Silent Musings

I read a comment somewhere recently that got me to thinking about the comparative process of the human mind. Does the mind do anything else other than compare? If it does, I wouldn’t know.

For several years throughout this spiritual journey we call life, I harbored significant amounts of concern over the quality of my state of being. Was I taking the right steps toward enlightenment? Was my consciousness “high” on the human scale. Would I make a notable difference to others? Today, such concerns just seem so ridiculous. The only thing that is obviously clear is that “I” am made of the same dirt as everyone and everything else. Ashes to ashes.

Paradoxically it seems, unless we are blessed with the grace to be born and raised without such discriminating concerns, we must all go through various forms of self assessment and notions of improvement. I can’t think of a single culture that doesn’t have this motivation as a core principle. And yet, where does it all lead?

A wise man I know once said that in a million billion years when the cockroaches rule the earth, and the day comes to recognize significant occurrences throughout the universe, your name and mine won’t be mentioned. And yet I assert that the folly of seeking to be more, better, or best is even more acute than accounts of history can demonstrate. If you don’t believe me, take a look right now. What brings you joy? Where and when does freedom arise? Who are you? Don’t settle for answers other than your own; reject (or at least suspect) mine or anyone else’s. If you examine these questions deeply enough, you’ll see something beneath the shiny cultural veneer. Or perhaps you already have.

You may still think that “higher” beings exist, that somehow they have mastered life in ways you can only imagine. Swami Rama supposedly could meditate so deeply that his breathing would stop for several minutes at a time, and his heartbeat would go as low as 10-15 per minute. Even if I could ever achieve such yogic feats, I certainly could never dunk a basketball like Michael Jordan. Too bad, because I hear the pay is pretty good.

Do such comparisons really amount to anything more than machinations of the monkey mind? Does our relative ordinariness make us any less beautiful, important, or unique? I don’t think so. And truthfully, it doesn’t even matter what I think. In any case, Swami Rama is dead now, and Michael Jordan is well into his retirement, and I seriously doubt the cockroaches will be calling their names on reckoning day either.

Sitting on the train this morning on the way to work, it occurred to me that there comes a time in the human journey where most or all of the traditional means of relating to oneself in the world begin to dissolve away. And it’s an especially strange feeling when that realization leads one to discover that the loosening of the grip of culture has a rather disorienting effect on the psyche. It dawned on me with extreme experiential force in that moment today that I had never known the true meaning of freedom. I had only ever seen it through the lenses and filters of cultural discourse.

It’s not easy or perhaps not even possible to make this distinction clear without dropping right back into that very same cultural discourse that had been momentarily transcended. The best way I can think of to describe the experience is that there was no orientation left at all, and there was a realization that the habitual thinking pattern recognized the lack of an anchor point as a problem. But then suddenly, an alternative view emerged in which orientation or observation itself had no inherent value, other than as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, as Shakespeare once mused.

It also occurred to me that to truly let this realization soak in would be to give up the world as I know it and want it, and any feelings of security that arise from that knowledge and desire. It would be to live without reference to a future or past, except in the simplest of matters. And yet, that very same lack of direction would also be a source of liberation. No energy needed to hold on to a single notion of being anything.

Indeed, such a life would require a complete reorientation of the human relationship to existence herself. Or perhaps disorientation would be the more appropriate term.

Don’t tell me you cannot control your nature. You need not control it. Throw it overboard. Have no nature to fight, or to submit to. No experience will hurt you, provided you don’t make it into a habit. Of the entire universe you are the subtle cause. All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly. To realize this as absolutely true, is liberation.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That

Photo source: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/movie_natters/archive/2007/12/golden_compass.shtml

There may come a time in one’s life when the wisdom offered up by the available modes of cultural exchange lose their apparent usefulness. Books, magazines, television, videos, seminars, conversations with family,  friends and sages, it doesn’t matter the source. Eventually their answers all lose their appeal. I can’t say exactly when this metamorphosis happened to me, it seemed to come in phases, but one thing is certain. It left me in a strange new world. And the strangeness of that world has yet to depart, even though the world itself is in a constant state of change.

I used to look to the “outside” for the answers to my deepest questions. For a while many of the offerings seemed to make a lot of sense, and some even contributed significantly to the quality of my life. But somewhere along the line, they no longer quite fit. Then eventually, any answers I could find made about as much sense to me as, “Zombie Prom, Happy 30th Year, Cheez-Its.” It’s possible that phrase has meaning for someone, but I’m at a loss.

Turning “inside” didn’t help either. The answers there made even less sense. Have you ever really examined the contents of your thoughts? If so, then you can probably get a sense of what I’m saying  here. Even beyond thoughts, in those vast moments of complete clarity, there remains a fleeting quality of certainty. Can’t hold on to anything.

So what’s left then? Honestly, I don’t know. But there is one fortunate consequence of all this. Life has such an incredible quality of lightness and beauty to it. There isn’t any particular place to find, or result to produce. And there is no loss in starting over from ground zero, dying and being born again each moment. So go ahead, delete this essay, and see for yourself. Or not. Who knows?

People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I’m o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you’re not happy now you no longer play the game

People say I’m lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I’m doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don’t you miss the big time boy you’re no longer on the ball

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind
I tell them there’s no hurry
I’m just sitting here doing time

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

-John Lennon

For those of us who have enrolled ourselves in the process of spiritual cultivation there is an inevitable result that few ever imagined at the beginning of the quest. Failure. Boldfaced, with a capital F. After all, when we think of cultivating our authentic selves, we are inclined to see spirits growing and blossoming into beautifully enlightened beings, wonderful sights for the sore eyes of our humanity. We certainly don’t envision a painstaking process of withering and dying, of burning up the vestiges of our forsaken selves.

Life can be a cruel teacher. She entices us with grand visions, and occasional flashes of luminous brilliance. In those flashes we imagine that there is some sustainable state of pure knowing and loving being. We imagine ourselves as that being. Conceptually, we may even believe that this is true, and yet somehow this vision remains tantalizingly out of reach. So we seek the correct path toward a permanent merger into our birthright. We may even find at times that we think we’re there. But then it’s snatched away again ever so torturously. What are we to do? Many of us wander this landscape for years and years.

Failure is not easy to take, especially not for the precocious such as we are. It is a total devastation of the constructs of our collective mind. It may not sound like much, but in fact, it’s everything. Our entire world collapses into death, moment after moment, ad infinitum. We must learn to let go of everything. Over and over again, until we are no longer capable of holding on. Completely adrift, we may find ourselves washed upon the shore of a strange new land. It is only here that we find real freedom. Not the concept of liberation that we’ve been pursuing all these years, but rather the complete willingness to die over and over again. To embrace the fullness of our failure, not identifying with it or anything else. Knowing nothing.

Worry not about the path that you are taking. The Beloved will destroy you eventually.

The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,
they’re given wings.

-Rumi