I spend a lot of time pondering what the deeper forces that are shaping world events might be. News stories tell us facts about the world we inhabit. But they often just skim the surface of what’s going on at a deeper level. We rely on philosophers, cultural commenters, spiritual teachers, and others to help us understand these kinds of truths, but what fascinates me is trying to connect the dots between the two. The narratives we’re presented with about the world and important world events are constructed narratives. Some may remember Carlos Castaneda, who wrote many books that studied the life and ways of Mexican shaman. His term for this was “consensus reality." But when there are huge changes taking place in the world picture, consensus reality dissolves because consensus dissolves. Things begin to seem chaotic, unanchored, and impossible to understand because, basically, we’ve lost our map of reality. While this feels alienating and troubling, the good news is that what’s being experienced isn’t a permanent condition. Rather, it’s just a characteristic of a transition when the old world is dying and the new one is still being born. It might be useful in this context to explore the roles of tribalism and spirituality. In this context, we might reflect that history has been described as “the lie commonly agreed upon,” then remember Peguy's famous saying that “What begins in mysticism ends in politics.” This beckons the realization that, to understand changes in the world, we have to peel back the surface of things and look deeper at the powerful forces behind world events including spirituality, religion, and culture. These are sometimes grouped together under the heading of tribalism. But tribalism can also include other powerful beliefs such as a belief in science and technology as the ultimate arbiter of truth. We see this most obviously manifested in the increasingly disturbing transhumanist movement, which appears to be an attempt to replace spirituality with science.

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If you meet Buddha on the road . . . . . . kill him. If you think you’ve found “the answer” outside yourself—drop it. If you start idolizing a teacher—cut through that illusion If you form a concept of enlightenment—don’t trust it Opinions are like . . . (well, you know)

I'm seeing many distortions in the spiritual growth process these days. Corporate yoga --- an oxymoron -- has been leading the way in this category for years of course as its real goal is to make employees more "productive". And as a Tai Chi practitioner for 25 years or so, I'm quite troubled by being bombarded lately from some outfit selling Tai Chi as a way to improve your health in 30 days. The video exercises in these ads (which I see constantly now in Youtube) have very little to do with Tai Chi and are mostly variations of basic garden-variety calisthenics. In fact, what they're selling is the diametric opposite of the essence of Tai Chi practice whereby a common dictum is that you're only a beginner for the first ten years. What to make of all this in the larger scheme of things? Why are these distortions becoming more commonplace? These are the questions in my mind.

I'm reminded of the excellent paradigm for the journey which the Labyrinth. But it seems that these days especially, the Labyrinth has many trap doors and dead ends.