Is Spirituality Spiritual?

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Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. ~ Lily Tomlin

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[Nickeson]

Denis and the Rest of Y'all,
How about enjoying the ride?
Last November or so I posted a piece that was corrupted by a hacking and had to be exorcised. Since I'm vane enough to keep all this silliness in a Word File, I dredged it out and spiffed it up a bit and now offer it again in consideration of your wonderings:

Sitting here close to the top of that part of the Andes called a coastal range, shards of alto cumulous string out to the south and east. E. Harris sings “Hickory Wind”, I sample some beets pureed with coriander and sip a little ouzo, Lebanese ouzo called Arak, Sunday afternoon western Sud Americana time.

We wait for the chicken to finish roasting and wonder why in hell would anyone ever…ever…want to believe in a single god damned thing. 

Time idles past like a sweet old Kenworth.  The sounds, sights and the feel of the joyous power at hand are the ease-gotten gains. (There are thunderheads two miles deep down the range and thunder over the house.)

So why buy options in profitless stock? Why the belief, the faith?
 
Why put in for the insurance plan, the well-thought reasons for the moral, the approval of soch and self? We’ve watched those markets for years and know them to pay no one but the brokers, and too little, too, at their best.

Did you come around here for the peace of it all? The certainty, perhaps?  The deftly structured system to which you can pledge subordination? Needy for limits…this but not that? The four walls of sound profession? The constipation of philosophy? The assurance of Mission Control? The anchored soul with mortgage?  A bathtub in which to float?

We were floating the Rio Grande through the Taos Box in a battered old raft called The Charlie Allnut: Michael the disillusioned lawyer, his lady Mahaba, my river-runner-groupie neighbor Marie, Sid, the shrink from the Pen who was also the skinniest man in Santa Fe, and me. I was at the oars. We were kicking back through the placid middle stretches in the heat of late morning. Someone might have mentioned Alan Watts’s notion of the Tao as the “watercourse way”. In the light of this I mentioned how as I child, maybe three, could have been four, I learned that of the Tao from Scuffy the Tugboat, a Little Golden Book about a toy boat, tired of the confines of the bathtub, who makes his break for liberty when his little boy owner takes him for a field trip in the nearby brook. At large and alone Scuffy runs the brook that becomes a creek, that becomes a stream, that becomes a river; its breadth grows wide and its banks steep. Days and nights float past. Creek-side villages turn into towns, towns become cities. The fish that bump and splash at the brave little tug are growing pretty big, row boats give way to barges. Scuffy, though, pushes on through all that is a river’s evolution. He’s there to illustrate the principles of geography, but does he know his deeper teachings? Scuffy soon enough reaches the bay and heads to sea. And just as he passes the last pier he is scooped up by the father of the little boy who owned him way back at the headwaters. The two have been chasing after him all this way. They think they have saved him so it is home to the bathtub for Scuffy. We little ones were assured he was happy to be back.

The hearty crew of the Charlie Allnut was pleased with the story. I told them that Scuffy had been my favorite book for the longest time. But, there is that but…

“I never liked the ending,” I told them, “even when I was a little kid I knew it was a fucked up, sell-out, formula ending.”

“What..?  No!”

“You wanted him to go to sea? You crazy?”

“He wouldn’t have lasted an hour.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but think of the glory.”

Sid turned to the rest of the crew and asked, “Is this the man we want driving our boat?”

Now Nelson and Jennings duet on “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. This wise woman and I are still wondering why anyone would ever hem around themselves with the slightest thread of a belief; risk any possibility for the hopeful illusion of the order of things.

She says something like, “When you are going out there, like standing right on the event horizon or even on the other side where you can’t see and there is nothing else…it gets pretty scary. That’s when things start to fall apart inside, all the structures.”

“I think one thing stays,” I say, “that knowing you can handle it”

“Maybe,” she says, “but for me, all I know is that it’s so right.”

This wise woman….

[Jana]

There is a skinny dark mysterious young guy here in B. he hangs out at the creek doing movement exercises, plays the didj and wears black and silver in an elaborate fashion. He came into the store last night as he was ordering "horse cards"...he is a horse photographer, he  makes  glicee prints of them...he can say glicee properly because he is French.
Then the local astrologist tuning fork therapist-teacher came in after he had left, she called this French guy "Plastic Man" she saw him as a cross between Michael Jackson and Prince.
Whereas I see everyone else as Plastic people, and this horse photographer as "Real"...he is NOT in the Borg, you can feel the sense of the wild about him, great sensitivity and quiet integrity. I called him ephemerial, he is elemental, "Real."

