Self . . . An 'Imaginary Center' as the 'Cause of Suffering'

"As LONG AS (one's subjective 'self') is centered in a phenomenal object, and thinks and speaks therefrom, (one's) subject is identified with that object and is bound."

"As long as such condition (applies), the identified subject can never be free—for freedom is liberation from that identification."

"Abandonment of a phenomenal centre constitutes the only 'practice', and such abandonment is not an act volitionally performed by the identified subject, but a non-­action (wu wei) leaving the noumenal centre in control of phenomenal activity, and free from fictitious interference by an imaginary 'self'."

"Are you still thinking, looking, living, as from an imaginary phenomenal center? As long as you do that you can never recognize your freedom."

Preface to "Open Secret" by Wei Wu Wei

 self / n., adj. & verb (pl. selves) 1 a person's or thing's own individuality or essence (showed his true self). 2 a person or thing as the object of introspection or reflexive action (the consciousness of self). . . .

ego / n. (pl. -os) 1 Metaphysics a conscious thinking subject. 2 Psychology the part of the mind that reacts to reality and has a sense of individuality. . . .

[Source: Concise Oxford English Dictionary.]

"(An) event," Wei Wu Wei points out, "only occurs in the mind of the perceiver of it, singular or plural as the case may be, and no event could be anything but a memory when we know it. No event is anything but a psychic experience. Events, or memories of events, are objectivizations in consciousness."

Our lives, our histories - personal and collective - the "who" we identify as, are manifestations of consciousness. Indeed, as many physicists point out, at the most basic level, the entire universe must be manifested (or "real-ized") through an act of conscious observation, through an observing consciousness. Some, like the late David Bohm, might agree with Gary Zhukav's conclusion that "modern physics has become the study of the structure of consciousness."

Buddhist teacher, Tulke Urgyen Rinpoche, would say that 'reality' ("as it is") - including the basic nature of a realized Buddha and that of ordinary sentient beings - is a fundamental and complete emptiness unified irrevocably with an infinite ability to 'cognize.' I suspect he would agree that the 'events' of our lives, and our 'memories' of those events, "are objectivizations in consciousness," albeit objectivizations that are misperceived because we are unskillful in realizing the unity of our empty and infinitely cognizant nature.

One must ask, given the 'misperceptions' of our own individual and collective group consciousness, just how functional we are as many billions of individualized 'selves.' How well does an overwhelmingly narcissistic, post-modern dualistic perspective work for us?

It is important, I feel, to realize just how much unnecessary mayhem, harm and suffering this misperception of separate individuality perpetuates if we are ever going to make the necessary efforts to be free of 'self.'

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"(I)t becomes obvious," writes spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, "that the human ego in its collective aspect as 'us' against 'them' is even more insane than the 'me,' the individual ego, although the mechanism is the same. By far the greater part of the violence that humans have inflicted on each other is not the work of criminals or the mentally deranged, but of normal respectable citizens in the service of the collective ego. One can go as far as to say that on this planet 'normal' equals insane. What is it that lies at the root of this insanity? Complete identification with thought and emotion, that is to say, ego."

Eckhart Tolle, best-selling author of
"The Power of Now" and "A New Earth."

"Greed, selfishness, exploitation, cruelty, and violence are still all-pervasive on this planet," Tolle observes. "When you don't recognize them as individual and collective manifestations of an underlyin dysfunction or mental illness, you fall into the error of personalixing them. You construct a conceptual identity for an individual or group and you say: 'This is who he is. This is who they are.'"

"All this," he notes, "is enormously satisfying to the ego. It strengthens the sense of separation between yourself and the other, whose 'otherness' has become manifested to such an extent that you can no longer feel your common humanity, not the rootedness in the one Life that you share with each human being, your common divinity."

And, he points out: "Fighting (such) unconsciousness will (only) draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconscious, dysfunctional egoic behavior can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists." (Emphasis added.)

Eckhart Tolle, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," pp. 73-75

As Wei Wu Wei asks: ""Are you still thinking, looking, living, as from an imaginary phenomenal center?" "As long as you do that," he points out, "you can never recognize your freedom."

Enlightenment Takes No Time At All

Spiraling, spiralling,
out through space-time
the stars and all their planets
ever whirl.

I look about and all I see
is star dust.

Enlightenment takes no time at all.
Being eternal it is beyond space-time,
which can only denote and thereby sever it.

Even the finest wine turns to vinegar in time.
Therefore, imbibe now!

If eye could see all this from without,
would not the universe itself be an infinity
of swirling vortices congealing out of the void?

And yet,
when we envision that within which is every being, how still and empty does it seem?
Such illusory stillness is the stuff of which some far off heaven's made.

