Silent Musings

I have heard said by those few whose wisdom I would trust with my life that there inevitably comes a time in one’s evolutionary development when all the tricks of the spiritual trade will eventually fail. Every meditation, mantra, asana, pranayama, visualization, or other “spiritual maneuver” will eventually run out of juice. Rendered utterly helpless, one has no recourse but to hope, with absolutely no guarantees, that Grace will come and take us beyond our current predicament.

I wondered about this for several years after I first heard it. It didn’t seem true, because I could always somehow manage to “make progress”, either on my own or with the assistance of others. At some point, however, I began to wonder what progress even meant. Was I kidding myself altogether about the meaning of spiritual evolution? In a way, yes, right down to the core. But this wisdom cannot be explained, at least not in any way I know how to convey. It needs to be experienced. One thing I can say for certain is that it’s not something you’ll see anyone selling on Madison Avenue. In fact, they’re all selling almost the exact opposite of what I’m talking about. Most of the spiritual teachers, too. Poor bastards. Maybe they’re the lucky ones. Blissfully unaware. But sooner or later (later for most), they will all know what I am talking about. Without a doubt.

At the same time, at least in my case, Love has a funny way of turning around. Our cultural conditioning teaches us that Love comes to us in various forms, and fills our Hearts from the outside, courtesy of the perfect Lover, the perfect God in Heaven, or the perfect calorie-free, genetically engineered Snickers bar. But the One True Heart doesn’t actually operate that way. We’re just too blind to see that we’ve been duped with a cheap substitute. And the real joke of the Universe is to discover that you, yes You, are the perpetrator of this Myth of Love. This bittersweet discovery is capped with the realization that the perfect Lover IS the Heart. Right Here. Right Now. Always Is. Always Has Been.

Many of us were taught as children that if we just prayed to the almighty Jesus, he would “deliver us”. A “spiritual maneuver” if ever there was one. You may “make progress” for a while on this path, be your God Jesus, Krishna, Allah, the Buddha, or your local neighborhood avatar. But eventually, you will find yourself more lost than ever. Helpless.

The irony is that Prayer and Devotion are your only recourse at this point. But not the manipulative sort that we were all taught as children. No, this is a radical Love story that takes place completely within. Not in a fantasy world either. True Love. You cannot explain it — you can only BE it. Let the Heart cry its deepest sorrow, pain, and yearning. If anyone tells you that suffering is optional here, know that they are full of the most oppressive kind of shit. Let the pain flow until it fills the Universe. Discover how perfectly Beautiful it is. Exquisite.

Until the mind is shaken from its hold to its transcendent center, the truly ultimate state of being cannot dawn. For becoming and Being to finally merge the heart must be shattered in devotion; then the state of Self Awareness (Paramatman) is subject to the tornadoes of feeling that are known only to the heart. Only then can you say that you’ve been beyond the place of laughter and tears in the land of devotion. — David Spero

Today I want to say a little bit about the dissolution of the will. I’m not certain those are the right words to describe what I mean to say here, but they will have to do for now. If I go and look up all the Google searches that lead the masses to my written words, the keywords that seem to be most prevalent are such exciting mystical concepts as kundalini, samadhi, and enlightenment. Spiritual experiences. Everyone seems to want to learn about them, and frankly, I can’t really blame them. I remember those days myself, tirelessly searching through the internet for some coherent account of what I could expect after hundreds of hours sitting on a cushion.

Well, now that I have spent thousands of hours just sitting, I can tell you there is nothing that can prepare you for the experience. There is no way you will believe it, even if I tell you the whole truth of it. And frankly, it is much, much, much less exciting than what virtually everyone will tell you. In the beginning, when meditation practice is brand shiny new for you, it is easy to be fascinated by tales of enlightenment, kundalini, and samadhi. But at some point, that fascination just wears off. Like a stone at the floor of a swift flowing river, your interest in those phenomena is gradually worn down over the years.

Whatever type of practice you take up: zazen, vipassana, kundalini yoga, kriya yoga, advaita vedanta, it doesn’t matter. They all end up in the same place, unless you get attached somewhere along the way, and think “you’ve got it”. That place is knowing that your particular practice is meaningless and it’s not going to take you anywhere but here. Then it gets really interesting, in the most mundane way imaginable. Mundane because there is nothing left you can do to get anywhere meaningful, and interesting because you begin wondering how you are going to respond to living a life rendered so helpless.

