In a Humanistic Psychology class one day, we students were to write down a topic we wished to discuss when we broke up into groups. I put down "existence" as my choice. The professor returned my paper with the notation, "Too large a subject." I didn't say anything, but it irked me, and I thought, "That may very well be so, but what else is there?"
A few days later I was talking to a classmate from another class, and she was telling me about a problem she was having with her stepson. I could think of nothing that would help, so I finally said, "Well, at least it will give you a chance to work on your spiritual growth." She looked at me in exasperation and very slowly and methodically said, "But-I-am-not-in-ter-est-ed-in-my-spir-it-ual-growth!"
This was a revelation to me, because at the time, I was under the impression that EVERYONE was interested in their spiritual growth, circumstances permitting.
I have since come to believe that only one in a thousand adult Americans ARE interested in their spiritual growth. This being the case, I'm not going to bust my chops with a rehash of things that have already been better said elsewhere. What I am going to do instead is to write for that "one" and do what I wished someone had done for me when I first started on an inward path. I'm going to explain Karma, Maya, Illusion, Enlightenment, and a few other such things in common, everyday language so that they can be seen to be common, everyday events. The same type of events as can be found in grass and water transforming into eyes, hair, blood, hormones and hooves, a worm growing wings and a whole new body, and a microscopic cell becoming a human. For there is nothing that is supernatural, and there is nothing that is not magic, miraculous and impossible.
One of the first things that engaged my curiosity about the spiritual path was this talk about Holy men, Wise men, Masters, and Saints. I got the impression from my reading that they were in some manner different from the rest of us, but I couldn't imagine how. They were frequently described as "ordinary," but I couldn't believe THAT. This curiosity grew into an intense desire to see one of these creatures. But there weren't any where I lived.
I met a man who was going to Tibet to study in a monastery. I asked him if he had ever seen a holy man, and when he said he had, I asked him what they looked like. He said, "Like ordinary people". Well I KNEW that. But what KIND of ordinary people?
I once went to a lecture by Ram Das - not to hear what he had to say, since I had already read all of his books, but to see what he LOOKED like. I didn't consider him a holy man, but at least he had seen one, and in any case he was closer to being one than I had ever hoped to be - at least in this life.
I was surprised to find that he was the guy sitting with some friends in the front row whom I had already dismissed as being Ram Das because he looked and acted so ordinary. Ram Das himself speaks of Maharajji as looking and acting like nothing more than a silly old man.
Rajneesh once said, "If Jesus is special, YOU are special. If you are ordinary, Jesus is ordinary."
Jesus, in speaking on the same subject declared, "As I am, you are."
So if you are as interested as I was in discovering what a holy man looks like, I guess he looks ordinary, like they say, just like everybody else.
A master is simply someone who has mastered some art form. The art form could be bricklaying, painting, cooking, housekeeping, golf, or life. There are masters in all fields of creativity. I'm not a golfer, so to me Arnold Palmer is an ordinary guy that happens to play pretty good golf. To a devotee of golf, however, he is a special person commanding awe and respect. The devotee GIVES him the special "aura" - he wasn't born with it. So it is with us and our masters. They seem special to us only because they are experts in a field where our own interests lie. Call them role models if you will.
Masters of anything become masters because they have spent a lot of time and energy constructing their art forms. They spend this time and energy because of a driving interest, and since none of us can choose our interests, becoming a master seems to depend upon being in the right place at the right time more than it does upon anything else. A Master is an ordinary person lucky enough to have had the means and opportunity to indulge in a favorite pastime with enough years of experience to have perfected the craft somewhat.
A Saint is an ordinary person who has mastered the art of loving.
Wise persons are ordinary people who derive their wisdom from "seeing" rather than from believing. They KNOW rather than THINK.
Knowledge - book learning - comes to us primarily from the various schools we have attended and from books we have read and understood. Most of what we learn in school is useless to us, since we will never use the information except to further our education or to teach what we have learned. Otherwise, it is just stuff we keep in our memory banks to take out once in awhile to show to someone we wish to impress.
Wisdom comes from combining knowledge with experience related to that knowledge. A person may read hundreds of books about mountain climbing - becoming learned and well versed in the field, but if she never climbs, she will lack wisdom in this area.
Like masters, wise people are found in all areas of human endeavor. The wise see the Truth, whether it is a putting stance or the relationship between love and service, because of experience and the fact that they knew what they were experiencing when they had the experience.
When I first came across this idea that the world we call real is actually an illusion, I didn't think too much about it. I figured that it was called an illusion not because it WAS, but because it meant something like "Don't trust what you see". After all, a tree can't be an illusion, can it?