Simon Small: On the Inner Path and Contemplative Life

"I stand at the bottom of the pond as the fulcrum of limitless space, within and without, a gateway to both, an icon that joins the two. But who am I, so small and insignificant yet at the heart of existence? As I ponder this question, infinite space reveals itself once more. For as hard as I look, I cannot find myself. I can only find thoughts, memories, fears, beliefs and concepts that constantly arise and cease. But whoever I am does not arise or cease. I am who I have always been. Different thoughts and a new body, but I am who I am. And as my mind stills consciousness expands without limit. There is a deep sense that, indeed, it has no limit. It too is infinite, a vibrantly alive space. As I stand at the bottom of the pond, I am the still center of awesome space, but so is every other human being. And, in its own way, so is every animal, plant, virus, bacteria and living cell. And in some far distant galaxy, on another insignificant lump of rock, at the bottom of another pond, stands another still center of space staring uswards and inwards, filled and humbled by the mystery of existence."

-- Simon Small --
 ("At the Bottom of a Pond")

In a recent interview (attached below) Iain McNay, co-host of ConsciousTV, sat down with Rev. Simon Small, an ordained Church of England clergyman and author, to explore the latter's journey from run-of-the-mill modern materialist businessman to a Christian contemplative. Small's inner journey of self-inquiry led him from spiritualism, through A Course in Miracles, to Theravada Buddhism and back to his Church of England roots, revealing to him the spaciousness and interconnectedness that is at the heart of all the world's great wisdom traditions.

Small describes the fruits of the inner path in the following terms: "One begins to experience a taste that one is not separate to everything else, that this hard sense of being separate and cut off from all of this, and just relating to it, is actually just a perception, and that whatever I am is flowing out of the source of everything, just as this table is, and this room, and everything outside."

"Contemplation," he notes, "is an ancient Christian word for a universal experience. (It) describes what happens when we have those moments . . when suddenly our very small world that we are living out in our head almost seems to dissolve and suddenly there is this vast mystery there in the moment. We all have experiences like this. Many of us have them out in nature. We will be walking along and there will be a moment when the sunlight coming through the branches and hitting the leaves just stops us in our tracks. There is a sense of time almost stopping as well, and there is almost a sense of resonance in the moment so that we are no longer separate to the sunlight and those leaves. There is something vibrating there that is vibrating in us as well. We all have these moments."

A life of contemplation may not, however, be for everyone. The fruits of the inner path and contemplation are very rich, Small notes, but they come at a price, a price that many people are, perhaps, loathe to pay.

"At first, (contemplation) is a wonderful experience," he points out, "because you have never quite tasted anything quite like it. It is like the finest wine you have ever tasted, and you become aware. . . . Suddenly life has gone to colour from black and white.  But then very quickly," he warns, "one begins to realize that if you are going to pursue this you are not going to be able to live the same way anymore in the world. Things that you used to value, you won't value anymore. And you will begin to value things that you have never dreamed of before."

Small's advice to those who wish to explore the contemplative way is: "Enter stillness. Try and taste the wonder of being. Go out into nature, (into) whatever it is that brings this sense of wonder into your life. And then as you are experiencing that quality of consciousness, hold the question: Where do I go from here?" The answer will come, he notes.

Thich Nhat Hanh: On Habit and Mindfulness

"Our habit energy is what causes us to repeat the same behaviour thousands of times. Habit energy pushes us to run, to always be doing something, to be lost in thoughts of the past or the future and to blame others for our suffering. And that energy does not allow us to be peaceful and happy in the present moment."

"The practice of mindfulness helps us to recognize that habitual energy. Every time we can recognize the habitual energy in us, we are able to stop and to enjoy the present moment. The energy of mindfulness is the best energy to help us embrace our habit energy and transform it."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh --
("Beyond the Self: Teachings on the Middle Way")

In the Tao Te Ching we read:

The sage has no mind of his own. He takes as his own the mind of the people.

Those who are good I treat as good. Those who are not good I also treat as good. In so doing I gain in goodness. Those who are of good faith I have faith in. Those who are lacking in good faith I also have faith in. In so doing I gain in good faith.

The sage in his attempt to distract the mind of the empire seeks urgently to muddle it. The people all have something to occupy their eyes and ears, and the sage treats them all like children.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the attached two-part video, the renowned Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, takes the viewer through a mindful movement and breathing meditation:

Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly

Blessed are those who are humbled by life, for they may become meek. Blessed are the meek, for they are free of self. When we are suffering, we are being humbled, and in being humbled we are actually being blessed although it does not feel like it at the time.

"We each have a view of the universe," notes Thich Nhat Hahn. "That view may be called relativity or uncertainty or probability or string theory; there are many kind of views."

"Its okay to propose views," he notes, "but if you want to make progress on the path of inquiry, you should be able to be ready to throw away your view."

Chuang Tzu, the great Taoist master, was so amenable to changing his views of the ultimate 'realities' of life that he awoke from a dream unsure if he had been Chuang Tzu dreaming he had been a butterfly, or if he was then a butterfly dreaming that he was Chuang Tzu.

"If you worship something as a dogma, as absolute truth," Thich Nhat Hahn points out, "you are not a good practitioner. You must be totally free, even from the teachings of the Buddha. The teachings of the Buddha," he notes, are offered as instruments, not as absolute truth."

To the extent that I 'know' the truth I suffer, for I have not yet become truly humble. Yet, how often am I caught up in my view of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'? Far too often, as it turns out, for I continue to suffer the pangs of my own 'righteousness.'

