A Cairngorm September

Contrary to vicious rumour, the sun does sometimes shine in the Highlands of Scotland. Here are a few pics from a couple of vaguely energetic forays into the Cairngorms this September.

It's taken me a long time to attune to the Cairngorms. It probably needed a couple of wild camps right in the Cairngorm heartland for me to appreciate the unique nature of the landscape. It's not like the west coast of Scotland, where the peaks are spikier, the ridges narrower. The Cairngorm is predominantly high, rolling, upland plateaux, cut into deeply by a number of coires and through-passes. The atmosphere is specific to the area, the wildlife a bit different. To complain because it's not like the spiky Cuillin of Skye is like moaning about parsnips because they don't taste like brussels sprouts.

I've come to feel increasing affection for the Cairngorm hills, just down the road from me, really.

Love (series end....)

Love. It's a word we shied away from in my Buddhist days. And with good reason. Its imprecision may be unprecedented in the English language. Unconditional Bodhisattva love, Kuan Yin, Mother Teresa, empathy, sympathy, neurotic attachment, cupidity, Eros, pity, friendliness, compassion, crush, infatuation, Platonic stuff, Aphrodite, ecstasy and related empathogens, longings, yearnings, anima; the feelings some people have for pets, mum and dad, boyfriend or girlfriend, God, Guru, nature, wild places, dolphins, daffodils, dinosaurs, doughnuts, computers and computer games, Justin Bieber, the girl you see on the bus every morning. All and more are implicated by the vague and vast word 'Love'. No wonder we sometimes feel confused.

Yet, beneath the panoply of forms, 'love' suggests that basic movement towards. Together. That
movement in the universe to unity, union. Connection. It's a big word.

Love strikes me as being a basic part of the fabric of the universe. From its pure source in non-locality, it cascades down. First as a primal energy that moves between and connects two points: primordial polarity, dualism. Then down, through healthy fellow-feelings between people, through ever-more twisted and distorted forms, until eventually hitting rock-bottom in television soap operas and supermarket checkout magazines.

My own experience of love has been unexceptional; paltry, even. Sure, my sometimes cheery smile and playful banter have lightened up people's day; I have been useful, helpful, accommodating; have experienced the bitter pangs of loss on the deaths of my parents. I am averse to conflict and confrontation, and what has sometimes appeared as sympathy and understanding may have been, at times at least, a mask for not wanting to create a hoo-hah. I have, generally, speaking, hung the banner of love from outside the comfort of my own tower.

Maybe more, but twice have I undeniably participated in a different order of love. The first occasion was over twenty years ago. I was living in a room of a friend's flat in the Waterloo area of London. In common with many inner city quarters, the area boasted a veritable honeypot of humanity. Despite being located proximate to the Old Vic Theatre, the estate where we lived was roamed by all manner of ne'er-do-wells, don't-do-wells, can't-do-wells, and won't-do-wells.

It was a Saturday morning. I was sitting at my little table ready to eat breakfast. The top floor flat overlooked a busy main road with a tiny park and bus stop adjacent. Suddenly I was alerted to one almighty din of a noise, the sound of shouting and screaming, coming from outside. A man and woman were standing at the bus stop with a collection of carrier bags, and yelling their heads off at one another. A really loud, high-pitched, vicious bout of trading lethal insults had started up.

Then something unusual happened. Instead of the habitual frustration and irritation, or the pity directed towards myself, as I needed a nice quiet breakfast after a stressful week of teaching work; instead of the 'bloody hell, not another bunch of alcoholics'; or even the attempted understanding of, sympathy towards, two people down on their luck. Instead of all this, something else manifested. I can only term it 'love'. A pure energy, yellow in colour should I need to pin it down. Free of all judgement, and free of mentalities that we often associate with 'love', such as acceptance and forgiveness. None of these got a look in. It was something else. It nearly put me off my cornflakes.

The second incident is from more recent times: March 26th, 2010, to be precise. I had been going through one of my more wretched periods of 'What am I doing with my life? Am I doing the right things? Am I doing enough of the right things?' These periods, mercifully, seem no longer to occur: maybe I am simply 'on track' now. In an attempt to possibly clarify matters, I enlisted the help of a 'sacred teacher plant', a certain spiny being from way up in the Andes of Peru. Many hours after ingesting the noxious-tasting brew, I was no closer to any revelation about the current state of my life. I decided to call upon yet further help (isn't it great to have friends?) in the shape of two 'spirit guides'.

