bell - a verbalization of consciousness

Emerson & the Light of India

Finally got my head on straight. I slowed it all down, and took a look at it…

An old friend, Moriah, came into Little’s Market while I was working on Saturday afternoon, and she was with a friend named Jennifer. My mood was casual and I’ve been reading—as many hours in the day that I can manage to free up— this Emerson manuscript for about a week straight (titled, “Emerson & the Light of India” by Dr. Robert Gordon). It’s consumed me. I look up from my chair at work, and am quickly greeted by an old familiar smile. I’m already at peace before she even walks in, so my expression barely changed. “Hey, what’s goin’ on,” I asked. Introductions are made, small-talk and catch-up ensues, and then boom, we’re discussing the book, and what’s more, we’re back into the conversation that they (Moriah and Jennifer) were having before entering into the store… The exact same kind of discussion, questions on ‘how one should live in the world.’ It couldn’t have been more than an instant before we were all into such progressive converation. It was real talk. Admittedly, it hasn’t happened in a while. We weren’t just relaying events that happened, but actually hammering out our comparisons of real conscious experience. As if a director behind a camera snapped his fingers, we were off to the races with our minds.

Moriah is a good thinker and appears to be a strong believer as well. I think these people struggle/suffer the most, but their effort is the most rewarding—I believe their shift to ‘clear’ thinking to be the largest and crudest kind of awakening. Anyways, we have an exchange that transcends time for a moment. In retrospect, an hour might have passed… a whole slew of customers and friends must have come and gone, but I only remember our chat. We shared views on Emerson, on Buddha, on Hinduism, Heidegger, Krishnamurti. We raised examples from the bible, from Nagarjuna, from Ouspensky, from the world…

She reminded me of the pain of attachment. She was raw, and I could feel that. She walked into the store mentally distracted by the fear of living a life that one day falls under judgment. I quickly opened the conversation to how Emerson once believed the same, even became ordained as a Unitarian minister. But he quickly found the philosophy of India and abandoned the view that life is a trial which one day comes to Judgment, and in its place, adopted a more ‘pragmatic’ approach—one that sees life as a spiritual process. He went so far as to believe in a kind of reincarnation called transmigration… the spirit of a person comes back lifetime after lifetime, each time bettering their ability to awaken to the soul within (atman), which really is the exact same fabric of the one Cosmic Will (Brahman) that is all things.

Moriah found such talk familiar, and we found ourselves wondering what authority confirms that a traveler is ‘on the right path’, or searching/practicing correctly. It’s a good question, and I could only offer her what I’ve read and experienced. A mystic will tell you (ie., Emerson, Ouspensky, Buddha, etc.) that “Atman is Brahman,” and you will agree because that’s what you’ve read, or know to be true of what they say, but the fact of the matter is that this isn’t some philosophical statement. It’s an actual experience—an experience that results from practice. Let us not forget the question: “How shall I know what I’m practicing, and who will tell me I’m practicing rightly?”

The Abhidharma Literature from the monastic monks of yesteryore would insist that there are certain systematic ways of practicing transcendental meditation. They agree that the goal is to rid the mind of thoughts, to burn off the conventional beliefs, feelings, thoughts that we impose onto reality. The Buddha reminds us that we have attachments to such things, and that these are difficult to shake (ie., fear, jealousy, pain, pride, etc). Once we think about clearing our minds of such attachments, eventually not even a thought will stand between you and the experience of what you are doing. This is freedom, this is the experience of the soul itself (atman), which is all one Nature (Brahman), and this is nirvana. And if everyone on earth would arrive at this state, Heaven would reign on earth. Compassion would unfold from our actions and unite all things. Emerson insists that truth is pragmatic and progressive. It is organic and grows as Nature progresses. Nature and soul are one, and the more souls that reunite with Nature, the more Nature is fulfilled, and even the concept of what is understood to be Truth expands. So, with each new awakened soul, truth on earth grows. Compassion on earth grows. Right action grows. Heaven on earth would be a world like you’ve never seen, a virtue and a love unprecedented.

