Integral Recovery

About three weeks ago, I attended a workshop on Integral Christianity at the Boulder Center for Integral Living in Boulder, Colorado. This center is housed in a former church building (with a storied past), and is the brain child of Jeff Salzman, who is an extraordinary Integral teacher in his own right (see video clips in the integralnaked.org archives).

I attended the five-day workshop with no real expectations, but with a definite agenda of sorts. As my practice has deepened over the past few years, and as I have relaxed and looked into the vastness of my interiors, that Jesus fellow has come up as a presence, as a strange attractor. And I DO have a history.

Let me speak to that to set the stage. At the age of twelve I had my first mind-blowing, life-changing spiritual experience. I was raised Catholic, attended church with my family, went to Sunday school, and had been confirmed in the Church. In short, my parents felt that I should have a religious grounding, so I went.

In the summer of ‘68 in my bedroom I picked up a Gideon’s New Testament that someone had given me at school. As I started reading Matthew Chapter V, the Sermon on the Mount, I was blasted by a powerful “awakening state” experience. First of all, Jesus’ words deeply penetrated me, and I felt a tangible sense of being loved by God, loving God, and loving everyone and everything else. I began praying a lot, reading the Bible, and trying to share what I was experiencing with my friends and parents. For the most part, I think I just weirded them out. Ironically, I never even thought about speaking to a priest about what was going on. I guess I figured that since I had been going to church all my life and never sensed or experienced this God or Jesus in church, the priests must not know. Living in Houston Texas at the time there was no shortage of churches. So I did the rounds and was left frustrated. I do remember listening to Billy Graham on my radio at night and feeling some nourishment from his preaching. (Recently I read, “How can you tell an Evangelical from a Fundamentalist?” The answer was, “The Evangelicals actually like Billy Graham.”) Anyway, thank you, Billy.

To make a long, long story very short, I ended up joining a radical dropped-out Christian group two years later, and spent the next nine years of my young life in that milieu. As often happens, my group transformed into a very toxic cult in the space of those nine years. I left in a wave of anger and disgust (some of it self-directed, wondering why I had stayed around so long). I thought, “Way to go guys. We reached a level of decadence in a decade that it took the early Christians 400 hundred years to achieve!” I felt that much of my experience had been legitimate, but much had been crap, and as I wasn’t prepared to sort it all out just then, I put the whole God/Jesus/Spiritual thing on hold and went about trying to figure out what to do with my life.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago…

I went to the Integral Christianity workshop thinking it was time to look at this stuff anew. I had known Brother David Stendl-Rast back in the early nineties when I had worked with Fritjof Capra and the Elmwood Institute in Berkeley. I sensed it was important for me to reconnect with him, and he was one of the presenters. Both intuitions proved dead on, and I was highly impacted by the event, and, as with all Integral Workshops that I have attended, with the quality of the people who were present. So let me share a few of the insights that came to me while I was attending:

• * Firstly, Christianity, or the worldwide body of believers, could greatly be aided by the adoption the AQAL map as a guide to healing the fractures and gaping wounds found in the church (or as Brother David says “catholic” with a small “c”). To put as a starting point that the goal of an Integral Christianity is to express God’s love in all four Quadrants; this would be a hugely clarifying and healing vision. Again, as with most things non-Integral, the Church (and by Church I mean all followers of the Jesus tradition) has erred largely in what it has neglected, the body, nature, interiors, the shadow etc. For Christianity to become a channel for healthy translation and transformation to the whole of Creation, all these essential dimensions must become the field of labor for the redemptive work of Christ: exteriors and interiors, individual and collective. The redemptive symbol of the Cross takes on added depth and meaning in light of the Four Quadrants.
• Inclusion of the knowledge of lines could aid in the cultivation of compassion and greater skillfulness in creating healthier organizational structures that include all the necessary gifts to make the church healthy and relevant in meeting the challenges the human family faces in the 21st Century. Acceptance of an Integral life practice that encompasses the essential lines as the sacred duty of all believers in the goal of becoming more “Christ like,” would be of inestimable value in reintroducing a vital healthy and balanced contemplative path at the core of the Christian faith. It almost goes without saying, in the light of recent events and history, that techniques and technologies for dealing with the individual and collective shadow could heal and bring new meaning to Jesus’ admonition, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Not that we are ever done with shadow work, because if you ever get done with your own, there is always everyone else’s to work on!
• The inclusion of developmental stages and the wisdom that it brings could revolutionize Christian theology, practice, and charity. Rollie Stanich’s observation that, “We all see God through colored glasses,” could begin to soften the often bitter animosity of Christians at one level of development for those at others. I know this is a tall order but I feel as this understanding is spread, the rigidity of the different levels could begin to loosen with a greater understanding of the perspectives that different altitudes afford. We are looking at the same Lord through different lenses.
• The understanding of states is a must for any skillful and accurate understanding of the contemplative terrain. Adding the Integral understanding of states vs. stages and how they complement one another, could usher in a new era of depth Christianity, and once again, or maybe for the first time, the mystical power of the Jesus transmission could become the birth right of all Christians, and not just the purview of other-worldly saints. As Bernard Shaw once quipped, “There is nothing wrong with Christianity, it’s just that so few have ever tried it.” Wilber wrote in Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, that no other religion had done as much to keep its adherents from obtaining the consciousness of its founder, and I mean Jesus, not Paul. Christianity, at least the organized institutional variety, has been comfortable with the 3rd and 2nd person approaches to God, but when one approaches the 1st person, “I and the Father are one” experience, one is on dangerous ground indeed. When the 3,2,1 of God is understood as the territory we all travel in our contemplative journey (often in one sitting!), the tradition is gloriously enriched and many of the early sayings and teachings are revealed as powerful and as fresh as the day they were uttered.
• There is so much to be said about types, but there is much good already written on Enneagram types from such writer Christian writers as Rohr and Rizo. One useful understanding of types on the individual soul level could be in the feminine and masculine aspects of the souls; the feminine part of the soul being the part that longs for union with the Divine, and the masculine that which wants to be about his Father’s business, finding, doing, and accomplishing the Will of God. The individual and the Church need both: transformative mysticism in action.
• The next essential aspect that came up for me in an Integral Christianity, or at least an Integral Christology, is to look at the figure of Christ through three essential lenses, namely,