The previous year I had attended a course in Switzerland run by Ralph Metzner, on the theme of 'Alchemical Divination'. Of course, learning to contact and work with spirit guides is precisely the kind of thing that happens on courses such as this (without the aid of teacher plants, I should add for clarity's sake). I invoked the male spirit guide. He tried, I felt, to make a point to me, but I couldn't catch it. He began to get frustrated with me, and started shouting and ranting; I had to let him go. Then I called up the female spirit helper, and something unexpected happened. I was bathed in a warm yet strong yellow light, and a feeling not unlike that which manifested at breakfast time in Waterloo.

Again, words like 'forgiveness' and 'acceptance' don't capture the tone of what was communicated. It was more like an 'Everything is fine because everything is just as it is and it is impossible for anything to be any different. Whatever you do, even the mistakes and the messes, is just fine. It is impossible for it to be any other way. Stop worrying and get on with your life.' But it was communicated, not through the medium of mind, so much as bodily and through the heart. Then the spirit guide disappeared and I collapsed onto the bed in wonder. I gained considerable personal confidence from that evening encounter, going about my life with fewer doubts and anxieties littering my way.

After looking up the date of this experience while writing this piece, that strange yet familiar voice, the one which makes connections where other voices don't, suggested I checked something out. Sure enough, the day after this meeting with the spirit guide was the day when I posted my first piece on Pale Green Vortex. Meaningless coincidence, I'm sure.

So, love. Feeling. An indispensible ingredient. I suspect I have received at least as much as I have given, but love is not really amenable to quantifying in that way.

And there comes to an end this little series. It has assumed a life of its own as I have written, and all sort of stuff has emerged that I did not imagine would when I first started. That, I suppose, is part of the magic of the creative process.                  

Image: The magnificent Luis Royo, as used in his Dark Tarot, Six of Pentacles   

Intent (fifth in a series of six)

You know what? There are times when I'm not all that sold on liberation and freedom after all. It depends on 'freedom from what'. From what I shall here refer to as the 'petty self', the one whose manacles are being cast asunder during the course of this little series, yes, yes, yes. But liberation from suggests liberation into. If we are using a spatial metaphor, we go from a place to another place. Being left in the quasi-nihilistic void of No Self just won't do. And this is where a certain kind of fun commences.

I feel anything but free. Something has got me, and I have no choice in the matter. It has probably had me by the short and curlies all my life; but a little over four years ago, 'it' decided that the time had come to make itself more consciously known. In 'Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine' (10/7/2012) and 'Life Inside a Random Universe' (21/8/2012) I wrote about various synchronicities that, uninvited, descended upon my life, concerning family, a mountain, and a flood which made my house uninhabitable for three months. I struggled with all this, tried to shrug it off, but was unable to escape the conclusion that 'something' of another order was impressing itself on my life. "You're not going to like this, or find it easy, but we reckon you'll be able to pull through it. You've passed a threshold, things are happening a bit different now. Your life is not exactly your own."

Give up enough of your petty self, and you may find yourself aligned with something else, guided by something else. This acts as an official warning to all. I am reluctant to pin things down with words and names; but it feels to me as if it involves intent. This was my discovery at the time: that there is intent in the universe.

Personally, I have no problem with this; I have come to increasingly accept it as part of my life. I came upon a deliciously ambiguous phrase in one of the little white books that accompany some Tarot decks. Describing the King of Wands, the lord of the element fire, embodying as he does action, transformation, mercurial change, and intent, the little book put forth the commentary: 'the chains of purpose.' That is a phrase to meditate on. Even the lord of intent, apparently, is subject to the chains of purpose.

To some, this sense of being in touch with, and subject to, something else, may give rise to a path of devotion. I rather like the idea of devotion. Not as solidified into a particular school of religion with fixed religious practices, or some form of bhakti yoga. Devotion denotes a certain attitude to life; it relates to things like grace and feeling 'blessed'. I am grateful to one reader of this blog and friendly personal correspondent for helping me to feel at ease with such notions.

