This made me cry with recognition. It put in to words exactly what I've been feeling. Conversations I've been having with friends and not really knowing precisely how to articulate it. I am going about it a little differently to you, but the core of what you are saying absolutely resonates with me. Thank you 🌹
This article arrived on the trail like a tall waterfall when I had been thirsty so long I had somehow forgotten what thirst was. How has this happened, this sneaky denial of the majesty of the senses, physical, emotional, spiritual? Thank you for illustrating this so elegantly and with precision and wit. Colourful, spiritual, playful revolution mode has been activated!
I've been reading a lot of stuff from the Paramhansa Yogananda/Ananda world lately. While I appreciate and resonate with a great deal of what they're saying, at the same time, there's a feathery/renunciatey/Christianesque je ne sais quoi to their overall style which makes my earthier, witchier self feel scratchy and uncomfortable.
I think you've just managed to circle the square. Being a Tantric Hermetic Qabalist, Golden Dawn-style magician, bard of the incarnational theater, & lover of beauty, yearning, and ecstatic embodiment is a much comfier identity to inhabit.
It occurred to me as I was reading that the Americanized Buddhist ideas you mentioned have a LOT in common with Puritanism: the beliefs that desire makes us weak, that emotions should be repressed, or that the afterlife (even in the form of reincarnation) is designed to punish us...it can't be a coincidence that these are the ideas that have permeated our culture so insidiously.
Absolutely WEEPING with joy, Rob. This beautiful manifesto came into my inbox and my heart at a moment of early-morning hypnagogic poetry-making, and I don't think I'm poet enough to convey in words how perfect it was.
Oh Rob! I loved this SO very much. It spoke to my soul/not soul deeply.
Thank you for all you do. I am grateful to know you in this lifetime. I've been with you for more than four decades. I love your journey and I love being able to ride it with you.
I smiled reading every word I took screenshots to remember some of the passages you are the most brilliant writer with the most beautiful pros. Your word choice just makes me cry or smile or laugh. You bring me joy thank you.
You know, the first time I read a horoscope written by you, I was 21 years old, and in my own for the first time after moving across the country to Seattle. I had just picked up the Stranger on my way home from a very disheartening day of finding out what they meant when they said “the real world.” The message in that paragraph was so profound that I cut it out and glued it into my journal. I still quote it to this day (I’m 40 now) and it still gives me a boost of gratitude and appreciation for who I am and where I’m at.
Once again, your words have found their way to me at just the right moment - a synchronicity that echoes a message I received through divination earlier in the day.
Thank you so much Rob Brezney. I so appreciate your work, and I think you should already know this but I have to say that your magic is bright AF, fluid and electric ⚡️ 💜💜💜💜✨✨✨
Anyone who has ever engaged in the magnificence of Sacred Sex truly understands that we are here for far more than engaging mostly with ourselves. So much of Buddhism makes little sense to me. Why would we be here to not be here??!! This is perfection. Everything I have ever wanted to say, through you, is embodied with ecclesiastical fervor for what this world has to offer. Your utter joy of being human blessed with the the gifts of insight, intuition, and far deeper, spiritual callings has enlivened your Soul, and thusly mine.
You are brilliant, supernal, thaumaturgic in your embodiment of all that resides in and from the seat of the Soul, the heart!
I am going to copy this, if I may, and read it everyday. That's how inspiriting, animated, and wondrous this is to read, hear, and take to my heart as truths so eloquently stated.
Thank you, so very much, for exhilarating my heart and Soul in the most exquisite, epigrammatic, and all-embracing manifesto I have ever read.
Thank you for this, so much. You have managed to put into words the way I have felt when encountering these Buddhist-origin ideas that were mangled into American thoughtways. I know they are not the original ideas, which are embedded in another culture in ways that are hard to understand from the outside. None of us were born to be Calvinist-restrictive, throwing away truth and beauty because they're expansive and enhancing our lives. We are meant to live in the beauty and enjoy every instant of it.
Thank you for this. I escaped from Buddhism after having a Kundalini experience on a silent Buddhist retreat. I was admonished for reading (no reading allowed!) the book written by the retreat center's founder, which happened to contain a few paragraphs about Kundalini. Because it was silent, I could not ask about the strange things happening to me that I had no context for.
I'll never forget the moment when...after 30 years of insular training in non-dual nihilism...I packed up 8 LARGE boxes of non-dual texts and hauled them down to Powell's to sell.
With the exchange dollars in my hand, I walked out with 3 tarot decks and hadn't felt lighter in 30+ years.
It was as if the entire karmic weight from the past 3-decades had just burst open and I was transported from the importance of transcending above-it-all to the sheer LOVE of Life that I knew as a child.
