July 17, 2008

Today I got involved in working on my house and thinking about an astonishing dream I had last night. But I want to post something about my old friend Ramakrishna, so I have pulled an essay from a few years ago and revised it.

When I say “my old friend Ramakrishna", let me ask you, doesn’t he seem like an old friend to you as well? It seems like he has been with us forever, our friend who gave us living proof of the concreteness of spiritual life. I remember the shock of recognition when I first saw a photograph of him, in a book I picked up in a library at about age 20. It was the feeling of an awakening memory – I knew this man.

I had always known him, he was one of my oldest friends. How could it be otherwise? …Then I committed a crime. I tore the picture out of the book and took it home with me, to pin on the wall by my bed. That recognition never left and in fact only intensified as I read The Gospel of Ramakrishna and dug into the writings of Vivekananda.

It has long been said that Ramakrishna was an avatar – an incarnation of God. He certainly was that for me, because he never pretended to be anything other than a man. He was an avatar who hid nothing of his fragile humanity, his emotionalism, or the unconventional thoughts that streamed into his mind.
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One day, a famous account goes, he was so impatient to see Mother Kali that he decided to end his life. He seized a sword hanging on the wall and was about to strike himself with it, when he is reported to have seen light issuing from the deity in waves. He is said to have been soon overwhelmed by the waves and fell unconscious on the floor.

At Dakshineswar, Ramakrishna engaged in a practice called madhura bhava, in which he imitated the “sweet mood” of the goddess Radha waiting for her lover Krishna. He wore female clothing and jewelry, and imitated female speech and behavior. This practice culminated with a vision of Krishna, in which Krishna’s body merged with Ramakrishna’s. He said:

“I spent many days as the handmaid of God. I dressed myself in women’s clothes, put on ornaments, and covered the upper part of my body with a scarf, just like a woman… Otherwise, how could I have kept my wife with me for eight months? Both of us behaved as if we were the handmaids of the Divine Mother. I cannot speak of myself as a man.”

For a period, while he was practicing bhakti, he was supposed to have resembled the monkey-god Hanuman, the servant of Ram. He lived on roots and fruit, and a growth which resembled a tail was supposed to have grown from his spine. Later, Ramakrishna experienced the goddess Sita’s body merging with his own (Sita is the consort of Ram). ~ quoted from Wikipedia
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One of the amazing things about Ramakrishna’s spiritual life was how total it was. It wasn’t a part-time “spiritual business", with time off to go skiing or mall-shopping.

When people see a picture of Ramakrishna in samadhi, being supported by his disciple Hriday, they get the idea R.’s experience must be like a drugged state – you know, an unreal dopamine-induced bliss. That view is derived from the conventional idea of the “mystical” as something insubstantial and ultimately “unreal".

But Ramakrishna was one of those who could no longer internalize or identify with “conventional ideas", or personal life dramatics and the bland mind-forms of the collective. Nor could he identify with the limitations that society attempts to impose on the Spirit in man. For him the “rules” were part of an insubstantial dream, whereas his “mystical experience” was reality.

And, as it always turns out, it is ordinary life that is insubstantial relative to spiritual reality…until ordinary life is subsumed by the Spirit. The essence of Ramakrishna’s blisses was God experienced as continuous with the self of every day. As such it included the inviolable essence of his own self-awareness. In that self-recognition, in God, how could he not experience waves of joy?

This self-recognition in communion with God, is the “rock” on which one ought to build one’s house. It’s the home you always return to, after wandering in the craziness of the world. It’s your “place", and it can’t be taken away from you (unless, in a fit of “personality” or submission to “authority” you choose to abandon it).

Now, that’s what Ramakrishna knew, and he is long gone into the embrace of it, moved through depths of intimacy with his own being to indefinable and unseen wisdom.

(to be continued)

Elias

July 15, 2008

The first dream of this little series is interesting to me because it encapsulates what has been my own approach to spirituality. That is, what matters most is the actuality of it, not what we say about it. And the actuality of it is always the very Self of it – not a view from outside or “other".

