Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Hungry Ghosts: Why We Must Reclaim Our Original Instructions


In creation there is a certain sacred substance that enables the experience of this world to be sacred and therefore to allow us to interact with our own sacred nature, our soul.  This sacred substance, which is part of creation, enables the soul to have an experience here that is sacred. If it is not sacred, it does not touch the soul. This substance is now receding from creation.  Our experiences of life, then, speak less and less to our souls.
 
The sacred, creative substance enables experiences in this world to be real, to be meaningful, and to be part of the evolution of the soul. This is why in traditional cultures there were the rituals of everyday life. Baking bread, weaving, praying, planting, keeping ourselves in relationship to the earth and nature and feeling the importance of this relationship — all kept this sacred, creative substance alive. This was, and is, central to all indigenous cultures, and it means that life is sacred. Because life is sacred, then the soul can have a meaningful experience—and if the soul can have a meaningful experience, it can evolve from lifetime to lifetime.

Our desecration of creation has caused us to forget the sacred. Because of our relationship to the environment and the way we treat it, this sacred, creative substance is becoming less and less accessible—it is almost lost. This can also be seen in the way people find less and less meaning in the simple things in their lives. People are more addicted to materialism and to the surface glitter of things because there is nothing deep that resonates. When the sacred, creative substance is lost or it becomes buried so deep that the soul cannot interact with it, we become what the Tibetan Buddhists call “Hungry Ghosts.” Traditionally the “hungry ghost realm” is one of the six realms; its  creatures have empty bellies, small mouths, and thin, scrawny necks. They can never get enough satisfaction. They can never fill their bellies. They’re always hungry, always empty. Our civilization’s insatiable consumerism, which cannot fulfill our real nature, has made us live as “hungry ghosts,” constantly desiring what cannot nourish us. Now, on the very deepest level, this is what our whole culture is moving closer to—as our souls crave the sacred nourishment they can no longer access.

 

What We Have Forgotten

 
 
The real tragedy is that it is completely unnoticed and unreported. We have distanced ourselves from the sacred in creation for so long that we don’t even know that it’s there, and we don’t even know that it’s not there! We don’t even know that it is needed to nourish our soul. It is as if we have forgotten the whole purpose of incarnation—the whole reason we are here.

The Mayans had an understanding of the spiritual dimension of time; they understood that there are moments in cosmic time that have specific meaning and that have a spiritual meaning and purpose. Our culture has forgotten that there are these deeper rhythms of life and time, and all we are left with now is a 24-hour, cable-news cycle of things that only exist on the surface.


For thousands of years the purpose of different civilizations was to look after this sacred, creative substance through rituals, ceremonies, prayer, and sacred music—so that the souls of people could be nurtured, so that they could have a meaningful life and their souls could evolve. But now we are coming to the time that our collective culture has forgotten there is a sacred purpose to life—has forgotten that life has a sacred, creative substance. We no longer look after this sacred, creative substance—in fact, we no longer even know that it needs to be looked after. 

The Winds of Change

 
 
A few do remember.  Leon Secatero was an elder of the Canoncito Band of Navajo, To'Hajiilee, located west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Leon passed away a few years ago, but before he did, he brought forth the message to help us all remember:
   

All the indigenous knowings, or prophecies that have been passed down talk about a time when the five-fingered ones (human beings) would be so caught in the illusion of separation that they would forget their original instructions. This forgetting has caused terrible suffering for everyone and everything. It is very important for us to reconnect our life and our ways.

 Things are changing, and in the midst of this the most important thing is the sacred path to the next 500 years, creating that path in a sacred manner with positive thoughts and actions. We have experienced negativity on a mass scale. There is social illness; there is great pain and suffering in our world. Those kinds of negativity and social illnesses we do not need to take along this new pathway into the next 500 years. If we do, we only become sicker.

 We can put everything forward that is sacred. You and I have to do it. Our children -- and the generations that are coming -- are waiting for this gift. So we are going to have to hold hands and go in one direction to give it to them.

 I see nature, the whole universe, so wisely and fully developed to bring us everything that we need for life. I am even more deeply grateful for the way things are in nature, the cosmic order. The ways we are limited, and the ways we are open. I appreciate the intelligence and purpose of the whole universe.

What is so very important in our lives now -- just like water, we need it all the time -- is recognition that there is sacredness in every form. When you put all that together you have a process of what I call ‘sacredization,’ a fundamental recognition of the sacredness of all things. That, I feel, is a part of our original instructions as human beings.

This is the time that we call the Winds of Change, it’s important to stabilize our way of being, the way we think, the way we do things. We can do that by deliberately planting positive seeds of culture and relationship and sacredization, seeds that will help carry us to the next 500 years. (Chiron Communique by Stephen McFadden, April 2007)


Dedicating Ourselves to Remembrance

 


If this sacred, creative substance becomes lost, the soul will no longer find nourishment here. The worst-case scenario is that the whole planet becomes a Hungry Ghost. Children will be born and souls will still come into the world, but they will not be able to have a meaningful experience.
 
This is what happens when the sacred, creative substance, or sacredization, is lost and any real purpose has gone. This is the cusp we are on at the moment—which is why it is not just an ecological crisis; it is a spiritual crisis. But the real danger of the spiritual crisis is that it is unreported and unrecognized, and we do not seem to be aware of what is really happening or its consequences. So, let us remember our original instructions – “a fundamental recognition of the sacredness of all things” and dedicate ourselves to this remembrance.

Maresha's next blog will be published November 19. 
 
 
Messages of Light is published by the Sanctuary of Universal Light on Snow Dragon Mountain in Meredith, New Hampshire. www.snowdragonsanctuary.com.