Amazing and beautiful, Leslie. The Mystery of Past Lives. I have been immersed in Evolutionary Astrology for a decade or two now; I also used to do computer generated works from Steven Forrest. Just did his Uranus in Gemini webinar. As a Pisces with Gemini rising (4 degrees) AND south node loosely conjunct my Ascendant I have been intrigued for years now about past lives. I look forward to reading your writing on Substack.
lol...got it. Those generated reports were SO helpful. Past lives and the South node placement are entirely intriguing!! With my south node in the 9th (naturally!!) I am having my nodal return like right now! Given what I am reporting on that makes astrology as accurate as it gets!! Or vice versa lol...
NO WAY!! on the computer generated readings for Steven Forrest!!!
*Way back,* when I was deliberately isolated during what was called “the compression years” I ordered a couple computerized readings from Steven.
Most likely YOU were the one who generated them?!?
I later commented on a Facebook thread about how *accurate* they were. Steven chimed in stating that the cosmic map reads the same whether it’s computer generated or person generated.
That was always my intuitive sense in ordering those.
The ‘Compression Years’…of isolation and deliberate silencing (under a death threat) at the hands of non-dual teachers…in which Adyashanti played a key role:
Letter to the ASI (Association for Spiritual ‘Integrity’) at the end of which is a link to a short recording (22 min.) detailing the occult controls over 4-generations of my family:
Rob, THANK YOU for putting into words things I've been feeling but hadn't quite formed yet. This magical, mysterious life is to be Lived, not given up on.
Loved every bit of this, and thank you for acknowledging that the toxin is a kind of dry, American intellectual Buddhism. The 16th Karmapa, a lineage holder in Tibetan Buddhism, famously said before he died, “Nothing changes.” And I think this contrarian stance to impermanence reveals the beautiful paradox of our awareness and existence. It reminds me of what you write here. Thank you, Rob 💙 Delighted to find this today’.
This made me cry with recognition. It put in to words exactly what I've been feeling. Conversations I've been having with friends and not really knowing precisely how to articulate it. I am going about it a little differently to you, but the core of what you are saying absolutely resonates with me. Thank you 🌹
Me too! It’s an exquisite masterpiece.
This article arrived on the trail like a tall waterfall when I had been thirsty so long I had somehow forgotten what thirst was. How has this happened, this sneaky denial of the majesty of the senses, physical, emotional, spiritual? Thank you for illustrating this so elegantly and with precision and wit. Colourful, spiritual, playful revolution mode has been activated!
Holy moly, Rob, you did it again!
I've been reading a lot of stuff from the Paramhansa Yogananda/Ananda world lately. While I appreciate and resonate with a great deal of what they're saying, at the same time, there's a feathery/renunciatey/Christianesque je ne sais quoi to their overall style which makes my earthier, witchier self feel scratchy and uncomfortable.
I think you've just managed to circle the square. Being a Tantric Hermetic Qabalist, Golden Dawn-style magician, bard of the incarnational theater, & lover of beauty, yearning, and ecstatic embodiment is a much comfier identity to inhabit.
Smoochy blessings upon you!!!
Beautiful - thank you for expressing this!
It occurred to me as I was reading that the Americanized Buddhist ideas you mentioned have a LOT in common with Puritanism: the beliefs that desire makes us weak, that emotions should be repressed, or that the afterlife (even in the form of reincarnation) is designed to punish us...it can't be a coincidence that these are the ideas that have permeated our culture so insidiously.
Absolutely WEEPING with joy, Rob. This beautiful manifesto came into my inbox and my heart at a moment of early-morning hypnagogic poetry-making, and I don't think I'm poet enough to convey in words how perfect it was.
But please accept my thanks.
Oh Rob! I loved this SO very much. It spoke to my soul/not soul deeply.
Thank you for all you do. I am grateful to know you in this lifetime. I've been with you for more than four decades. I love your journey and I love being able to ride it with you.
I smiled reading every word I took screenshots to remember some of the passages you are the most brilliant writer with the most beautiful pros. Your word choice just makes me cry or smile or laugh. You bring me joy thank you.
You know, the first time I read a horoscope written by you, I was 21 years old, and in my own for the first time after moving across the country to Seattle. I had just picked up the Stranger on my way home from a very disheartening day of finding out what they meant when they said “the real world.” The message in that paragraph was so profound that I cut it out and glued it into my journal. I still quote it to this day (I’m 40 now) and it still gives me a boost of gratitude and appreciation for who I am and where I’m at.
Once again, your words have found their way to me at just the right moment - a synchronicity that echoes a message I received through divination earlier in the day.
Thank you so much Rob Brezney. I so appreciate your work, and I think you should already know this but I have to say that your magic is bright AF, fluid and electric ⚡️ 💜💜💜💜✨✨✨
Astounding, Enchanting, Splendiferous!