The knowingness of the “New Age” approach, in which people compare notes and congratulate themselves on which gurus they have “sat with” and whatever “stage of enlightenment” they are approaching, just never cut it for me. But that’s our mental-verbal world, which makes an authority out of social hierarchies and reinforces them with endless streams of words. It has been with us for a long time. The dream in the second half of the night underscores this, because my monastic superior was a graduate of a Vatican education, steeped in Thomas Aquinas as well as all of the celebrated Catholic thinkers of the modern era. It gave him a point of view – in his officially approved mind – which tended to judge other people according to an authoritarian curriculum.

In the dream I saw his situation as possession by an archetype, and even then (waking and dreaming) my view was that being under the thumb of an archetype doesn’t qualify as “spiritual life". In fact, it is anti-Spirit. (I hope these essays have made clear what I mean by that. If not, I am sure they will before I am done.)

My superior came back at me (in the dream) with a fair comment, that “we know too much about each other". His point, well taken, was that I use psychology, Jung, and Jungian ideas to classify people in my own way, according to my own Jung-influenced system. I am well aware of that failing, and in fact I still do it. Fortunately I don’t wield that sword of discrimination randomly, but only when giving a verbal response to someone who (imho) is either judging me from the perspective of the ego, or needs a good kick in the ass! The real part of me – the very spiritual life that I “keep veiled from my enemies", is similar to the attitude and practice of the Indian monks in the first dream. It’s natural, like breathing, and I don’t let descriptive categories stick to it, mainly because in and of itself it is the very annihilation of all such categories.

Using a metaphor, you could compare the verbal life of an art critic and the tactile-sensory life of a painter the art critic admires. Both men are clearly busy – but which one is closer to the flame of the Spirit?

Now, the greatest artists, I’ve noticed, don’t get obsessed with thoughts about themselves and their work from the perspective of the critics. All those verbal shenanigans are so much rubbish to these artists, whose joy is to be immersed in their art – not in constructing explanations of it or building narcissistic images of their own wonderfulness.

As an “artist of renown", when you fall into the trap of believing in the images of you that the media holds up, you tend to get dissociated from your art and from the very secrets of mastery of the craft! In order to dive even deeper into your work, you need to dismiss the knowers and adulatory fans and critical bloviators, and just toss the idea of “fame” into the dustbin. “Be true to Blessed Chaitanya.” To hell with the world. If you have truly entered into a living relationship with the Spirit of God, you will say that with absolute confidence – because you have made your alliance not with the dissociative mind of the world, but with the ground of Being.

Again, regarding the spirituality of my “monastic superior", I feel strongly that the Church has engaged in a kind of conspiracy against the Spirit, by making religion into a matter of words rather than individual gnosis. Fortunately all the jabbering of “the Church Fathers” can’t actually prevent the Spirit from moving autonomously into any life that opens to receive it.

“Knock and it will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9)

It is time for your death. You knock at Heaven’s door. A voice says “Come in!” You open the door, with a rising sense of anticipation. Who waits to greet you? Blessed Chaitanya – fundamental, all-pervasive, divine Consciousness. Who can hold himself apart from Blessed Chaitanya, least of all at the moment of dying?

(to be continued)

Elias

July 13, 2008

It’s time to put aside those seven dreams and move on. Before I do I ought to say something about item #6, the “Magnificent breakthrough visions, all in one night” –

1. “Spinning in my blue shirt,” I felt pure love consciousness from head to toe, the essence from which all symbols crystallize.

2. Moving down into “the love soup,” like I used to in 1965, falling falling with body arched, then falling feet first in the void with a sound like a jet plane banking for a landing. Above me I see the place in the darkness I have left behind, and below me now a band of stars in perfect linear arrangement, like fields in the midwest seen from the air. Each “acre” of stars is marked off by large cross-shaped stars at the corners. I am moving down through delicious substantial aether toward these stars, and know I can enter any one I choose and merge with God.

The first vision was my spiritual body preparing for the second vision, which was an actual “out of body” experience. I literally left my body and entered another dimension, so that I lost all contact with this world and with my life here. I passed through the dimensional wall while falling in the love of God (something I used to do a lot in the 1960s). There was a tremendous sound accompanying this experience, very like a large jet plane descending into an airport. And below me there was a band of stars in perfect arrangement – not unlike a landing field!

