Bone Demon Valley

When Leaders appear, Sages disappear.
– various, chinese, from mystic sources

The paraphrase that heads this post has an interesting truth hidden in it … Seeking leadership creates the leader.

The leader arises not because he has the intrinsic quality of leadership, but because his abilities to lead match with those who desire leadership. In a very real sense he does not exist as a leader until his flock locates him and invests him with their support. His appearance is a manifestation of our desires, our concerns and our ideas. This is not to say he did not exist before, but that his role as leader exists because of those seeking to be led.

A leader is a manifestation of our own willingness to be led and becomes a repository of those personal powers we have yielded to him. He is a leader only because of the relationship between the two: leader and led.

A Sage is a sage because he has wisdom derived from experience and understanding. He is a sage when alone, a sage when surrounded by others. He is a sage even when he has a following. While he may lead, he has no need to respond to the energies that create a leader, as his position is independent of the creative force of others.

The paraphrase is not, obviously, literal. The election of a US President does not suddenly make a Tibetan Lama disappear — at least I hope not. It is, however, a functional description. When you read a really good novel or short story, the world around you disappears. Your focus is such, your mindstream is such, your emotions are such that the outside reality fades away. Reading would not be possible if it were not so. Focusing on leadership, yearning for ‘good’ leaders, complaining about those we have, and essentially all of these behaviours focus your attention such that the sage, who may very well be sitting next to you on the bus, vanishes.

More to the point, if you seek a leader from fear, fear will elect the leader. If you seek leadership through bigotry and suspicion these will be the critereon of selection. If the ends are more important than the means, you will select people of corruption, for corruption arises when the means are unimportant.

To abstract the paraphrase up a level: When you seek for solutions in the external, yielding your personal power to the outside, you sacrifice the internal voice, the internal wisdom. You deepen the problems because the best you can manifest are the contents of your fears. You displace decision making beyond your sphere and lose control and enhance the power of the fearsome and troubling you see around you.

Mu’id

Structure

A good brother pointed out that books such as the bible can provide structure, moral imperatives and explications. Wonderful, for these structures exist in all religions. They give those who choose them guides to how to respond in crisis situations.

But, are you satisfied with the rules? Do you follow them and still find yourself asleep?

Structure is not awakening, it is not liberation, not mystic realization.

Structure has its place, but a life lived by structure is not a mystic’s life.

If you choose a mystic’s way, and it is not an easy way, you cannot live a life of shall/shall not. Love your rules, if you like; abandon them if you wish to live the mystics way.

You must choose.

Is structure god enough? Is constrained freedom the reason you want to enter the great desert? Did you feel the empty spot in your heart only to fill it with rules? When you meet with the divine, will you recount how virtue filled your life, or will you fall into the beloved’s arms, weeping with joy to be in his arms? Will you quote a scripture to defend yourself, or will you wash his face with your tears?

I am a theologian, it is among my many interests, but I cannot, and do not, turn to theology to assuage the fears by which we are all beset. I draw about me the direct perception of the divine. I follow the way of my dervish bretheren and take up company with the sufi of all time. Measured by structure, measured by rules, measured by a point of view informed by any traditional scripture, I may very well be seen as a lost soul.

Lost though I may be, I dance in the cold sorrow of life. Sinful as I am, I wash my masters feet with my joyful tears. As I bound through the temple with my head bare, giggling with gratitude, I certainly do not have the decorum of a saint. My wildness comes from a soul enslaved to the divine. My freedom comes from the cell the divine assigns me. My liberation comes from the burdens I am blessed with.

This is my water, and it gives life. Squeeze your rules, your scripture, if it gives you water, it gives you life, drink deeply. When I write these missives, I am seeking to strike a resonant tone. I am trying through anecdote, example, idea to reach into your heart and find our common ground. Do you know this land? Can you move from rules and ritual to delight and joy? Do you know spontaneous serenity?

All that glitters

Recently I received an email that noted similarities between myself and a fairly prolific metaphysical writer. Indeed, there were some overlaps as well as differences. I might do well to point up commonalities as well as some differences. This is a very dense topic, so, by necessity, this post will be broad rather than well pointed.

Firstly, mysticism is not about UFOs, unicorns, magic, psychic phenomenon or controlling the weather.

Its a way that holds as its only raison d’etre the realization of our direct connection with the divine, by whatever name one chooses to call it.

Moral imperitives in mysticism come directly from the realization of that connection.

To a mystic, the miraculous is no different from the mundane. The mundane is elevated by the mystic realization to the level of the miraculous. All realms of perception and action are encompassed by the Awakening.

By extension, psychic phenomena are within the scope of the mystic experience, and quite common, but not particularly of interest. Where a psychic ability is in accord with one’s path, wonderful. A skill such as healing should be used, but should be no more important than the ability to cook a nice meal. They are equal in value.

The sense that one maybe or is the embodiment of a past historical figure: Jesus, Napolean, Cleopatra, is not at all strange - as I’ve noted in a much earlier post on this site. Nor is the in-dwelling of a divine resonance. I’m honored to know, and have as a friend, a manifestation of a hindu deity. From the mystic view, this is all quite normal. To be fair, there are those who are not experiencing this in-dwelling, but are convinced that they are. Watch the try-outs for American Idol to see what delusional thinking looks like.

