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Elias
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 Posted: 01/27/08, 12:37 am Post subject: The pupil of the eye of experience |
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(This continues the discussion of the thread "The World and the Myopic Despair of Materialism".)
| Quote: | BY: The physical brain is, indeed, a physical mechanism, evolved in most respects to process information in relation to the physical world. It does seem that it can also process information that comes from deeper experience as well, or we wouldn't be able to report visions and meditative experiences at all. What I think needs to be examined is how accurate it is in processing this information, and what kinds of corruption errors enter into that process. Obviously all kinds of people have had legitimate spiritual experiences over the millennia, and just as obviously many have had conflicting interpretations of those experiences. I am of the view that much of that conflict is not merely conceptually based, but is literally based in the structural processing of the brain itself, and how it deals with spiritual phenomena. I think that this could even be described as an evolutionary process, that our brains are adapting to such things, and that not all brains are equally adept at cleanly processing and interpreting these experiences. Add on top of that the cultural interpretations that have been put in place, plus the conceptualizing, cognitive differences in individuals, and you get the general mess that is the current state of affairs in religion.
And this is the problem with mysticism in general. Visions are not merely subject to conceptual interpretation, the mere having of them implies that the physical brain has some capacity to receive and process the raw extra-sensory data of the vision, and thus we have to have some faith in the brain's ability to do that reliably, in such a way that accurately reflects not just the physical world, but the spiritual realms as well, and their relationship to the physical. The materialistic interpretation of visions is that they are merely the product of overactive imagination, or psychosis, or some other process within the brain, but even if we reject that reductionism in favor of the reality of spiritual consciousness, we do have to acknowledge that the physical brain must play a key role in the process, and that it represents a “bottleneck” on many levels that tests the reliability of not just the conclusions, but the raw data itself.
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The first assumption in BY's overall argument is that visionary experience, being subjective, is filtered (or distorted) by "the structural processing of the brain itself", which can vary widely from individual to individual.
The second assumption he seems to make, by his embrace of the scientific view, is that we ought to develop a consensus understanding of what constitutes spiritual reality apart from the "bottleneck" of the mostly unreliable reports.
These aren't wrong assumptions, but in my opinion they tend to sidestep (or devalue) the central fact of all mystical experience: it is what I say about what I experienced.
In the first assumption, what I say is devalued because it is a "given" that it is "filtered" by an imperfect brain.
In the second assumption, what I say is devalued because it has to prove itself to a consensus standard, or a communal agreement of what constitute reality.
And in that two-pronged view of spiritual experience, the "I" of the experience is seen not only as untrustworthy, but secondary to the experience (or "raw data") itself.
This is a right approach, if one is trying to bring the method of science to mystical experience. But it is also the self-limiting approach of science which places all worth in the object and devalues the subject.
Jung was one scientist who found a way around the rational dead-end of scientific objectification: he used a method he called "amplification" to compare the data presented by the psyche with cultural and religious data going back thousands of years. In this way he was able to open paths toward consensus interpretation. Beyond that you can see, from reading him in depth, that he was also working a spiral around a great unknown -- and that unknown was the Self, the most sacred component of all mystical experience.
It is important to note that the Self can never be pinned down. It cannot be put under a microscope. It cannot be turned into a "set of proofs". And, most of all, it cannot be subjected to a consensus description of reality.
The closest you can get to it, other than to "realize" it, is to contemplate an iconic symbol such as Christ or Buddha. As symbols, Christ and Buddha are profoundly mysterious, and simply allowing oneself to meditate on their mystery is to be drawn beyond the superficial mind of "objective science" into the participatory path of spiritual and meditative experience.
To "realize" the Self, on the other hand, you also have to cease devaluing yourself. You have to begin by "getting it" that society and consensus politics and science are always asking you to give up the most precious thing you have: the "I" of experience.
Now, you can argue about the "ego" vs. "the Self" all day long if you want. But a lot of that kind of discussion is another way that collectives have of discrediting the individual as the central reality -- the very "pupil of the eye" of all experience.
And such attempts to dismiss the "I", as in the case of BY's well-intentioned arguments, often begin by stating that the "I" of a vision cannot be trusted because of "corruption errors" due to the structure of the evolutionary brain, and so forth.