Those of you who are fascinated by all the tales of spiritual excitement … I recommend that you be clear about what you are getting into. There is no way you can know what it is ahead of time, but you really do need to be willing to become nothing, otherwise, you are in for a battle of the will unlike you’ve ever experienced. And you will lose that battle in the end, one way or another. Spiritual liberation may be the only true freedom in life, but it will cost you everything. If it’s any consolation, however, your will to hold on to life’s attachments will also be mostly gone by that point, and so you won’t really care much to have anything.

Don’t misunderstand … you will still have “things”, but only because life brought them to you. You might even have a lot more things than you think you should have. But it’s too late now, because there is no one left to oppose them. Might as well just accept and deal with them. Even chaos can be monotonous, and monotony chaotic as well.

Be sure to enjoy your trip to the Void, after all, it might last 20-30 years!

I’ve heard (or read) from time to time the word “combustion” used to describe the experience that one may go through in the process of an extended meditation practice. I would say that in some regards it’s a reasonable term to use to relate my own experience. Although I find that I am capable of functioning extremely effectively at the workplace, when I get home there is little that I ever accomplish with intent. Each day, the “person” who does the intending seems to be burned away a bit more than the previous day. In fact, it is also the case at work as well; however, the functioning as an engineer goes on nonetheless. Some functioning does happen at home as well, but it is rarely predictable.

My body has undergone significant changes over time. The kundalini shakti, chi, or life force energy, whatever you want to call it, has taken full residence as I find myself “moving out of the way” of its “path”. Desire continues to reside in me, and yet I find it so clearly transient. Motivation only comes in a moment, and just as suddenly, it is gone. I see birth and death everywhere. I do not see the world through the rose-colored glasses of hope, but rather with all its beauty and ugliness hopelessly entangled. Even the deep bliss of shakti cannot be separated from the pain it embodies. Everything is as it should be, and yet, the mind cannot seem to anchor itself anywhere. While the mind is adrift, the body seems constantly poised to explode.

Every time I eat cooked food any more, I feel sick. I think the body is trying to tell me something here, but old habits don’t die too easily. Especially not with help from cultural cues. When I do eat raw foods (mostly fruit, and some veggies) for at least a few days in a row, I find the bliss sometimes becomes almost unbearable. Will I give up cooked foods for good? How can I say? I can hardly even fathom the end of the day, much less weeks, months, or years from now.

At some point, the body and experience become the only teachers. There isn’t anything written in any book that can help. Maybe that’s why I find my own writing so difficult to produce nowadays. It just doesn’t seem worth much to me, even though others may still find value in it.

Here is something I did happen to read a few months ago that I found fitting to this time of my life:

The obvious lesson … is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think – and their name is legion – that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think – as do many – “Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and the sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is. – Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

It never ceases to amaze me when I read all that is written about spirituality in books and on the internet. I suppose people would express equally diverse and obtuse views to each other directly were it not for the cultural taboos that prevent such conversations from being common. Thank goodness.

Most of these so-called ’spiritual’ writings in one way or another address the question, “what does it mean to ‘be spiritual’ in today’s world?” Often, this question is disguised in other language, using exalted and confusing terminology, but invariably it essentially boils down to the same game of “seeking to become enlightened” (i.e. that which one is not). If you ask me, it’s a foolish game to be playing, and the wrong question to be asking. Like many other questions we encounter on a daily basis, such as “how do we keep the economy growing?”, or “how do we defeat the terrorists?”, the question makes an assumption which itself should be seriously doubted.

In the case of the economy, the assumptions that exponential growth is sustainable and/or would be beneficial are rarely questioned. And yet, even a simple-minded understanding of what exponential growth is exactly makes it clear that the goal is foolhardy in the long run. Similarly, in the case of terrorism, there is an assumption that a person can be labeled “terrorist” or “non-terrorist”, as if it’s a fixed and true classification. And yet, sociology has proven time and again that people’s behavior is largely a function of their environment; and thus, absent a fixed environment, the classification falls apart upon examination.

Similarly, the goal of “being spiritual”, much as in the case of “defeating a terrorist”, is an ideal that when pursued, can do a better job of keeping one away from how one really wants to live more so than most people realize. I assert that there is no such thing as a “spiritual person”, and anyone who claims to be is still struggling with some significant attachments.

