from 2008 ~ archived Feb. 2008
More Bodhisattva Notes
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from Transition Notes, January 2008:
You see, there was a troubling aspect to being in the world: although God is accessible to the few who learn the yoga of surrender, God is also obscured by the mechanics of the left-brain by which the Western world has constructed itself. And, as a man of the West, I have carried that construct and all its (mistaken) assumptions in myself. So what happened was that I discovered I had a built-in disposition to investigate the "unconscious" of the left-brain side of myself, to see how it was put together, and to learn how to penetrate it with the power that was my natural gift -- the right-brain spiritual intuition. I thought this might take a few years at best. It turned out to take decades. And it is still ongoing.
I received a couple emails asking for more info about what I said about the mechanics of the "bodhisattva" path. So here goes...
First of all, keep in mind that most of us are embedded in the "world" in ways of which we are barely conscious. That is, we are aware of the mental forces at play in the world in so far as they move us and shake us and enslave our attention -- i.e., passively. And we are active in penetrating and manipulating those forces only to a degree -- via our "specialization" as it were. Most of the time we are swept up in the drama of life, and tending to act and emote without much reflection, according to our "role" as established with the ego.
As an example, consider the average job-holder: the person who "goes to work" every weekday, and submits to the demand to function in return for a "paycheck". This person agrees to the terms of "employment", and willingly (sometimes begrudgingly, or with a feeling something is not quite right), day after day, year after year...until they are spit out at the end of the line at "retirement". If the "employment contract" is violated by an "employee" who suddenly starts seeing and acting outside the agreed parameters, he or she can be "fired". Or sometimes he or she will rise to "management"...or switch jobs, or better yet start their own business.
Please note that in the basic social agreement to which we are all party, very few possibilities are known of, or explored. One way out is to become a "celebrity" based on talent or looks or politics, etc. So it is that the "movie star" and "rock star" are seen as having self-liberated from the "system". Same goes for the acclaimed (and well-paid) artist or craftsperson.
Independence, in the great necessity of making a living, is seen at once as the most desirable (and most difficult to attain) state of life.
(Independence for spiritual people is usually a non-paying proposition. That's why monasteries were created. That's why in India (and other places where the weather allows it), spiritual people often just "leave the set" and embrace the begging life, or live on nettles and roots in the wilderness.)
In any case, here in the West we pretty much are confined to making money to survive, in whatever way we can. To make it easy on ourselves, as job-holders we tend to embrace our role, make it our own, and even get very good at what we do, to the point where our identity is consumed by our "job". So, by the time he or she is sixty, a successful "car salesman" or "carpenter" or "stockbroker" or "chef" etc etc etc is accomplished at what they do -- a "master of the art", so to speak.
At that point, becoming leading players in our corner of life's drama, we have a certain amount of freedom and power that was not available to us when we were young. We are respected, financially secure, and may rightfully say we have "played the game and won". Indeed. Then it is off to Florida or Arizona for a few years of golf until we croak.
As you might notice, not a whole lot of preparation for dying and death goes on in this long life-drama of earning and succeeding. Almost none, in fact.
That's why people who sense their spiritual need feel especially uncomfortable in making the commitment to "the social contract". It just doesn't include the major part of being. In fact, it slices the divine off entirely, or forces us to sublimate the Spirit into our work (if we can).
OK, that's a quick overview of "the problem of the world", and it doesn't include the millions of people who, after thousands of years of "civilization" are still scraping the barest kind of living from the soil. But it's the world as we find it in the urban centers and all the small towns of America and Europe. It's the world I was born into, and if you are reading this, it is probably the world you were born into as well. (Unless they have internet cafes in Bangladesh.)
Now, as I described in an earlier post, I found a way out of "the world" as a young man -- and it involved simply leaving, via yogic ascent, and merging with our God or our "eternal Self". I also found that while I knew "the secret door out of the haunted house", it left everything in the house untouched and unresolved. And I felt an impulse not to leave, but to stay and see if the "complexes" that rule this place could be made to give up their "dominion" in some way.