The mystic realizes the divine. This realization does not make him special. It brings with it no special authority, but it does bring special responsibilities. The Awakening reveals our inter-connectedness, and it broadens the scope and import of one’s activities. While every action carries with itself seeds that grow, mature and bear fruit, the actions of a mystic effect others in a greater way than one might realize. The expanded self/no-self of Awakening resonates upon the seemingly distinct lives of others. Contrary to the mindset of some spiritualists, there is no seeking of powers, no desire, and in an absolute sense, no ability, to control others. The lives of others are impacted by the real structure of the universe; the mystic acts, in a manner of speaking, as a signal amplifier.

The Ledge

There are times when all of us feel that we are clinging to a ledge. We know we cannot let go of what we are holding so tightly to or we will fall, and in falling, we will be dashed upon the rocks.

It is why I think climbing trees is such a wonderful thing for children, for they learn to cling, but more importantly, when dangling from the lowest branch and looking down to the ground, they must overcome their fear of the last two feet and drop to the ground.

Hanging there, looking at those last two feet, the four foot tall child sees a drop of six feet. Their center of self, their head, would travel six feet, were it going to the ground. Given the perception of a six foot drop, it makes a good deal of sense to worry about dropping from the branch. The fear is real, and reasonably prudent, but it fits not the reality of the situation, but the perception of it.

So here we are, caught up in perceptions of reality that do not match with the reality that surrounds us. We are afraid, and the fear causes us to cling ever more tightly to the ledge. A huge amount of energy is being expended to hold on to our ledge, and the greater our fear, the more we cling. The more we cling, the greater the energy used, the weaker we become and the more tenuous the grip.

Except there is no ledge, for we are fearing a drop that is only in our minds. We are perceiving what is not there, and we are expending all our energies to do it.

This is the root truth of anxiety and stress: Our feet our on the ground but we insist that we are dangling above space. We may hear this from friends, teachers, clerics, written works, a thousand times, and we will deny it one thousand and one times. Here is the solution: Let go. No fancy techniques, no deep meditations, no chanting, no faith. Open your eyes, look around, expand your perspective to match reality, and let go.

——————————–
Balaram’s comment:
Well, you almost completely had me until you said…NO CHANTING! NO FAITH! For you to write with such conviction shows me that you have faith; Yes, faith in yourself. I sense that you do have faith in yourself, otherwise you couldn’t have written such a well constructed piece. Regarding the chanting part; I love chanting!!! For me, a life without chanting would take away one of my most blissful activities. We all absorb what we can, when we can, if we can, and I honestly believe that a man of your spiritual insight can understand…what I’m trying to say. Incidentally, I’ve always admired the wisdom of the Sufi as well as the deceptive simplicity of Zen. I thank you for your feedback and I look forward to more. Tag! You’re it!, Balaram
——————————–
My reply:
Chanting is one of the sublime practices, and can place one directly in the presence. The problem with anxiety is that the chanting is applied as antidote. Whilst one is chanting, peace, bliss, union is experienced, the anxiety is quelled. When one suffering anxiety stops the chanting, the anxiety returns.

Because anxiety is a problem of view, of perception, of orientation; the chanting becomes not a harmonization and exultation with the divine, but a blind momentarily imposed. It becomes the object of the problematic view, rather than a tool that removes veils of illusion.

In most mystic systems, the first steps on the path are physical and cognitive:
For example, in Buddhism there are eight limbs.
Note the first two are cognitive transformations, the next three are physio-cognitive bridges.

Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)
1. Right view
2. Right intention
Ethical conduct (Sanskrit: śīla, Pāli: sīla)
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
Mental discipline (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi)
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration
(from Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path])

When dealing with anxiety, most people who seek cure through meditational practices start with the meditation - falsely believing their illness is a lack of peace, when in fact their illness is a false view of reality. Meditation, in fact, is not for the purpose of “getting some peace” but to help forge a being who is the very embodiment of serenity.

The post was written to address the state of anxiety and the route to its removal, not to disengage people from chanting! Among the sufi there is a central practice, wazifa; recalling the 99 names of Allah (see http://wahiduddin.net/words/wazifa.htm). It brings one into direct realation with the divine, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Among most buddhist sects, chanting is a central practice. Sound is divine, chanting is a magnificent expression of divinity!

With my love,

Mu’îd ibn al Nûr

The Creation of Space

(A reply to a friend)

I’ve a good friend, a little less than a decade younger than I, who has become an opiate junkie. He is not particularly smart, a talented but unrealized photographer, but not much else. Even his photography is not quite enough for him. Most his jobs have been meaningless - dishwasher, stock clerk, help center operator. His family has always been dismissive of him. They have never
understood him, nor have they really tried to understand him. Since he did not fit their mold, he was discarded. When he first became my friend he was a greasy haired teenager, and over time, he became in effect my nephew. I have his high school tassel; an honored gift from him. Without our support he would never have finished high school. He has met the world through avoidance.