If you don’t believe me, here is a simple experiment you can conduct to test this assertion. If you are certain that such people exist, then go find the five most spiritual people you can, and ask them if they consider themselves “more spiritual” than any other man or woman. If even one says “yes”, I would be quite surprised. I would also recommend running away, and then re-examining your reasons for choosing this person as an exemplar.

Perhaps more meaningful questions than, “how can I become more spiritual?” that one could ask oneself are, “who or what am I?” and, “what actions shall I take at this moment?” Or simply, one could inquire into what it is to be, period. The questions are far more important than the answers. And in our deeds we may find that there are “answers”, but not in the conventional sense.

There is no doubt that something happens to us when we embark on the long journey of spiritual awakening that is brought on by Grace, or by intense desire and practice. What it is that happens exactly, is a mystery that one can never resolve in commonly held human terms. I suspect that for most people struggling to come to grips with it, the most difficult aspect to accept is the stark simplicity of it all. Our cultures have become so complex in today’s world that we have a very difficult time stepping back to see what is right in front of our noses.

There is a famous story, an urban legend of sorts, for which there is no apparent agreement as to the origin. Nonetheless, stories like these are often worthwhile. This version appears in Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

Is the scientist really wiser than the old lady? Or vice versa? Maybe it doesn’t matter. In either case, the argument is based on a lot of assumptions. What is left when assumptions are removed? Or is it assumptions all the way down? Hmm …

Sometimes I get the feeling that people take what I say a bit too seriously. Everything I write comes in the moment, and once it is gone, only your memories and the digital archives keep them alive. For me, life moves on to something new, and the past no longer exists. For real. When there is nothing left to say, that is for Now. Tomorrow, who knows what will come, if anything at all.

Often the something new in my life doesn’t include writing. Don’t get me wrong; I love writing. Every once in a while, I even take a look at something I wrote months ago, and I am amazed at the Truth that I find in what I said. On occasion, those words even seem to bring healing to people. But as with everything else, I must be true to myself first; otherwise, the result is tainted with pretense so transparent that it initiates an immediate search for the “delete” key.

I feel so happy right now. Not at all in the excited sense of the word, but rather in the peaceful and accepting sense. I just finished a meditation a little while ago. Lately I’ve been feeling that I could actually meditate indefinitely, if not for physical limitations. And even then, I could probably bear any level of physical discomfort. Somewhere along the line, I passed a point where I stopped resisting or expecting anything from meditation. Or life for that matter. The two go hand in hand.

OK, so I stretched the truth a bit. I still resist life here and there like everyone else. But not nearly as much as I once did. With regard to meditation, I am in awe of the beauty of utter simplicity. A friend of mine once said that transformation is the shift from nothing is very satisfying to nothing is very satisfying. Brilliant, and oh, so True.

When people ask me about meditation, they often tell me they have tried it but can’t sit still for even 15 minutes. What can I tell them? Practice.

Here is another hint that might unlock the door for some. The reason that people can’t sit still in meditation (or any other part of life) is that they want to eliminate what they perceive as the negative. In the case of meditation, it can be mind chatter or whatever unpleasant thoughts or feelings arise. How many times have I heard the words, “If I could only quiet my mind …”?

But the problem with that perspective is this: reducing the negative in anything only changes the scale on which you operate. It never eliminates duality. For example, if you reduce mind chatter to the point where you only have a fleeting thought once every 2 minutes, you may still be just as annoyed by that thought as you were with constant mind chatter. There is no escape from thoughts, feelings, or any other forms of negativity. There is only surrender, acceptance.

As one of life’s most excruciating ironies, a funny thing happens with surrender. Gradually one opens up to the profound beauty in every movement, thought, feeling, or stirring. One becomes able to perceive even the slightest shift in energy, and the Silence of Pure Being arises amidst the storm of thinking, feeling, and otherwise being alive.

No words can capture what comes next … as the saying goes, “you had to Be there”.

Ultimate serenity is the coming-to-rest of all ways of ‘taking’ things, the repose of named things. No truth has been taught by a Buddha for anyone anywhere.” -Nagarjuna (Mulamadhyamakakarika 25:24)