My spiritual mentor often told the following story:

"One day a man saw a butterfly shuddering on the sidewalk, locked in a seemingly hopeless struggle to free itself from its now useless cocoon. Feeling pity, the man took a pocket knife and carefully cut away the cocoon to set the butterfly free. To his amazement, it lay on the sidewalk, convulsed weakly for a while and died. Sometime later a biologist told him, "That was the worst thing you could have done. A butterfly needs that struggle in order to develop its muscles to fly. By robbing him of the struggle you made him too weak to live."

Never deny another of there struggle to be free. Do not rob them of the opportunity to be humbled by life. We all need to fulfill our own karma.

You do not have to reassure Chuang Tzu, that he is indeed Chuang Tzu. You may be mistaken. He may, in fact, be a butterfly dreaming that he is just Chuang Tzu.

"The truly Right View," notes Thich Nhat Hahn, "is the absence of all views. According to the teachings of the Buddha, we have to throw away all views, including the so-called right views. Reality, things as they are, cannot be described in terms of notions and views. That is why so-called 'right views' are only instruments to help us."

[Thich Nhat Hahn, "Beyond the Self," pp. 14-15.]

Ram Dass: On Witnessing Life and Death

"To me," says Ram Dass in the attached video, "death is a process of just leaving what you thought you were - not what you are, but what you thought you were."

For Dass, witnessing the presence of simple being, of witnessing the spaciousness of what is, is the key to helping those approaching death. Dying to self in such an instance, it seems, is truly the process of dying. It is the awakening to the eternal life of what this moment is.

"For you to be of any use to someone who is dying," Dass notes,  "there is one simple rule: you work on yourself, you don't work on the other person."

"Every moment of your life, once you understand the purpose of it," he points out, "is your vehicle for awakening. This moment is your vehicle for awakening. If you are uncomfortable at this moment, okay. You are uncomfortable. Allow it. If you're fascinated, be fascinated. Allow it."

It is through being present for the person making the greatest transition, that one allows that person the freedom to be present to the whole process.

Maya, Existence and Non-Existence

"When the Hindu says the world is Maya, at once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did not believe in the external world at all. But the Maya of Vedanta, in its last developed form is neither Idealism nor Realism, nor is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts - what we are, and what we see around us."

"The one peculiar attribute we find in time, space, and causation is that they cannot exist sepearte from other things. Try to think of space without colour, or limits, or any connection with the things around - just abstract space. You cannot; you have to think of it as the space between two limits, or between three objects. It has to be connected with some object to have any existence. So with time; you cannot have any ideas of abstract time, but you have to take two events, one preceding, and the other succeeding, and join the two events by the ideas of succession. Time depends on two events, just as space has to be related to outside objects. And the idea of causation is inseparable from time and space."

"As no man can jump out of his own self, so no man can go beyond the limits that have been put upon him by the laws of time and space. Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time and space, would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these things."

"What does the statement of the existence of the world mean, then? "This world has no existence." What is meant by that? It means that it has no absolute existence. It exists only in relation to my mind, to your mind, and to the mind of everyone else."

"We see this world with the five senses, but if we had another sense, we would see in it something more. If we had yet another sense, it would appear to be as something still different. It has, therefore, no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence. Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have to work in and through it. It is a misture of existence and non-existence."

-- Swami Vivikenanda --
("Teachings of Swami Vivikenanda," Advaita Ashrama Publishings, pp. 198-199.)

Beyond Desire to Spiritual Awakening

"When a man surrenders all desires that come to the heart and by the grace of God finds the joy of God, then his soul has indeed found peace. He whose mind is untroubled by sorrows, and for pleasure has no longings, beyond passion and fear and anger, he is the sage of the unwavering mind."

-- The Bhagavad Gita, 2:55-56 --

"Spiritual experience," writes famed translator, Jose Mascaro, "is the only source of true spiritual faith, and this must never contradict reason, or as Shankara, c. AD 788-820, says in his commentary of the Bhagavad Gita: 'If a hundred scriptures should declare that fire is cold or that it is dark, we would suppose they intend quite a different meaning from the apparent one!'"

"What," he then asks, "is the indispensable condition for this spiritual experience? It is very simple, and it can be very difficult: it is the absence of desires."

[Mascaro, "Bhagavad Gita (Penguin Classics)," p. li.]

But, the question remains: How will we know when we have mastered desires?

In his treatise, "On Desire: Why We Want What We Want," author, William Irvine observes that when we have mastered desire, "(w)e will experience what . . . has been the goal of most of those who have thought about desire - a feeling of tranquility."

"This should not be confused with the kind of tranquility brought on be ingestion of a tranquilizer," he cautions. Rather, he notes, "(i)t is instead marked by a sense that we are lucky to be living whatever life we happen to be living - that despite our circumstances no key ingredient of happiness is missing."