One place that, for me, comes close to encapsulating something of this attitude of devotion with intent is Carlos Castaneda's final book, 'The Active Side of Infinity'. Here, Don Juan describes what he calls 'the intent of infinity' and its effects. Speaking of his and Carlos's first encounter:

"When we met in Arizona, both of us crossed a particular threshold..... And this threshold was not decided by either one of us, but by infinity itself....... The sorcerers of my lineage call it infinity, the spirit, the dark sea of awareness, and say that it is something that exists out there and rules our lives............ Circumstances that seemed to be ruled by chance were in essence ruled by the active side of infinity......... The advantage of sorcerers is to know that the tremor in the air exists, and to acquiesce to it without any further ado. For sorcerers, there's no pondering, wondering, or speculating. They know that all they have is the possibility of merging with the intent of infinity, and they just do it." (from the chapter 'Who was Juan Matus, really?').

Personal development, individual growth etc etc (and I include discovery of 'No Self' in this category) and acquiescence to the intent of infinity are not mutually exclusive. A sense of the intent of infinity brings humility, a certain suppleness and pliability, to what otherwise can seem a one-sided martial-art job on the mind. It is the antidote to the nihilistic tinge surrounding some of this No Self stuff. It provides the feminine complement to a masculine-style mind job. It is the High Priestess in sacred union with the Emperor. Or the Queen of Chalices offered as bride to the King of Swords.

In his early life, Carl Jung wrestled with notions of God: the false God promoted by his Protestant family, and the true God as he understood and perceived it. During his teens, he began to make sense of his life as mapped by the intent of infinity: "From the beginning I had a sense of destiny, as though my life was assigned to me by fate and had to be fulfilled........ I did not have this certainty, it had me....... Nobody could rob me of the conviction that it was enjoined upon me to do what God wanted and not what I wanted....... Often I had the feeling that in all decisive matters I was no longer among men, but was alone with God..... " (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Chapter Two). Thus speaks the champion of 'individuation'. Interesting. Interesting.  

Images: Vajrapani
              King of Wands, Anne Stokes Gothic Tarot            

Awakening (the series is nearing its end)

Part One

Awakening. Liberation. Enlightenment. Sound great, don't they? It's only as time has passed that I have begun to wonder. Awakening from what? Liberation into what? Where? This is not just a head trip, but a necessary aspect of that question: what on earth am I doing, where am I heading, with this precious and viciously short life of mine?

Enlightenment and the rest. These words, taken freestanding, prove to be gloriously imprecise. There is all manner of enlightenment, liberation, awakening. All sorts of people in their own unique dark holes and spaces have emerged in their own unique ways into all kind of awakenings. This is not to relativise enlightenment, but more to ask what the hell anybody is talking about when they utter these magical words. My former Buddhist teacher used to go on about defining the meaning of words before you start throwing them around; 'rectification of terms' is an expression I recall from bygone days. The import of his admonition was largely lost on me some thirty years ago - I found it rather tedious -, and I confess to being guilty of bandying words around loosely on Pale G. V. myself from time to time. I belatedly concede that my teacher had a point.

Take Wayne Liquorman. He is Enlightened. We know this because he says so on avaita.org. He does, however, still experience feelings such as anger and sadness; he tells us this as well. They are apparently not incompatible with Enlightenment.The difference between him and an unenlightened person, he goes on to elucidate, is that he does not 'own' the feelings. They don't get referred back to a phantom sense of self, of 'me'. Instead they just come and go. The illusion that most people live under he refers to as False Sense of Personal Authorship. In Wayne's World it's different: feelings arise and disappear without being claimed as 'personal' by a person.

This seems classic neo-advaita stuff; it is what Liberation Unleashed and No Self are all about. And there is a lot to be said for this 'coming and going without getting stuck' experience of thoughts, feelings, whatever. Things are far less 'sticky' in the field of my consciousness nowadays than a few years back. As a result, I feel lighter, clearer, less tortured, take some things less pathologically seriously, and am marginally easier to live with. There is a greater sense of stillness and silence within me. Unlike Wayne, I don't say that I'm Enlightened (I could, but people would only laugh, or send me valium through the post).