As time went on, I came to see that illusion was EXACTLY what was meant, that this "real" world was a figment of my imagination, but that I couldn't see it as such. I still didn't give it too much thought, however, believing that I would have to go to India or some such place and hunt up a master who could explain it a little better or maybe even "zap" me and I could see it without my having to do anything. Since I had no expectations of ever going to India or anyplace else, I shoved it aside to deal with later.
As more time passed, though, I began to be obsessed with this illusion thing. I believed that what I called "real" was not - I KNEW that I was surrounded - immersed in illusion, But WHERE in hell was it?!! I knew that an important concept was eluding my grasp, but there didn't seem to be any place to grab a handhold.
Now that I can see the illusion, I can also see why it is so difficult to "see," and why the practitioners of this art find it so difficult to explain, and why they insisted that one must have a living human to transmit this knowledge. Illusion is totally a creation of the mind - of beliefs - of words - of symbols. Any words used to explain illusion are themselves illusions. We are faced, therefore, with the conundrum of trying to use one illusion to dispel another. It just cannot be done. A living human is required because he can say, "Look over there"..."No, not there, here"..."Now there"..."Now here".... No book can do this.
This world, the one containing this magazine and the words you are reading, is a dream, just like the ones you have while sleeping in your bed at night. The only difference is that one is a dream containing physical laws, while the other isn't. Imagine yourself waking up in a dream so that you realize that you are dreaming. Imagine that THIS is a dream you are having. Now. Where would you go to look for your sleeping body? Your house? Your family?
A dream is all dream. It's all one can see. There is nothing in the dream that can facilitate the understanding of that dream. THIS dream, THIS physical world, is all dream. It is not REAL. America is not a physical object; neither are thoughts. They are concepts. Sickness and health are not physical objects, and neither is a tree, God, or me. They are all concepts. They are all dreamstuff.
All words, all names, all concepts, beliefs, and opinions - anything that can be measured in any way - all facts, all proofs - any question that can be answered yes or no - all of these are illusion - hypnotism - hallucination - imagination.
Reality, however, is a little different. There are no facts in Reality which can be proved. Yes or no questions are answered yes AND no. The question "Why?" is never answered. There are no gray areas. Everything either is or it isn't. In the physical world, in order to get, one has to take. In the Real world, in order to get, one has to give. In the physical world, I exist, but in the Real world "I" do not.
Absolute Reality exists. What IS, is. Whatever it is, that's what it is. If God exists, then He does. If He doesn't, then He doesn't. If "what is" changes, then it does. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. Absolute Reality is always simple and it's always obvious and it doesn't care a hoot about anyone's opinion or what they think or what they believe. Absolute Reality always has its answers ready, even before you ask the question. The intellect is not involved in receiving the answers, and neither is memory or emotion. The answers are just THERE.
Arguments are symbols of the illusory world. If one lives in the Real world, there never is anything to argue about. If I say something is true and you say it is false, it still stays what it is - either true or false or neither. Is President Clinton a good president? He either is or he isn't, and he'll remain so regardless of what we or anyone thinks of it.
Very few of us are aware of what it is that we are thinking at any one moment, but if you ask anyone if they are aware of their thoughts, invariably they will say that they are, and some will even say that they don't have any thoughts - that their minds are blank. People believe that they watch their thoughts and to them, that's the same thing as actually doing it. Absolute Reality says that they don't watch their thoughts, but illusion says either that they do, or that they don't have any to watch.
Any experience that you have is real. The understanding of that experience, what you think it means, is not. The experience is just what it is. The understanding of it is constructed of symbols held by thoughts and beliefs.
It always strikes me in a perverse way that since practically everyone believes that things that are imaginary are real, and the things that are real are believed to be imaginary, practically everyone is, by definition, crazy.
And isn't it strange that we feel so bad when we have been disillusioned? Here we've found an illusion, been freed from its effects, one step closer to Truth, and we feel bad. We must really love our illusions.
Enlightenment is a big deal, right? Well, yes and no. We get enlightened many times in our lifetime. Every time we realize some truth, we get enlightened. "Aha!" we say. When we realize a mathematical truth, we get enlightened on the mental plane. If we realize we don't exist as only physical beings, we get enlightened on the spiritual plane. That's all there is to enlightenment. It's a common thing that people do.
What spiritually-minded people mean by Enlightenment is simply the realization that "I" do not exist, that "I" am a creation of "my" mind - that that which exists when there is no thought of "I" is God. That "person" knows this because "he" has "seen" that this is so. It's just the same old "Aha!" with a little extra boost.
