Great thread topic, people!!!
I have been contemplating entering into this heady discussion for several weeks now. Sunday I had the a rare day off from work, as I have two jobs, and decided to embark upon a journey with some wonderful Changa, lovingly created by my dear brother,
Metanoia. It is NN-DMT & harmalas on 15x Salvia extract. This medicine always shatters my notion of self and my sense of solidity and finite place within this material paradigm. Admittedly, the visions and sensations occur inside of this clearly individuated self but the ensuing voyage removes any differentiation from one ego/self to another, as I have come to feel that there is but the one true Omniself, which is enigmatically dancing throughout all of this cosmic play of creation, active expression and eventual dissolution.
First, I enjoyed an hour or so in deep meditation. The sunshine was glorious and I melted into a peaceful state of mind, calm and serene. The alluring and often terrifying call of the Sacred Medicine tugs at my exploratory side... I slowly inhaled the smoke and then almost instantaneously, crossed from the structure of the known and knowable... into the translucent void of the unknown and unknowable. Drawn further within by the ringing tone of the Carrier Wave/ AUM vibration, my focused attention shifted dramatically from who I believe myself to be and who I am, in quintessential terms. Who am I? I may never know. And we're I to know, would I even be the same I as I was before? As wise Socrates quipped,
"My knowledge comes from an unknowing." Gnosis often leads one deeper into mystery, further and further down the rabbit hole. 8)
Yet paradoxically, there was still an immanence of awareness. One having a spiraling, vortexial fulcrum of pure existential consciousness. Of being fully present and lucidly conscious of being wholly integrated/interlocked within resplendent pulsations of a divine light. Stardust made cognizant, awakened and introspective, through the evolution of it's own volition. Directly knowing, without pertaining to any form or substance, that the effulgence radiating from the epicenter of an emptiness and a stillness so powerful, it can never be pin-pointed by any description formed by human reason. It may be the essence of free will itself? From this side of the looking glass, it is what I believe God is, while from the other side of the looking glass, it is the non-thing seated within everything else existent.
Both polarities seem to be contradictorily true, yin & yang united in a seamless, symbiotic harmony of energy and inertia. I/you/we all are That. In this pause between quantifying and reflecting, there is only one of us, ever. All strings arise from the one point and despite how much they travel and expand, they remain united and unbroken at the epicenter and never truly lose the dynamic interconnection from the birth of the present now and the breadth of eternity. Then... comes the whiteout experience... ergo, stillness abounds sacredly, infinitely and most resplendently.
The distinction betwixt subject and object is dissolved into the shimmering emptiness of unification and there is nothing that can be said of such a state of being... except that it is sheer bliss. I honestly cannot say who or what recognizes this nectarine euphoria but it hums along blissfully, centering itself within the deepest core of the persona and inner self in which I routinely reside inside of. At least, it sure seems so upon the return from the peak experience. That's exactly where mind re-enters the equation and labels this and that, subjectively. Obviously, I was unable to volley conceptions with you fine folks, since words were beyond reach for most of that day and following evening.
Today, I am quite compelled to dabble in human linguistics and just how this interrelates to the notion of illusion and free will, I will try my best to translate from my tiny viewpoint to yours. In the effort and participation of such verbal exchanges, there is often much to be shared and gained, in a positive manner. Now, I wholly believe in the notion of
free will. Granted, this belief sprouts from a great number of causalities and it may well be true that no freedom of will actually exists, just as no actual self exists... and sure, admittedly, this is how it appears from time to time. Still, I choose to be. I will myself to be and in this existence, I am witness to the duality of truth and non-truth, reality and illusion (if you will pardon the term). Mayhaps it's better to use the allegory of dreaming, in regards to some juxtaposition between reality and illusion?
Chuang Tzu said:
Last night I dreamed that I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder... am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
From each dream sequence we awaken into another dreamscape, of sorts, yet, despite the rise of such ideas, there remains the point of attention whereby we SEE through new eyes. A freedom in awareness awakens, revealing how the dream of oneself is but a passing fancy had by the universe itself. We find a new perceptual lens and look through this other kind of sight, at new vistas and alternate realms of reality. Our own uniquely isolated lens of perception, if augmented and attuned with honed intent, leads straight to a focus and clarity of insight, which fully allows for the mind and heart to blooms exponentially and in so doing, choices are presented to the witness of said, blooming. Choices requiring a freedom of will and total responsibility for opening our own eyes to the truth.