No Self; no sense of personal authorship; the fiction of 'me' seen through. Experience arises and disappears of its own accord, without 'me' to do it all the time. Phew! But get this:

It's a Great Guru. A true Master. An Enlightened One, even. Things come and go, no 'self' to identify with them. Then, one day, desire arises. It's not me or mine; it just arises. No self to claim it. OK. Desire arises in the direction of a young and beautiful disciple of the Great Guru. The wish to satisfy that desire further arises. Young and beautiful disciple feels honoured to be singled out for attention by such an Enlightened One. Desire is duly satisfied. It's all fine, remember; nothing personal about it. In due course, young and beautiful disciple feels surprised at the lust which has been expressed through the non-being of Great Guru; shocked at the maybe insensitive treatment handed out by the Enlightened One during sex activity; lost, betrayed, abandoned as the Great Guru gives him or her the cold shoulder in the days to come, as if nothing ever happened. But hey, don't worry. Concern is misplaced. Shock, horror, betrayal: simply feelings that come and go in the great field of consciousness. There's nobody behind them. Just like the Guru, the disciple doesn't exist.

This story may go part way to explain one of the great paradoxes which all but the full-time ostrich cannot fail to miss. How many of our great Teachers and Awakened Ones have 'behaved badly' with respect to their followers, energetically and materially, but especially sexually. It's not just the odd one or two: loads of them appear to have behaved in ways that me or most people I know would not dream of doing. My own former Buddhist teacher is, rather sadly, not immune from this 'spiritual blindspot'. His sexual antics, which I could describe as furtive, open-secret, often inappropriate, and without happy outcomes for most of his 'partners', create a large black spot on the map of his life, which has otherwise provided so much of benefit to many people.

Part Two

Let's leave sex. Let's turn our attention to Jed. Jed. Irreverent, iconoclastic, no-nonsense, no bullshit, take no prisoners Jed. Taken at face value, Jed McKenna should be just what a world of fake, phoney, half-baked Awakened Ones is crying out for.

To put my cards on the table. I haven't read any of Jed's books cover to cover. I've read plenty of bits and pieces, though, and a fistful of quotations. I think I've got the picture. His writing is fascinating, entertaining. He is fond of knocking gurus and religions off pedestals; he does it very well. He strikes me as something of a trickster figure, and reminds me of Carlos Castaneda and Timothy Leary. There's nothing wrong with being a trickster, by the way. Like them, he can be brilliant. But, again like them, he should be handled with care.

Jed is adept at dissecting the religious world, and equally adept at scything through false reality. There is one funny thing about Jed, though: he 'doesn't do heart'. He expresses this in a context of
recalling that the one thing most people remember about Castaneda is that he 'walks a path with heart'. This in itself is bullshit, since there are many incidents and discussions in Castaneda's books that are more prominent for aficionados than this. Be that as it may. But, while Jed appears to be applying his mental sword of truth to all reality, he has decided to leave a lot of it out. It's like New Age lightworkers, who 'don't do negative'. That's fine, says Neil Kramer, but they should just realise that they are missing out on half of reality. Jed's pick-and-choose enlightenment (not that he likes that word, but that just makes him super-enlightened) is the same.

For reasons that I don't get, Jed associates 'heart' only with a contracted, divided version of the feeling function. His version of awakening appears to leave out the liberated, non-local heart. It's not whole, complete. When those Bodhisattvas of the Vajrayana come on with their vajras of wisdom and bells of compassion, they are wielding implements of equal import. The 'heart' is not an afterthought, or a hanger-on, or an also-ran. It's an integral part of the deal.

Jed is actually a mysterious character. You can't track him down anywhere. I don't think he exists; not in the way that some people imagine, anyway. It is, I suspect, like Castaneda: certain focal experiences woven together into a semi-fictional narrative that probably says more than a literal life-story could hope to do. It's the great final teaching on No Self: Jed McKenna doesn't exist at all.

This unscheduled excursion along the highways and byways of the Awakened Ones has indeed proven dimly enlightening. I have come to realise that people referring to themselves as 'enlightened' or even 'on the path to enlightenment' may well have less in common than I had previously assumed. If you meet somebody who says "I'm enlightened", don't go "Wow!" ; instead, ask the question "What exactly is your game, buddie?"

The terms 'enlightened' and 'awakened' are so vague that they need to be fleshed out, supported, if not actually defined. Basic Buddhism is actually pretty good at this: even so, can we be confident that the Buddha's Enlightenment is the same as the space occupied by other characters from Buddhist history: Nagarjuna, Padmasambhava, Milarepa, etc? I think not.

