“The new poem utilizes several Andrew Cohen -isms:
—>ecstatic compulsion, evolutionary tension, Ego, Authentic Self, Ground of Being.
These words were flying through my mind, so I used them in the poem. I’ve pasted the poem below. Dig it:”
Torchbearer of the Absolute
By: Eric Hoffman
Big Bang,
Emerging from the Ground of Being,
Has produced all worlds,
Both seen and unseen.
Unfolding as light, energy and matter,
Followed by life and consciousness,
Creation has found beautiful ways to
Express its eternally divine essence.
Something new emerged
With the birth of man,
For this is when the dual forces of
Authenticity and contraction began.
The Authentic Self,
Always positive,
Is the conscious, creative aspect of evolution.
Whereas
Ego,
The expression of cosmic inertia,
Is a force of narrow-minded, selfish convolution.
Ever-powerful,
Self-illuminating
And
Totally without fear,
The Authentic Self sometimes feels far away,
But is always nearer than near.
Man experiences the demand to be authentic
As evolutionary tension,
Inspiring him to create new forms
Instead of complacently reaping his
Karmic pension.
Refusing to accept
The compassionate command of such magnitude,
Ego maintains its existence by
Denying self-developmental latitude.
Viewing authentic, ecstatic compulsion
As repulsive,
Ego perpetually acts in ways
That are inelastically compulsive.
Humanity,
The torchbearer of the Absolute,
Has been given a challenge
Of immeasurable proportion:
To recognize our capacity as conscious creatures
And to express our true nature
Without distortion.
Man lives right at the cusp of what is possible,
Free to believe that
“It is not my problem,”
Or to assume an attitude of feeling
Kosmically responsible.
I don’t need to be so grave.
I just finished a very good book, and I’ve been doing some thinking. There seems to be many different ways to respond to people. Whether one’s efforts be towards, what I call ‘orientation’, or towards actual development (as in the I of self-remembering), any progress demands conscious work and will. I recognize this, and know that increased suffering results from the two in ‘tango.’
Eating the ‘I’ does a good job of showing the inner battle that the ‘remembering I’ goes through in fighting and extinguishing the many and fleeting egos of personalities (what we call the “I”s, with the parentheses!). I thought through this knowledge, calling upon my own experiences, and realized our changing “I”s flee from experience nearly as quickly as they come. Why is that?
Rather than how do they come, I began to ask, “How do they go?” It seems that my changing “I”s, at times, are simply taken-over by some new “I”. I will have new awareness and suddenly a new “I” will emerge to capture the situation. For example, if you are on a beach, looking to the ocean on a hot summer’s day, you might find that “I” want to swim all day long, but suddenly… an eagle flies from over head and you watch it soar up over the treeline behind you. As you turn back to the ocean, you see, just beyond the dunes, a giant natural rock formation which establishes the steep ascent of a distant bluff and you think you see a smaill cave opening— “Oh, I’ve got to go check it out!,” you exclaim to yourself. “And HURRY! It’s only 50 meters away! RUN!!” But, seconds later, you shake off the thought and decide you’ll check it out later with your friends. You re-realize that the water is perfect, and you really must get into the ocean on a day like this, ASAP!
You understand? New “I”s (and old) are constantly rushing to the scene and assert themselves… And often times we start to listen to them, to the point that we are habitually over-run by them, over-run by personalities that come and go. The other day I explained much of this to my girlfriend, who lovingly said, “I hope you you don’t ever see me as your project.” She was innocent in her look and so matter of fact about it, “I” couldn’t help but give it some emotional consideration; next thing I knew, “I” had created an emotional identity for her, and one that needed my reassurance that she would never become my project. Which is entirely true and something my deepest sense of my remembering-self firmly believes in, but I realize now that I feel as though I made the situation more grave, as if we both knew such a day will come, but “I” will protect her!
It dawned on me several days later that there are many ways that such “I”s disappear— by distraction (shift in awareness), by dismission (where the “I” is self-hating, weak) and by take-over (over-powered by another “I”). The Fourth Way of course is through self-remembering, where we strive to keep the I as primary, and we practice consciously burning off the changing “I”s which try to be primary (often succeeding!). The first stage in self-remembering is the will to want to develop, and the work to first obesrve the ways “I” make choices. I’ve realized I’ve recently been letting my grave-“I” dominate many of the most intimate parts of our conversations. I’m other ways with her as well, but I see no need for negative emotions, and I think being ‘grave’ is one: amongst other qualities, it feeds off having power over others while also failing to allow a true I to reveal it self… in a word, it conceals one’s essence, making one painfully unavailable for others.
I knew down deep that no one could be another’s project. To do so requires an understanding of the personal nature of another person. One can never know of another’s understanding. Self-development in the Work is a striving toward unifying all conscious experience into a single I, and ultimately coming to embody the impersonal (a non-dual perspective on reality). A learner is given ways to learn, but only s/he can do his/her learning; that is to say one can never know of another’s understanding. I realize now that “I” could have just as easily had a more positive response to her question, yet just as truthful: “Well, honey, I consider myself as a project, and not a very easy one. I don’t know how many projects you think I can handle, but I’m sure as hell not looking for more ‘Work’ to do! … ha! ha! ha!”
If I could go back in time, well, I’d still take the time to reflect after whatever “I” do. As Gurdjieff has said, “Sleep little without regret.”