Issue 90 | Correspondence | The Sun Magazine

Correspondence

Recently, I picked up issue 86 of THE SUN. The first thing I read was your Christmas letter; this greatly impressed me as it was coming from a very deep space. Your magazine is a serious, insightful publication, and I greatly appreciate the sincerity of your committed staff.

I am a free lance writer, and would love to freely contribute to THE SUN. The so-called New Age is full of immature, petty, superficial games played by those who think self-realization is a thing of the marketplace. It angers me greatly to see so many deceived by gurus who are obviously out for their own selfish intentions.

Truth cannot come to one who desires a security which obviously does not exist. My deepest desire is to inspire others to discover for themselves the Beauty which lies dormant within their own souls. Any writer who is coming from Truth cannot possibly take credit for what they offer; they are merely “channeling” ideas from a deeper universal consciousness. Impersonal thought may be expressed individually, but it is always true, and thus incorrupt. As Emerson said, the soul easily recognizes ideas that come from this level of consciousness.

Your “Editor’s Note” correctly states the shallowness of much of the New Age movement. The fear comes from the avoidance of facing the fact that one is alone. It is only in Aloneness that one can possibly be connected to all life; individuality is truly a frightening thing because it means that one is totally responsible for all of one’s thoughts. What dies is not ego but superego; the accumulated programs from one’s parents, and society must go if one is to be truly free, and at peace with oneself.

Do not fear about the future of THE SUN; I have been told that it is going to shine for a long time.

Mike Hall North Hollywood, California

Thank you for John Rosenthal’s thoughts on photography [“Stealing Souls,” Issue 88]. His words moved me and brought to the surface of my own soul feelings that had been confusing and a clarity I had been searching for.

I recently returned from out of the country after a three-month journey during which I refused to pose or take pictures. Something inside said no, the price is too great! I find myself having to make explanations. “You have been to such exotic places,” friends say, “and you have no slides, no pictures. Why?” I think John Rosenthal understands.

Florence Kingsolver Cherry Grove, West Virginia

In the first SUN I read 6-7 months ago was a letter which referred to a trend towards emphasizing death, dying, and aging. At the time I let it pass because I felt that the actual trend in dealing with death, etc., sensitively and in a healing fashion was (and is) necessary, and appropriate, to balance and heal the tremendous death fear/aging fear prevalent in America. I still feel this is appropriate. However, in reading January’s issue including the reader’s section on getting older and the Editor’s Note I am inclined to comment.

Certainly life is a process of evolving. However, the nature of the evolving is dependent on the nature of the consciousness. Whether one accepts, becomes flexible to, adjusts, adapts and expands to take dominion over circumstance by aligning with natural law or whether one becomes increasingly and cumulatively more rigid to circumstance and antagonistic to natural law, one still evolves. Truly, for all experience becomes a part of consciousness and a feel for limits leads to a knowing of limitlessness. So the timing of your January issue and Death/Aging emphasis coming out in early winter and mid-Capricorn is apropos. However, in your Editor’s Note you attempt(?) to strike down the very balance to the acceptance of death/aging by severing the rays and ways of hope and truth, law, etc. — the active phase of acceptance which is alignment (purification) with natural law/truth. Certainly to emphasize limitation in the “finite” face of East Coast winter is understandable, but it is just as narrow and limiting as those who are getting rich emphasizing “physical immortality.”

Self-realization is a fine balance between acceptance of natural law and alignment with natural law — passive and active aspects of God-realization. Purity is the basis of natural law and we are all involved in the process of purification, voluntarily or otherwise.

There is no deception in the facts of eternal good health and perfect diet or eternal wisdom and the guidance of the masters. However there is a difference between perfect (as a state of sustained actuality) and the process of perfecting. (Perfection refers to both the process and the state of being).

There is a perfect diet and part of perceiving and practicing it is knowing the process of perfecting, refining and purifying oneself. Therefore, there may be and are many diets that are progressively more perfect-ing. In the same way there are perfect masters, in and out of the physical body and yet there are also many teachers along the way. The fact that the Perfect Diet and the Perfect Master do not proclaim themselves loudly and that the others are loudest with their claims is merely part of the process itself — refining, perfecting, purifying.

If one is focused on “milky complexions” and “shapely asses,” love = carnal pleasure, aging = laugh lines around the eyes, or any other “form” (being even political or religious theories, etc.), then one will necessarily “sour” and “sag” and become cynical. If, however, one focuses on the essence of form, the spark which is alive, the light of one’s being, then one may perceive and realize that what we call “getting older” can be (and is, consciously or not) a continual state of expanding beyond and yet entailing all sense of limits, of finiteness, of changing form.

I agree that nine tenths of what’s going on is deceptive and shallow, but we don’t learn to swim until we’ve learned to wade and we don’t learn to wade as well if Mom and Dad tell us it’s “wrong” or that we “can’t” do it or that there’s really no water at all.

Klaro Koepke Santa Cruz, California

I look forward to THE SUN arriving each month, and read it and savor it all month long until another comes and the first is put on the shelf or shared with friends. Thank you for putting together such a fine magazine and saying so eloquently what I have such a hard time expressing. The inner journey is sometimes hard to externalize in a meaningful way.

Ellita January Mt. Grove, Missouri

Across the miles and months THE SUN is ever close. I’ve thought a lot about what THE SUN represents to people who are awakening to a larger experience of living. I know in my own experience that “seeking” meets a dead end at the fact of absolute personal responsibility for my world and ultimately the world. There has to be a point of transcending the petty, self-centered state of “getting better” to just flat out recognition of a larger purpose for being here. As long as there is the consciousness of “getting better,” we avoid accepting the position of providing leadership in our worlds, in our circumstances, just as they are. The world is crying for real people, not only with heart, but with the guts to stand on their integrity and provide the control and clarity that’s required. The more penetrating the awareness of being totally responsible for providing a point of orientation, the more honestly, sensitively, and alertly one sees the world, and it has to extend beyond striving for one’s own personal comfort — emotional, mental or spiritual.

Green Pastures, the community where I’m living, has its focus in the fact of individuals taking responsibility for being the radiant expression in everyday living. There is increasingly a sense of family with anyone who shares the vision of the world transformed. It’s family that far transcends personal relations and is so natural.

Karen Stevenson Epping, New Hampshire
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