Some part of him has always been aware that the meaning of life is chosen, not inherent. He has a keen understanding that, in the starkest terms, there is nothing to live for, but equally, nothing to die for. So this weekend he is on a men’s retreat, a kind gift from a friend of his family. I hope it gives him a reason to live, for without it, there is no reason to get off the heroin, or oxys or other opiates he has been addicted to. I don’t care if he becomes a raving right winger, or an
islamist willing to blow himself up. I don’t care if the retreat is full of poorly constructed psycho-babble. I care that it give him a light, any light, beyond the dream state of his addiction. I was actually frightened of him a week ago, for he appeared at the door, stoned out of his head. He looked every bit the part of a homeless junkie - dirty, confused, erratic. He is not yet homeless, but I saw the future in that moment, and I was afraid. Here was someone I loved
destroyed by his own lack of personal meaning. The best he could hope for was the next push - and the broken promises that he would get clean. I see so many people of faith: muslim, christian, jew, buddhist, mormon who cling to the shell of their faith. The legalistic observance of
their chosen beliefs. It is the lifeline that keeps them from facing the question of meaning. It provides them answers, packaged and pat.

But it does keep them from the fate faced by my nephew. It takes such uncommon courage just to live, to be filled with a deeply religious agnosticism. I cannot say that the reality I have seen is truth. I can say that it is true for me, and I hope to share that to whomever will benefit from it. I say, cherish the rigidity, pehaps even the bullheaded stupidity of your background. Without it you might very well be in a worse place than you are. You might never have reached the light without it. Your live amongst Mormon surroundings, what you see as their narrowness calls you to be all the more open, all the more vulnerable and honest with yourself. You have seen your truth and your light. They have seen theirs. The agnosticism of mystic life requires that you see and support what is good and light, bathe your surroundings in the truth you have glimpsed, and go forward, invisible, like a dervish, among those whose eyes are filled with dust. Your family loves you, but they may not understand what love implies – freedom. You cannot tell them, you cannot even show them, but you can create the open space for them to experience it. You refer to yourself as hindu in your profile, so I will assume you understand the concept of bhakti - divine love. If a firecracker goes off in a small room, it is shocking. If it goes off in the middle of a desert, not even the sparrows are disturbed.

Bhakti is the ability to be the desert despite the tendency to be the room. As your family throws firecrackers, meet these bombs with the expansiveness of divine love, the expansiveness of the dunes of the great desert. Chant the names of the divine to yourself - vishnu, siva, krsna, ganesh three times before you show your reactions. Do not defend yourself, for there is nothing that you own, no self that needs defending. There is only the love, only the beloved. They do not need
to understand you, but they need to feel the vastness of the infinite. You are the vehicle for the experience, your sadhana is to bear their fear in the bosom of the divine, to manifest it internally and trust its incredible power of transformation.

I was drawn to you very strongly when first I saw your profile. You are so similar to people I love dearly, mormon and other, and I hope my long reply is understood in the manner it was intended, with love, with brotherhood and with good cheer.

I remain yours, with deep love and affection, and with nearness of heart and soul,

Mu'id

[The letter that initiated this response]
i was raised in a Mormon Society, this in paticular family caused me
great pain through my childhood, and it still haunts me to this day. it
feels to me that they are akin to conservative-extremism, if that makes
any sense. i left the church at 18, and here i find myself living
amoung them again. why can’t they [my family] have love without
judgement. it pains me to see them live in their closed off world they
make for themselves.

Desert of Wandering

In the Zensufi worldview, we speak of the Origin as the moment when the divine, playfully exploring his Thusness, expressed a momentary forgetfulness. In that moment of forgetfulness, all things that he was, all things that he manifested came to be.

The sense of separation, the sense of longing for connectedness the familiarity of the path as we walk it, the moments of dejavu, are all echos of this moment of divine forgetfulness. We are not separate, but part of the playful moment of distraction of the divine. Within the medative state we come to see this.

Zensufism speaks of the Desert of Wandering. All of us are in the Desert of Wandering. It is no more real than this world, but it is no less real. There are places where we meet in the Desert. The Great Temple is one such place.

I want to stress that the Desert of Wandering is actually there. It is not myth, or metaphor. It is, by its own standards, utterly real. I want to stress also that it is not real at all. These are contradictions, and words will lead us astray. It is the place where our souls meet. It is not subject to time, or to space. To say it is a spiritual realm is correct, but misleads us to believe it is not interwoven with our own realm. It completely co-exists with our own realm. You exist there. I exist there. I go there, or rather, I activate my awareness of it, to sit on the dunes, to watch the light play over the distant mountains, blue purple in the haze. I go there to watch the sparrows dart in and out of the scrubby trees that cling for life in the harsh landscape. I meet those who are distant from me in this world, but who come to me in that world. I go not to escape but to restore, renew, and to do what I have been called to do.

This is where the Great Temple comes in. It is a meeting place where souls gather, where the Net of Indra is manifest. This is where I meet my master, where my students meet me, and where we gather in brotherhood. Here is where healing happens, where empowerment occurs, where all manner of prosperity have their well spring. In Zen they say "this very body is the body of the buddha, this very land, the Pure Land." Zensufism supports this completely.

When I go to the Great Temple and press my head to the feet of My Master, I know that we have transcended time and place, and I see all the bodies of buddha, all the features of the Pure Land. The work done in the Desert of Wandering has unbelievably positive effect on others.

