Reverend Ken

Be here now

"If you white men had never come here, this country would still be like it was. It would be all pure here. You call it wild, but it wasn’t really wild, it was free. Animals aren’t wild, they’re just free. And that’s the way we were. You called us wild, you called us savages. But we were just free! If we were savages, Columbus would never have gotten off the island alive.

Our religion is all about thanking the Creator. That’s what we do when we pray. We don’t ask Him for things. We thank Him. We thank Him for the world and every animal and plant in it. We thank Him for everything that exists. We don’t take it for granted that a tree is just there. We thank the Creator for that tree. If we don’t thank Him, maybe the Creator’ll take that tree away... We are made from Mother Earth and we go back to Mother Earth. We can’t “own” Mother Earth. We’re just visiting here. We’re the Creator’s guests."

Quote: Leon Shenandoah, — former “Tadodaho” of the Grand Council of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy.

Photo: Red Wing, Crow. 1908. by Edward S. Curtis

”When Columbus got off the boat he asked us who we were. We said we’re the human beings, we’re the people. Conceptually the Europeans didn’t understand that, it was beyond their conceptual reality. They didn’t see us. They couldn’t see who we were. Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans.
Now its five hundred years later & they still can’t see us. We are still invisible. They don’t see us as human beings, (their answers are always interrupting and fragmented, individualized denials) but we’ve been saying to them all along that’s what we are [that’s who we are], We are invisible to them because we are still the human beings. We’re still the People, but they never call us that. They taught us to call ourselves Indians. Now they’re teaching us how to call ourselves Native Americans. Its not who we are. We’re the People. They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, its not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t. So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us. The very fact of calling us ‘Indians’ creates a new identity for us, an identity that began with their arrival. Changing identity, creating a new perceptual reality, is another form of genocide. It’s like severing a spiritual umbilical cord that reaches into the ancestral past. The history of the Indians begins with the arrival of the Europeans. The history of the People begins with the beginning of the history of the People. The history of the People is one of cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance. The history of the Indians is one of genocide, rather that a history of peace and balance. The history of the People under attack, the Indians, in an evolutionary context is not very long; it’s only five hundred years. The objective of civilizing us is to make Indian history become our permanent reality. The necessary objective of Native people is to outlast this attack, however long it takes, to keep our identity alive.”
John Trudell

You are a spiritual being…being human.

Whether you worship Christ, Krishna, Kali or Allah, you actually worship the one Light that is also in you, since it pervades all things.

Anandamayi Ma (30 April 1896 – 27 August 1982) was an Indian saint, described by Sivananda Saraswati (of the Divine Life Society) as "the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced." Precognition, faith healing and miracles were attributed to her by her followers.
Paramahansa Yogananda translates the Sanskrit epithet Anandamayi as "Joy-permeated" in English.

Profound Instruction on the View of the Middle Way

Once you have been throughly trained in analysis and developed confidence in the crucial point of how the individual is devoid of any inherent or intrinsic self -

Then consider how, just as the so-called “I” is
An unexamined conceptual imputation,
All phenomena included within
The five skandhas and the unconditioned are the same: Labeled conceptually as this or that.

Although we apprehend all these various phenomena,
When we investigate and search for what's behind the labelling, it cannot be found.
And when we reach the ultimate two indivisibles,
Even the most subtle and infinitesimal cannot be established.

It is the same for all that appears through dependent origination:
Entities themselves arise dependently,
Whereas ‘non-entities’ are dependently imputed.

So, whether an entity or non-entity,
Whatever is conceived of uncritically,
Once it is analyzed and investigated,
Is found to be without basis or origin —

Appearing yet unreal, like an illusion, dream,
Reflected moon, echo, city in the clouds,
Hallucination, mirage, and the like.
Appearing yet empty, empty yet appearing—
Meditate on the way empty appearances resemble illusions.

This is the ultimate that is categorized conceptually.
It has the confidence of a mind of understanding,
And is indeed the stainless wisdom of seeing
The illusory nature of post-meditative experience.

Yet it is not yet free from focus on apprehended objects,
Nor have the features of a subjective mind been overcome,
And so, since it has not gone beyond conceptuality,
The true reality of natural simplicity is not seen.

Once this kind of certainty has arisen,
Even clinging to mere illusion
Can be understood as conceptual imputation.
There is apprehension, but no essential nature to the perceived,
And even the perceiving mind cannot be found, so, without clinging, one is brought to rest in natural ease.

Remaining like this, all perceptions,
Both external and internal, are not interrupted.
Yet within this fundamental nature, free from grasping, all projections imposed upon phenomena, have never arisen and never ceased to be.

So, free from the duality of perceiver and perceived,
We rest in the all-pervading space of equality.
This is beyond any assertions, such as ‘is’ or ‘is not’.

And, within this inexpressible state of true and natural rest,
An experience dawns that is free from the slightest trace of doubt.

This is the actual nature of all things,
The ultimate that cannot be conceptualized,
And can only be known individually —
The non-conceptual wisdom of meditative equipoise.

Once you become familiar with this state,
In which emptiness and dependent arising are an inseparable unity,
The ultimate condition in which the two truths cannot be separated,
That is the yoga of the Great Middle Way.

Those who wish to realize this swiftly
And make evident non-dual, primordial wisdom
Beyond the domain of the ordinary mind,
Should meditate on the pith instructions of the Tantras.

This is the ultimate profound and crucial point
Of the progressive meditations on the Middle Way.

So, begin by thoroughly refining your conduct,
And then arrive at certainty, experientially and in stages.
With confidence in the illusory nature of empty appearance,
This is what it means for nothing to be removed or added on the path.
And, within the equality of the all-pervading space of perfect wisdom,
There is complete liberation.

In a place where people suffer drought and dehydration,
Hearing that there is water does not dispel thirst;
It is only by drinking that relief is found.
And this is how it is for learning and experience — so the sūtras say.

Someone with only dry, theoretical understanding,
Who is worn out by all kinds of reasoning and ideas,
Does not need sporadic practice; but, when meditating in proper stages:
Will swiftly gain acceptance of the profound.

Jampal Gyepe Dorje

wrote down whatever came to mind,
On the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh month of the Water Dragon year (1892).
Through this, may all beings realize the meaning of the profound Middle Way

This is a summation of our last two classes on Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment. 🙏

Hillsdale College Online Courses Free courses taught by Hillsdale College faculty to pursue knowledge of the highest things, form character, and defend constitutional government.

Thanks Megan Kilgore

Everything is also Connected, Everything is Divine.

www.pantheism.com