I have learnt that my approach has less in common with advaita - or, rather, its stripped-down, partial, modern offspring neo-advaita - than I had previously recognised (for the record, I suspect traditional Advaita Vedanta to be far more encompassing of human experience). They say everything is consciousness, I say everything is consciousness - bingo! But it is a false correlation on my part; I fall foul of my own imprecision. While there are folk who may consider my 'higher dimensional' stuff woo-woo, unsubstantiated, vague and fluffy, I would suggest that their assumption that what appears in their linear time-and-space is all there is to their own consciousness is hubristic. It begs a question and makes an assumption; a big assumption.

I am generally unimpressed with folk who make claims for themselves. Jung never did, and his legacy appears to have motored on pretty well. Neil Kramer makes no claims. Neither did my former Buddhist teacher: when asked if he was enlightened, or a stream-entrant, or anything else, he would say "What difference does it make to you?" A good answer.

There is a difference between saying "This method/technique/practice/system/way of looking at things works brilliantly for me today" and exclaiming "This is It". To anybody floundering around in a quagmire of suffering, pain, frustration, and confusion, the siren call of "This is It" can be remarkably seductive. Yet it is another delusion, subtle yet distinct. It is another play in the cosmic game of duality, of light and dark. It becomes an artificial construct, a kind of pseudo-transcendental overlay placed on the ceaseless comings and goings of authentic life.

Nowadays I am less anxious, less desperate, to escape the incarnational cycle; to jump off the Wheel of Life and Death. One day, the penny dropped. That I was here in this human life, all gritty, often irritating, regularly infuriating, frequently ignorant, vulgar, stupid, sometimes plain goddamn awful, all too often horrifying and heart-breakingly painful, just bleeding gross polarity all over the place, wasn't an accident. Neither was it a tragic error enacted by a flawed divine agent. I am here because it is where I'm supposed to be, not some higher dimensional realm populated by beings of non-duality or pure, perfect light. Like many other sensitive, more-aware-than-some beings, I can feel out of place as a human being on planet Earth. But this is my home; this is where my consciousness has taken up residence because of its basic consonance with what goes on here. This place is my learning ground, and it is almost as if it has been designed specifically for that purpose, should we so wish to regard it. Here is my training ground; seen in this way, even the horrific aspects of life in this polarised place take on a different hue.

Jed McKenna, in another much-discussed section of his writing, tells us to do it all for ourselves. To adopt a pure and unapologetic selfishness. We may or may not, as a result, be of some use to other beings. Such is his rather dualistic version of Enlightenment. For myself, I don't follow a spiritual path, a sacred way, call it what you will, particularly for myself or for other people - or for any other part of the multiverse, for that matter. There's nothing especially 'personal' about it at all. It's just what I do; I actually have no choice.

Images:

Maybe this is what Awakening looks like:

              Image One: Judgement (Aeon in Crowley's Thoth Tarot), Ancient Italian Tarot

              Image Two: Total Destruction of Self: Tower card, Chibi Tarot
  

              

The Dark Ocean of Liberation (the series continues)

Part One

I fretted about it all: advaita, neo-advaita; cognitive enlightenment, the newly-awakened ones; liberation leashed and unleashed. 'Why bother?' you may well ask. It got to me a bit. What was it that prevented me from embracing all this with open arms? I'm all for liberation, awakening, enlightenment. Was I passing up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for quick and easy enlightenment as a result, maybe, of my own prejudices, hang ups? My own refusal to accept that it might all be as simple as that after all. Was I becoming like those grouchy theologians and scholastics who railed against Tim Leary when he said you could have contact with God without decades of blood, sweat and miserable self-sacrifice?

It was about 'depth', whatever that is. And about the basic ways the universe works. It's kind-of not a universe at all: more like a multiverse, or polyverse. It's not all linear, rational, cause-and-effect in a domino-type way. That's where synchronicity, correspondence, magic, mysticism, Jung, the Kabbalists, good ol' Hermes Trismegistus, come in. Falteringly and imperfectly, they all try to point this out. There's a whole load more going on, and it all needs to come on board for proper enlightenment. There are, of course, advaita and neo-avaita-type dudes out there who dismiss all this, don't accept Jung and his unconscious and archetypal levels of being and the rest. Consciousness, as consciously experienced now, is all there is, they will claim, so that's all we need to deal with. They are free to get on with life and enlightenment just as they choose, of course. But I'd say they are missing out ....