"With this sense," Irvine observes, "comes a diminished level of anxiety: we no longer need to obsess over the things - a new car, a bigger house, a firmer abdomen - that we mistakenly believe will bring lasting happiness if only we can obtain them. Most importantly," he points out, "if we master desire, to the extent possible to do so, we will no longer despise the life we are forced to live and will no longer daydream about living the life someone else is living; instead, we will embrace our own life and live it to the fullest."

[Irvine. "On Desire: Why We Want What We Want," pp. 6-7.]

The "desireless realm" described by the Buddha, and so many others, is thus, a universal spiritual state of being described in all of the world's great wisdom traditions. In the New Testament, for example (at Matthew 6:27-34), Jesus addresses our overwhelming desires and worries, observing:

"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!"

“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

"(T)he time and effort we spend trying to master desire," Irvine suggests, "are probably considerably less than the time and effort we will expend if we instead capitulate to our desires and spend our days, as so many do, working incessantly to fulfill whatever desire floats into our head."

"Do thy work in the peace of Yoga and, free from selfish desires," says the Gita (at 2:48), be not moved in success or in failure. Yoga is evenness of mind - a peace that is ever the same."

Virtue, Delusion and Mental Awareness: A Buddhist Perspective

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."

[Romans 7:15-19]

The question of virtue - doing what is right and true to one's inner being - was tackled, and masterfully explained by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in his landmark book, "Understanding the Mind." Essentially, he says, virtuous action results from a virtuous mental awareness rooted in our Buddha nature, while non-virtuous action is the result of a delusionary mindset. End the delusions, he notes, and one will end all non-virtuous action. But that is where it gets somewhat complicated. . . .

"All non-virtue arises from delusions," Geshe Kelsang observes, "and delusions arise from four causes: the root, the seed, the object, and inappropriate attention."

"The root of all delusions" he notes, "is self-grasping, the seed of a delusion is a potential left on the mental continuum by similar delusions in the past that acts as the substantial cause of that delusion; the object is any contaminated object; and inappropriate attention is a mental factor that focuses on the object in a mistaken way and acts as a co-operative cause of delusions. For a delusion to arise," he states, "all four causes are necessary."

"In reality," Geshe Kelsang notes, "the causes of delusion exist within the mind, not the body. For this reason Nagarjuna said that physical asceticism is not very important. To overcome delusions we need the mental asceticism of practices such as meditation and patience."

"The easiest way to prevent delusions from arising," he observes, "is to stop inappropriate attention by not allowing our mind to dwell on and exaggerate the attractive or unattractive features of contaminated objects. In this way," he says, we shall be able temporarily to prevent delusions."

"However," he notes, "to eradicate (delusions) completely we must abandon their root, self grasping, by attaining (to be) a yogic direct perceiver realizing emptiness. Once we have attained a direct realization of emptiness, we shall gradually eradicate the seeds of all the delusions."

"We eradicate the seeds of all intellectually-formed delusions on the path of seeing," Geshe notes, "and the seeds of all innate delusions on the path of meditation."

Hallucinations and the "Theater of the Mind"

The mind, the brain, or the "mind-brain," is far more peculiar than we think. Perhaps, stealing a line from Richard Dawkins (who accredits it to J.B.S. Haldane), it is "stranger than we can think."

In the following video from TED.com, neurologist Oliver Sacks (of "Awakenings" fame) discusses the visual and audio "hallucinations" that occur in approximately ten percent of the visually and hearing impaired - although these "Charles Bonnet" hallucinations are largely under-reported. Such hallucinations - which are distinct phenomena separate from the psychopathological hallucinations of specific disorders such as schizophrenia - may help to explain, Dr. Sacks suggests, how "the theater of the mind" is generated (or perhaps co-generated?) by the mechanisms of the brain.

Tolle, Heisenberg and Descartes: "I Observe, therefore, I Am"

Rene Descartes
(1596-1650)

Rene Descarte's famous dictum, "cognito ergo sum" ('I think, therefore, I am'), while logical and apparently self-evident on its face, may be wholly wrong. Voices as varied as spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Werner Hesienberg (who first developed the eponymous 'Uncertainty Principle' that forms an integral component of the quantum theory), have critiqued Descartes on precisely this conclusion. "I am, therefore, I think," would perhaps be a more accurate summary for Tolle, who has identified "thinking without awareness" as the main problem of humanity.

Werner Heisenberg
(1901-1976)

For his part, Heisenberg in "Physics and Philosophy:The Revolution in Modern Science," observes that Descartes' distinction between internal reality (res cogitans) and outer reality (res extensa) skewed  science so that it looked almost wholly to the external, a viewpoint that cannot be sustained given the role of the observer in quantum mechanics.

"(T)he basis of the philosophy of Descartes is radically different from that of the ancient Greek philosophers," Heisenberg notes. "Here the starting point is not a fundamental principle or substance, but the attempt of a fundamental knowledge. And Descartes realizes that what we know about our mind is more certain than what we know about the outer world. But already his starting point with the "triangle" God-World-I simplifies in a dangerous way for further reasoning."

"The division between matter and mind or between soul and body, which had started in Plato's philosophy, is now complete. God is separated both from the I and from the world. God in fact is raised so high above the world and men that He finally appears in the philosophy of Descartes only as a common point of reference that establishes the relation between the I and the world."