I suppose the fact that consciousness can and does get distorted, neurotic, or even psychotic should give us pause about the report of a vision. In other words, it might seem that because some people are mentally ill, or tell lies, then nobody can be trusted to make an honest and healthy statement!
Again, are we looking for a consensus here? Or are we talking about the "I" of my experience?
I am the judge of my own experience. You are the judge of your own experience. I am the one who dies. You are the one who dies. Or, to use an image, I am the one shooting this arrow into a target. And you are the one shooting that arrow into your target. No "consensus religion" ever shot an arrow into a target. And no "consensus science" ever had a mystical experience.
Do you see how much doubt rises up in the mind when the possibility of self-authentication is considered? That voice you hear is the sound of the crowds running around madly looking for an answer...outside themselves.
Now, if I report my vision to you, and you report your vision to me, there is no expectation of "belief" or "approval". These are simply reports, and we can each make of the other's vision what we will. It would be good if we could be respectful of each other, of course, but even that is not a duty or an expectation.
In my life I've had many many visions. It didn't take me long to learn that there were people who didn't want to hear them, or who reacted in strange ways when they did hear them. Fortunately I was able to find some people who "knew where I was coming from" -- they had visions of their own, and were glad to share them with another visionary.
The most mutual respect, you see, is engendered between those who respect themselves -- those who have refused to devalue the precious "pupil of the eye" of experience. And this singular refusal to compromise self-awareness is what makes them what they are: men and women of real experience.
Eleyeas |
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Elias
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| Posted: 01/27/08, 10:31 pm Post subject: this just in... |
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The common failing of religions is their search (and their claims) for an ideal unitary experience of spiritual reality.
It's so very easy for people of a religious bent to criticize mysticism for its "filtering" effect or its "conflicting interpretations" of an abstract and largely mythologized unitary spiritual reality.
But I can't find any reason to assume that spiritual experience has to be unitary in nature, or easily identifiable as something already known: i.e., agreeable to consensus ideas of "the divine"?
Why can't we accept mysticism for what it clearly is: diverse, individual, and reflecting astonishing multiplicity rather than a "unitary vision"?
This living universe contains a vast diversity of conscious experience -- nobody can doubt that. Who is to say the same law doesn't apply to mystical-visionary experience and life-after death?
The operative metaphor, it seems to me, is Christ's statement: "My father's house has many mansions."
The opposite of that wisdom, of course, would be a cult, would it not?
The only singularity you will every find, among the complexity of realities -- both material and spiritual -- is your "I". Stripped of it's illusions, it is your greatest and saving treasure.
Elias |
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Elias
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| Posted: 01/29/08, 12:42 pm Post subject: Don't confuse "I" with "identity" |
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Something I have noticed in discussions about Ramana and the Self over the years, is that people tend to see "the Self" as something other than their "I".
By this I mean they view "I" as the ego, and they view "the Self" as something magical and unattainable -- almost like a distant God.
So it is they don't get what Ramana meant by the "I-I".
What did he mean? He clearly meant that the ego is an "I", and the Self is also an "I".
How do we disguish between the two "I"s?
There is an easy way to do that: simply learn to distinguish between "I" and "identity". As Ramana said, the ego is always "this or that". But the real "I" is not "this or that".
In other words, to contradict the title of Nisargadatta's famous book, I am not That. I am I.
The first stage of self-inquiry is to deconstruct your "identity" -- to question your tendency to unconscious identification with roles, persons, images, and objects.
Is your "I" your name?
Is your "I" your property?
Is your "I" your function?
Is your "I" your self-image? (Hello, Narcissus!)
Is your "I" your public personna?
Is your "I" your personal history?
Is your "I" your place in society?
Is your "I" the approval or disapproval you receive from others?
Is your "I" your conflicts within the mind, or with other minds?
Is your "I" your Shadow (your unconscious dark side)?
Is your "I" your pride in your "accomplishments"?
Is your "I" your associations and business relationships?
Is your "I" the nattering of the mind?
Is your "I" your obsessions, your desires, your fears?
Answer: NONE OF THE ABOVE (neti neti)
Besides being the witness of all that stuff, your I is free of all that.