When I first came to awareness of the Desert of Wandering and came to the Temple, under the guidance of a Tibetan Lama, I did not think that this place was anything more than a vivd visualization. As I continued my practice, and specific work began to be carried out in the Great Temple, lives of people around me began to change. The people I specifically was dealing with in the Desert of Wandering began to have uncharacteristically positive changes in their lives. Only one of them ever knew I was doing anything. Another had been lost to me for over a decade, and then, out of the blue, appeared. This was a person I thought had died. Had it been an up turn for one or two of those I was working with in the Temple, I might have not noticed, but it was an up turn for every one of them. There is no magic here. It's just an illustration of the Net of Indra — the web of interconnection, the Desert of Wandering.

Shekhinah

Judas lifted up his eyes and saw the luminous cloud, and he entered it.
– The Gospel of Judas

Shekhinah [...] means the glory or radiance of God, or God’s presence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekinah

In christian and buddhist art it is not uncommon to see a halo around a person who is identified as holy. In general, iconographic representations attempt to find both a general representation of the person that is recognizable, and more importantly, a set of symbolic elements that resonate with the viewer and inspire their spiritual feeling. Even Mohammed (pbuh) is shown in Persian art (!) with a halo.

But why the halo?

Well, one actually radiates a strong light in certain states of the mystic awakening. It is spontaneous. I have seen it on others, seen it when it has happened to me. My beloved brother was the first to see it on me, and surprised me with his astonishment. I had assumed it was just in my inner vision, and not visible to others, and had, of course, not mentioned it to him. Obviously I was wrong!

It does not usually appear to ordinary vision, but it is a magnificent and palpable experience. I’m sharing this personal experience so you may know of its possibility. Look for it, and let it occur for you.

To be Good

We all want to be good. You are not raised to be a bad person. We want to treat others well, be treated well and to live lives, at the very least, that will be judged as good lives.

We all stray from that simple goal. We have been duped, tricked into believing that we can, by force of will, be good people. We have been led to believe, regardless of religious background to believe that being persons of faith and adhering to the rules of our faith that we will be good, even holy, people. It is a lie, accidental certainly, ignorant, probably, but a lie none the less. We struggle day after day, year after year, and at best have deeply qualified success. It is, essentially, a task we are set to fail.

A good portion of religious literature from the past as well as our own times has addressed this problem. It has sought to explain that we have a ‘sinful nature’ that we are prone to evil, that we must do battle with the devil.

The lie, in essence is this: follow a certain moral code and by effort, perhaps with the help of the divine, we will become good people. Fail to follow the code, and we will not be good people. We might even become bad.

The truth is this: Goodness and badness are mere decorations, side effects of a life lived in accord with the divine.

Religion, to its great shame, provides us with moral direction. It lays out for us what is right and what is wrong. By itself, this is not a particularly bad thing. We set our moral compass by points laid out by religion on the map of life. These points are comforting, like lighthouses on a dark sea. We trust this light in the darkness because we have been told that they lead away from danger and toward the goodness that we desire. They are, however, false comforts. Each moral decision that we make alters our path, and importantly, the path of those around us. We may never know what a word or act will manifest in the lives around us, and in our own lives. The shame in moral direction is that it leads to a false sense of reality, gets reduced and redacted to its most simplistic terms, and then is reapplied as ‘mot juste’ to justify our interaction with others, ourselves and the divine.

There are two levels we must look at when seeing the reasons for outcomes in our lives. The first is the proximal result: the immediate or nearly immediate outcome. The second is the distal result: a result that may appear to be wholly disconnected from the original act. The proximal is related to its cause directly. The distal is seemingly unrelated to its cause, and its origins are far more uncertain. The proximal is causal, the distal appears acausal. The proximal is observable, the distal is metaphysical.

A game of telephone

A true Jnani [roughly: saint] creates an atmosphere of detachment and holiness around him and draws innumerable people towards him. Such great Jnanis have arisen in the world, from time to time, no matter whatever religion they professed. All these prophets and saints proclaimed the same Truth, each in his own way, and if they happened to come back to life now and meet together, there will be perfect unity in their messages. It is the followers that have put into their mouths more than what they said and wrangle with others, freezing the original teachings, mangled in their hands into institutional forms, which foster narrowness and bigotry.
[emphasis mine]
from http://www.kamakoti.org/acall/ac-acquisition.html

Every spiritual leader was teaching something that was attractive to the folks that became his followers. They followed what was taught. He/she stopped teaching — usually as the result of death (and no, that’s not an invitation to the christians to go off about resurrection).

Then, having been cut off from the day to day contact, the teachings become codified, the fountain of wisdom drains, and you are left with what looks and sounds like the original teachings, but is not…

Remember Metaphor? The truth is wrapped in it. Likewise, the truth is wrapped in the teachings. The teachings are not truth. This is really important, so try to work with it… The fountain of wisdom is what makes the teachings able to be wrappers for truth, without it the teachings are like nuts without nut-meat.

Assuming that there is some reason for this god stuff, why are we not more often searching for a new wellspring? You don’t trust second hand gossip for making decisions about anything in your life, do you? At least I hope you don’t!