1. The Mythic Christ: This is the Jesus of the stories, miracles and legends. Of course these are seen as salvation-necessary dogmas to those at the mythic Amber/Blue developmental level. They include the Virgin birth, raising from the dead, descending into hell for three days, ascending into Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father on a throne, riding back on horse with a bunch of Angels to kick literal bad guy butt at the end of days, and setting up a last judgment to separate the sheep from the goats, etc., etc. These can be viewed not as literal articles of faith, but as powerful symbolic, archetypal stories that point the way to deeper spiritual truths that inform and illuminate the soul’s journey. While the traditionalist fundamentalists will reject this approach, it will be in place when those who are ready make the leap from Amber to Orange and above. These are actually some of the archetypal stories that helped me reconnect with Christianity when I started finding and processing these archetypes in my own inward journey. In the Christian mystery I was lead into and through the darkness and suffering. When my own darkness and the World darkness became too great it was the figure of Christ dying on the Cross that somehow imparted to me the Grace to stay with it until the Darkness too became the light. I see it as essential for the tradition that these central archetypes be preserved and illuminated all the way up the developmental spiral, and not discarded with the move from Amber.
2. The Historical Jesus: The man, the actual human being, that we can perceive through the historical record, scant and often contradictory as the accounts may be. It is very valuable, and I believe edifying, to dig into this historical soil: the Gospels, the Jesus Seminar, the Book of Acts, Josephus, the writings of the Early Church fathers, the Epistles, the archeological record, the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Naghamadi Texts, Roman Historical texts, Tibetan texts that shed light, other apocryphal writings and so forth. There is so much to be gained from this form of inquiry and search. For me the preponderance of evidence suggests that there was a Yeshua walking on the Earth in First Century Palestine, and that through the force of his character and personal power he got this whole thing rolling. It is a fascinating study that can be both iconoclastic and revelatory on many different levels, and needs to be a part of our Integral Christianity. To be included in this is pre-Jesus history, the life and time of Jesus, and all that has unfolded from this tradition/transmission subsequently.
3. The Kosmic Christ: The third essential lens would be the Kosmic Christ, the living water, the great presence that is Love and at the same time our most fundamental nature and consciousness, the realization of and identification with which is the goal and Grail of the Christian and ultimately all contemplative paths.

Another intuitive hit that I came to in the wake of the workshop was an understanding of the relationship between Tradition and Transmission.

Tradition consists of the historical accumulation of cultural artifacts that has become the historical/cultural/social inheritance of the Church. This consists of artwork, sacraments and ceremony, organizational structures, the literature and liturgy, the dogma and theology, the architecture and language, the history, the legends, the saints, the heroes and villains. I’m sure each one of you could add categories that would also be part of the incredibly rich and complex meshwork that makes up the Tradition.

The Transmission, on the other hand, makes up the inner living light that is the realization of Christ consciousness. To put it simply, I see the Tradition as good and healthy insomuch as it supports the Transmission, or the awakening to and realization of our Christ Nature, and of course the translation of that awakening into the service and healing of the World (in all four quadrants). Tradition on the other hand is negative and even idolatrous when it hinders this Transmission and its translation.