This is where the effort of sadhana is born, free will exploding spontaneously into an intentional resolve towards awakening. It's what Sakyamuni the Buddha spoke of as, "right effort". This is echoed in his mindful words,
"Mind is everything. What you think, you become." This is nearly identical to the Biblical parallel, from Proverbs 23:7,
"For as he thinketh, in his heart, so is he."
The aforementioned sage/philosopher, Alan Watts, echoes this idea with his clever assertion,
"It's like trying not to try." I so loved his radio show, it was a definite highlight of my youth. They used to play it on one of the Boston stations back in the 1970s and this drew me towards his many wonderful books.
This Is It is by far, my favorite one he eloquently penned, the same year I was born. I still have my 1973 paperback copy by Vintage Books, all these years later... and what along strange trip it's been...
jamie said:
My thing is, that I don't like the term "illusion". Some have suggested that is a wrong translation of the vedas. I don't believe this world is an illusion..I feel personally this is not an appropriate term to use. I like the term "reflectional reality". Of course there is a deeper awareness of non-dual states once you move past the dualism..but how does that make one an illusion while the other is not?
Whether we like or dislike any terms used by others to quantify their perceptions of this or that, it's always best to be dispassionate and equanimous. And yes, many in the western world, as well as in the eastern world, fall into labeling things so fixedly that they get lost in the game of exchanging their own philosophies and counterpoints, bantering back and forth in a volley of seemingly contesting semantics. Your statements remind me of something Swami Vivekananda wrote about Vedantic thought, at the very beginning of the 20th century.
Sri Swami Vivekananda said:
Maya is not illusion as it is popularly interpreted. Maya is real, yet it is not real. It is real in that the Real is behind it and gives it its appearance of reality. That which is real in Maya is the Reality in and through Maya. Yet the Reality is never seen ; and hence that which is seen is unreal, and it has no real independent existence of itself, but is dependent upon the Real for its existence. Maya then is a paradox—real, yet not real, an illusion, yet not an illusion. He who knows the Real sees in Maya not illusion, but reality. He who knows not the Real sees in Maya illusion and thinks it real.
Nature is Maya. Maya means name and form, into which everything is cast. Maya is not real. We could not destroy it or change it if it were real. The substance is the noumenon, Maya is phenomena at play. There is the real "me" which nothing can destroy, and there is the phenomenal "me" which is continually changing and disappearing.
"Om Tat Sat" is the only thing beyond Maya, but God exists eternally. As long as the Niagara Falls exist, the rainbow will exist; but the water continually flows away. The falls are the universe, and the rainbow is personal God; and both are eternal. While the universe exists, God must exist. God creates the universe, and the universe creates God; and both are eternal. Maya is neither existence nor non-existence. Both the Niagara Falls and the rainbow are eternally changeable. . . . Brahman seen through Maya. Persians and Christians split Maya into two and call the good half "God" and the bad half the "devil". Vedanta takes Maya as a whole and recognizes a unity beyond it — Brahman beyond any differentiation.
Well said and finely spoken by the foremost English-speaking exponent of Vedantic learning of his day. This quote is just as relevant in our 21st century as it was then and is in no way remotely a "New Age" spin on the Vedas. I believe that while some of the cliches used by the contemporary neo-advaitins are most redundant and tiresome, on some level or another, their message is still quite true. I prefer the traditional Vedantic spin... but I must allow for more fanciful takes on
reality and illusion, since everyone has a fundamental right toward self expression. Is not lasting harmony born of forbearance and humility, eh?
jamie said:
This is my main issue with the use of that word in this context..I could flip it around and say that the non-dual state of union is illusion because if I kick you in the balls really hard, your going to probly fall down in great pain, and I(nor the rest of us) will not. In that scenario, I can argue that your non dual awareness is an illusion and the world of dualism is the true reality.
Ouch... now that sure smarts! Recently, you sure seem utilize allegories of violent confrontation to convey your stance about the dichotomous nature of earthly "reality" versus earthly "illusion". Are they not really two sides of one coin? The One is also the many. We are wholly interconnected with one another. This we all share in common, despite some differences in our delivery.
I think it's abundantly clear to all of us Nexian seekers that while we may encounter states where material reality disappears and what lies inside/beneath/beyond the distinction or form and substance, upon any and all planes of consciousness, is the only true reality discovered when the veil is lifted... we also, still materially exist as physical mortals, isolated egos and separate selves, who can feel pleasure or hurt, enjoy peace or anguish in terror. Generalizing too much or pointing barbed innuendos towards other contrasting views never solves any differences in perspective. I feel that it only perpetuates further misunderstandings. We get more bees with honey than with vinegar, right? :!:
I am reminded of a metaphysical debate I had with a Catholic priest in 1969. My mother had converted to Christian Science and we were raised within this faith. My best friend mowed the lawn and did light janitorial work for the local Catholic church (himself being a member) and I accompanied him on several of his work shifts, so as to hurry up the job and get on to what was really important, riding our bikes on the trails behind the church. Just weeks prior, I had experienced a NDE and OBE from nearly drowning in our swimming pool. Suddenly and overwhelmingly, a whole other side to life revealed itself to me and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my material shell was just a part of who I was.