I eventually came across some articles which conceptualised my doubts more lucidly and coherently that I am able to do myself. They turned up on better-than-most alternative website magazine 'energygrid.com'.

First up is Tobias Lars, 'The False Enlightenment' from November 2006. He focuses on the emotional aspect to 'awakening'. Many who pass themselves off as enlightened are, he writes, really empty shells, who have simply let go of their emotional body in favour of a false and incomplete peace. They have traded in their 'pesky feelings', which have been the bane of many-a spiritual follower over the ages. Reading Tobias's article helped manifest the (to me) self-evident reality that all aspects of Being have their part to play. The must have. Emotion, Volition, and the Physical (chalices, wands, and pentacles in Tarot) are just as much aspects of life and of enlightenment as is 'Mentality' (swords). "The advaita concept (oneness, non-duality) is so close, the final 'concept' before merging with Source, it is also especially subject to false 'understandings' of its idea. The Mind gets hold of it, thereby circumventing the 'pesky' feelings." Thanks for that, Tobias.

John Smith, whoever he may be, is particularly fascinating. A number of his articles can be found in the 'Spirit' section on EnergyGrid, stretching back several years. We can follow his progression from a wholehearted enthusiast about Advaita and No Self into a more critical writer about some of its major assumptions.

The most significant of John Smith's articles for our current purpose is that of April 2015, 'Moving beyond Emptiness to Higher-Dimensional Perspectives'. His main point is summed up thus: "No-Self is actually an artifact from trying to map polydimensional identity in a normal space-time framework. As long as we are dimensionally ignorant, we will only be distorting reality when we try to resolve ontological paradoxes using inappropriate modelling."

I have written down two pages of quotations from this most illuminating article (yes folks, I still write on pieces of paper!). But his main point is that No-Self only works if we assume a four-dimensional time-space perspective. Question the dimensional structure of reality, and lots of the rational arguments used in bare-bones Buddhism and Advaita fall apart. To see through 'self' in linear time-and-space does not necessarily mean negating it (or 'me') altogether. "Self is there but not there as it resides in higher dimensions." Maybe we should learn to live in ease and comfort with contradiction and paradox, a more 'feminine' mode of apprehending the world, rather than opting for a consistent yet distorted reality. "Getting past suffering is not so much cooling the fires of desire, but learning not to use restrictive reality maps."

Part Two

This issue, of applying No-Self practice to a limited view of Mind may turn out to be, I suggest, a largely modern western one. The West has undergone a centuries-old crusade against multidimensional knowledge, enacted by the Christian Church against 'pagans', witches, non-believers, exemplified by the Inquisition. The job was continued by the Enlightenment and its aftermath, determined to root out the 'superstitious and irrational'. The result is the BBC/Richard Dawkins distortion-cum-reduction which is de rigueur nowadays, adopted by many apparently intelligent people without their even realising they've been had by a 'mind job'. Incidentally, while the Church and the Enlightenment are often portrayed as opposing forces, they are both more deeply bedfellows as agents of empire. But let's not go there just now.....

The life story of the Buddha is a bit of a pick'n mix affair. Nothing is really known for sure; different versions are rife, so people - including scholars and 'authorities' - often simply choose what best fits in with their own preferences and prejudices. One thing is more certain than most, however: the Buddha was a bit weird. A former Buddhist acquaintance of mine, Andrew Skilton, writes in 'A Concise History of Buddhism': "It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to sceptical western pupils), he (Buddha) was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the 32 major and 80 minor marks or signs of a 'superman'...." Traditional biographies of Buddha are filled with strange non-human entities with whom Buddha interacts; omens, miracles, other supernatural happenings abound. It was not a Richard Dawkins world that Buddha inhabited.

Later forms of Buddhism similarly overflow with multidimensional existence. In a reaction against bare bones Buddhism, the Mahayana turned up, enriched by the loam of pantheons of archetypal Bodhisattvas, cosmic myths and stories, Bodhicitta, the transpersonal Will to Enlightenment. Later still, Tibetan Buddhism and the Tantra came dripping with mantras and yantras, mudras and mandalas, all efforts to penetrate beyond linear space and time into synchronicity, correspondence, magical manifestation, and other non-linear aspects to Being. They took on board some of the shamanic worldview of the former Bon-Po traditions in Tibet, incorporating astrology among other things.