“I heard from someone who knows someone that you can get herpes from a hampster.” Is not the kind of info that should keep you from getting a hampster for your nerdy little brother.

Why should our spiritual life be different? We invest a lot in building up a clerical caste to keep alive the flame, but there are really no qualifications to choose the best candidates. Father Joe and Reverend Lisa might be specialists in religion, but are they drawing water from the fountain themselves?

If you won’t go to the fountain to draw you own water, find an Acharya, a Guru, a Saint — anyone who can go to the fountain, until you figure out how to draw it yourself.

Beginner’s Mind

Shoshin does not make you a cow

Beloved Shunryu Suziki popularized the phrase - Zen mind, beginners mind. The ‘zen mind’ is mu-shin - ‘no mind.’ Beginner’s mind is sho-shin.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities in the expert’s, there are few.”

Unfortunately, some folk have kind of inverted and twisted this. They use it as some sort of zen battering ram.

Instead (and more correctly):
1) Know what you know. Do not be embarrased by it, share it when it is right to do so.
2) Know what you do not know, seek to learn, do not be embarrased by it.
3) Flip off those who do not know and insist you live in their ignorance. Do not be embarrased to give them the finger.

Mu-shin is the mind of possibility. Cultivate it. It took me 20 years to grasp this…

A Personal Relationship

I am grateful to a dear brother for using a common tag phrase from modern christian circles of faith: A personal relationship with god. It reminded me that there are some basic aspects of the religious traditions - christian, muslim, buddhist and others that are incompletely contextualized within the larger sphere of the mystic experience. A mystic life, and the living truth it provides, are not commonly understood. Though not well understood, it is, in fact, the actual point of a life of religious devotion or spiritual seeking. In a largely modified form, are the thoughts I shared with him — I wanted to extend and expand upon them here.

The personal relationship experience is a good starting point for understanding how to solve our apparent separation from god. However, within the structure of the christian communities, it is still born of a division that does not fundamentally exist. Again, this, though an ancient truth, oft repeated, is also an experiential truth. Mystic realization or Awakening can shed more light than I can in a hundred thousand words.

I was born again many, many years ago. I received some very wonderful gifts of the holy spirit - which are active to this day. It is precisely because of this transformation that I am able to say these things now.

To be born again, to have a personal relationship with god is the very beginning of the path, though when it happens, it appears to be the whole thing. It is not. Our christian faiths maintain the traditions that will lead you to the personal relationship. They do not, however, have any appropriate teaching for the stages that follow.

Allow me an indulgence of repetition via restatement: The peak experiences in most practiced religions are merely the beginning of the path. The path itself, over time, becomes substantially different than that intimated by the limited illumination provided by the peak experience. Most world faiths do not teach these further steps. In a very real sense, these further steps are largely untransmitable within the context of the religious practice. Once on the path, the tools of mystic realization must be applied.

The change in character of the path is not the result of the path being different in essential character from the peak experience, but from the inherent limitations of our own perceptual mechanisms. As we proceed, our view alters, the path is seen in new light, over and over again. We glance back at where we have been, and our new point of view, our altered perceptions allow us to see things differently.

Indeed, at the outset, the personal relationship is central — though it manifests and is articulated in wildly different ways by different faiths and systems.

The fundamental intimacy with god, the beloved, is so profound, so constant, so magnificent, that it must be known. Assuming one has already formed the personal relationship, the question is, will you continue to walk the path you have started, and by necessity, reach beyond the confines of your current community of faith to reach a deeper understanding?

I would rather see you standing at the doorway than to be out in the dark and cold. This personal relationship is a good step, a good first step. I embrace you for it. Inside we are bathed in the swirling magnificence of the beloved. Serene, joyous, divine; the brotherhood dances to the very breath of the One. We will await you when you transcend the limited and start to walk the path of rememberance; the path of the divine. Our table is well set, our path difficult but essential, and your place is among us.

Modes and concerns

A little bit of background, for those of you who have decided to read these posts. I have been concerning myself with two central themes in these posts.

The first, and always most important, is the expression of the mystic apprehension - the direct view of reality and those things connected with it.

My way has, for over 20 years, been buddhist. Buddhism provided the training, the discipline, the burden. It provided a means for me to extricate myself from the very excellent Episcopalianism of my upbringing. I was given top notch christianizing, including having a mother and step father who were ordained in the church. My parents were always deeply involved in the church and, on the whole, it was a beneficial environment.

Buddhism allowed me to step away from the orthodoxy of my youth and into a new and different orthodoxy, one that accorded more closely with my internal life and experiences. It, ultimately, provided the fuel for the flame that was lit by the Persian poets, and ultimately the Sufi way.

Having lived two orthodoxies very fully, I found myself moving beyond the need for adopting a new orthodoxy in the guise of Islam.

So, that’s the background, at least in summary, for my first concern.

The second is to meet new friends, of whatever faith (including none) and background. I am an esoteric theologian, but I realize that most readers of this site will be from judeo-islamo-christian backgrounds. Thus the tendency in these posts to talk in the vernacular of these faiths, and to frame concerns within their scope. The christian system in particular, holds some special attraction — the corpus vulgaris of western christianity, especially in the US, has some decidedly strange ideas about their own religion, its progination, its implications and its imperfections. Because of my study and upbringing, I am able to be both an insider and an outsider to christianity.

