Aleksandra on the Soul

Aleksandra continues her conversation, reflecting on the concept of the Soul.

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Finding Spirit in Busy Daily Life

Carol Sill and Andrew Jordan talk about their solutions to the challenges of a busy, worldly life.

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Isabella Mori’s Christian Buddhist Paganism

Isabella Mori tells about her ancestors and their spiritual paths.

“I often think of God as a diamond, a huge huge diamond with many many facets. And for whatever reasons we can see the different facets, different people can see different facets.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation between Isabella Mori and Carol Sill.

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Everybody Has Something to Contribute

Carol Sill and Andrew Jordan explore Contribution, Sharing, Spirit, and inner expression.

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Source

“It’s a huge thing to talk about because the source isn’t separate from us and we’re not separate from the source, but we feel we have to go back to it. So all of the quest stories and the tales of going to the source, or going to the source of the Ganges, finding the mountain of Siva where the source of the water flows from; all of this is a metaphor for us to go inside ourselves and make those connections.”

Conversation between Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill

C: Let’s talk about Open Source Spirit a little more, and today we’re going to talk about the word “Source”.

J: Right, it’s interesting to think about the source in the context of spirituality but also in the context of what we’re doing here which is “Open Source” Spirit.

And of course we’re making the assumption that everyone has access to the source. In the software world, when they say “open source” that means everyone gets to look at the root code, or the secret kernel of the code; an in our model we’re assuming that every person, and especially every person who speaks with us, but every person has access to the real source of spirituality, and that it is our goal here to have people share their version of their connection with the source.

C: Yes, and having that connection with the source and being able to share it with others openly is part of our purpose. To develop that, for people, to be able to sense that for themselves as well.

J: Exactly. So if you are watching this video for the first time or if you are new to our website, I would encourage you to:

1. Look and feel and think and be open to the source of spirituality, the source of love, and life and light and laughter, and if you feel the call at all to click one of the buttons below here, to send us an email or make a comment on this blog and we’ll have a conversation with you, either in video or writing or such, and we’ll share your feeling and connection, with the source, with us.

C: That’s right. And the whole idea of being connected with the source and then finding ways to express that, I think is really important in these times.

The more that we can empower one another to do that, I think, the better off humanity will be. So, connect directly to the source as close as you can, and see what evolves as a result of that. That’s what we’re doing, right, Jim?

J: Yeah. I’d like to tell you a little story.  I was a devout little boy, I was an altar boy, I was interested in religion but it was always in my head, I never had any real connection to it.

As a young man and a teenage boy I read all kinds of books. I read books about Buddhism, and I read books about Catholicism and books about Jesus and nothing ever worked for me. I was interested in it, but I couldn’t feel like I had anything.

And one day when I was 17 years old, I was in my first year of college and I was lonely and I was far from home. I was living with some friends and I took a shower. And for some reason – and I have no idea where this came – I had this most miraculous experience of absolute joy and oneness and all these fancy words that people use to describe experience. It came out of absolutely nowhere.

I was just absolutely transported to a sense and a real, a felt sense that everything was perfect and I was connected to the whole world and I have no idea where this feeling came from. I got the idea, somewhere deep in my gut or belly or heart of somewhere, that enthusiasm was a big part of it. I got a subtle sense of guidance to go and look up what the word enthusiasm meant.

I suppose the experience happened for me for quite a long time, maybe 15 minutes or so, and at the end one of my buddies was banging on the bathroom door and wanted to get in, said I’d been in the shower a long time. I kind of snapped out of it, but I walked around in sort of a daze.

I wasn’t sure if it was a spiritual experience or if I’d had a mental breakdown or what, but it was so beautiful and so connecting and that was my first real experience with “source”. Just even talking with you about it now has made me kind of prickly and tingly and excited and happy.

C: That’s so beautiful.

J: That’s my first connection with the source, and it came out of nowhere. I hadn’t been reading, I was just working hard and going to college.

C: Yeah, well I think it’s so natural.

The whole idea of “source” connects with water, and connects with the flow of water and so it’s rather beautiful that it was in the water element that this awakening happened.

J: Do you remember a time when you had an experience like that, or some thoughts on what I did, what do you think happened there?