"If one uses the the fundamental concepts of Descartes at all," Heisenberg continues, "it is essential that God is in the world and in the I and it is also essential that the I cannot be really separated from the world. Of course Descartes knew the indisputable necessity of the connection, but philosophy and natural science in the following period developed on on the basis of the polarity between the "res cogitans" and "res extensa." The influence of the Cartesian division on human thought in the following centuries can hardly be overestimated, but it is just in this division which we have to criticize later from the development of physics in our time."

[Heisenberg, "Physics and Philosophy," pp. 52-53]

"If one follows the great difficulty which even eminent scientists like Einstein had in understanding the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory," Heisenberg remarks, "one can trace the roots of this difficulty to the Cartesian partition. This partition has penetrated deeply into the human mind during the three centuries following Descartes and it will take a long time for it to be replaced by a really different attitude toward the problem of reality."

[Ibid., p. 55.]

Eckhart Tolle

Perhaps, a better summary, and one that both Tolle and Heisenberg might accept is "observare ergo sum" - "I observe, therefore, I am" - for it is the observer that finally determines the outcome in quantum mechanics, coalescing one reality out of an infinite number of possibilities, and for Tolle it is the witnessing Presence of the observer that stymies the ego and makes his or her world whole.

 . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For a detailed introduction to the work of Heisenberg and the development of the quantum theory, particularly as it relates to consciousness, the cosmos and our Being, see the related post ("God, Quantum Physics and Cosmology: A Video Compilation"), which is available, below.

Mind or Brain? East or West?

Dean Radin, Ph.D.
Institute of Noetic Sciences

For a number of years Dean Radin, Ph.D., a senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, has been doing leading edge research regarding the boundaries of the mind-brain interface and chaos theory. His research, and that of his colleagues around the world, have melded their research regarding the influence of 'mind' on 'randomness' into the "Global Consciousness Project," a collective effort which explores whether the intentions or attention of large numbers of subjects have any statistical effect upon the results produced by random number generators.

Describing this interface of the scientific study of so-called 'paranormal phenomena' and the 'mind sciences,' Radin observes that the research being done through the project "all devolves back into the question of what is the role of mind in the physical world."

"From a Western science point of view there isn't much," he observes. But in describing his own work, and that of his colleagues, Radin notes that both the intention and attention of individuals do appear to have an effect in the wider environment. In describing the fascinating results coming in from the Global Consciousness Project, Radin notes that he and his colleagues have come to the startling conclusion that there is "a context where we can infer there is a mental concurrence going on, sometimes due only to attention."

"We don't know whether it is simply a lot of human minds that are somehow changing randomness, or whether this is a reflection of something bigger, something like a collective mind," Radin notes, "a collective mind which includes everything else including what we think of as matter and energy."

It may be, he posits, that "the same kind of organizing event that changes random events also changes our attention."





In a related video, Radin explores how the leading edge of Western scientific inquiries into consciousness seem to be converging on the same conclusions reached by millennia of Eastern inquiry into the nature of the mind.

"If you keep following out on Eastern lore," Radin observes, "you find things (at some point) of 'mystical union' with the entire universe. At that level, the report is - the reports across cultures and throughout history - that the universe is not the meaningless object that Western science says that it is. But, rather, that the universe is permeated with meaning and is saturated with consciousness."

"There is consciousness everywhere," Radin notes, "in which case, while the Western viewoint is that your mind, your awareness, is locked inside this structure (the brain), from the Eastern viewpoint this structure is the entire universe, and you can experience it like that."

"Western science has not quite gotten to the point yet where it is able to verify that that's the case," he notes, "but I think the signs are very clear that that is becoming an interesting question. And methods are being developed to take Western science and move it along this continuum to begin to verify in Western terms what the mystics have been talking about for thousands of years."

Tolle and Adyashanti: 'The Voice in the Head"

Adyashanti

Meditation is not a goal, and a meditative practice is not the end, says the enlightened neo-Buddhist spiritual teacher, Adyashanti. In fact, he says, it can be counter-productive if we mistakenly identify ourselves with our thoughts about meditation.

"If it's thought only as a means to an end" he says, "then its is overvalued."

"Because, he says, we think, 'You must do this in order to achieve a certain end.' Meditating (is then seen) as a means to get to a spiritual goal. Then we tend to adhere to ideas that say we must meditate a certain amount, and a lot, that it's sort of the highway to enlightenment. But that is to turn (meditation) into a goal. And, as soon as we turn it into a goal, then it is trapped within what I call the 'dream state' - a state of consciousness that is dominated by the mind (and) which is created by the mind."

"The 'dream state,'" he explains, "is just another word for mental consciousness, actually believing the mental noise in one's head, which is the common state of consciousness. The common state of consciousness of humanity is one in which human beings believe the mental noise in their head. And because of that, human beings have this compulsive relationship with thought. They think compulsively. Its like an addiction. As if you would sort of cease to be if you didn't think."

