Author: Gary Hobbins

I was born in Wisconsin to a Roman Catholic family. My mother June was a talented writer and started her own service club. My father Joe was a Right-of-Way agent for Bell telephone. Joe was an avid golfer and overall sports enthusiast. Joe would play sports with me and I became a life-long athlete. I was known as a rebel and was expelled from the Catholic school I attended at the age of fourteen. I was arrested at nineteen for being a thief and was placed on probation. Around this time, not being happy, I turned inward. I worked at different jobs that did not satisfy my budding inner life. I traveled down south several times reading books trying to find myself. In 1980, at the age of twenty-seven, I enrolled at a local college. I was now in an interesting environment. I was curious about almost everything and I eventually majored in speech and psychology or speaking and thinking. Many people told me that I was funny. I was able to make them laugh about unusual subjects. In the summers of 1981 and 1982, while still a college student, I traveled to Minneapolis and pursued the art of stand-up comedy. During these summers I would write comedy, run twenty-five miles a week and perform comedy at night. I was also a juggler but did not juggle in my stand-up act. I took up Hatha yoga and studied nutrition. In Minneapolis, I interacted with the local up-and-coming comedians. Minneapolis at that time had a small close-knit comedy culture that produced a good number of comedians and some became quite famous. I was making audiences laugh shortly after I started. During this time I was also performing comedy in other cities. I planned on being a professional comedian. Catholicism conditioned me to have a clear inner voice. I had to make people laugh and the only way I could see to do it was to be brutally honest with myself. I thought honesty would align me with common reality. The Sisters of St. Agnes, who taught me, always told me to tell the truth. So I was continually examining myself and weeding out delusional thinking. This became my way of life. One day in 1983, I was alone at my parents house and all of a sudden I had a massive spontaneous kundalini awakening. The awakening of this spiritual energy made me realize my self. I achieved the ability, among others, to see through other peoples egos or read their hearts. I was forever changed. In 1983 there was no internet or otherwise easily accessible information for me to be able to find out what had happened to me. Because of the massive explosion of energy my nervous and digestive system had to rebuild. Due to what happened to me, I changed my plans and soon moved in with my best friend and her son. We lived together for many years. I hid out in college going on and off for thirteen years. I read one book after another to understand what happened to me. I eventually received an M.A. in Speech/Rhetoric and also amassed many extra college credits. Currently I am an investor and forever a student. I am repentant of the trouble I got into years ago and the embarrassment it brought to my parents. People that knew me when I was a kid remark that I sure changed my ways. I went through what I call psycho/spiritual/physical alchemy or I transformed myself by healing the past and living in the ongoing present.

My Story

I was sitting up in my crib sipping beer from the teaspoon. I couldn’t walk yet. My dad was giving me the beer. Dad was alone with me and was drinking beer and decided to give me some. My dad confessed this to me in the last few years of his life. I said, “Gee dad it sounds like you were hard up for drinking buddies!” Our female beagle dog, Chips, was also given beer and would stagger around the dead-end street that we lived on.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book.

Awakening to our Collective Self literally tunes you into the heartbeat of your sisters and brothers.

This is because you actually see and know what is going on with others. You become an insider of humanity. Self-Realization tunes you into the heartbeat of the earth and the entire cosmos. The totality of Self-Realization is a loving realization of Creation. This has been called Cosmic Consciousness. As you awaken to our Universal Self which is the formless conscious aspect of our Universal Spirit you will experience renewed youthfulness while you glorify others with your life.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book.

WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF YOU FIND ALL OTHER-SELVES

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. NIV Philippians 4:6-7

The first time that I really talked to God as I understood God I asked God for strength. This was a heartfelt prayer of petition. This was a deep surrender to God, the Universe, or whatever people want to call Creation. I did not realize at the time that my surrender was so honest, sincere, pleading, and deep that it was centering me in myself. I reached the cornerstone or foundation of myself. I was confirmed. I came to realize this fact. When I reached the center of myself I reached the center of all selves. During my period of confirmation, I underwent a vision that graced me with the ability to see into and through the egos of others. I see the struggles of others. The sight of our collective psychology was given to me. So as I was confirmed in myself I was simultaneously confirmed in humanity. My interpersonal awareness became clarified. My interpersonal awareness became intensified. The illusion of me being separate from others was gone. I came home. I came back to the presence of my birth. I became much more contented and peaceful in myself and with others. I realized that we all are the same inside. A person undergoes a great relief when you see what is going on with everyone.

God Answered My Prayer

This was the strength I petitioned God to give me. The state of awareness I am communicating about is the state that Paul was communicating about in Philippians. This state completes or serves as a missing piece of the pie for achieving the overall peace of God which transcends all understanding. Paul struggles with the limits of language to get us to realize this intuition. We transcend or pass reasoning and logic of the intellect (limits of language) in the struggle of grasping the intuitive realization that Paul is nudging us toward, that is, the Spirit of Christ or Krishna or Great Spirit or Allah of us all and it is our psychology beyond ego. We are individuals (souls) at different levels of this awareness. We battle the flesh to get to the center of us. It is said that the Supreme Soul is the soul of our souls.

I was on a vision quest and did not realize it. I am affiliated with Native American culture. A fact of life for Native Americans is that when a person receives a vision the vision is to be shared for the good of the tribe. This is what I struggle with to get our tribe of humanity to realize. It took me many years to fully understand what happened to me. This is what I am called to express. For over twenty years I have been answering my call. It is said that an avatar can read thoughts. Well, I am far from an avatar but I do realize that an avatar certainly would at the very least see the psychology of humanity as I do. I constantly fight to better myself. I learn from the insights of others. Appropriate for Easter, what I am trying to get across is the Resurrection of the Christ within you.