As a related concern, I am, obviously, concerned with conteracting, in my own small way, the anti-intellectualism of the common US citizen. I am equally opposed to intellectual facism. We have these amazing and wonderful organs sloshing about in our skulls. We do a dis-service to our fellow man to not use them, develop them, and having done so, to share them - sweetly, honestly and lovingly.

It is, for me, ultimately an issue of appropriate balance. To use the body, to use the mind, to use the spirit in the dynamic spiral of our existence.

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Addendum: I have received some messages that show a particular trend in thought about mysticism/spirituality. There are many who think that intellect and spirit are opposed. They are not. Mushin (no-mind) is not a call to mindlessness. Dhyana is not to supplant the functions of study and thought. These are complimentary modes of being, that over time, are woven together in a mutually supportive symbiosis. They are further ignited by a passion for the beloved.

Another clarification is on my position on faith communities/religions. I hold in very high regard holy men and women of many faiths. They put the living water back into the metaphors. Khan, Merton, Benedict, Atisha, Patanjali, Roach, Kabbir, Kashyapa… They are a huge procession af men and women whose hearts transcended doctrine. Men and women such as these are still among us — many more than you might guess. They are from all walks, all traditions, including no tradition. Most were revolutionaries for their time - some are revolutionaries for ours. They express the beloved in the body of their tradition, and flavor it with their experience. These are for me, my bretheren; their words and deeds part of a heritage.

This richness is vital to the richness of the mystic experience. I am shaking this great tree, I want to hear the movement of the leaves. I want to hear the song they make.

A response

I do agree that openess and understanding are important traits. Upaya-kaushalya (skillful means) is also an important trait when expressing mystic truth. I mean to offend, to ruffle feathers. I mean to challenge the status quo. I mean to challenge belief. I mean to question the dominant thought on these issues. Traditional understanding of the path has (in fact) brought us where we are today. Not all bad, not all good. We can go well beyond this point, but not if we sleep comfortably in the womb of our traditions. The Godo in the monastery (zen) strikes you on the shoulders with a stick to help you keep deepening your awareness. It does not appear very 'spiritual.' He is deadly serious about it. This is no game.

I apologize if I appear intolerant — though in some cases I mean to be – and would be pleased if you would take the time to be more specific.

As to experience, I am delighted to surmise (from this note & your site) that you are walking within a path of illumination. You should be able to see the light from which I express these things — things that come from experience.

Yours,

Matthew

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I enjoyed your site but was wondering why you are telling people what you dont believe. Experience holds depth & wieght [sic] an opinion is a statement not based on fact. It has been my experience that when i am demonstrating a spirit of intolerance it blocks me from the sunlight i believe openess and understanding are spiritual principles.

Metaphor: Truth bent around reality

Metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor

In the view of the mystic, wisdom is transmitted through language via imagery, metaphor, similie, parable and comparison. In most cases, the images are but carriers for the scent of truth. A fellow mystic will divine the wisdom and giggle with delight, weep, gasp or sigh deeply. The non mystic will see the imagery, respond, perhaps, to it - but they will have missed it entirely.

Where things get interesting is when the wisdom appears allegorical but is literal. What appears to be a folk tale or a parable is instead a literal retelling of events.

To whit:

The buddhist saint Atisha was travelling to Indonesia:
…on the ocean a great storm arose and Atisha… meditated on red Yamantaka and completely subdued… the storm.
– Pabongka Rinpoche

This is not folk tale, not allegory, not fantasy.

The storm was subdued by the act of the meditator.

Meditation changes the fabric of reality. Not all kinds of meditation have this effect, but there are types that do. Some meditations build the capacity of the meditator, so they may stay in samadhi for longer periods of time. Other meditations re-structure the mind to accept the burden of other kinds of meditations. Some meditations develop better abilities to deal with hinderances to the meditative state, such as expanding the memory structures to allow access to transpersonal information or meditations to alter emotional reactions to disturbing content.

Tangible, though seemingly acausal, results occur once you move into the energetic realm of meditation. Magnificent and stunning changes happen to the world around us because of the merit of meditation. It is not that the meditator, by reforming their mind becomes a better human being, and that has a positive influence on others, and in some abstract way, the world. The nature of our shared reality is actually changed by the meditator. Reality bends to the energy of meditation. The world becomes just a little nicer, people become a little stronger and braver. Compassion and love become more accessable.

This is the way it runs. You learn and become proficient in the Dhyana (Zen) techniques, you learn the techniques and mindset of the Sufi. You saturate yourself in the oil of the divine, and the storm obeys.

What is wonderful about this is, no matter how greedy you may be for the power to still the storm, it cannot happen without full realization of the essence of the divine. Personal goals limit this realization. No realization, no magic powers. Realization, no selfish desires for the power.

While few will ever be able to stop a storm, most of us can seriously and positively impact the wellbeing of others. This is the reason I am a zensufi. This is the reason I have claimed my membership in the brotherhood of mystics that predates all religions. This stuff really works.

Reincarnation

Is there a soul, does it go to an afterlife or does it migrate to a new existence?