"In a very simple manner of speaking, its all awakening is - our consciousness going from this 'dream state' in which we are caught in the compulsive nature of thought and its world-view, and its 'self-view' - and going from this which is itself a 'dream state' created by thinking, and going from that to the state of consciousness which is not proceeding from thought."

"Whenever thought is no longer compulsively moving and, therefore, we are not deriving our sense of self from it, our sense of reality from it," says Adyashanti, "then we are free of the ordinary 'dream world,'" from the ego's consciousness and the suffering it causes.




This simple yet profound teaching is similar to that of his colleague, the spiritual teacher and best-selling author, Eckhart Tolle.

"Most people have a voice in their head which is the usual thought processes that they are usually identified with," says Tolle. "So for most people that is their basic reality, that 'voice in the head'. And, they are so identified with these continually arising thought processes," he notes, "that they don't even know that they are identified with every thought that comes to them. They don't know that there is a 'voice in the head' because they are the 'voice in the head.'"

Non-Duality and Preparedness: A Sufi View of 'Oneness'

"I am by nature a traditional mystic," says author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. "The new age spiritual teachings, so to speak, didn't mean much to me. My focus was on the inner experiences of the individual, the inner mystical experiences that really belong to classical Sufism."

"And then a strange thing happened in the spring of the year 2000," he notes, "suddenly my attention was shifted. It's like  somebody turned my head from here to there, and then I saw what I call this 'emerging consciousness of 'Oneness,' that there is something awakening in the world that hasn't been here before."

"In a way," he notes, "you can trace it back to the mystical understanding of 'Oneness,' because 'Oneness' is a basic mystical experience. Many, many, many people have had experiences of 'Oneness.' They've woken up for a moment, like the poet William Blake said, "to see the world in a grain of sand." They've had those momentary experiences where they see everything as one; they see that the universe is one dynamic whole."

"But the idea that this might become part of our collective human experience," he observes, "not just an individual mystical experience, which it has been traditionally in the past - the unio mystico of the mystics - that somehow the whole of humanity is taking a step to a different level of awareness, this really began to interest me."

"And, all I can do," says Vaughan-Lee, "is say that there seems to be a need to prepare the ground, so that if such a moment should happen, if there should be something that happens that awakens humanity, the whole of humanity . . . that one can begin to prepare the stepping stones."

"But how it is going to happen I don't know," he observes. "I thought it was going to be much simpler."



Preparing such a foundation, however, may be of the utmost importance. Without a preparatory foundation, Vaughan-Lee observes, the individual may be dangerously unprepared for such an awakening of consciousness.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

In a related video, Vaughan Lee observes that "a human being is quite complex. We have a soul that longs for God, but we also have a personality, an ego that has developed, that has conditioning - (the) influence of parents and all of the dramas of being alive, of being part of humanity. And when you really seriously commit yourself to spiritual life, you have to start to clear out some of the clutter you have accumulated in your life."

"For this," he warns, " it is necessary to have some psychological system. Otherwise, what happens is that the bright light of the divine in you floods you, and you get unbalanced. You have to become grounded in yourself."

"Sadly," he notes, "there have been people who have become intoxicated by God but then became unbalanced because they haven't done the inner work that is needed for grounding the human being. You need a process to help you to prepare, to help your 'inner self' to prepare."

"If you haven't done that inner work, if you haven't explored yourself psychologically, then the spiritual energies that come into the human being will unbalance you and you will become ungrounded."

The 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness

Dr. David Chalmers: "There is more to
consciousness than a physical process in
the brain. You could know all there is to
 know about the physical processes in the
brain and you wouldn't know all there is 
to know about consciousness."

From the time of Newton and the rise of positivism, scientific empiricism has tried to 'objectify' the world, eliminating all subjective views of what we and our world are all about. This approach falls short, however, when it comes to the 'hard problem' of what consciousness itself is, observes philosopher, Dr. David Chalmers, director of the Centre for Consciousness at Australia's National University. After all, how can we deal objectively with a subject matter - consciousness - which is inherently the essence of subjectivity?

"We're so hooked on the idea that to do proper science you have to be objective, you have to eliminate anything subjective from the picture to build up a scientific framework," says Dr. Chalmers, "that every last remnant of consciousness, of subjective experience in the data, gets eliminated. In the scientific theory, for example, of heat or light, you give a theory of molecules moving fast in a hot object. One gives a theory of everything it seems, all the objective aspects of heat, (but) one leaves out the very central subjective aspect of 'hotness.'"

"Science," Chalmers observes, "is actually built up on the idea that one has to eradicate the subjective to give these objective theories. If so, then when . . . it comes to giving a theory of consciousness itself, which is the paradigmatically subjective phenomenon, it may be that the methods of science have to be expanded."





"For the most part, people don't talk about it," Chalmers notes, "at least until very recently. And, in recent years people have actually started to talk about consciousness a little bit more centrally. And some of these problems are being brought directly into people's attention."

"Now," he observes, "I think were coming to a point where we are going to see a concerted effort from a number of people from different disciplines."

In a related video (below), Dr. Chalmers goes further into the hardest, of the 'hard problems' in science - what consciousness is, why it arises and what its 'qualia' is.