Lastly, but not least, came something of a personal revelation that could obviously have broader implications and meaning beyond my own personal struggles with Christianity. We were doing a 3,2,1 shadow work process and the following emerged in my work. I was working with what I had brought to the party, which was my wounded but ongoing relationship with Christianity and the Christian Mystery, for lack of a better word. I’m not claiming that this is the orthodox way to work with the 3,2,1 process, but this thing took on a life of its own.

In the 3rd person, I saw a very outraged, angry version of myself. I was pissed! I was delivering my own personal jeremiad at the last two thousand years of Church history. I was cursing and going by the numbers from the Inquisition, the self-righteous colonization and destruction of Native cultures, the pedophilia and cover-ups of recent memory, the killing and persecution of Jews and other Christians and so forth; I was experiencing total outrage. When I shifted to the 2nd person, I had a vision in my mind’s eye of myself, standing before an empty tomb (Jesus’ tomb) and I say, “What have they done with my Lord?” And I begin to sob great bursts of utter grief. What did they do with Jesus, this light to the world? How did it become so twisted, lost, and perverted? It takes huge effort to control this as I’m doing the work surrounded by the rest of our workshop group. (The manly thing being not to utterly lose one’s stuff in public-thanks, super-ego.) I then shift to the 1st person perspective, and I become Christ! I become a being of immense wisdom, compassion and love. I look around and see this same consciousness and light radiating from everyone else in the room! Everyone and everything is radiant. This is the answer I sought. Christ the living water, the heaven on Earth within and without is the Grail and the goal and the resolution of the Christian mystery. Same as it ever was.

A woman who has been going through some rough stuff gets a hug from Brother David, and I think just as one bad priest can do so much harm, one loving man of God can do so much good. I approach Brother David and ask for a hug. The love in that hug burns me with its power. I say, “Where were you forty years ago?” Brother David says, “This hug goes back forty years.” I am healed.

One last note, we performed two ceremonies while at the workshop: a communion and an anointing ritual. What happened was something that I was in no way prepared for; a profound experience of gathered group presence, love and holiness. Tradition shining forth the Transmission: The Jesus of History, myth, and the Kosmic Christ, all present, all one, all Love. Yes. Thank You. Amen.

Over the weekend I flew to Seattle with my wife Pam to see Eckhart Tolle. I felt a lot of consternation about the time, effort and expense of the visit, but we stay with Pam’s sister and husband and their two wonderful little kids when we are in town, and that’s always great, and besides Seattle rocks. But all this to see Eckhart Tolle?

Several things were mitigating against it in my head: first, I am a counter phobic six on the Enneagram (ancient personality classification system), which means I’m generally not predisposed to Guru types—rather I’m pretty anti-authoritarian; secondly, while I agree with most of what I have heard and read of Tolle, his monotone delivery usually makes me want to go to sleep; and thirdly, in my own personal practice I have regular access to non-dual states, emptiness, my original face, Spirit, by whatever name.

Do I understand all things? No. But I sense the essence that everything arises from, and I can rest in that almost whenever I will. The world is more translucent now than it used to be, and the mystery and wonder grow from day to day. Is my ego still a pain in the rear? Yup. But, in any case, in my mind I’ve already got what Eckhart is selling. So, what’s the point? The point is I watch my ego spin all its stories and I go anyway.

We arrive at a concert hall in downtown Seattle, and it’s a happening: long lines, expectant people. Feels like a rock concert. I feel embarrassed. As I said before, the whole Guru thing bugs me. When I was in Germany recently I saw a video of a Guru/teacher who is big in Europe, and she was being asked questions by adoring students. I wanted to throw up and shout, “Dudes, you’re already it! Enough already!” Yep, I’ve got buttons and history and they were getting pushed in Seattle. So I do self- talk, “John, I’m sure there’s something to learn here and Pam wants to be here. So relax. Be cool.”

Well, the hall is beautiful. Packed. At least 2,000 people and we are in the second row, twenty feet from Eckhart’s chair. We settle down and Tami Simon (Sounds True) comes out and sets it up. This is good. I don’t know Tami personally, but I have friends who do, and I love her stuff on Integral Naked and the interviews she has done with Ken Wilber. I’m starting to feel better. Then Eckhart comes out. Oh, and I forgot to mention I had just eaten half of a very delicious Seattle burrito before entering. It is one o’clock in the afternoon. The blood in my brain goes to my stomach, and Eckhart begins his monotone drone. Bummer!