I am left with the unmistakeable feeling that, however much we may try to beat and blast out 'Self', there remains... well, something. What it gets called probably doesn't matter too much. It's not 'me', yet it's simultaneously 'me' more than is possible to imagine. Universal Mind? Dharmakaya? Tathagatagarbha? No end of words in the various forms of Buddhism. 'Source' is a good word, suggesting the everpresent divine streaming down to here from 'somewhere'. And there is G...G...God. Taken out of its mainstrean demiurgic context, it's not such a terrible word. But I remain uneasy about using it.

Maybe this is the nail of doubt when it comes to LU and its ilk: the absence of any mention of 'something'. Take out 'Self', go even further than LU and deal with craving and aversion online, and what have you got? The higher dimensional realities that John Smith alludes to fail to get a look in; there appears to be no notion of them. To use Jungian terminology, it seems to me that 'direct pointing' can lead to an experience of 'No Self' on the levels of personality and ego; but this leaves shadow, collective unconscious, and the rest more-or-less untouched, to wend their merry way wherever. It is all incomplete because the reality map is incomplete.

As I've stated about 67 times already, this is not intended as a criticism of 'direct pointing' in itself; again, for the 68th time, I have found considerable personal benefit. It's more of a reality check on some of the supposedly awakened or enlightened ones lighting up the spiritual scene, especially through the interent, nowadays. Maybe some of this stuff isn't all it makes itself out to be, or that some people make it out to be. Or maybe I'm just not all that interested in this awakening and liberation modern-style.

These articles come highly recommended. Give them a whirl.....

www.energygrid.com/spirit/2015/04ap-dimensionalperspectives.html

www.energygrid.com/spirit/2006/11tl-falseenlightenment.html



                    
            

Liberation Off the Hook (second in a series)

Freedom. Liberation. Casting off the mind-made manacles. It's the name of the game, isn't it? Whatever conduces to freedom is my teaching, said Buddha. I like to think that Pale Green Vortex grooves along to a similar vibe.

If awakening and enlightenment equate to personal liberation, there seems to be a lot of it around nowadays. Look in the appropriate magazines, on the relevant websites, and they are teeming with people who have 'woken up', or are well on the way to doing so. Many of them will help the reader to become awake, too, normally for a fee (which is reasonable enough: even awakened ones need to earn a crust for their potatoes and eggs). Some are, or have been, disciples in bare-bones Buddhism, as I call it, or Advaita in some shape or form. Other still have become 'mushroom teachers', as John Smith (more of him later) calls them, popping up like woodland fungi from nowhere. Typically, such people were washing down the car on a Sunday morning, or perusing the tins of soup in the local supermarket when, unbidden and unanticipated - boom! Something happened. Separate selfhood disappeared, maybe, or a complete ineffable oneness with all the universe opened up where just a moment ago were lines of lentil and bacon soup cans. Henceforth, everything is different; once blasted by awakening, the subject (not that subject and object any longer exist) lives a transformed life.

As well as mushroom teachers there are, I suppose, mushroom groups, or hybrid mushroom communities. One such is Liberation Unleashed - or LU, as I call it for the sake of brevity. I was first made aware of LU near the end of last year by a friend of mine, who contacted me in a state of great energy and enthusiasm for the process which LU oversees. I know a number of people who have undergone the LU process, and they speak in glowing terms. Liberation Unleashed can lead you to an experience of 'No Self', a direct experience of how that separate self you have based your life on and who you have always believed in is nothing but a fiction, a fantasy; in spiritual terms, the big hindrance. The method is 'direct pointing': engage online regularly and in total honesty with a guide, and you will be led seamlessly to the experience of your own 'no self' nature'.

On checking them out, I found LU to be friendly and up-front about what they are doing. There is a freshness and pragmatism about some of the content of the website. 'This is the process, and this can be the result' is the simple message; in a sense, they are making no great claims, aside from that single focus on the reality that you don't have a self. An additional plus is that there is no need for a guru, with all the emotional complications that can follow this particular style of awakening: in LU, you just find yourself a guide, report regularly, and off you go.