It is funny how the plastic people think the Real is plastic.

[Jana]

"The individual who is not anchored in God, can offer no resistance on his own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the world. For this he needs the evidence of an inner, transcendent experience which alone can protect him from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass." 511 The Undiscovered Self, Jung

Jung's archetypes refer to unconscious structural forms in the psyche forming inner propensities. The word "archetype" comes from the Greek roots arkhe- ("first" or "original") + typos ("model", "type", "blow", "mark of a blow").

The collective unconscious is a boundless realm hidden from ego consciousness.

"The person who enters this inner realm (if only he is allowed to experience this) will find himself going, or being conducted on a journey. We cannot see that this voyage is not what we need to be cured of, but it is in itself, a natural way of healing our appalling state of alienation called normality." 104 The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise by R.D. Laing

With regards to the exploration of the collective unconscious, Jung states that the reason why such a journey looks rather like psychosis, is that the individual is integrating the same type of imaginative material that an insane person falls victim to, but because the "insane" person cannot "integrate" it he is swallowed up by it. I think the distinction between the two is ultimately the "distance" achieved from the symbolic contents of the mind itself through the successful completion of the inner journey, as to whether the deeper layers of the psyche can be traversed safely or hold one captive within the fabric of the archetypal matrix.

Much of the mental illness and fundamentalism in both the so called "normal" and the "ill" sectors of human culture could be avoided through education as to the symbolic nature of consciousness, and the multilayered structure of the mind itself.

In order to emerge from the trance of "Mass-mind" one needs to go on the inner psyche journey, resulting in the "objectification" of the symbolic contents of ones own personal archetypal matrix and the collective unconscious. It is then that one gains a perspective on how one's "Being" fits in the scheme of human history and unfolding...and receives the knowledge of one's "Universal Destiny"...through a lived connection (immersion) to the anima mundi (Earthsoul).

"Without the individual there is no community, and without community "even the free and self-secured individual cannot in the long run prosper." But the unconscious man, who knows nothing of his destiny and his obligation to fulfill it, runs the risk of losing his personality in the mass." The Myth of Meaning in the Work of C.G. Jung by Aniela Jaffe

Jung's life work was direct at preserving the individual from diffusion and dissolution in mass-mind or conversely from the aggrandized inflation that occurs in defense of the danger of such a loss of soul into the collectivism of mediocrity (The Borg).

[jimtzu]

i think we all like to play with words and language, exploring the possibilities of meaning and intent before the individual words are cemented in cultural prisons that take the life right out of the abstraction of communication.  once the meanings of thoughts harden, the evolution of ideas loses it's plasticity and humor,  all that's left is a rigid expressionless concept that is useless except bolster  preconcieved notions, much like the makers of maps who never leave their comfortable confines.

[Michael]

Enjoying the conversation here.  So much so, that I could remain silent no longer.

Welcome back Denis!  Great reading you as always Steven.  Jana, you continue to delight with your workmanlike cornucopia.  Jim, a sterling foil are you...

Henry, good reference.  Irreducible Mind holds the possible promise of being a landmark effort on the order of SES, in the paradigm wars...wish I had the time to read it.

I especially am enjoying your peripheral critiques of Integral Steven.  Another redemption scheme?  Yes I think so.  With all the trappings...

I have no greater intellectual enjoyment now, than reading really well thought out critiques of Integral, KW and I-I.  I wonder why I take such a perverse pleasure in that? 

I finally got around to reading Neal Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, which Tiki-Liz recommended ages ago.  It immediately followed Al Gore's Assault on Reason, which drew heavily from the former.  Which in turn drew very heavily on the work of Marshall McLuhan.  I wish I could synopsize that line of inquiry, and add it to the Borg equation, but alas, it's beyond me.  Suffice it to say, that our whole neurological-cultural systems have altered almost "magically" under the impact of TV and TV-spawned cultural-epistemological forms.  Read those books to see why it is that we are almost certainly doomed at this point in history.  La-dee-da...   

If there ain't no viable redemption schemes on the horizon, then the best we can hope for is UNDERSTANDING as we whirl our way towards the event horizon of December 2012.  Some consolation eh?....   

