Disillusionment and Disney Expectations

When I started travelling 3 years ago and first imagined travelling abroad and visiting mystical cultures, I thought I would be in a mystical space with people in other cultures. I thought I would walk into a Buddhist Temple and the monks and I would vibrate in the realms of Spirit together. Or I might walk into a village that worshiped some mystical religion and we would all vibrate in Reiki like energy and experience the world in some "altered state". Psychic experiences would be commonplace.

Since July 2004, I have wandered all over the United States (mainland and Hawaii) and spent extensive time in India, Thailand, Nepal, and Laos. My mystical experiences have been relatively few and far between during this time. Although many Westerners travel to the Far East on Spiritual Quests, I have experienced equally profound experiences in both the East and West.

In February 2006, I was in Pushkar, Rajasthan, India, and a German fellow who frequently visits India remarked, "America is a very spiritual country!" At first I resisted his comment, but then as we talked I realized that in someways the United States is on spiritual forefronts. The U.S. has experienced material wealth, and is now coming back to spirituality. Well, not all of the U.S.... but certainly many people are realizing that money and material things are not to be whorshipped, and are coming into a new way of spirituality.

Part of the new age we are in, is to bring spirituality into the world. Rather than being spiritual and separate in monasteries, the current learning is about how to be spiritually connected and in the world with family, community, and material things. It is about healing the former separtion between spirit and living in the world. It is about seeing all of this as Divine and living Divinely within it. It is always we who create separation with our judgments. And so the time now is about finding Oneness in Our world with all of our desires, things, society.

And now I find myself back in the East because my Spirit, my intuition, called me here. Last month I was at Wang Lung Ceremony offered by Yangthang Rinpoche at Pemyangtse Monastery in Pelling, West Sikkim, India. I sat down and immediately felt a strong and good energy from the Rinpoche. I felt myself in a space I have felt before during such times as receiving Reiki, giving Reiki, recieving acupuncture, during orgasm, participating in Native American ceremonies, participating in Radical Faerie rituals, etc. I think of this space as "touching the face of God", "being ecstatic", "being in the space of Unconditional Love", among other terms. I felt good.

The "puja" (ceremony) continued on for several hours and I grew tired of sitting on the floor. So I went outside. I struck up conversation with a monk who said that sitting on the floor was hard for those of us not in regular practice. He asked how I like the ceremony. I told him how I a felt a very powerful energy from the Rinpoche. The monk replied that I am lucky to be able to feel such things. Most people and monks cannot feel such energy! That is when it dawned on me that I had Disney expectations of being amidst people in various cultures that were always in a mystical state of energy awareness.

The Lesson is that I need to be in the State of Awareness that I would like to be in, and bring that into wherever I go. Like most of Life, it is about me and you... individuals... vibrating in our own highest Light and taking that Light wherever we go. If we are individually in a place of Joy, then we are achieving at least one point of Joy in the world and others will see, join, or not join according to their choice.

If I am in that "mystical state" that I desired to find in the world, then perhaps I will find others, but in the meantime, I will be how I am desiring to BE.