C: Well, I think you opened up. Basically that’s what happened, you just opened up and allowed the flow to happen.

So as the water’s flowing over you, you’re actually flowing through the water, so you opened up. So it’s not at all frightening, it’s more beautiful than anything.

J: It was not frightening, no.

C: No, it’s something to welcome. I’ll think about it next time we talk, something to talk about in my own experience. I’m a little shy about these things, I don’t like to broadcast inner things, but at the same time I think it’s important to open the conversation and let everybody know that we all have this stuff going on - all the time actually.

It makes me feel like when I’m in nature, I always feel like I want to just dive right into it. You know you see beautiful rolling green hills, I see them and I think , oh if I could just roll into them! But of course that’s a fantasy. I can’t physically roll into them in the way that I’d like – they’d probably be prickly and all of that. But the feeling is there, I feel like I want to rush through it, let it rush through me.

J: So tell me: if it’s true that source is not separate to us, I mean the very word source sounds as if that’s someplace different from where I’m at. Right? Because it starts at the source and comes to me, and yet I didn’t feel like that when I was, so many years ago in that experience. It felt like we were all in it together. Very strange sort of oneness kind of feeling that doesn’t translate into words.

What’s your take on the idea that source, well – talk about source and all is one, if you could…

C: It’s huge. It’s a huge thing to talk about because the source isn’t separate from us and we’re not separate from the source, but we feel we have to go back to it.

So all of the quest stories and the tales of going to the source, or going to the source of the Ganges, finding the mountain of Siva where the source of the water flows from; all of this is a metaphor for us to go inside ourselves and make those connections. Because it is all there, like an imprint, ready to unfold for us.

So from that point of view, it’s difficult to discuss it, which is why we have so many narratives and so many stories that help us find our way. But our way is already there if we’re here and alive in the moment.

That’s what we were talking about before, you have to be aware of the moment, open to that.

J: Um humm.

C: I mean, I don’t know what that little riff was about, I just started talking about it. I don’t know if it really makes any sense – it’s the way I think about these things.

It’s a lateral way to think about it, you can’t just go direct to the source with your rational mind. You have to approach it poetically, symbolically or humbly. You have to bow a little bit to get through that doorway so that you don’t bring too much of yourself with it. Then you can apprehend it more readily.

J: Source. For me, when I think about source in my mind, of course I always go back to these images of the sort of Catholic images of Jesus and Jesus’ Father who was never made image and of course we always had the Holy Ghost and I always wondered what he looked like. When I think of source my mind always goes toward those images. And then I think about suns and moons and stars and universe.

For me, I have no set image or experience of source other than a whole bunch of rolling huge images of nature and the world and universe that somehow start all off of my Christian and Catholic upbringing and thinking about God and Jesus and his third of the holy trilogy.

Do you see images in your mind of “source”, when you think of source, or when you try to think of source what sort of things happen in your mind, Carol?

C: Well, I think of something that is mostly uncreated. I mean the way I see it is source is something that you can’t see. Or feel. Or hear. Or touch. With everything. So all the images and everything are approximations and parodies of whatever that actually is.

So for me it’s a process of releasing from whatever it is that seems to have an identity, going towards the source that is undifferentiated and difficult to discuss with a word or with an image. Or anything. And yet we have to point to it.

So this is where the traditions are really helpful because the symbols that are used are really just to help carry your mind past some of your logical processes so that you can be ready to have a kind of a realization experience. That’s how I think about it.

It’s more of a realization, like a blip or an instant – not necessarily lasting only an instant but it’s an easier way to think about it because anything that lasts within time, right away you’re already stuck in something that you can’t make sense of, and I really think it’s way beyond our senses, and our mental senses as well.

J: Well I think Mohammed had something when he was transcribing the Koran from what he perceived to be the spoken word of God, which is they don’t want to make images of God and or even of man, because they’re afraid that those images just by their very nature, will limit people’s connection with the Divine.

My understanding is that Mohammed kind of has a good idea there to try and limit us from making statues of God or statues of holy figures, because it can so easily slip from there into idolizing the image rather than the content behind. I always thought that was interesting.