[henry]

to escape the borg, ye must be bjorn again(apologies in advance ).. a reminder that jc pearce streams live saturday at 12:06 pm eastern on virato live(it will be archived) and the bruce lipton new dimensions  interview airs this coming week on your favorite public radio station. you can stream it sunday morning at wmmt 11:00 am eastern...i'm enjoying the posts lately ...henry

[jimtzu]

to escape the borg, ye must be bjorn againhenry

  classic

[Jana]

Jung was basically talking about alchemy...metamorphosis, kundalini awakening...he went on that 4 year inner journey delving into the depths of his psyche. This is not a "regression" just as Robert Augustus Masters dark night was not a "regression"—when the conditioned mind is peeled back one encounters the archetypal patterns and vivid-commanding facets of the underlying psyche that drives us.

It is this "death-rebirth" that entails the core of the individuation process, NOT any external "learning" or spiritual practices—for you cannot be an individual without this breakdown-breakthrough chemistry. I don't think anyone is ever really "ready" for this, but they are "ripe." The external-learning and spiritual practices are prior and subsequent "structure-builders" peripheral to the inner journey itself.

Disengaging from the soft, psuedo nourishing titty of modern western culture, to a wider sense of universal being beyond, while still existing in this culture...is the greatest challenge to the contemporary initiate. BOK 2 will go into this more...right now, I don't have alot of answers (experientially proven) but I am getting there.

I hope to be able to express myself better on this issue.

[Jana]

RE: Gorgeous 3 year old Nia Glassie just died at the hands of her family.

Writing to MPs and others in NZ:

I am a white kiwi living in Colorado USA at present. I have a special interest in child abuse in NZ. The child abuse issue is not just a Maori problem...it is a problem of UNCONSCIOUSNESS...and has to do with the disempowerment of the male and a lack of healthy spiritual development avenues for males in New Zealand. There is the slavery of The Job...slavery to a family in having to support other people in a difficult economy...lack of any genuine "listening" to the suffering of males and lack of encouragement for them to speak of the pain they are experiencing. This translates as unconscious-violent-criminal-delinquent behaviors.

If there were spiritual/psychological development structures other than sports, beer, pubs and gambling, through which young men could go through a series of steps toward leadership, self-mastery and true manhood...this would greatly help the situation.

Punitive, military style, righteous indignation and direct measures will not help the child abuse problem at all and will only make the situation worse by driving the damaged-self these men are expressing into ever greater lengths of debasement!

I suggest you get together with leaders from cultures around the world that have a deep sense of honoring the spirituality of their children...such as some tradition Native American elders, Balianese...some tribes in Africa perhaps...bring these people to New Zealand...to an HONORING OF THE CHILD conference...which should be aired on public TV...along TV advertisements with emotional pictorial and music tributes to the beauty and profundity of children...
You might ask Peter Kater to do the music for this public media campaign, and Lee Tamahori to do the shooting...
The whole idea with any social reconstruction efforts is not to come at it with any punitive, condemning energy, but to work on development of the emotional-psyche, cleaning up the need these  people have for alcoholism and providing a sense of collective hope, focus and agency/access to a brave new future. Only a narcissistic, depressed and addicted culture abuse their "future" by abusing their children...there is no greater damage to the soul of a people than this.

But the way forward is NOT by any means that have been undertaken in the past. It must be conceived in beauty and carried out with profound expansive love and consciousness.

Colonialism is not to blame. The self-responsibility to perceive and live a "higher way" is the fundamental quest of the human species throughout all time and in all areas of the globe. The problem lies in the disempowerment of the individual within exploitive authoritarian systems that neglect the true development needs of humans. The "helplessness" in the face of the need to change and the "adaptation patterns" people use is the issue.

[jimtzu]

RE: Gorgeous 3 year old Nia Glassie just died at the hands of her family.


Colonialism is not to blame. The self-responsibility to perceive and live a "higher way" is the fundamental quest of the human species throughout all time and in all areas of the globe. The problem lies in the disempowerment of the individual within exploitive authoritarian systems that neglect the true development needs of humans. The "helplessness" in the face of the need to change and the "adaptation patterns" people use is the issue.

ideally the individual is responsible for their own actions, but you can't discount the cultural upheaval that "colonialism" formented on the peoples that were taken over.  most of the groups affected already had good systems in place, some were even better than what was forced upon them. when your whole culture is ripped away from you and a new one with totally different religious and economic structures put in place (added to that the non-acceptance of being considered inferior because of the color of your skin or being considered not as "civilized")
it is easy to become lost, not being in either world.  since the last wave of white colonialism was brought about for greed of land and resources and backed by the religous "authority" of the vatican, i would say colonialism had a big part to play and an even great responsibility to correct the problem.

[Denis]

Where does the obsession with redemption come from I wonder...

I think, well it has to do with linear thinking and neat packages...

neat packages...things with beginnings and ends...

good, happy endings...is redemption only a way around death...