There was, it seemed for awhile, not much risk in taking this path, since I could always run to the secret door and use my "key". Later I learned that there was lots of risk -- the risk of forgetting the door, the risk of getting lost in the maze of hallways and rooms, the risk of falling prey to something intent on viewing me as an enemy. Indeed, I found that I represented a certain amount of threat to "the gods" or archetypes that dominate whole areas of the mind, simply by coming into their realms not as a supplicant but as an "investigator".
I didn't return to the world to join the ranks of passive "employees" or work-slaves. I returned to the world with the knowledge that in fact the world is a paper tiger -- it doesn't really exist, not in the face of Reality and/or impermanence.
Oh, but it hurts. It makes you suffer. It puts the screws to you, tries to fog your mind and confuse you, tries to make you afraid, and pushes you constantly into "signing a contract" that will "capitulate your soul" -- i.e. make you lose your hidden knowledge of Buddha-nature and the Reality of God.
There are a million voices to this mad world-mind. A million authorities, a billion followers, and an endless stream of propaganda for self-doubt and surrender to fear. Talk about cults!
So, when I speak of the "bodhisattva path", I don't speak lightly, as if you can just decide to take it up and then go for broke. You must have an authentic insight into the nature of the Self before you can undertake the penetration of the false-mind that "rules" this world. You must have "the philosopher's stone" (so to speak) before you can turn lead into gold. And you must have fully accepted and surrendered to the fact of your own impermanence.
Insight can begin with dreams and visions -- in fact it must begin with spiritual experience. You cannot get to true insight purely from an intellectual or abstractional perspective. Dreams and visions are the ancient language of the sages, and that language still lives in us. That language is a vital alternative to the illusions of maya and the world-as-experience. (It is also the language that breaks down the illusions of the egoic psyche.)
I've often been astonished by how ready so-called "pundits" are to discredit visions and mystical experience. They often claim to have gone "directly to the non-dual", bypassing the "lower stages" of visioning and samadhis. Yeah, right. If they had, they wouldn't be so quick to dismiss these "lower stages". In fact, they would know and acknowledge that all spiritual visioning and experience are aspects of the education of the immortal essence of man...not a separate "dualism" that can be willfully discarded.
In other words, just as you can be taught by reading a book, you can be taught by a vision or a dream. And these lessons can be far more profound than any written word.
But more to the point, dreams and visions are evidence of a kind of "alternate world" that is far more interesting and engaging than this poor money-driven hole-in-the-wall. You could say they are another "theater", not so role-possessed as this one. The less ego you have (and the less grasping you are), the more this alternate theater gives up its wonders to you. And the more insight it gives you into the ersatz nature of the comedy of "the world".
So...please note I don't intend to argue against Advaita or against Buddha. I just wish to point out that it is a grave mistake to think you can go directly to "perfect enlightenment" without knowing more about the psycho-physics of your own nature. And, as it became clear to me, "perfect enlightenment" is right there, always, in the heart of every magical and dream-like realm, like the dark pupil at the center of the iris of the eye.
(to be continued)
Elias
follow-up questions...
Well, somebody will inevitably ask "isn't the world a sacred place?" (Aren't samsara and nirvana one?) Can't work be viewed as the embodiment of the spirit, or at least the necessary working out of karma? Why are you so anti-world all of a sudden? Has your brother-in-law's death got the better of you?
My only answer is that yes the world is a sacred place when people who have accepted and transcended death get together in love. Otherwise it is crap and a bunch of small-minded "characters" struggling for position and symbolic attainments.
"Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won..."
As for working out your karma, sure that's one way to make yourself feel good about the difficulties you encounter day by day. But wouldn't you rather punch through to the Void and start from there? Why make a consoling narrative about "karma" in the midst of a movie set that is about to be struck by lightning?
The world is sacred. But not in the place and time where you and/or I are busy desecrating it and making it into a theater of the absurd...
more tomorrow, after the Patriots game.
Elias
The Dry Non-Dualists...