Obviously the physics of this universe are quite different from our own! There was aether filling the void between the stars here, just like the philosophers and scientists of old used to imagine. I knew instinctively that each star was a path to God. That is, if I chose a star I would descend into its system of planets and there find a planet to dwell on, as I completed the transmigration to God.

Nice stuff.

Now, from the same period, some dreams about holy men of India and America –
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1. WITH THE MONKS AND SAINTS OF INDIA AND AMERICA

Talking with young monks and saints in India. They tell me that the great illuminations still come today, but they don’t talk about them as much as the old saints did. They just change and keep changing, sit on porches in little out of the way towns and smile. Someone says, “Man can posit whatever he likes, so long as he remains true to Blessed Chaitanya.” (Chaitanya = a name for Krishna, also “fundamental, all-pervasive, divine Consciousness".)

In the second half of the night I dream about American monks. Talking with my old monastic superior, I look into his eye and see a sun floating in the pupil. I say, “Your trouble is you are possessed by the father archetype. It’s getting the better of you. You should separate yourself from it and then rejoin it.” He responds, “Our mutual trouble is that we know too much about each other.”
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2. A DREAM OF RAMAKRISHNA

I am an American monk living in an Indian monastery. One of the Indian monks doesn’t believe that an American can meditate all day without being overcome by the urge to run outside and enjoy the outer life. He tells this to Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna comes to visit my cell. We speak as equals, discussing our work in consciousness. He is amazed at the aggressive fearlessness of my American way of proceeding from stage to stage. I tell him that is because I have someone to accompany me in the work (meaning my wife).
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3. MEETING UPASNI MAHARAJ

[Sri Upasni Maharaj – 1870-1941, also called Upasani Baba – was a vedic medical practitioner who in later years became a renowned spiritual master, Guru to Meher Baba.]

Walking along the street near Grand Central Station. A little shop in the wall, where yesterday there was none. Inside the shop Upasni Maharaj sits giving darshan. He gestures to me – “Come in here!” I recognize him, but my momentum carries me along. Finally I stop and decide to go back and “get my fortune told.” By then he has invited others into the shop, so I stand outside and watch as he begins a session with these students.

He announces that Mrs. S. will be “the first to experience the bliss of divine union.” Mrs. S. giggles with joy and anticipation. Her chest begins to heave at the mere thought of what is to come.

The students all wear dancers’ tights, but Upasani Baba is naked. He begins the session by lying on his back on the floor and swelling his abdomen to pumpkin size. A square plate bolted to the floor hides his rectum from view. Then the cheeks of his ass envelop the plate and his rectum seems to swallow it. He touches his rectum with his finger. It turns into a mouth! The mouth begins to whistle and chant a mantra! Upasani explains (with a visual demonstration) that a “black thing” emerges from the rectal mouth, circles through the “other world,” and reenters the body the same way it left.

Mrs. S., meanwhile, is duplicating all the activities of her teacher. I ask, “Isn’t Mrs. S. ashamed of how she looks to people in the street?” Upasni Maharaj answers, “Mrs. S. is now in a state of perfect bliss and certainty. She is immersed in absolute reality.”

I decide to join the great satguru’s class. He is amazingly matter-of-fact about spiritual realities. Up close there is the quality of a manikin about him, as if he puts on a body for purposes of communication only. His actual consciousness is entirely elsewhere.

He tells the group that I have “strong lateral bones” on each side of my face which will facilitate the process of awakening. He also tells me, “I thought I would find you as a disembodied spirit.” Fleeting image of me, out of the body, a ball of light floating in the aether without the momentum to carry me on to divine union. Sri Upasani makes it his duty to find souls like mine and carry them to God.
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I’ll have some comments about these dreams ready for next time.

(to be continued)

Elias

July 11, 2008

I decided to put away the essay I wrote for today. In its place here is a selection from some older material that was posted a few years ago on the Lightmind site.

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We can have no preconceived ideas or opinions about the meaning of dreams. Dreams are mostly compensatory or complementary to the conscious attitude. One always approached a dream without in any way anticipating what it was going to reveal. ~ C.G. Jung

You can show a mask to the outer world, but can you show a mask to the inner world? Why hide from dreams? Are you afraid they will tell you something you don’t really want to know?