Neither, but, in a sense, both. In the absolute sense nothing exists apart from the divine, the beloved, the ground of all. There is in point of fact no separation due to this truth. This truth is experiential, not doctrinal (though it has been expounded on in all sorts of doctrines).

Yet at the same time, the perception of individuality, of an inner soul or spirit, is deep and profound. We do little justice to deny this perception. In this sense, there is a soul. It is one of the finest treasures we have, even though it is an illusion.

The energy (if you will) that was Cleopatra still exists, it is pre-born and enduring after death, though it was never separate from the infinite ocean. All of us can experience it fully. If you can experience the full existence of another's life, it's not incorrect to speak as having been that person. You may have been Cleopatra, may share her memories' and feel a great connection. Yet, as there is no separation from the divine, this is a completely natural outgrowth of that truth. The divine does not hide from the divine.

Reincarnation is also true, but only in the same sense that incarnation is true.

Not to turn to christian scripture for any proof or justification, but is it not said that you are to become children of god, and is it not also true that Yeshua said "I and my father are one?" The child is one with the father. The father (a limited conception of the divine) is a metaphor for the divine, the infinite ocean. Do you see? Can you hear?

On Masters

There is an islamic center near my home that has the words: Happiness is submission to God painted in very large letters on the wall. There was a time many years ago when the word submission was changed to another word — a less demanding term, like serving, weak enough to not bother the surrounding community. It was later changed back to submission.

For most peoples the concept of submission is frightening. We go through our lives trying to carve out a niche of individual identity for ourselves. Indeed, if we do not, we will remain immature and self-centered beings in the extreme. We must develop as individuals, but we must also submit to the infinite. Those with even a passing familiarity with the mystical will recognize the embedded contradiction that is the hallmark of a mystic truth. Our individuality can only truly blossom in complete submission to the beloved.


In the Tibetan, Sikh and Hindu traditions, among others, there is a concept of deep obedience to your guru. This concept is nearly as frightening as submission to the divine. What is this submission all about?

Let me take it from the other direction. When a mystic accepts you as a student, your actions become his responsibility. In the very fabric of the universe, your heart is bound to the master. His meditations directly effect your life. He will rarely tell you about this, but I want you to understand. The master alters your reality. It is a huge burden, for the master must continue to keep your heart held gently to his, your fate is, in good measure, in his hands.

Prayer, when done correctly, which very few people do, has this same effect. The up-side is that the person praying does not assume the burden of the subject of their prayer. The master/student relationship is very different from the prayerful connection.

The guru (roughly: bringer of light) bears the burdens of your soul because his realization of the divine is a little more complete. When we see the nature of reality, we become naturally obligated to aid others to see it. In ch'an (zen) they refer to it as selling water by the river, in sufism, as selling water by the fountain. The guru, master, roshi, sensei is not looking to do anything greater than help you to wake to that which is in front of you.

So why the need to submit to the guru? A quick look at the Tibetan path, and you will find a thousand reasons. What it amounts to is this: it is very difficult. The ego does not like to do what is difficult. The struggle to submit to the master, not to mention the divine, actually prepares the mind and the soul to see the reality, to hear and comprehend the teachings. That's it. The guru is not magical. He understands better the path, and will try to guide you. Your submission to his will is a significant part of your preparation to see the divine.

Not to put too fine a point on it. The master is not a special being, innately. He is special because of his experiential understanding. He is special because he has reached out and pulled you out of the ocean, wiped the seaweed from your face, and holds you close, like a lover, waiting for your eyes to open.

Finally, in answer to a common question. There are many masters in the world. They are right for you if they are right for you. They are human and most are limited, though you may never surpass their understanding (you are growing, they are growing, it can be hard to catch up). Some masters you will surpass — any master, any teacher, any parent, could hope for no less from you.

Your relationship with them may be long, or it may be short. It may be intimate, up to and including physical intimacy, or it may be formal. Their love for you may be that of a parent, a friend or a lover, but in the case of an authentic master, true love will always be present.

Dopamine and Seretonin

Joy and Love: dopamine
Serenity and Calm: seretonin

I am fully happy to accept that there is no transcendental reality (though I have ample reason and experience to argue for it).

The brain is a vehicle to experience our world. That experience is purely subjective. Meditations (Joy and Serenity) fire off biochemical responses. Over time, the brain forms certain pathways and ‘memory engrams’ that become habitual. The habitual states brought about by these bio-mechanical alterations lead to perceptual alterations. The phenomenologically predicated reality is altered.

So even without the transcendental, we still attain a state of being that is marked by joy, love, compassion and peace.

In a bastardization of Pascal’s wager, I count these practices as good insurance. If the divine is false, a Golden Path life is well worth living. If the divine exists, well, a good outcome indeed!

Big Daddy

Author Neale Donald Walsch wrote a series of books, including What God Wants. What God Wants is a good starting places for those of you who were raised muslim, christian or jewish (you all share a god, by the way). His understanding appears a bit shallow, which may be a function of many things. Start with WGW if you are from one of the traditional religions mentioned above.

Then wrap your head around this [from The Zensufi Golden Path]:
Why God does and Does not Exist
Created in his image,
everywhere, in all,
I cannot point a finger
that does not land on him.
He is nowhere to be found,
so finally I am free.