Anyone who has ever engaged in the magnificence of Sacred Sex truly understands that we are here for far more than engaging mostly with ourselves. So much of Buddhism makes little sense to me. Why would we be here to not be here??!! This is perfection. Everything I have ever wanted to say, through you, is embodied with ecclesiastical fervor for what this world has to offer. Your utter joy of being human blessed with the the gifts of insight, intuition, and far deeper, spiritual callings has enlivened your Soul, and thusly mine.
You are brilliant, supernal, thaumaturgic in your embodiment of all that resides in and from the seat of the Soul, the heart!
I am going to copy this, if I may, and read it everyday. That's how inspiriting, animated, and wondrous this is to read, hear, and take to my heart as truths so eloquently stated.
Thank you, so very much, for exhilarating my heart and Soul in the most exquisite, epigrammatic, and all-embracing manifesto I have ever read.
Thank you for this, so much. You have managed to put into words the way I have felt when encountering these Buddhist-origin ideas that were mangled into American thoughtways. I know they are not the original ideas, which are embedded in another culture in ways that are hard to understand from the outside. None of us were born to be Calvinist-restrictive, throwing away truth and beauty because they're expansive and enhancing our lives. We are meant to live in the beauty and enjoy every instant of it.
Burning flame right through the heart... Thank you.
Thank you for this. I escaped from Buddhism after having a Kundalini experience on a silent Buddhist retreat. I was admonished for reading (no reading allowed!) the book written by the retreat center's founder, which happened to contain a few paragraphs about Kundalini. Because it was silent, I could not ask about the strange things happening to me that I had no context for.
I agree with everything in this post. Thank you for writing!
Omgsh...YES!!!
I'll never forget the moment when...after 30 years of insular training in non-dual nihilism...I packed up 8 LARGE boxes of non-dual texts and hauled them down to Powell's to sell.
With the exchange dollars in my hand, I walked out with 3 tarot decks and hadn't felt lighter in 30+ years.
It was as if the entire karmic weight from the past 3-decades had just burst open and I was transported from the importance of transcending above-it-all to the sheer LOVE of Life that I knew as a child.
Thank you for such luscious deLight Rob!
The Mystery of Past Lives:
https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-mystery-of-past-lives?r=ze3ip
Warmly,
-Leslie@ integrityintruth dot com
Amazing and beautiful, Leslie. The Mystery of Past Lives. I have been immersed in Evolutionary Astrology for a decade or two now; I also used to do computer generated works from Steven Forrest. Just did his Uranus in Gemini webinar. As a Pisces with Gemini rising (4 degrees) AND south node loosely conjunct my Ascendant I have been intrigued for years now about past lives. I look forward to reading your writing on Substack.
Whoops! I only meant I used to order them like you (SF cmptr readings)
lol...got it. Those generated reports were SO helpful. Past lives and the South node placement are entirely intriguing!! With my south node in the 9th (naturally!!) I am having my nodal return like right now! Given what I am reporting on that makes astrology as accurate as it gets!! Or vice versa lol...
Hi Bill…
Thank you for your kind message. 🌷
NO WAY!! on the computer generated readings for Steven Forrest!!!
*Way back,* when I was deliberately isolated during what was called “the compression years” I ordered a couple computerized readings from Steven.
Most likely YOU were the one who generated them?!?
I later commented on a Facebook thread about how *accurate* they were. Steven chimed in stating that the cosmic map reads the same whether it’s computer generated or person generated.
That was always my intuitive sense in ordering those.
The ‘Compression Years’…of isolation and deliberate silencing (under a death threat) at the hands of non-dual teachers…in which Adyashanti played a key role:
https://integrityintruth.com/clarification-of-videos/the-compression-years-2013-2015/
Paul Selig’s message that this ‘was not intentional to me’ yet the existential controls were most definitely intentional to me:
https://integrityintruth.com/clarif.../the-move-to-portland/
Letter to the ASI (Association for Spiritual ‘Integrity’) at the end of which is a link to a short recording (22 min.) detailing the occult controls over 4-generations of my family:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hga3c7zpo1v973j/ASI%20Letter%2003%3A06%3A23.pdf?dl=0&e=1&fbclid=IwAR2hNCDCiHgzRQrXqce9WFFH5vgHGHoGlda3PUlGKT2n1qMuoFfoMadMbvs
Thanks for following the thread of this complex story… one that ONLY Intuitive astrology could have EVER dug me out. 🙏🙏
… and thanks for being my very first reader if, in fact, that was you!! 🙌🙌
Warmly,
-Leslie
Rob, THANK YOU for putting into words things I've been feeling but hadn't quite formed yet. This magical, mysterious life is to be Lived, not given up on.
Loved every bit of this, and thank you for acknowledging that the toxin is a kind of dry, American intellectual Buddhism. The 16th Karmapa, a lineage holder in Tibetan Buddhism, famously said before he died, “Nothing changes.” And I think this contrarian stance to impermanence reveals the beautiful paradox of our awareness and existence. It reminds me of what you write here. Thank you, Rob 💙 Delighted to find this today’.