We agreed that this sounded marvelous, then Moriah raised a shocking prejudice: the conecpt of “self-righteousness”. What do we make of the self through all of this? Is all perspective illusion? She argued that we are here destroying the experience of ego, but at the same time, it is this same ego that is justifying the use of meditation to kill the ego— rather, what then, when the ego wrongfully serves as an authority? “Interesting.” I thought for a moment and continued my response,

“You’re asking if we can trust the ego here, while knowing that all views are illusion? Do I hear you saying that this system of thought is all one egotistical fabrication? I think I do. And I like it, but the clear response from Buddha is that the ego itself is illusion…”

She interrupted. She had to expand on this question of ‘self-righteousness’. She was stuck: “Aren’t we acting self-righteously when we think that we are of the spiritual level that is ready to travel the ‘right’ path?” Emerson will say that this is a freedom we are born with, a freedom that we earned over the course of our soul’s development. Not everyone even has such inclinations—some people are still stuck acting on purely instinctual, animalistic behaviors. Others barely know how to exercise the freedom to choose to live a spiritual life. Still fewer, are born with the inclination to give themselves to the path of enlightenment. This is not self-righteousness, Emerson will tell her. I thought a bit more and asserted, “It might be self-righteous to believe you’re ready to practice, and then never actually begin…”. But I digress.

Where were we? I think the buddha was going to tell us that, in general, Moriah’s question is a good one. How can we trust the ego if it’s just an illusion? Well, yes, our entire selfhood is an illusion. Our root delusion is what constructs the material world and all of our thoughts and actions thereto. This illusion seperates the world into individual things, and we see the world in parts. All I can tell you is of things. But to know them youreself is to acknowledge the arduous process of practice. Ouspensky will tell you that practice will bring results, and to let the practice itself show answers to your questions. But again, you must start. I remembered what I read in the Tao Te Ching:

My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice
Yet no one in the world understands them or puts them into practice. (TTC, 70)

I spoke again, “Just put yourself to practice, and start with your attachment to the fear that the ego is self-righteous.” We continued to talk, and agreed that the Abhidharma Buddhists, who tried to systematize the practice itself, were too strict in their thinking, and that she could begin her practice the moment she went outside and began walking down the street. But the truth of the matter was that, eventually, she would have to practice specifically so as to achieve the absence of the thought itself. This requires patient and careful meditation, and cannot be done while doing other things. You will know when you are close, and with each new right foot that hits the pavement on your path, you will walk that much more awakened consciousness, and what’s more, you will somehow come to know what to do next.

Next thing I knew, I was helping a line of customers, and Moriah and Jennifer were gone. Only one thing concerns me… we didn’t finish! But, I guess, when do you ever? I wrongly told her that Emerson ended up rejecting the benevolence of Nature for a Nature that was indifferent to humanity. As I read on, I learned that this is a common misconception. I may have steered Moriah wrong. I also wondered: did she take the existential leap into phenomenology, or did I keep her on the side of transcendental mysticism?

Even if we all agreed that to awaken was to strive, a kind of striving that might even continue lifetime after lifetime all the while trying to one day empty the consciousness—even if this emptying is just a momentous road stop on the path of life, we should acknowledge that it is real achievement, for all of us as one humanity. The Buddha will tell us that this clarity is blissful and heavenly. But yes, life keeps going. We must return to interacting with the real world, and after awakening we should return to acting compassionately in the world. But, something tells me that Moriah will hear all this and raise the existential concern. Camus or Sartre, true existentialist thinkers, reach this emptiness and call it ‘existential dread.’ They find this emptiness to imply that there is no reason for us to be on earth, and that we must live so as to construct some meaning.

What the existentialist does not realise is that they are still imposing view on the world. Ultimate reality, Nature itself, will not fit the description of any human conception. I have to believe that existentialists exist one hair below the line between Fate and Freedom. They are stubborn, and stranded. Caught between two worlds. They are in limbo between illusion (maya) and awakened consciousness. I could say more, but I’ll save it. I just hope Moriah finds the answers… the world needs her.

Posted by bell at June 10, 2006 06:51 PM | TrackBack