We cannot look anywhere and not see god. There is no separation between him and all things. But god is a shadow. Our understanding is so small that we place god into the nature of a being. We call out that god is love, but cannot see that this is a statement of the basis.

Yes, god is love.

Yes, god is everywhere.

Our ignorance keeps these truths, fights for them, and yet we have as much understanding of them as if they were written in a foreign tongue. We are so divorced from god that we do not even know his name, only his title.

God only exists until you understand love. Then he vanishes, for he never was separate from divine love, just as we are not separate.

God is love? No. Love is god.

Theology of Separation

A Theology of Separation is the root cause of most of our problems in society, the world and our own lives. It is a theology that says, in short, that we are separate from god, and must behave in certain ways to bring about a better outcome for ourselves. This theology, this description of the relationship between ourselves and the divine is the dominant theology world wide. It informs our cultures, our societies, our laws, our economies, our politics. It has been the dominant thought throughout the history of humankind.

To say it is a bankrupt theology would be an understatement. We remain, in the most prejorative use of the term, tribalistic. While great advances in science, technology and medicine have been gained under its sway, it has not elevated us beyond greedy and hateful behavior as a species.

We have remained collectively stuck in an immature state. We cannot ask to go back to an earlier, more bucolic time of human history -- even if such actually existed, but we can, and must, ask ourselves to move forward. Collectively we have moved forward, and we have made strides that have improved the lives of ourselves and others, but we have stopped well short of the mark.

The great engine of capitalism was also a great engine of human rights, but it was a tool on a stage of our collective growth. We are like a forty year old who cannot let go of his teenage glories on the grid iron. Yes, they were glorious, but that was a different time and the demands of glory were different then than they are today. Such a person must wake up, as must we, if he is to mature, and to adopt the responsibilities of his life.

It is not so much that we have a "culture of youth" in the West, as a communal agreement that the highest we can achieve, given our current theology, is a mid-teens maturity. The comparison is apt in many ways. Consider that our society is human created, and collectively we make up a great organism, rather like each of us being cells within the greater body. Our society, globally, is a teenager. In many ways it is an exciting time, our brains are literally incomplete, our sense of self assurance is huge, our invulnerability is nearly absolute. A teenager can take on the world, and by his point of view, can win. This is our society, it is a value system, and mostly, it is true of all of us, regardless of physical age.

We have struggled to stay 15 years old. That is not the end, not the goal.

Our goal is to realize fully, completely and natively a single truth:
We are not separate from the divine.

In Buddhism there are three roots of suffering: aversion, attraction and indifference. If we are able to weed these out of our lives we would be able to come to a state of being of unity.

Allah is in the way.

Allah is in the way of knowing Allah.

The Mystic, while perceived as a man of Allah, must, in a very real sense be an atheist. To experience the divine all thought of Allah must be disempowered. The yearning towards Allah may drive a Mystic, but he must abandon this striving to, paradoxically, have it manifest in Awakening.

Once realized, Allah-the-seperate vanishes, for this was a non-reality from the outset. This is the outcome of the non-dual state, of the union with the divine - the divine vanishes. Or the Mystic vanishes, or the universe vanishes. Nothing vanishes. Its a state of infinite plasticity and flow. Words are an incredibly poor carrier for the experience.

When you reach the height of sexual intercourse with someone, for a brief instant, everything vanishes. You, your lover, everything are a union.

This union is the state of Awakening. The only real difference between it and the daily cloak of the mystic is in the duration and access. The Mystic may abide in this state at all moments, and even when he must attend to something else, a portion of his awareness lives within that sphere. The mystic, also, does not have to strip down with a lover, develop a biologically frictional state to enter the unity. He turns his inner attention to the point within where the illumination resides, and he is there.

For those who have a moralistic bent to their religiosity, and feel that sex is an inappropriate metaphor, do not despair. The act of orgasm is not a metaphor at all, it is an experience of the Illuminated state. The mystic is fully human. That includes sexuality, and I honestly don't know why religious communities have adopted such negative attitudes towards it.

The Marketplace

There is a reality that we live in: work, school, friends, family.

No amount of Illumination, of absorption in the divine, will pay the rent -- well, there are some caveats to this, but at this level of description, the truth is, we have to interface with the common reality for the basics of survival.

This gives the Mystic a unique series of challenges that can deepen his understanding.

One's social life can be as equally fraught with complexities. If you are in the Illumination, and your best friend is upset about a bad hair day, it might not be a good time to comfort them with the luminosity of union.

The point is this. If you live in the marketplace, as most of us do, you will spend a great deal of time in what would be called 'shallow' pursuits. The desire to be involved in 'deeper' pursuits can be very powerful. If not balanced, either of these directions can cause intense personal, emotional and psychological disruptions.

The goal of living in the marketplace is to convert the shallow and the mundane into expressions of illumination, but not to deny it its existential truth.

Dive deeply, but come back to shore over and over again. It is easy to become tangled in the weeds at depth. There is no shame in following the spiral of your path, there is only shame if it flattens into a circle. Our real art is ourselves; our writing, our poetry, our sculpture are the echo of the things we are, the things we have seen, however dimly. Come to shore to enrich and enliven, to challange and reform, then back to the waters to start the cycle anew.