Black Elks Prayer

Black Elk’s Visions Are Being Understood

The first peace which is the most important is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka (The Great Spirit), and this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.

The second peace is that which is made between two individuals. The third is that which is made between two nations.

But above all, you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which as I have often said, is within the souls of men. Black Elk

“When I’m not praying I’m really a disgusting person” – quote by Mike in a prayer circle

The True Self Emerges

Believe it or not, this is the type of Self-Awareness that leads to what Thomas Keating, an architect of contemporary Centering Prayer, called the Gift of Contemplation. The Gift of Contemplation Centers in the Divine. We realize how Divine communication works when we are in silence and we are able to take this understanding with us in everyday life.

A few years ago I spent a weekend at a Christian compound in the Wisconsin north woods where surrenderers of all ages were absorbing what was described as a Green Beret type of advanced spiritual training. An effective prayer circle was in use. Prayer Circles are also used in other spiritual retreats and organizations like A.A. An alchemy dissolves the false-self part of the ego. The individuals (souls) in the group, who are at different levels of awakening to the Divine inside and outside of themselves, merge in a union as one soul or spirit that tells the truth and is as honest with itself as it can be. The Universal Mind or Consciousness or Self emerges. This is Group Contemplation or Meditation however you define it. Remember WORDS ARE TRAPS.

Participants who are guided this way by highly Self-Realized instructors who also participate leave the Circle with an understanding of what a truthful inner life is all about. Mike, in the quote above, was reflecting on his brain chatter. Mike was working on purifying his mind-heart connection as we all are. I have known zealous spiritual seekers who have closed themselves off in silence shut-up in small closets to listen to Divine messages that come after the ego is surrendered. Talk Fasts where a person does not speak for a long period of time are also effective for tuning a person into their brain chatter and releasing or raising the Divine inside. A person can communicate with notes while in a Talk Fast. Whatever methods we use to realize our individual and collective human nature the goal is to be ever mindful of the True Self behind the small or false part of our egos or personalities. With perseverence, the True Self will eventually subsume or alchemize the small/false-self part of the ego or personality and become the ego or personality. The Gift of Contemplation is what Centers us in ourselves. The Gift of Contemplation is the same as Self-Realization.

The Idealized Image of a person or group is the blockade that suppresses the full Resurrection of The Christ Within Us.

It is my hope that we finally truly realize (Self-Realization or Enlightenment) that what is referred to in the field of Psychology as the Idealized Image is the false self. The Idealized Image of you or of the group you identify with has to be known about, focused on, and cleared away in order for us to realize our shared True Self or what is called by Christianity the Christ within us or the Image and Likeness of God. Hinduism refers to the shared True Self as Atman or the Universal Self. The genie needs to be let out of the lamp. This is the part of the ego that holds conditioning, falsehoods, and lies we tell. Psychology means the study of the soul (psyche). Two books helped me clear away my Idealized Image or false self and made me be real (Self-Realization) and see and know “what is.” Seeing and knowing “what is” possesses the psychological ability to detect the Idealized Image of persons or groups. The abilities to see and know “what is” are part of the condition of Cardionosis or reading hearts. Remember, the same Self (psyche) is in our different bodies. These two timeless and classic books are by Karen Horney, M.D. Karen Horney was a neo-Freudian psychologist known for her theory of neurotic needs, her research on feminine psychology, and her critiques of Freud’s emphasis on the concept of penis envy. The two books are The Neurotic Personality Of Our Time, 1937, and OUR INNER CONFLICTS A Constructive Theory of Neurosis, 1945,.

Happy Easter!

DEVOTION IS A PATH TO GOD

In the video below Sadhguru who founded Isha Foundation mentions the path of Devotion as a means to realizing God. Isha means “the formless divine”. Yoga calls the path of Devotion Bhakti and this path compares to the virtue of Charity in Christianity.

The goal of all religions, traditions, or humanity is and always has been the realization of the Self. The same Self or Spirit of all that is the same in all of us. We sense our same Spirit when we are in groups. What we sense in groups is Universal Consciousness. The more we submit or surrender to this same True Self of all which is the goodness inside us the more we come to realize the Universal Mind or Universal Consciousness that we are and share. We are Spirit. We come to understand the internal division between ego/personality and True Self and we become One inside when these “two” merge or create Union. After Union, there is no division or no duality inside you. This has been called God-Realization or Self-Realization. Paramahansa Yogananda founded Self-Realization Fellowship for this reason as did Sadhguru with Isha. Deepak Chopra is a prophet. All religions and traditions have their methods for realizing the collective Self.

Bhakti yoga and Christian Charity are loving devotional services to God or humanity. Whatever we do we do it for God or the Great Spirit as we understand Spirit. We can understand a “form” of God or the Great Spirit as “formless” or both. Universal Consciousness is formless. We run our lives in a Spirit of Truth with Honesty and Devotion to everyone and everything. It is said we are closest to God when we are doing something we love. I found our Great Spirit from whole loving devotion to stand-up comedy. I wanted to make people laugh. The ongoing activities of Bhakti and Charity slowly transform us into seeing (spiritual eye of intuition) and psychologically knowing each other. We come to know that we are everything.