Translations:

THE MYSTICAL FELLOWSHIP

facilitated by Ken Pollinger, Ph.D. - July 15, 2006

A Fellowship for waking up to something we've forgotten.

A Fellowship stressing individuality and creative freedom.

A Fellowship using incantations, incubations, altered states of consciousness, dreamwork, various musical rituals, such as piping and the cosmic music of the spheres. All this, as a means, and an end in itself, providing the primary practice of INCUBATION. By this we mean entering into a state of stillness and absolute silence, descending into the world of the dead (the underworld of darkness); that is, to learn to die before we die, to face death itself so as to overcome our basic primorial fear and allow healing to happen.

“What's important is that you would do absolutely nothing. The point came when you wouldn't struggle or make an effort. You’d just have to surrender to your condition. You would lie down as if you were dead; wait without eating or moving, sometimes for days at a time. And you'd wait for the healing to come from somewhere else, from another level of awareness and another level of being.

But that's not to say you were left alone. There would be people in charge of the place – priests who understood how the process worked and how to supervise it, who knew how to help you understand what you needed to know without interfering with the process itself.” (Initially Ken will act as “a guide/therapist” until you allow yourself to be guided.)

This experience is an initiation into another world, a mystery.

“Consciousness itself is what holds everything together and doesn’t change. Once you experience this consciousness you know what it is to be neither asleep nor awake, neither alive nor dead, and to be at home not only in this world of the senses but in another reality as well.”

No real healing can occur until you come to discover what you are behind the world of senses. This world is a deception.

“You could say it was about what we fear most. It was about facing silence, about having no choice but to give up every kind of opinion and theory that we cling to, about not even finding anything to replace them for years on end.”

The ordinary life we all know is only a first step, a preliminary to something else entirely. Seems unnatural?

“When rationality is really combined with irrationality, then we begin to go beyond them both. Something else is created, something quite extraordinary that's timeless-and yet entirely new. Then we start seeing the illogicality of everything that normally is considered so reasonable. And we come face to face with an implacable, fascinatingly coherent logic that there can seem a hundred good reasons for dismissing as completely absurd.”

Suggested readings: The above synthesis and quotations come from: In The Dark Places of Wisdom, by Peter Kingsley (a book about a poem of Parmenides, Pythagorean teachings, and ancient Greek philosophy/ mysticism). Also, Awareness, by Anthony De Mello, S.J. (These books are available in Nirvana Bookstore) For more books on indivisible Oneness click here.

If any of this interests you, contact Ken Pollinger: 845-358-6448.

Practicing Presence:

1. Daily practice: After a good night's sleep, rise early, wash, coffee/tea, then back to bed or on floor--but be VERY COMFORTABLE. Sometimes some Zen music helps at the beginning, but ultimately, only SILENCE.
2. Keep pad/pen to jot down important thoughts/messages, especially if you need to remember something. Jot it down and then back to position.
3. Start out with conscious DEEP relaxation. Eyes closed.
4. Stay AWAKE, ALERT, CONSCIOUS. Try not to fall asleep!! Sleeping, resting and so forth is NOT the goal.
5. "Wiggle out" body tensions in specific areas. Then back to being motionless.
6. Slow breath down till it's almost imperceptible (you look like a non-breathing DEAD person. Deathwork healing!
7. If mouth dries out, moisten lips with tongue.
8. At times, your body may "twitch" or literally "jump." You may also feel interior cellular releasing/healing, eg. different forms of energy pulsations, whole-body flooding of "grace," etc.
9. For a DEEPER experience, combine all the above with FASTING/CLEANSING*, especially in a silent retreat space.
10. Remember: Silence, Stillness and Awareness is the key.
11. Some people need group support, but try to do this practice on your own: practice PATIENCE and TRUST in "be-ing," not "do-ing"
12. Ultimately, this practice will infiltrate you being at all times and in all places, by simply letting go and allowing the ground of unconditional love to embrace you continuously.

Background Reading:

1. A basic introduction to awareness: Awareness, by Anthony De Mello, S.J.
2. Did you know that Pythagoras studied in the Egyptian Temples for 22 years? See, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?; also, Jesus and The Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians; as well as, The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs--all three by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
3. See too: Reality (2003); and Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, both by Peter Kingsley

*Those of you who know me know that I go to Florida the first two weeks of each December in order to fast, cleanse, relax and rejuvenate. I usually do a water and/or juice fast, get a deep tissue massage and a colonic treatment every other day, include deep relaxation session (1-3 hours), do liver/gall bladder flushes, sunbathe, read, meditate, walk on the beach, swim etc, and I always come back looking and feeling twenty years younger. Click here for "poems" on various healings experienced by Ken in his Confessions of an Ex-Jesuit, the Body Temple section. The ultimate purpose, of course, is to contact the innermost core of our beingness.