Table of Contents Search Site ~ Also on this website: Toby Johnson's books: GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe SECRET
MATTER: updated, revised & expanded edition from Lethe Press
with Afterword by Mark Jordan THE FOURTH QUILL, a
novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story PLAGUE:
A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING.
Books on Gay Spirituality: White Crane Gay Spirituality Series
Articles
and Excerpts: Read
Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of
Consciousness Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco" The
Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate Why gay people should NOT Marry What's ironic A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness What Jesus said about Gay Rights Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"? The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Waves
of Gay Liberation Activity Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium Easton Mountain Retreat Center Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"
"It's Always About You" Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara You're Not A WaveWhat is Enlightenment? What is reincarnation? How many lifetimes in an ego? Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Buddha's father was right Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal The Danda Nata & goddess Kalika Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva John Boswell was Immanuel Kant The Two Loves The Joseph Campbell Connection Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy Gay Spiritual Functions The Sinfulness of Homosexuality Proposal
for a study of gay nondualism "The Evolution of Gay Identity" "St. John of the
Cross & Religious Articulations of the
Secret The Moulting of the Holy Ghost The Hero's Journey as archetype Marian Doctrines:
Immaculate Conception & Assumption Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil Allah
Hu: "God is present here" The Life is in the Blood The mystical experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis The Techniques Of The World Saviors Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby How Gay
Souls Get Reincarnated In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel? Toby's friend
and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first
man to really "come out" About
Michael Talbot, gay mystic Book Reviews Be Done on Earth by Howard E. Cook Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer The Way Out by Christopher L Nutter The Gay Disciple by John Henson Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman The Kairos by Paul E. Hartman Wrestling with Jesus by D.K.Maylor Kali Rising by Rudolph Ballentine The Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada The Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook The Scar Letters: A Novel by Richard Alther The Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel Missing Mary by Charlene Spretnak Gay Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez Cut Hand: A Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr Radiomen by Eleanor Lerman Nights at Rizzoli by Felice Picano The Key to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo The Door of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar Occam’s Razor by David Duncan Grace and Demion by Mel White Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L. Rigoglioso The Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass |
You’re not a Wave
The emphasis on personal salvation and getting to get your
ego in
heaven after death ends up concretizing self and ego in a way that is
really counterproductive to spirituality. ![]() Another image for greater life is the rose bush. Each of us is a rose. The rose grows and blossoms and then fades and dies in its season. But the bush lives on. To focus on trying to keep the individual flower forever is missing the greater life of the bush. In an interview on Beliefnet, Deepak Chopra says: The fear of death comes from limited awareness. As long as you think of your real self as the person you are, then of course you're going to be fearful of death. But what is a person? A person is a pattern of behavior, of a larger awareness. You know, the two-year-old dies before the three-year-old shows up, the three-year-old dies before the teenager shows up. So the real you is neither the perceiver, nor the object of perception, but the real you is that formless spirit that is constantly evolving and sometimes even taking quantum leaps of evolution and expressing itself as both the perceiver and the object of perception. And if you can shift your internal reference point from your skin-encapsulated ego to that larger domain of awareness, then you will find that it's your ticket to freedom—that you do not need to fear death because you're already dying every moment to the past. The fear of death is the fear of the unknown, and yet, the fact is, we live and breathe and move in the unknown all the time. The unknown is from this moment onwards—you're already living there. You have the pretend game that you're living in the known, but the known doesn't exist anymore, it's already gone. Everything you know is about the past. So you have to both intellectually and experientially be willing to embrace uncertainly, ambiguity, and step into the unknown. The known is a prison of past conditioning. The unknown is always a fresh field of possibilities. Would you equate this constant evolving and recycling with reincarnation?
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Toby Johnson, PhD is author of eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In addition to the novels featured elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL.
Johnson's Lammy Award winning book
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness was published in 2000. His Lammy-nominated
book GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003. Both books are
available now from Lethe
Press.