The LU process follows the time-honoured tradition of looking closely - very closely - at experience: your real experience, not what you think or imagine or assume your experience is. Some of the results of this remarkably simple yet remarkably difficult technique reported by followers of this direct pointing echoed closely some of my own experiences over recent years. Following Don Juan's recommendations to Carlos Castaneda in 'A Separate Reality' I had started to listen to sounds - in my case having adopted traditional meditation posture. The awareness began to arise that there was not really a sound 'out there' being listened to by a receiver 'in here' at all. This was simply a construct habitually created around the pure sensation of sound, which arose then faded away within a far greater space of consciousness. To begin to perceive in such a pure and direct fashion was quietly miraculous, since I had wondered whether it was a level of reality that I would ever experience outwith the aid of psychedelic teacher substances.

From there I began to apply the same method to the other senses and elements of experience. Most obstinate in 'de-identifying' were, I discovered, thoughts. I found that I identify massively with the thoughts which pass through the space habitually referred to as 'my mind'. The LU aproach to thoughts, deduced from carefully reading several of the many 'case studies' available on their website, I found most useful in helping to de-identify from thoughts. Accompanying this process was an undoubted fading away of some of the claptrap coursing through my consciousness, mainly nonsense related to the (lessening) anxiety that has been my bugbear over the years, and which I have  written about before.

So far, so good. Very good, in fact. Rationally, it might be time to really plunge in, get my insights verified by a guide, and then move on to further techniques aimed at removing evermore subtle signs of that fictional sense of self.

It was at this moment that the Queen of the Dark Hours, Lady of the Silver Planet, decided to cast her wan light once more over my life. "There's something a bit off here" she began her familiar intoning. "I don't know what it is, but there's something not quite right." I watched as she manifested then disappeared behind the night clouds scudding rapidly above me. Her ever-changing mystery is magnetic, and, and I have discovered the painful way, ignored at your peril. By now I know her well enough; I surrendered to her higher wisdom without resistance.

Under her guiding influence I found myself unaccountably reading through my shamanic diaries from many years back (see blog post 'Shamanic Journey', 23rd July 2016). I took down from the shelves my dusty volumes of Jung and Jungiana, and drew up my onion of consciousness as a description of the layers of consciousness as I had experienced them. I delved then dived into the Tarot, eventually finding a couple of decks which seemed to resonate with me. As a result of some of my Tarot studies, I had a proper look at the Kabbalistic tree of life with its emanations, the Sephiroth, which, for the first time in my life, spoke to me rather than being a source of brain-ache and irritation.

In addition , I started to feel a bit uneasy with some of the effects of neo-advaita-style mind work. The Liberation Unleashed type of practice had seemed to remove plenty of dirty dishwater; simultaneously, I began to feel that continuing with this style of consciousness work would begin to take out stuff that I wasn't happy with taking out. Not because I was afraid of 'no self', but because it was 'content of consciousness' which expressed meaning. In fact, I increasingly felt that the specific sense experiences were not to be negated, or dismissed as irrelevant, but were our portals into deeper levels of mind. The sacred began to burst forth from, or through, every sight, sound, tactile sensation, that was registered within my field of consciousness. These were unique to myself and to this unique moment in time, and came resonating with, well, something that was necessary and magnificent. The 'no self' approach, if adopted exclusively, seemed to lead to a vivid experience of the field of  consciousness within which phenomena come and go, but seemed to ignore the sacred aspect to the phenomena themselves popping up and popping out within that field. It was a one-eyed practice. I felt in danger of short-circuiting myself, especially those emotions which can be gateways into the divine.

Put another way, the fabric of the universe is not a coincidence or irritating impediment. It comes redolent with significance, with meaning. In one way, sure, it is illusory or unreal; in another way, it is anything but. It is the warp and weft from which all is woven. This was the underlying feeling giving rise to the notion of sacred polarities that I wrote about in 'The Divinity of Polarity', 10th June 2016.

In the cosmic jigsaw of synchronicity that such perception unleashes, I came upon a quote from Jung that I had first read years ago, but since forgotten. He was deeply influenced by practices and philosophies originating in the the East, especially Buddhism and Taoism, but his final comment (on Hinduism, but relevant here as well, I think) came like this: "The universe does not seem to exist for the sole purpose of man denying or escaping it." I originally dismissed Jung's comment with a 'He doesn't understand Buddhism and Hinduism', and there might be something in that. Nevertheless, I now wonder whether he was onto something.

Next episode on the subject to follow shortly.......

Image: Sirian Starseed Tarot