in our environment. The famous music producer, Rick Rubin, wrote a wonderful book a couple years ago. Steve turned me on to it over there. Hey, Steve. It's called The Creative Act, A Way of Being. And Rubin has worked with some of the most accomplished musicians of all time, including Paul McCartney and Moore,

[00:10:54] helping them with their creative process. So he's written this beautiful spiritual book, Covertly, but it's really about having that creative mind. He shares, we are all antennae for creative thought. Some transmissions come on strong, others are more faint. If your antenna isn't sensitively tuned, you're likely to lose the data in the noise. Particularly since the signals coming through are often more subtle than the content we collect through sensory awareness.

[00:11:23] They are energetic more than tactile, intuitively perceived more than consciously recorded. How do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor defined? The answer is not to look for it, nor do we attempt to predict or analyze our way into it. Instead, we create an open space that allows it. Allow your mind not to go wild, but to be in its wildness. Discover what it brings forth for you. Discover that it may know better for you

[00:11:52] than you think you know for yourself. Ruben shares the story of being diagnosed with appendicitis and not liking the idea of having his appendix removed. And trusting in his guidance, thinking on it one day, he saw a book by Andrew Weil sitting right there in the bookstore that had an immediate way for him to care for his body. And he shares with us, and I still have my appendix. It's a different story for all of us. But when we trust our mind, it can begin to provide us not myths,

[00:12:22] but actual guidance. That's how awesome you are. That's how precious you are. That's how related to something infinite you are. Don't control your mind. Walk them at home with comfort, with acceptance, with release, surrender, and see what it brings forth for you. So I'm so pleased to hear so many of you have wandering minds

[00:12:50] that there's a second key to spiritual mastery. And it's the great gift called distractions. A key to spiritual mastery is the ability to get distracted almost by anything. Do we have people who get distracted here? Oh, man, I'm in awe. I'm in such reverence of your incredible mastery. Distractions are essential

[00:13:20] because there's no such thing in this life that doesn't call us back to oneness, to wholeness. Distractions are alarm clocks that get us back to now. Distractions either call us into acceptance, to accept the things I cannot change, or into responsibility, to do something with what I'm being reminded of or what's being called forth. There's an old Sufi story about a man who's going to sleep outside on his porch

[00:13:49] and there's mosquitoes out. Mosquitoes, the most useless creature on earth, right? I'm sorry. Beautiful, precious divinity within the mosquitoes. You can be anywhere in the universe, but you've got to be in my ear. Come on. You're biting him all through the evening, and then the sun rises, and he declares, Allah, thank you for keeping me up all night to praise and worship you. It's a sweet story, but I wish he had Amazon so he could order a fly swatter, right? Some insect repellent.

[00:14:19] See, these distractions can sometimes help us remember what we need to do. There's nothing wrong with keeping a little notebook there to give yourself reminders, to call yourself to responsibility, but ultimately they are to call you back to now. There's another Zen story. It's a little funny, but I think it's a great teaching story and how it challenges us. It's about a younger woman who is taking on Zen Buddhist teachings, and she has a Roshi, a teacher, who is teaching her

[00:14:47] how to practice the loving-kindness meditation, where you take people you love and even you don't, and you just surround them with incredible, compassionate, loving-kindness. And she works at a mall, and the person who has the storefront next to her is a man who's harassing her all the time. He catcalls her. He grabs at her. He's a real you-know-what. And so one day, she's had enough of this harassment, and it's been raining, so she has an umbrella, and she starts chasing this man

[00:15:17] in anger through the mall. And it's just then that she runs smack dab into Hiroshi, her teacher. He takes her to the side, and she says, I'm so ashamed. I'm so ashamed that I am supposed to be practicing this loving-kindness, and I'm filled with such anger towards this man. And the teacher says to her, well, the next time he does this to you, I want you to fill your heart with loving-kindness, and with all the energy you have, beat him over the head with your umbrella.

[00:15:49] So it's not that we condone violence, but we want to be present to that idea that we can embrace compassion and loving-kindness within ourselves, and for damn sure have good boundaries too. This is how you treat me. This is not how you treat me. And to stand up in that truth, does it feel seemingly contradictory sometimes? So what? That's what spiritual mastery is, is the love and kindness for yourself enough to stand in your incredible power.

[00:16:18] Sometimes we avoid spiritual practice altogether because of our fear of distractions. But when we can see that this day is the day that that divine creativity is brought forth just for you, everything, even that's calling your attention, can call you back to oneness, can call you back to harmony, can call you back to who you really are. Three keys to spiritual mastery. A wandering mind, distractions. Most of us have checked

[00:16:48] the boxes so far. Lastly, the third sacred and important key, a broken heart. A key to spiritual mastery is a broken heart. Anyone here have a broken heart? Had one in the past? A broken heart is the surest way to an experience of your true and innate wholeness. When our heart is broken into pieces, it is only then

[00:17:18] that we can discover our wholeness in each and every shard. That the grace and the love can begin to come through. There are two kinds of broken heart in my experience. The first is a very healthy breaking down of all the tartar, all the plaque that I have mentally created to put around my heart to defend myself from intimacy and vulnerability and giving love and receiving love. It's the breaking down of all of that