C: It’s true, but inside ourselves we have to create an image. We make an image inside ourselves. And what we know is that image transforms. As we mature, more is revealed of what this image is.

And so a loving mother, and a kind father and all that kind of imagery comes through us, but at the same time we also imagine or identify god-like beings or devas, spirits or any of these. As we go in our journey toward the source we experience all kinds of elementals and thought-memes and you name it, it’s all there in the mind world, in the heart world, in the angelic realms. They’re all there.

And we articulate them as we go forward but we don’t stay with them. We don’t stay. We don’t sleep with the faeries and end up waking up 75 years later, we keep on going, right? So that’s the thing: when you enter the forest, and you go through the forest pathways, you meet all the creatures but you have a destination, right?

J: Dear viewer, I would like you to put a comment down below and tell us what you think about your version of the source. And I think that’s all I have to say for this episode of Open Source Spirit. How’d you like to make the final comment, Carol?

C: Okay. I’d just like to say thanks for sticking with us throughout the length of this little video and be in touch with us. We’d love to talk with you too.

View the video of this conversation.

On Spirit

“But it’s still exquisite isn’t it, to just be able to know that there’s so much more than what we see.”

Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill in conversation.

J: Carol, we were going to talk about Spirit today, and in open, source and spirit, spirit is the big open grounding concept of it all. I wonder, what’s your idea? How do you think, feel, touch, smell spirit? What happens for you?

C: I think it can’t be seen or touched or felt, but it can be known – from within our own inner sense where we’re also an aspect of that. So because we are that, we resonate with it even though we’re here in this other world, embodied and living and embodying spirit actually.

So it’s very difficult to define, which is why it’s called spirit – which has all kinds of connotations, of that which can’t be touched, seen, smelled, tasted or heard.  In the idea of open source spirit what we’re doing is we’re looking at the code that takes us there, I guess you could say, and everyone finds their own.

J: Yeah. And what we’re looking to do is to create dialogues and conversations and interactions on the internet with you, the viewer, as you also contribute what you feel or think about spirit.

Now spirit, for me - when I was a boy I was raised as a Catholic. And we have very rigorous nuns teaching us – we literally called it “the Holy Ghost.” The spirit was something that only very advanced people got to talk about, and we only got to talk about Mary and Jesus and we were put off, till later to find out about the spirit, which was very advanced. And I’m still waiting to really come to an understanding.

For me, I am most touched by spirit when I’m in nature, when I see something beautiful, when I hear something beautiful. I was at an outdoor concert the other night with exquisite classical music, and I just had a real sense of okayness, and beauty and harmony all around. And that seemed to me like I was able to just about be really in touch with spirit and still be in my total normal consciousness. Sometimes we get very transported into spiritual realms while we’re just doing the most normal things (or at least sometimes I do – not very often.)

C: That’s one of the things that I like to explore, and I like to find out how other people experience that, because it is an aspect of life and it’s something that we talk about. We context it religiously, or as part of a meditation experience, but it is actually our birthright. It’s our everyday life – really infused continually in the life in the spirit. And what is that? And how do we each define it?

And yes, we can dare to talk about it and we can bring that out as an aspect of life, as something that is part of our reality. And how we go forward understanding what is being told to us by the inner voice within, by the “still small voice” inside us that says: “do this” or “look into that” – more than our intuition, a little broader than our intuition. I love that. I love to think about that and I love it when it happens.

J: Last night at the Wednesday night service at the New Thought congregation that I go to, Agape Live, here in Los Angeles, there was a lady speaker who delivered a sermon. She’s a very calm, relaxed lady who’s also a reasonably well-known Hollywood actress, and she talked for 70 minutes in rhyme. It was all spontaneous and it was so interesting. And then at one point she asked us to get really quiet and ask ourselves: What am I really here for? What is my gift, and how will I unwrap this gift?

And after we did this little meditation, for a short time, maybe two or three minutes in silence, we turned to the person next to us. We put our right hand up, and the first person said: “I’m here to…” and then we said it. Something popped out. I don’t know where this came from but it popped out that I should be my genuine self and radiate enthusiasm. The person who was with me put up her hand and her place was to perceive love wherever she went. After we had both done this  we said I am here to do my thing and you’re here to do your thing and we’re all here to support ourselves in spirit. I thought it was remarkably sweet and wonderful.