If you wade in the water with your trousers on, they will get wet. That's karma.
If you are a thief, honest people will avoid you, leaving you with thieves for friends, and they will steal from you. That's karma.
If you harbor ill feelings toward others, they will see this and respond in kind. That's karma.
As simple as that. No hocus pocus or mumble jumble.
Chakras are pockets of focused energy in the body. One feels fear in the pit of the stomach, love and suffering in the chest area, sexual arousal in the groin area, enlightenment in the head, and so forth. Each of these chakras can be made more sensitive or more powerful by focusing the mind upon them. The increased energy, or the sensitivity of the chakra, has a direct effect upon emotions and thoughts. The heart should always lead the head, which simply means that just because one has the knowledge or the ability to do some action does not mean that it should be done.
Ego is what we think ourselves to be, and what we think others think we are. It's what makes people different. It's what makes character. It's our personality. It's us. It is what we mean when we say "I." Ego is the tool we use to operate in the physical world. The trick is to create an ego that is satisfying and enjoyable - like a work of art - an ego that is created consciously instead of catch-as-catch-can.
Eastern religions talk much about the necessity for overcoming ego, and to most Path followers, it is what is most on their minds. There is general understanding that "I" must fight my ego and get it to recede into the background somehow so that it does not interfere with my spiritual advancement. But this is a misunderstanding. There is no difference between me and ego. "I" AM ego. I cannot overcome it. It must be overcome.
The "goal" is to no longer have thought of myself. This is the fight, if there is to be one. I must do things that are against my nature, for in this manner is ego no longer in charge of my life. If I am to have humility, I must humiliate myself. If I am to no longer have thought of myself, I must have something else to think about. I must practice the discipline of having no pleasant or positive thought about my progress, and I must have no unpleasant or negative thought about my lack of progress. At the same time I must feel gratitude for what God brings before me and gratitude for prayers answered.
To do these things without a teacher, or Guru as we call them, is to ask for mistakes to be made. Toil and trouble all down the line. Since gurus are out of the question for most of us, our only salvation is to keep our motives as purely on the Path and as far from ourselves as we can. We must be honest about our motives. We must act only for the purpose of serving God or others, keeping in mind that this is also a selfish act and serves ego. Honesty. Truthfulness. Integrity. Purpose. God or others. God and others. Nothing for me, thank you.
FATHER * SON * HOLY GHOST = GOD * EGO * THAT which lives me, has my thoughts and emotions, and moves my body.
The Holy Ghost is sometimes known as the "Watcher," or the "Experiencer," or the "Christ Self." It's why I can raise my arm simply by willing it, without having the slightest idea how I do this. It's why I can see, feel, hear, smell and taste.
Mind has innumerable separate functions. We have a memory for instance, which operates totally different from logic. When the two are joined together we get a third mind - intellect, which is able to put two and two together, something which neither memory nor logic can do alone.
We also have an imagining mind, a dreaming mind, a creative mind, a conscious mind, an unconscious mind, an emotional mind, a body mind, sensory minds, and the mind created from combining all these minds, which enables carrots to be turned into teeth and skin and hair, regulates temperature, and allows us to be mobile. And don't forget beginner's mind: that consciously created mind which allows us to see things as if for the first time even though we have grown up with them.
Mind is what creates illusion. The logic mind proves what the imagining mind creates from the emotional mind's feelings based upon the memory mind's collection of facts, using the sensory mind's perceptions. Mind is Maya, or as some would think, the creater of Maya.
All minds are in all people. All people use all minds in widely varying degrees.
What subject do you suppose most people find too upsetting to discuss? That's right, it's......
Here we are - all of us are going to die. The ONLY thing guaranteed to us in this life - and nobody wants to talk about it. Which means they don't want to think about it. Which means they DON'T think about it. I find that strange.
Old people tend to talk about death - not a lot, but more than younger people do. I know my grandmother did. Maybe that's why I like to talk about it - because I'm old. When I talk about death, most people get kind of nervous, and I have to stop. One friend once told me to stop because I was making him nauseous.
I'm not scared of death. I'm scared of dying, but I'm not scared of death. Big difference. Which are you scared of? Why?
What I originally thought was a fear of death turned out to be a fear of dying when I looked at it, and my fear of dying turned out to be that I was afraid that I would be afraid while dying. My fear of dying led me to read all I could on the topic, and I used to ask new acquaintances if they had ever almost died (as I had), and if they said yes, then I would ask them what it was like.