I am sure I am being much to simplistic, anyone willing to help me see more deeply into this?

d.

[Jana]

It is subjection of the human spirit that is the problem...whether it be a errant President with a collosal war machine at his hindie...or whether it be a petty tyrrant who gets drunk and beats on his family on a Saturday night. Colonialism is only a symptom of this ongoing negative relationship we humans have with the "power" principle.


THE CANCER OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS
The damage done by the cancer of unconsciousness is not contained within the family system. It is systemic within the society as a whole, infesting all areas with its poison. After the years of sexual, physical or emotional abuse at the hands of family members, a young girl then has to endure 20 years of cat-calling and leering by a weak and disempowered (ie:macho) male population. Thus the damage to hormonal development, to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being continues on into adulthood.

The consequent imprinting of all this damage on the cellular structure of women in this environment, means that they go on to have children with the scars of this trauma-imprinting within every atom of their being. Thus the cycle of abuse and unconsciousness continues generation after generation without anyone being the wiser as to where all this disfunction is coming from. Alcoholism, child abuse, wife beating, violence…all this is symptomatic of a social system that is not only unsustainable, but degenerating without any possibility of reprieve. Unless the roots of this unconsciousness are pulled out from their dark soil and displayed in the light for all to see…to see clearly and with love.

The one reason why things have not deteriorated to total social anarchy is that much of this abuse happens to children and women…who are not as likely as men to become coldblooded mass murderers as a consequence of the damage inflicted on them…instead a silent inner war of rage burns within the cells of these women, infesting their children and future generations…pitting family member against family member, gender against gender. Health breaks down, the vision of a descent future is lost, hope turns to grief—substances are abused, and the cycle repeats.

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. We now have to collectively re-establish a “healthy” form of male-guardianship for the future…one that will take us where we want to go. A patriarch who is molded and determined from the needs and desires of all members of society from the oldest to the youngest members. One that will not hurt the growing edge of humanity and make it want to suicide to get away from the pain…the pain of a social reality that is denied, and which will not be talked about openly, out of fear of father’s unconscious rage.

Joseph Chilton Pearce and his ilk are a model for the sacred patriarch. It is him and his kind which can help us formulate a vision and an action plan that will actually work to create the transcendent future we all deserve.

The way toward a transcendent future is not by any means undertaken from the past.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, August 4 2007
  12:06 PM-1 PM  EDT http://viratolive.com/
 Virato interviews one of the icons of psychology and human social structure. Author of a new book, The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit: A Return to the Intelligence of the Heart, Joseph Chilton Pearce, forhttp://www.innertraditions.com/isbn/1-59477-171-5?id=2231&displayZoom=0 nearly half a century, has been probing the mysteries of the human mind.

[henry]

denis, this doesn't answer your post, but i was reminded of bob marley's redemption song. thanks...henry

[jimtzu]

a few thoughts...

child abuse (and abuse in general) have direct parallels with colonialism and it patriarchal attitudes towards the people it lords over. unrestrained yang testosterone
can lead to the dark side quicky, whether singularly or culturaly, if not tempered by the embrace of the feminine.  much was lost when the goddess' were overthrown by the patriarchal gods. what is needed is a space where the god and godess that is in each of us can bring about a center where humanity can flourish.

[Jana]

White folks are just as much victims of their saccharine world, as indigenous people. So it is not a matter of who did what to whom. If progress is to be made, all must work toward the empowerment and spiritual fulfillment of each individual. A society that nurtures the growth of its members does not wreck violence, suppression and torture on each other. Anger must be used constructively to build the will to change from “self-destruction” to self-determination. Thus each must take up the call of responsibility in creating not only a workable future, but an exuberant future, of the kind of success we can barely imagine. For this we must construct a society based on syntropic, and not entropic principles.

The success of the individual is not counter to collective progress it is absolutely vital to it. A successful society is made from the success of all its citizens. Thus if we blame a particular sector of humanity for our present circumstance we block our empowerment toward success and abort our contribution to a collective transcendent future. All that is blocking us from working toward our individual and collective success is a failure of imagination!

"Without the [actualized] individual there is no community, and without community "even the free and self-secured individual cannot in the long run prosper." The Myth of Meaning in the Work of C.G. Jung by Aniela Jaffe

“The transcendental future is here. It is now, if we could but evoke it. If we could find the means to communicate with the deeper parts of ourselves and to each other, to bring that kind of perfected future into being…The future is endlessly bright and full of transcendental promise for those who are not afraid of it.” Terrence McKenna.