Insight can begin with dreams and visions -- in fact it must begin with spiritual experience. You cannot get to true insight purely from an intellectual or abstractional perspective. Dreams and visions are the ancient language of the sages, and that language still lives in us. That language is a vital alternative to the illusions of maya and the world-as-experience. (It is also the language that breaks down the illusions of the egoic psyche.) I've often been astonished by how ready so-called "pundits" are to discredit visions and mystical experience. They often claim to have gone "directly to the non-dual", bypassing the "lower stages" of visioning and samadhis. Yeah, right. If they had, they wouldn't be so quick to dismiss these "lower stages". In fact, they would know and acknowledge that all spiritual visioning and experience are aspects of the education of the immortal essence of man...not a separate "dualism" that can be willfully discarded. In other words, just as you can be taught by reading a book, you can be taught by a vision or a dream. And these lessons can be far more profound than any written word.
As regards dealing with the world, I need to say something about the relationship of subtle awareness (including dreams and visions) and the mental constructs we call "the world".
I know I posted about this before, but I don't have that post handy right now. The basic thesis is this: everything that constitutes the world has an underlying layer of subtle forms, emotions, intentions, and imaginings.
For example, if you could look "behind the scenes" into the subtle layers of any large corporation, you might find the most astonishing power fantasies at work, a kind of "dream theater", with the CEO and his right-hand men playing the role of dictators and military generals, or some other fascist political fantasy. Even in a relatively benign corporation, there will be archetypal structure in the subtle mind. For instance, I once dreamt that when you signed on with Lucasfilm you were ushered inside a giant pyramid, with George functioning as a kind of pharoah figure.
Now, one should know that such images aren't definitive, but merely suggestive and metaphorical. In the language of dreaming, they are the "objective correlative" (to use Eliot's term) of the emotional and mental balance or imbalance that has become the persistent unconscious state of the corporation. (They also include the unconscious component in the dreamer, and need to be "interpreted" with the whole gestalt -- dreamer and dream-object -- in mind. Much more about that later...)
An objective correlative is a literary term referring to a symbolic article used to provide explicit, rather than implicit, access to such traditionally inexplicable concepts as emotion or color. ~ (Wikipedia)
One of the errors that bad psychics make is to take such dream language as literal and "non-malleable form". It is not. And knowing it is not is a key to waking up the subtle consciousness in ourselves.
Which brings me to my next point: There are "advaitists", "spiritual philosophers", "dharma masters", "metaphysicians", and "self-realized" talkers found in abundance these days who have not even begun to understand the importance of subtle awareness.
They think that talking a good game is the whole enchilada. And to prove it, they tend to rationalize their unawareness by claiming that dreaming, visions, mystical experience and subtle meditational awareness are baseless illusion. They even go so far as to call the yoga of dreaming "delusional" because (according to them), it is far removed from the empyrean "non-dual realization" which they claim to enjoy.
As my sainted mother would say, "bullshit". ;-)
Bullshit by any other name is still bullshit. In the case of the phoney "nondualists" the dissing of subtle consciousness is simply part of a sales talk, and a rather dangerous one if you buy what they are saying.
Please note that these same clowns -- these "dry" philosophers -- are quite proud of their sexuality. In fact, they are usually obsessed with exploring that side of themselves, going so far as to describe themselves as "tantric masters" and so forth.
Why, I have to ask, is the sexual enjoyment worth developing, exploring, and "mastering", while the subtle enjoyment of mystical experience is not?
Well, the answer is obvious: the dry nondualist likes to brag about his penis but doesn't want you to know he is still given to nightmares!
(Frank Jones was a case in point, in that regard. Even as late as the 1990s he let on that he was being "attacked by demons" at night. He and his cult rationalized this in every way except acknowledging he was simply meeting the shadow side of his own psyche.)
If you are still given to nightmares, be honest and objective about it. Nightmares are the sign of your undeveloped subtle awareness -- your lack of knowledge and facility in that area of your totality. You may be a genius with mental abstractions and reasoning, you may be sexual adept in bed, but without subtle awakening you are a spiritual and emotional cripple. (And, may I add, without subtle awakening you won't be that good in bed! Your sexuality will tend to be dominated by the unconscious parts of your subtle body -- even your worst "complexes".)
Anyway, that's it for now...more stuff later.
Elias
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