None of them, nor I, had felt any fear or pain. The fear sat in later when we had time to think about it. For me, the most uncomfortable thing about it was that it was like a nightmare. I spent most of my time trying to wake up in my bed. I was convinced I was dreaming. I just couldn't believe I was drowning.
I talked to a guy once who had gotten caught in an undertow, and seemingly - from outside his body, slightly above and behind - he KNEW his body was going to take a breath and he would die. His head broke the surface just as his body took the breath. I asked him if anything was beautiful, this being reported by all of the near-victims in the books I had read.
He said, "There wasn't anything to see. Everything was black - all I could see was black."
I asked him again if ANYTHING was beautiful, thinking of the occasional report of beautiful music or beautiful peacefulness. He started to shake his head "no" again, but then he stopped and got a thoughtful look on his face - as if he were remembering the event, and then a look of wonderment as he announced, "Yeah - there WAS something beautiful! The black! It was beautiful!"
A person being mauled by a lion, someone falling from rock to rock down a mountain, a person flying through the air after being tossed from a smashed automobile - each viewing the incident dispassionately amidst beautiful lights and colors, a peaceful silence as if sound had stopped, in slow, slow motion.
Beauty. Peace. Entertainment. Dying sounds like it might be more enjoyable than we've been led to believe. It might just be the high point of our whole life, who knows? I think what most people fear about dying is fear of the unknown, and what they fear about death is that they think they will lose their identity - that they'll disappear. How could anything lose what it is? Nonsense!
Everybody reading this has already reincarnated many times just in this incarnation. At one time you lived in a three-year-old body and now you live in this one. It's something everybody does every day. It's no big deal.
We do not even stay in the body we happen to occupy at the moment. When we are in a dream, we are in a body, but it is not the one that you are using to read this. It is intriguing to me to realize that while I know of a dream self, it knows nothing about me. As above, so below - does this mean that there is a me that knows of my existence while I know nothing of its?
Since we reincarnate from body to body constantly, why then does it seem so unreasonable to assume that we cannot do it after we die? Because we are believers of a superstitious, scientific, technological authority that tells us we cannot; that's why. Science is extremely useful for explaining physical phenomenon but absolutely worthless for anything non-physical. Physical explanations for events not physical should never be attempted, but unfortunately, it often is.
Most, but not all, Path followers have heard of the Long Night of the Soul. Those who have heard of it know it to be a long period of intense suffering. It is something everyone who is sincerely on the Path must go through because it is a natural event caused from the unfolding of a conscience.
Children skin their knees and suffer physical pain because they are learning to use their new physical body. Teenagers suffer emotional pain because they are learning to use their new emotional body. Mature people suffer mental pain because they are learning to use their new mental body.
It is commonly thought that babies grow until they reach adulthood and then the growth stops, but this is not true. Just as there is the definite predictable stages of a two-year-old, a five-year-old, and a twelve-year-old, there are also definite predictable stages of growth at thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, etc. years of age. We never stop growing; we never stop becoming - except in fixated areas where growth stops because something happened that interfered with the completion of that stage.
The Long Night of the Soul is merely another growth stage. It signifies that a person's conscience is expanding to include the rest of humanity. Persons at this stage suffers extreme pangs of remorse and regret because they are now able to see the harm they caused other beings through a preoccupation with their own needs, wishes and desires. It is the Karmic result of past misdeeds.
In order to avoid harmful recriminations, it is important to realize that the suffering, although it seems otherwise, is NOT due to the remembered event at all. It is instead a symptom of the further opening of the heart chakra. If you happen to be going through this stage at this time, you can see that this is true because of the fact that the remembrance of a harm done did not bother you before, but now it does.
The remorse comes in frequent bursts as past harms are brought to consciousness in this new light, leading to similar remembrances. The thing snowballs until you, the sufferer, are brought to the brink of despair. As if to add insult to injury, more remorse is added as you see that you are STILL harming others by putting YOUR wishes ahead of theirs.
AND, as if that weren't enough, you find yourself completely alone. There is no place to seek solace. Nobody cares; nobody loves; nobody understands. You are in a horrible state of mind, and you have to face it alone. It's a wonder ANYONE survives. Intense remorse is the furnace which burns away the dross, revealing the gold.
A developing conscience sees the harm done, and it causes suffering. Big deal. The only alternative is to never develop a useful conscience - and you wouldn't want that, would you? Besides, the Long Night of the Soul eventually passes - one way or another.
(Copyright 1998 by Bodhimalik - No reproduction without express permission from the author)