And so that was my most recent spiritual experience, to look in the eyes of a stranger and tell her what I thought my deepest purpose on this planet was. It was kind of scary actually. You know, to just give it words right out. It’s okay to think it, but to actually say it out loud – it was interesting.

C: That’s it. And that’s why I say if you can dare to actually bring this forward into everyday life, that’s it, I think that’s just exquisite. Without diminishing all the incredible power, magnificence, beauty and love that is unseen and can’t really be touched except by the unseen part of ourselves. But it’s still exquisite isn’t it, to just be able to know that there’s so much more than what we see.

J: There’s always so much more. The way I express it is: 3 lb. brain, infinite universe, what do you expect?

C: Let’s just sign off for now, and have another conversation next time.

J: Thank you very much from Open Source Spirit, if you have any sense of how you’d like to express your spirit, please write in a comment (down below) or send us an email by clicking the link and maybe we’ll talk to you on Sightspeed and see what you have to say about spirit.

View the video of this conversation.

First Conversation

“Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.”

An early online conversation between Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill on Open Source Spirit.

J: Carol and I are here to talk about a new project we have called “Open Source Spirit”  and Carol what would you like to tell us about Open Source Spirit at this time?

C: I think the best thing to say is that we’re applying the principles of open source to the spiritual life, which, actually, that’s been going on for centuries. It has always been part of the spiritual life, but it ends up getting codified and taken into particular streams and “marketed” that way through religious teachings.

J: Yeah, brilliant. Now what I think about open source is that it means that interesting combination between collaboration and individual effort. So that “Open Source” means that the subject, in our case, Open Source Spirituality, is available to all of us and shared between all of us in an open way, and yet individually expressed, and different people can make changes to the source code. The source code in this experience is their individual reflection and their individual expression of the Divine.

C: That’s exactly it. Each one of us is doing this experiment all the time, especially if you’re awakening your intuition or being in touch with some guiding spirit within, you start to develop yourself innerly and find resonance outside yourself that shows the collaboration of others who’ve gone before and use that to work more on your own interior self-development.

J: The way Carol and I have originally thought of this is that Open Source Spirit would have two sides. We have OpenSourceSpirit.org, which is a website and a place for collaboration which is and will always be free and non-profit, and for some of the contributors, or any of the contributors who wanted to promote their products or their seminars or their books or their sacred candles or whatever, there is a place for that at OpenSourceSpirit.com. Now I haven’t really talked with you about this Carol, but there is a lot of information about spiritual paths, the great holy texts that have been secret in many traditions for all the years, where do you think we should put all those texts – on OpenSourceSpirit.org or .com? We haven’t even talked about that, but we do want to republish many of the sacred texts, right?

C: I think we should point to everything in the .com, making it available to everyone for free of course, because it is already available to everyone. That’s what I think would be great: all the sacred texts, all the holy study that’s been done for centuries should be brought together in one place be made available – which it is in the great mind that we all share, you know, it already is all available to us.  As far as the .org side goes, I see that as a place where people are hearing what they are doing, what their development is, asking questions, working within this idea of a greater community of seekers of truth.

J: Yeah. One of my real hopes is to have really a lot of video; video talks, video things. Part of our change in consciousness is a shift more from the written word to visual expression. Just as most of the great spiritual teachers never actually wrote a book, they talked and then their followers later on, perhaps 150 years in the case of Jesus, or 300, 400 or 500 years in the case of Buddha, or really right away in the case of Mohammed, they wrote those things down. But Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha never really wrote a book. So I think that we can move back to, move forward actually to a different expression, by having people talk about their spirituality rather than write about it, although I think the internet is still a written medium but moving towards the visual. What do you think, Carol?

C: I think every medium has its own particular message. Marshall McLuhan was really aware of that. What we’re doing by taking this way of thinking out of the private realm of written language only and bringing it out into the video realm is really an experiment. Because the oral teachings were done face to face where you actually shared the vibration of the individual, of the whole, and of the whole audience while that was being given

J: Yes

C: Whereas now with video, video tends to flatten the energy. So we’re experimenting here to see just how much can be conveyed.