Echoing other leading voices in consciousness studies, such as Alan Wallace and Rupert Sheldrake, Chalmers observes that, "(t)here is more to consciousness than a physical process in the brain, because you could know all there is to know about the physical processes in the brain and you wouldn't know all there is to know about consciousness."

Virtuous Action through Spiritual Awakening

That patience is a virtue is conventional wisdom; yet the ego is virtueless. The self-absorbed, self-centered mind fixated in the stories we are always apt to be telling ourselves is utterly incapable of virtue, or patience for that matter. Our false 'self' - that restless and relentlessly wandering stream of thought that can carry us away at any time to the heights of pleasure or the depths of despair and suffering - the undisciplined movement of our 'thought-stuff' is virtueless.

All virtue lies in the undisturbed, discerning awareness of our depth. To know the stillness of tranquility - the inner peace that surpasses all understanding - to rest in this void and avoid nothing, neither labeling, judging nor blaming things, people or circumstances whether real or fancied - is to become capable of manifesting one's virtue, to awaken spiritually and thus become capable of undertaking truly virtuous action

Actions may from time-to-time appear to be virtuous to the onlooker, but unless they are inspired by and carried out from the inner place of one's virtue, tranquility and awakened awareness, they are not virtuous - even if the benefit to others is great. To one's own Being, to one's authentic Self they will still lack virtue. Such seemingly virtuous actions will still be self-reinforcing and one will still be swept away by the thoughts of the ego that say, "Look at me . . . Now I am being virtuous . . . Look how patient I am being . . . . Look at all the virtuous action I am undertaking for others." All for naught.

One who lacks inner stillness and discernment, lacks the capacity for virtuous action.

Spiritual Awakening? Who Cares? . . . YAWN . . . zzzz-zzzz-zzzz . . .

I was really caught by an Associated Press article on what (AP) called YAWNs (Gen-Xers and Ys that are 'Young and Wealthy but Normal'). People in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are OK financially (wealthy, is a relative term), "socially aware, concerned about the environment and given less to consuming than to giving money to charity." They are identified as people "who want nothing less than to change the world and save the planet."

I was born at the beginning of 1961, right on the cusp between the 'boomers and Gen X. I saw....but I was too young to take part in, the "tune in, turn on and drop out" social revolution of the '60s. And I didn't even hear about Gen X until I was in my early 20s, and then only from the little brothers and sisters of the people I was partying with.

My graduating class - as if I graduated, at least 'on time' - was fed the "sex, drugs & rock 'n roll" ethos that the '60s mantra of "peace, love and understanding" had to a large degree devolved to by the time we made it on the scene. And while the majority of the cohort that came of age in the '60s morphed into the yuppies and 'boomers we are all all-to-overly-familiar with, while a smaller band of counter-revolutionaries stayed on in the San Francisco-area to kickstart Silicon Valley, the internet and this whole digital revolution thing, I was stuck for many years chasing them one way or the other, being blown this way and that in the winds of change with a whole bulging lump of 'boomers queing up in line in front of me. It was damn near enough to knock the wind right out of me, or at least out of my sails.

When by my late 20s I realized I had missed the whole party and had shown up only in time for its dreg ends - when the remaining partygoers were getting woozy and sick of it all, and the true lights of the party had long moved on to more inspirational or materially rewarding endeavours - I too morphed. I went back to university part-time, then law school and in one career move went from blue-collar factory worker to pin-striped corporate lawyer - just in time to see the dot-com bubble burst. I had more material stuff than ever - was wealthy, I guess - but I was running on empty and sure didn't feel "normal" whatever that is. For people around my age - post-boomers, pre-busters, or perhaps of any age - I think "normal" is always a moving target. Chasing "normal" must inevitably cause suffering in the end, is my experience.

Now . . . Finally . . . I discover the truth . . I'm a YAWN! I may not be wealthy in the conventional sense, but I've always been sort of unconventional. But, I live in the West, ergo I am wealthy by default.

(Note: it's hard to starve to death in Canada - or even in America, for that matter - unless by choice, handicap or disability you slip through the social safety net. You might not have all that crap you would think makes people, especially those 'wealthy', most privileged 'boomers happy, but you won't starve to death.)

And that's the point of the (AP) article: All of our STUFF can't make us happy! It hasn't for the 'boomers, the most privilege generation a culture or the world has ever seen. By and large, they're not happy - just chasing more stuff and desperately trying to hold on to what they've already got. Turns out the Beatles were right - Money Can't Buy (Me, you, or any of us) Love! It just buys or rents a bunch of crap - stuff that we don't really need, and can't hold on to in the end anyway!

Stanford University sociologist, David Grusky, says recent history has demonstrated that we pendulum back and forth between materialist and anti-materialist cultural phases. But this time it might be different. "Society tends to follow cycles" according to Grusky, "with anti-materialist periods like the hippie movement generating a pro-materialist reaction - the yuppie period, and so on."

But perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . this time the pendulum will not swing back. Perhaps, we have come to a place culturally where materialism (a) is no longer desirable, and more pointedly (b) is no longer sustainable - what with global warming, species going extinct at a rate not seen since the last really big meteor hit the Earth, 'boomers, yuppies and Gens of all type (X, Y, Z & ?) no longer able to even borrow a buck to continue the feeding frenzy, and with global food riots breaking out as we finally turn to burning what should be their food in our oversized-luxury cars and SUV's that are melting the icecaps. Look what is happening as India and now China chase their very own "American Dream" in a belatedly unfashionable fashion.

"It is a cultural and demographic 'perfect storm'", Grusky says. A storm that "may well push us decisively toward an extreme form of post-materialism in the upcoming period." Let us hope so. Let us hope that we are entering into a cultural storm that will propel ever more of us to a spiritual awakening and a clear, conscious awareness of who we really are in the depths of our being.

Let us hope these winds of change will allow us to see, with compassion, what we have done to the world we will inevitalby leave behind us - a damaged world that not only our children and grandchildren will have to try to save, restore, redeem and live in, but a world that will have to sustain the children and grandchildren of our brothers and sisters in Africa, the Middle East, India, Asia and all across the so-called 'developing world" (the children and grandchildren of all those who have not been able to enjoy, but have only been plagued, victimized and deluded by, the West's myopic frolic with materialism).

It is liberating (and I mean that in all of that powerful word's finest sense) to see that people of my generation - perhaps it should be called Generation ? - are starting to realize that the cupboard is bare, but need not be. "The green thing is just a part of it" consumer trends expert, Pam Danziger, says. "Our closets are full. Our attics are full. Our garages are full. Enough already."

"Go into your dark closet and pray or meditate on that," an ancient Rebbe would have said. If you have room that is! Hopefully, if anyone of us takes the time to do so, he or she will come out of that dark closet self-transcendent, and spiritually awake to the winds of change that may herald a "perfect storm".

Spiritual awakening? Self-transcendence? . . . Who Cares? . . . YAWN . . . zzzz-zzzz-zzzz . . .

The 'Depth' of Spritual Experience: Part One

There are two things which I "take seriously without any reservations" - books and freedom. Both have proven to be vitally important on my quest for spiritual awakening, awareness and self-transcendence. Imagine my delight a couple of years ago when I passed a local church and out front of the minister's adjoining home I saw a table piled high with books and a sign that said, "Feel Free to Take Us Home." I left with an armload of dog-eared, well-read volumes that, judging by the titles, must have accompanied the minister around the world - from England to West Africa, to where they were neatly stacked awaiting me, here in suburban Ontario.

Amongst the books I scooped up was a two-volume set of Paul Tillich's collected sermons. As I didn't (and still don't) have any religious affiliation, nor any formal religious or theological education, Tillich's name wasn't familiar to me then. I later learned that Tillich was perhaps the greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century - if not the top, certainly amongst the top handful. Tillich was encouraged to emigrate from Nazi Germany on the brink of World War II by Reinhold Neibuhr, a fellow German theologian and author of the "Serenity Prayer," with which I was eminently familiar by that time. Tillich went on to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Neibuhr's academic home, and then for many years at the University of Chicago. He authored a number of renowned works, including A History of Christian Thought and The Courage To Be, and was featured for his work on the cover of Time magazine in 1959.

When I opened the first of the two-volume set, The Shaking of the Foundations, one sermon about "The Depths of Existence"stood out particularly. Its words were a powerful affirmation of all that I had been learning. My own foundations had been shaken by the proverbial mid-life crisis, and I had been forced to look within to find the depths of my own existence. To my shock, I found that I had very little idea of who or what I was at the core of my being, nor much idea of my place in the grand scheme of things. At a very early age I had rejected all notions of a God, of an anthropomorphic 'superman' in an imaginary heaven, as the superstitious foolishness of people who were unable or unwilling to understand the world, the universe and the scientific basis of their lives and being. I had great 'faith' in science, but didn't even know what science and the limitations of science really were.

The following passages from Tillich's "Depth of Existence" sermon put into words that I did not then know how to express all that I had discovered as a result of my existential crisis - that I was the person with the prejudiced mind who had been unwilling to examine or understand areas of consciousness, being and existence which I had willfully blinded myself to. I had been prejudiced, by my upbringing and culture, to what I only perceived others' notions and ideas of God were. I found that I had to cast aside all those notions of what others thought, and look within my own being to come to an understanding of who I was, before looking at any bigger picture.

In "The Depth of Existence", Tillich writes:

"The wisdom of all ages and of all continents speaks about the road to our depth. It has been described in innumerably different ways. But all those who have been concerned - mystics and priests, poets and philosophers, simple people and educated people - with that road, through confession, lonely self-scrutiny, internal or external catastrophes, prayer, (and) contemplation, have witnessed to the same experience. They have found that they were not what they believed themselves to be, even after a deeper level had appeared to them below the vanishing surface. That deeper level became surface, when a still deeper level was discovered, this happening again and again, as long as their very lives, as long as they kept on the road to their depth. . . . The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservations. Perhaps in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth knows about God."