Your I is not what or who you see, but the seeing itself, which is "always already" unattached to the forms and content of conscious experience.
It's sometimes hard to remember this truth about the nature of "I", because we get so involved and immersed in our experience and relationships.
In fact, we get so involved in the "form and content" that we tend to devalue the "I" itself. Indeed, society is held together, for the most part, by a general agreement to devalue the "I" in favor of identification with experience and objects.
So it is that "the pearl of great price" is lying in the gutter of the marketplace, unnoticed and unappreciated.
So it is that a thousand voices, from the time you are a child, are admonishing you to abandon your Self -- the true "I" -- in favor of "identity".
Identity can be a paying proposition, you see. What can "I" do for you? How are you ever going to accumulate wealth simply resting as "I", the essence of Being?
Well, if wealth is your goal, obviously you have already lost your innate appreciation of "I" in favor of the list of identity-attributes cited above.
But, alas for identity, it doesn't last. Identity dies. (Some seem satisfied that identity may live for awhile on in "history", or in the memory of others...until they too pass away.)
I is reality. Identity is a passing season, then dust in the wind.
I speak of "I" not simply because I read about it in a book. I speak of "I" because I tested both "identity" and "I", and found that "I" (or consciousness itself) is irreducible happiness, indestructible, infinite in all directions, unborn, and transcendent of "identity".
Yes, "I" is naked, without possessions, and void of all the world's concerns and obsessions. Yes, it may take death itself to recover the full awareness of "I". But there's no reason to postpone this "transvaluation of values".
Better, in my opinion, the jettison the false hopes of identity now, and live the world from "I". Who (indeed who) would want to postpone irreducible happiness?
"I" is the Self. The Self is "I".
Elias
(to be continued...I want to say something about ego-identification with the Self and the "cosmic identities" of false teachers and pseudo messiahs.) |
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Elias
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| Posted: 01/31/08, 1:14 pm Post subject: spiritual feudalism... |
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The "i" of identity isn't confined to our immersion in the mind of this world.
It easily transposes itself to the next world -- which is why there are a vast multiplicity of bardos, lokas, astral heavens, hells, and ghost realms.
The "i" of identity even transposes to the so-called "siddha lokas" -- the societies of the advanced spirits who have gotten close to realization or who presume their realization as accomplished.
Out of these highly conscious realms come some of the most misguided spiritual teachers of all. Misguided because they know a lot, but not enough to have attained real humility or the death of the ego.
The Self is so close, you see. And yet so obscured by our love of "maps" of attainment, concepts of spiritual status, and the politics of saints.
Listen, God is not a smug self-congratulating fool sitting in a Big Chair.
Nor is God the Wizard of Oz, throwing up illusions to mystify the common folk.
God does not engage in the feudalism of spiritual fairy tales. (You know, the archetypal "Kings and Queens" that appear as mythical absolutes in the literature of children.)
Ah, this teaching of dis-identification is very difficult, even impossible to comprehend. But when was the unreal ever the Real? When was the little "i" ever the "I"?
The little "i' always wants a map and it wants to know where it stands on that map, relative to the structure of the map and to the "spiritual genius" who built the map.
So the seeker falls into a kind of consoling trance, infatuated by maps and self-measuring.
And in that instant he completely misses the truth of his own existence: that all sacredness is found in the experience and transformation of consciousness itself -- his own seeing.
Look for tools to help with the naturally arising process of breaking the spell of the world. Look for guides who are really useful and do not require any kind of adulation or worship.
Be respectful of everyone's path, but find your own unique path.
Be an individual, not a follower. Be a rebel not a submissive.
What authority resides in your own heart? Why do you doubt it?
(Yeah, the great "danger" of these admonitions as that the "ego" or little "i" will try to coopt the authority of the heart. It happens all the time. But I tell you it happens even in the case of cultic submissives. Get to know them, and you discover a smug arrogance at work in these supposedly "selfless" folk. The politics of the cult literally empower the ego, puff up the self-image, and block access to the Self within.)
Anyway, you are the one who has to do the dying. Your feudal cult guru can't do it for you.
Get on with it, then. Time is growing short.
cheers,
Elias |
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