[00:17:47] that calls me to live as a transparent, whole, loving person. And then there's that broken heart that comes to us through devastating loss. Loss of a loved one, loss of identity, loss of relationship. The universe, it seems, at times, is made to break our heart. And it's not that anything in the universe intentionally brings bad things to come to pass

[00:18:17] for us. It's simply that our need for awakening and wholeness is so grand that we love so deeply that our hearts break open so that we can discover and love even more. There's an old saying that there's no joy without sorrow. As I really contemplate that, I don't believe it. I do think there's such thing as a joy

[00:18:45] without sorrow. That there is an unconditioned joy that is being alive itself. That is the majesty and richness of this thing called life. Some dude wrote a book called This Life is Joy. It's pure, wonderful expression. So I would not say there is no joy without sorrow, but I would say there is no sorrow without joy. There is no sorrow without joy.

[00:19:15] Khalil Gibran put it this way, he said, the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. It doesn't make the pain any easier, but grief can become good when we realize that just underneath it is the wholeness of our love. a deep gratitude for being alive for the whole of our lives even when we're not grateful for a part of it.

[00:19:45] It's the bringing force of greater understandings that can actually lead to a deeper and more profound way of knowing God and spirit. Someone I admire greatly is the musician Nick Cave, who was a gothic rock star for me growing up and is still an incredibly talented artist and songwriter. Many of you have seen or read interviews with him. He lost two of his sons, his youngest, in a very tragic way.

[00:20:15] He shares very openly about his pain, about his tenderness, but also, honestly, and this takes courage to do, his immense growth as a human being and his breaking open into a greater realization of spirituality and of God. He shares of this broken heart that this will happen to everybody at some point, a deconstruction of the known self. It may not necessarily be a death, but there will be some kind of

[00:20:45] devastation. It shatters them completely into a million pieces and it seems like there's no coming back. It's over. But in time, they put themselves together piece by piece. And the thing is, when they do that, they often find that they are a different person, a changed, more complete, more realized, more clearly drawn person. How has your broken heart healed you? How has your broken heart become a vessel to greater

[00:21:14] compassion, kindness? We never have to give thanks for what brought the broken heart about, but we can give thanks for the tenacity and ingenuity and beauty that can come forth and flower through us, sometimes because of, sometimes in spite of that sorrow. Cave shares just a few months after his son's passing, returning to get to-go food from a vegetarian restaurant that he would frequent. And he knew, being famous,

[00:21:44] that everyone knew what was going on in his life, but no one said a word. And he shared that the waitress brought him his food and just gave him the slightest touch of her hand on his way out the door. And he shared that that meant everything to him. Sometimes it takes a broken heart to realize the meaning and the beauty and the touch of a human hand, the compassion of another human being in the same unknown, mysterious universe we live in

[00:22:13] that reminds us of our oneness and of our connection. A broken heart can even lead us to greater spiritual experience. As Cave continues, he says, for some of us, the religious experience awaits the devastation or a trauma, not to bring you happiness or comfort necessarily, but to bring about an expansion of the self, the possibility to expand as a human being rather than contract. Wandering mind? Check.

[00:22:43] Distractions? Tons of them. Check. A broken heart? I'll show you mine if you show me yours. As we bring about an awareness, that these things that often make us think we're not okay, we're doing something wrong, we're not so spiritual, there's something wrong of us for continuing to feel brokenness. As we release those negative ideas and move into a deeper place of finding

[00:23:12] comfort in our own skin, the acceptance of things just the way that they are and just the way that they are not, and the release to recognize that there's a greater power in this universe than we are, and that it's at the heart of who we are, and as we accept that, we allow it to flower and come forth, and we find our beauty, our serenity, our peace, that spiritual fulfillment we're looking for, it was there all along.

[00:23:42] As we stay in good practice, it reveals itself again and again. moving into prayer this morning, I invite any of our incredible prayer practitioners to stand, don't they look gorgeous today, who hold the high watch with us and are available for an affirmative prayer in front of our stage after service. So in this comfort, I discover

[00:24:12] this silence that holds me so gently and empowers me with the knowledge of divine forces in through and all around me. In this comfort, I realize I am never alone. In this comfort, I realize that the divine longs to know itself in through and around me. In knowledge of this divinity, I fully and completely accept myself as I am.

[00:24:42] In this acceptance, I find balance. In this acceptance, I find clarity. In this acceptance, I call forth forgiveness. And in this release, in a state of wholeheartedness or broken heartedness, I realize in so many ways they are the same thing. I allow love to be the center of my life, calling every experience as an opportunity to love just that much more. And I know that

[00:25:11] as I live from that love that it co-creates with an incredible intelligence, greater beauty, greater understanding, greater grace and release in all things. thankful for this life, thankful for the spirit, thankful for this body, thankful for ourselves. We increase the level of trust that brings forth the magnificent. We let it be, we let it become, and so it is.

[00:25:43] Thanks for listening to the Mile High Church podcast. This podcast is made possible by the generous contributions from listeners like you. To make a donation, please visit milehighchurch.org.