People pretend to treat dreams as a trivial matter, some bit of fluff they can safely ignore. This is a tremendous mistake, and they know it. Dreaming is a very serious matter – just ask an aboriginal Australian, a Naskapi, or an ancient Israelite.

For thousands of years humanity in its millions upon millions turned to dreams for intuitive knowledge, guidance, and a living connection with God.

Anthropologists have reported over and over that in cultures more primitive than our own, dreaming is a highly valued activity. Among some tribal societies, to neglect a “big” dream is to risk losing life and soul.

Why does our advanced society know so little about dreams and dreaming? Why has the art of dreaming remained elusive, little understood, and rarely practiced? To me, our collective devaluation of dreams and the art of dreaming is the height of folly.

To take seriously the nighttime activity of dreaming is to initiate a dialectic between the waking mind and the deep psyche. Then, as we enter fully into the world of night, we begin to understand that dreaming is a dialogue with the Spirit. At last, at a moment yet to be determined, the Spirit will strike like lightning, waking us up in the hands of God.

“To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause….”
~ Shakespeare, Hamlet
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THE METHOD OF UNDERSTANDING A DREAM

The first rule of understanding a dream is to simply observe the dream. Do not get pushed into a hasty response by the emotions that may become activated in and around a dream. Let the dream simply sit there, in the mind, in all its chaos or clarity and all its vague or intense detail. Do not permit yourself to push any of it back into the depths of forgetting. Write it out immediately, if you can. Write it down later, in any case.

Next, simply wait. Do nothing. Be peaceful. How can a dream hurt you? Observe all the reactions that tend to rise up in the body relative to this dream. Observe your emotions, misgivings, fears, your body chemistry (such as adrenalin), etc.

Then ask yourself these questions –

1. What is this dream showing me about myself?
2. What is this dream revealing to me about my conscious attitude?
3. How does this dream complement, compensate, or balance my conscious attitude?
4. Does this dream reveal an area of the mind in which I am afraid, angry, defensive, or unusually passive?
5. Does this dream bring to light some event in the past I am ashamed of or afraid to look at?
6. Does this dream focus on some difficulty I am experiencing in my daily life? Does it help me to resolve that difficulty?
7. What is this dream saying about my relationships to other people?
8. What is this dream saying about my relationship to God?
9. Is this dream telling me anything that could change my life?

Those are a few of the questions one can use to pry open a dream. I am sure you can think of others. Consider your answers carefully, without prejudice, without feeling you have to prove anything to yourself or anyone else. Feel the chemistry of awareness, feel your bodily energies, feel the sensations in the brain, chest, and abdomen. Think and feel and intuit and sense any possible constriction or “cerebral arming” in yourself which can be released in this very moment.

Move through the dream until you can accept its implications and its truths. Understand you are seeing an aspect of your life that has been hidden from you. Meditate its release. “Dream past the meaning of the dream.” This is not as difficult (or as easy) as it might sound. Finally, submit the dream on the altar of your meditation to the Spirit of God. Bring the dream fully into relationship with everything that is already conscious in you, including all your spiritual realizations and your conscious relationship to God.

During the day you will find your mind turning to the dream from time to time. You will discover new insights arriving without notice, and new feelings and sensations in the body and brain as the complex of the dream spontaneously transmutes or dissolves.

Transformation is the key, you see. And as the dream changes and vanishes, consciousness fills out, more energy becomes available to the waking mind, and the work continues with greater force.

Dreaming thus teaches the mutability of awareness. By its very nature, awareness flows, night to night, like water journeying from mountain to sea. Dreaming shapes and is shaped, by the stream bed in which it flows.

Dreaming is the heightened awareness of change. Impermanence is our natural state. There is no state of mind, awake or asleep, that is free of process or free of change. Dreaming is the acceleration of change. Conscious dreaming is the quickening of transcendence, the quickening of conscious action, and real awakening is the necessary implication of the mutability of consciousness –

In conscious dreaming we learn to witness the water itself.

May I recognize whatever appears as being my own mindforms. May I fear not the bands of the Peaceful and the Wrathful, who are my own mindforms. –The Tibetan Book of the Dead

~E