I could leave this material plane and move about on other, higher frequencies and levels of existential being, for I had been shown that I was a spark, a reflection of the universal source, who just so happened to inhabit a mortal body, for the time being and was formed concretely within the parameters of the time-space-continuum for a wee, passing duration only. I was not merely a mortal body that might or might not, possess a soul which existed on another level than the physical one. I was also quite palpably aware of being wholly immortal in nature. We are all of us, both transitory and transcendental, mortal and immortal, human and spiritual. This reality too, is heavenly.
Long story short, my buddy had mentioned to the head priest, that I was a Christian Scientist. He took the opportunity to launch a war of attrition against an eleven year old boy, aiming at proving his point and adamantly so, at that. After jousting about our perspectives on religion, life, metaphysics and spiritual healing... his face gotten redder and still redder. I smiled confidently and began to spin a web of my own resolute convictions and he wanted no part in my vision of God or the interconnection we have with this living spiritual presence, the I Am Principle as it blossoms freely of it's own accord.
I felt then and still do, that God was everything and that nothing existent was not essentially Sacred, although appearing in some kind of seeming disguise to each individual witness to their own subjective impressions. So, perhaps this is the only true illusion entertained by our human kind, homo sapien erectus? By gosh and by golly, this whole dance takes place within the Unified Field, holographically projected from universal mind and co-existing on multiples of planes of existential being, simultaneously. For myself, this line of thought leads me to surmise that all is Divine in quintessential nature and despite any appearances, is Godself emerging and departing, endlessly so, ad infinitum.
When I was reaching the crescendo of my epiphany, he grimaced menacingly and began to scare the proverbial shit out of me. He suddenly and with great force, kicked me as hard as he could in the ass! The impact actually broke my coccyx bone. He snarled,
"I bet you felt THAT, didn't you!" I replied,
"Of course I felt it, I'm living inside of this body. But that doesn't mean that's all I am. I am more that just flesh and bones, we all are." Being stubborn and very willful, I wasn't about to show much it hurt, so I just smiled and pretended it was nothing. The sheer irony, that a "Man of God" would be so nasty and cruel to a boy of 11 years.
Now, I had never implied I did not feel pleasure or pain because I believed I was not just the body, mind or emotional person, I was also spirit. Obviously my butt hurt more than I could say wihtout having screamed. His shiny black leather shoes had these pointed toes. And it took nearly 6 months to heal and no, I didn't go to a doctor for treatment, in a typical Christian Science mechanism, embarked mindfully upon healing my injury through prayer, belief and repeated affirmation. This is just as much an exercise of free will, as it is an act of faith. Attention directed by sheer intent, effects the structure and very nature of reality as we manifest it.
Why not express the same logic by using parables about human tenderness, friendship, love or in some appropriate circumstances, sexual passion? Love is the buzz, after all. Sigh... I've tread the path of martial arts for too many decades to believe that violence is useful, save in extreme conditions of darkness and where engaging in it MUST always have a valid humanitarian purpose and pertains to a moral reason, therein. As warrior spirit and a code of honor sometimes demands, we must act. As with protecting the weak, fighting for the otherwise helpless, the very young or the elderly. Cruelty is sadly part and parcel to human community but when we peel away the irritability and frustration, a better way always is shown.
But sincerely, as a brother and fellow psychonaut, I urge you to put aside your analogies of punching or kicking. Sensory attachment to individuated physicality can just as easily be communicatively expressed by a friendly pat on the back, a hug, a kiss or a hearty handshake. Again, "Blessed are the peace makers". Just sayin' and forgive me for so digressing from the topic of free will. Still, it may well be bonafide freedom of will that so causes me to write thusly? And please don't take any offense, I just wanted to explain why this line of thought is so unsettling to my ego's psychology and sensibilities.
And as always,
jamie, you raise valid and provocative observations. I honestly thank you for your wisdom and insight. I also thank all of you fine folks for your great ideas and clean, intelligent, verbal expressions. I am enriched by all of your fine thoughts and do treasure the lessons I've learned by listening carefully to the wisdom of your perspectives. This Nexian community totally rocks! :thumb_up:
