Saturday 11 April 2009

Is There A Right Way To Do It?

There are various links and blogs referred to on this site to your right, most of which more or less use the same language, and have pretty much the same message: oneness is already everything, awakening is this, enlightenment cannot be achieved by a dream-individual, everything you ever wanted is already right here, there are no separate individuals, there is nothing special about awakening, nothingness is the absolute, all that exists is beingness, consciousness, aliveness, whichever you care to label it; blah blah and more blah. In exploring this stuff, of which volumes has been (paradoxically!) written, and which can be labeled "advaita" or "non-duality" writings, I've stumbled upon an apparent contentious point. You can be sure we're back into a (highly amusing) story when "right" and "wrong" rears its jolie laide head. One particular fella, Dennis Waite, takes great umbrage at Tony Parson's et al message, which says that all there is, is this, no practice is necessary. No meditating until the butt is numb, no high states need be achieved, this is already all that is, and that can be seen by anyone if they are no one; that is to say, if the personal identity embodied in the seeker slips away. It appears he is upset that this may be seen by just anyone, and writes to that effect. He variously says that practice of traditional teaching chip away at the "bad" bits of the story, or of the dream-person; that all the usual perceptions of reality must be thwarted one by one; that "neo-advaitists" doing things like dropping the personal pronoun is no proof that the ego has been dispelled, which is evidently necessary for awakening. The neos, he opines, are saying "Don't bother telling me about arithmetic. I want to learn quantum mechanics!" Tony directly addresses the debate on his website, with finality. And balls.

Well, follow the links and have a nice surf. I'd turn it around, the analogy about quantum mechanics, and say it's a bit like taking degrees in meteorology, cosmology, geophysics and astronomy to learn that the sky is blue. There's another fella, Stanley Sobottka, who writes about this stuff (one of the first I stumbled upon, a quantum physicist) who says (in section 3, 17.5 of his work A Course In Consciousness) it's either/or; although, to his perception, practice usually seems to happen "first", and that there is no causal relationship between practice and awakening. He's big on the words "no doer" whereas I like to say "no one". But honestly, folks, blah blah and yet more blah. I'm pretty sure we're all talking about the same thing, oneness, awakening, whatever we call it on Easter Saturday. Just what exactly is it that we're trying to describe? It's all very well, and very convenient to the suspicious, to say "it's ineffable" or "it's indescribable". OK then, I'll give it a go, just for fun. It's looking at something and without any doubt being that thing. It's being somewhere and there are no boundaries between you and where you are, or where you seem to be. It's an awareness that what seems to have happened is only memory happening right now, and the next thing that happens doesn't really happen in the future, it is always now. There is only this, and I am that, but there is no separation. It's not necessary to label it, it's just a shift in how everything is seen. It's seen that suffering is as much a gift as joy, for it is part of everything, and you are everything, so everything is available. It's seen that there is no right or wrong, just existence; and it's seen that no right and no wrong don't mean anarchy, they don't mean anything, it all goes along just as it always has, because there is nothing wrong with what seems to happen, it was just the dreamer that thought there was. Wholeness and completeness and unconditional love, it's right under the dreamer's nose, expressed in absolutely everything, every bird call, every thought, every feeling, every disaster, every violent urge. It couldn't be more obvious: it is this. It loops round, or seems to, back to everything just exactly as it is. Poor Mr. Waite, in his tome cited above, is worried that "such characteristics as renunciation, discrimination, and self-restraint" are left out by the neo-advaitists. They pop up, along with everything else. Oneness has no interest in whether the dreamer renounces anything, or lets go of his ego, or restrains himself; ego is oneness, ego-ing. The assertion of a "right" way and a "wrong" way is surely proof that duality is still being dreamed, that the mind is still wrestling with the simultaneous coexistence of mutually exclusive polarities, which can never be resolved by the mind, the tool of duality. The really cosmically funny thing is, that of course, everybody is doing just exactly as they must, and there is nothing wrong or right about the debate. It all unfolds, or seems to, just as it should.

8 comments:

Maury Lee said...

I can live with the idea of no choice. It doesn't make me want to put a gun to my head.

Freedom still reigns because Source is the doer.

Then again, if I am Source, and source has choice, just maybe the apparent I, or sub I, has some level of choice.

Of course feeling like one has freedom doesn't mean one does.

Sort of like being in a game and trying to figure out the rules, and realizing that there may not be any. But we want them just the same.

No One In Particular said...

It's a great, yawning void, the death of self. Feeling free, yet suspecting you are not, making choices because oneness has choices, it's all a way the mind has of explaining things so it doesn't have to be dethroned. Source, or whatever you want to call it, is all of it. Rules or no rules, feeling free, feeling not free, whatever seems to arise, it's all the same thing; it just has many apparent different faces. The last thing in the world anyone wants to do it die. The last thing anyone wants is to realise that everything they ever valued is a dream. There can be a lot of mourning involved, or a passing of one joy into a greater one. It passeth all understanding; you have to lose your life in order to gain the world. The dreamer wants rules. No-self is just the arising of some thoughts about rules, and a longing for rules. There's nothing for it all to stick to with clear seeing. But hey, oneness doesn't give a flying f*** whether dreamers die or not. It's all the same thing. It's hard to swallow, for the dreamer, but it's all the same.

js said...

Wow! I am stupefied to have found you!

A person of like-mind!

I found you through www.e-referrer.com, to my alternate blog, not my main blog ( http://jsblog.ca )

And am happy to have found you! I have not rea through the rest of your post, was just in a hurry to post this. It's so nice to find folks of like mind. You see?

js of 9planetreviews.com/blog.shtml or jsblog.ca

Not sure how e-referrer found that link to you! But I guess you must have mentioned me at some point.. so I just followed the link back.

Let's talks.

js

js said...

Dang! I so agree with you! Wow.

You may be interested in another person that is with us on this: Serenity: http://serenitytalk.blogspot.com/

js or johnski

A pleasure to meet you!

js said...

I quote: But hey, oneness doesn't give a flying f*** whether dreamers die or not. It's all the same thing. It's hard to swallow, for the dreamer, but it's all the same.

Of course. And that's because it is a dream. And whether dream figures die or not? Does not matter. And once The Observer or Witness Consciousness becomes aware that it is merely watching, or witnessing, dreams that have already happened? It's over.

js

js said...

One more thing, just so you do not misunderstand, I print spiritual/mind/ego stuff in my main blog, the links which I sent you? But I have some stuff on the Spirit page, button is way up top in my blog. Just so you do not misunderstand my intent. My intent? yes, I feel I have found another one of us.

js

js said...

By the way, my email addy is admin at 9planetreviews.com and admin at micronuts.com in case you wish to speak with me on such things.

js

No One In Particular said...

Hiya JS,

Whoa, Buddy, calm down there. Obviously what seems to be arising for you is great excitement! But how lovely to make the connection; although nothing matters in the sense of our apparent conditioning, that sensation of identification is always very pleasant. I'll look at your stuff when I get a moment, my apparent story has a lot to do with ironing great bloody piles of clothes and writing a musical when I get the "time" and catering to the cleaning and cooking and chauffeuring needs of my family, who not only seem to exist but make their existence very clear indeed!

We are all of like minds, we are all the same thing. And what is recognised is recognised by something much deeper and holistic than the mind. It is recognised by that light that makes this appearance possible. Or something like that. I don't understand it at all!