All posts filed under: Awakening

April 19, 1775

Published by

This is the tale of intrigue you perhaps never heard behind the battle that morning of April 19, 1775.  Rebellious English colonists had been preparing for this day for months.  On February 1st the Second (illegal) Massachusetts Provincial Congress, with John Hancock presiding, called for the rebellion’s growing military supplies to be gathered and stored in Concord.  By March 9th General Gage, Massachusetts’ Military Governor, had a complete list of quantities and types of weapons stored there, and where exactly each item was hidden.  Many weapons were stored on the farm of Colonial Militia Col. James Barrett. On March 20th Gage sent two British soldiers in disguise to Concord to meet with those citizens loyal to king and country to plan the route for a military excursion to destroy the weapons and military supplies.  They dined and spent the night with Daniel Bliss, a prominent lawyer and son of the former minister of the village church, First Parish in Concord.  Concord had been turned into an armed camp, with fourteen pieces of cannon, a large …

Kolkata New Year’s Day

Published by

I have always loved the Upanishads and was rereading them on my flight to India.  I arrived in Kolkata on New Year’s Eve 2015 to join our group of pilgrims.  That evening our Harvard professor briefed us on Rabindranath Tagore, one of India’s great secular humanists, who led the Bengal Renaissance in Calcutta with the Upanishads at its center. Rabindranath Tagore is someone many Unitarian Universalists know well.  In speaking of the importance of living life as a spiritual pilgrim, Tagore said: “The great morning which is for all appears in the East.  Let its light reveal us to each other who walk on the same path on pilgrimage.”  I had come to the East to more deeply discover my inner Light on pilgrimage. There are seven selections from Tagore’s writings in our Unitarian Universalist hymnal, one more than even Ralph Waldo Emerson, and my favorite is called THE STREAM OF LIFE: The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances rhythmic measures. It is …

Winter Solstice

Published by

Winter Solstice This time last year I was on spiritual pilgrimage in the Seam Reap area of Cambodia walking among the ruins of extraordinary ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples.  One of the earliest surviving temple-mountains is Bakong at Rolous, built in the late 9th century as the state temple of Indravarman I and Indarvarman II.  This is a temple dedicated to Shiva consisting of a five-story step pyramid surrounded by three concentric enclosures and two moats presenting a stylized representation of Mount Meru.  It is oriented towards the cardinal directions so it is particularly appealing in the early morning and late afternoon light this time of year.  The four entrances to the central tower each has Nandi, Shiva’s bull, patiently awaiting his master, and the stairways are protected by Chinese style lion guardians.  Though the buildings are much eroded, and statuary broken or missing, it still is awe inspiring. For our next temple-mountain we decided to rise early (4 am), to climb the Phnom Bakheng Mountain in the dark, in order to watch the sunrise …

Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

Published by

What does it mean to be a mystic, to live between two worlds, embrace all of life as a spiritual pilgrim, to treat every moment as if it matters, every step as if it is upon Holy Ground?  Perhaps I should begin by telling you some of what I know about mystics.  I have traveled to distant lands, over the course of decades, traversing diverse cultures and ways of being human, in answering this question of what it means to be living in divine mystery as a transient spiritual pilgrim. There are so many spiritual pilgrims who have traveled this way before me.  I am not the first and shall not be the last.  You will meet many of my fellow mystics in the pages of this book.  As the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, “You are going, not indeed in search of the new world, like Columbus and his adventurers, nor yet another world that now is, and ever has been, though undreamt of by many, and by the greater part even …

Failing Retirement again

Published by

It is about twenty months since I retired from parish ministry and set off on a pilgrimage up the Ganges River in the footsteps of the Buddha to find awakening and enlightenment.  That experience led me to envision and write a spiritual memoir now being published as SPIRITUAL AUDACITY: Six Disciplines of Human Flourishing.   New York Times bestselling authors Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone describe its story as: “Jim’s spiritual journey takes him to the farthest reaches of the earth — and to the inner sanctum of his heart.” You can find a further description of the book, and other testimonials, and even buy the book and write a review of your own (yes please do) at amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Audacity-Disciplines-Human-Flourishing/dp/1634890760/ The B U School of Public Health thought my message on human flourishing so important for its faculty and students it has organized a free September 13, 2017 seminar on how religious disciplines impact human health, based largely on my book.  Please register and attend: http://www.bu.edu/sph/news-events/signature-events/deans-seminars/book-release-events/spirituality-and-public-health-how-religious-disciplines-impact-human-health/ Then First Parish in Concord is hosting a book launch …

Heaven and Hell

Published by

So what about heaven and hell after death? What role do they play in human flourishing? When my kids were little, my parents would sometimes come up to spend the weekend with us in Concord. On Sunday mornings, we would attend First Parish in Concord, and of course, my parents would come with us. I remember one particularly beautiful Sunday morning standing on the church’s front steps with my father following worship. “How many people attended worship this morning?” Dad asked. “About four hundred or so,” I replied. “And none of them believe in hell or eternal damnation?” “We are universalists,” I said, “so none believe in hell or damnation.” “So why don’t they stay home on Sunday and read the New York Times?” he questioned. “UUs come for spiritual community,” I answered, “neither for fear of hell nor lusting after heaven.” The religious metaphors of heaven and hell are, I think, usually intended as aids to devotion. These concepts are borrowed from mystics who describe heaven and hell as a human psychological state in …

Spiritual Audacity by Jim Sherblom

Discipline Six: Awakening

Published by

Seeking direct experience, but mindful of my physical limitations, I found myself on a long flight to India on New Year’s Eve. I was in search of enlightenment, knowledge, gnosis, wisdom, insight, oneness, ecstasy, and awakening—all terms used to point toward that spark of the divine which feels like salvation in one religious tradition or another. Plato offered one of the most cited metaphors of this spiritual state of clarity in his allegory of the cave. He describes a group of people imprisoned in a cave since childhood, chained in such a way that a fire burns brightly behind them and casts shadows on the wall before them. Talking among themselves, they come to understand what is happening out of their range of sight simply by paying attention to the shadows on the wall. This is the only reality they have ever known.  Then one prisoner breaks free, and his reality is changed forever. As this former prisoner’s eyes adjust to the sunlight beyond the cave, allowing him to see all the beauty of the …

A Disturbance in the Force

Published by

A Christian scholar pursues enlightenment through studying Chinese Taoism, meditating with Tibetan Buddhists, practicing meditation with Hindu holy men, whirling with Islamic Sufi dervishes, and finally traveling with shaman using psychotropic drugs. Huston Smith was a huge influence on my spiritual path. He died this week at age 97. I have taught “Introductions to Sacred Texts” using his book “The World’s Religions.” His studies with U U theologian Henry Nelson Wieman provided a context for much of his subsequent study of human flourishing through religion making him very relevant for U U’s. His life story became a very important exemplar for my own journey. Reading his spiritual memoir, “Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine” both inspired some of my more esoteric spiritual adventures but was also partly inspiration for my spiritual memoirs, “Spiritual Audacity: Six Disciplines for Human Flourishing” and “Spiritual Pilgrim: My journeys with Christian, Sufi, Taoist and Shamanic Mystics.” His calm wisdom will be missed, but the world is better for his having lived so long. Jim