J: Of course. What happens is that I think what is conveyed is the same thing in a different way. Anyways…you are the McLuhan and media expert here and I think that’s great. Now you wrote a wonderful thing, to me, about “this is for you if…” and we should talk a little bit, I think, Carol, about who we would like to join us. So you wrote, “This is for you if you’re awakening intuition, seeing life beyond the material world…philosophical questions.” You wrote some other wonderful things, who do you think should join us. Who is this for?

C: I think anybody who just catches it and says, Open Source Spirit: that’s it. Obviously that’s who it’s for. There’s something a little bit inspiring in the name and I think that each person resonates it in their own way. There’s so much “open source” out now, there’s “open source sewing” for heaven’s sake. Everything is available “open source” now because we know, we recognize that everybody has something to give and contribute to the grand experiment.

J: Yes, those words are interesting: “open” – I think the key word is open. The other ones are grand and have their own resonance but I think openness is where we will find our friends. What do you think?

C: Yes but also there are others that are looking for the source, so that’s a big one.

J. Yes.

C: And the unseen, the fact that there is spirit involved, has to be acknowledged. Because we are going towards that which is unseen or unknown or not perceived by the senses.

J: Spirit, spirituality has this great urge to express itself. It may be the phenomenal world that we feel is just merely a spiritual expression, of spirit. What do you think, Carol?

C: Could you say that again?

J: I said: Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.

C: Yes it is. And we don’t have to do anything else other than experience that aspect of it. But nonetheless because we’re human and because we can’t see everything all the time and because we are part of this game we have to play hide and seek. That’s the fun of it and that’s the tragedy of it too. But there is art involved in that too. So the idea of playing with the concepts of open, source, and spirit is something that can really – I mean it really inspires me. I just feel like this gives a great model, a lot more scope.

J: Now if you’re looking at this video, and you’d like to contribute, please write. There’s a space right down here below the video somewhere for you to write your comments. Also there’s a spot there to email either Carol or I so that perhaps we can talk to you via the internet, via webcam, and perhaps make a little video interview like this.
Carol, in the bigger sense, what do you think we’re doing here? What’s your purpose for playing here in the world of Open Source Spirit and to help create it?

C: Actually, I don’t know what it is. I want to discover that. That’s why I’m doing this. I just had the concept and I thought I have to follow this through. I don’t know how far it goes, or really where it leads but I’m very willing to find out. I think there’s something really fascinating going on here, and I like the idea of being able to pull all these threads together, just to see how far we can go with it.

J: Great. Well, let’s call it a call here, Carol…

C: I have one more thing to say…

J: If you have a thousand more things to say… we have time.

C: The other thing to say is that everybody makes a difference. Every individual makes a difference. The real purpose of this is to create a basket or a capacity where everyone who is involved in a spiritual path, whether it’s acknowledged exteriorly or it’s an interior path that you only know yourself, everybody has an opportunity to express themselves within this. And this is a huge capacity, a great basket that will help us connect with one another in another way.

J: That’s a wonderful way to end.

Welcome to Open Source Spirit

What is Open Source Spirit?

Carol Sill and Jim Van Wyck have their first online conversation about Open Source Spirit. This project applies the ethos and methodology of open source to spirituality.

We are creating a place and a space for everyone who wishes to share and express their spiritual insights, experience, beliefs, practices, writings …..

Join us!

We’d love to have YOU share and express YOUR experience with us in conversation, on video.

“We’d love to talk with you and then take that conversation over to the web for more comments, and we hope by this that we can get a really open conversation going about some of the ideas that really matter.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

Spirit

The meaning of spirit in our lives.  “….if you can dare to actually bring this forward into everyday life, that’s it, I think that’s just exquisite. Without diminishing all the incredible power, magnificence, beauty and love that is unseen and can’t really be touched except by the unseen part of ourselves. But it’s still exquisite isn’t it, to just be able to know that there’s so much more than what we see.”

An early conversation between Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill

Link here for the text version of this video.

Explore a little more. Click something interesting to you!

First Video Conversation

In our first video conversation, Jim and I are exploring the very beginnings of the Open Source Spirit project.

“Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.”

Link here for a text version.