The first hour-and-a-half is a challenge to keep from falling asleep and embarrassing the hell out of Pam by snoring in public in the second row. No place to hide! I practice. I struggle. I manage to stay awake. Blessedly, there is a break. The line for Starbuck’s is huge. I think a man could get rich selling coffee at Eckhart Tolle events. No coffee for me as the line is too long, so I run around the block instead. Now the break is over and I’m back on my head. (Heidi, a friend and co-worker, just read this and asked, “What does back on your head mean?” It refers to an old joke where a guy dies and goes to hell and is shown three doors to choose from, behind which he will spend his sentence (eternity). After he chooses, the punch line is, “OK, coffee break is over, back on your heads!”) I take my seat again feeling like a doomed martyr. But this time, at last, my brain begins to wake up.

I start to give Eckhart my AQAL analysis. Being a spontaneous awakener, he doesn’t have a hell of a lot to teach us about practice. There seems to be just the slightest hint of the knowledge of states and stages… and so on. But at least I’m engaged and getting into the flow. Then it starts to get really interesting. Things start to get translucent. Eckhart finds his groove and I’m definitely finding mine. Things light up. What is speaking in and though him is speaking to me where I live in my deepest places and I’m feeling gratitude and love. Gratitude to him for being a shy introvert who has become a teacher and channel for a profound degree of awakening. And Love because when things start getting translucent for me, Love arises as I see through form into emptiness and know they are not two.

He said a couple of things that stayed with me. Eckhart said that when he comes out on stage he has no idea what he is going to say or teach. He just stays open to the moment and lets whatever arises come through. As simple as this sounds, it is not easy and takes practice. I am finding this to be true more and more as I explore writing and teaching and making music. I think this ability to stay open is the essence of presence, flow and creativity. Eckhart said that when he gives a talk, he is a spiritual teacher, and when he walks off stage he is no longer a spiritual teacher, he’s Eckhart.

I love this. The ego is always trying to constellate around a self-generated identity. “I’m a teacher.” “I’m a rock star.” I’m a this or a that. It’s a trap. You’re a mystery. I’m a mystery. Can you imagine? “I’m Eckhart Tolle, enlightened world-famous teacher.” What a bummer! Leave it on stage. Leave it at the office. Be here now. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.)

He talked about the need to hold children in this presence and emptiness, as well as getting them to brush their teeth and go to school and so on. Ken recently talked about the need for “father” love and “mother” love in raising a child—mother love being the unconditional, “I love you no matter what you do” variety, and father love being what you get when you do well. Both are needed in raising a child; too much of mother love gives you uncontrolled narcissism and too much of father love and gives you depression, rebellion, underground behaviors, and so on.

The same is very true in the Integral Recovery model. There is unconditional compassion for the person and the sufferer of the disease of addiction, but there is also holding the person responsible for their disease and getting well, as in the old saw, “With addiction you got to feel good by doing drugs and in recovery you get to feel good by doing good.” You add this to a stable awareness of emptiness, or Spirit, in the parent or Integral Recovery counselor along with the good cop/bad cop, father love/mother love combination, and you have an integrated field of consciousness that provides a non-dual energy and space for growth, healing, and creativity (another name for evolution).

I’m finding this in my music and teaching. I have achieved some technical proficiency in both from years of work, repetition, and practice, and I’m good enough technically. The cutting edge now is to become a vehicle, an instrument of the presence that permeates all, finding the groove, the flow, the creativity of this moment.

I realize this is what I really love about Ken Wilber’s writing and teaching: it floats in emptiness. Not the idea, but the presence. It just comes through. You can feel it. The most complete map of reality, the relative evolving wonder of it all floats in pure suchness, Spirit, emptiness. It is really extraordinary.

I can see this emerging in the Second Tier/Third Tier debate. Second Tier is, or can be, primarily a cognitive structure/stage. Third Tier, or late Second Tier, must include a whole-body spiritual realization of emptiness. I can see this in Don Beck’s recent rumblings about Third Tier, whether it exists or is even necessary. Sorry, Don, but ya gotta sorta be a mystic at Second Tier in order to get the Third Tier mojo going. And for most of us that requires disciplined daily practice unless you get zapped by dumb luck or Grace. Which brings me back to Eckhart Tolle.

I suspect Eckhart of transmitting and teaching at a primarily Green level, but he understands non-dual emptiness, and in the third act he started lighting up the place. I love this guy. He’s got a ten-week gig coming up with Oprah (our current American embodiment of Goddess juju), and I think it’s awesome: Obama, Oprah, Eckhart, Integral Life. There is something happening here. As the Bard from Minnesota says (no, not Stuart Davis), “The times they are a changin’.”

I was in Boulder, Colorado, two weeks ago. I was there on Integral Recovery business and had the opportunity to meet with Robb Smith, David Riordan, Marco Morelli, and Jeff Salzman. All of these folks are extraordinary individuals in their own right, and are part of the present arising of this Integral wave. Someday they will be part of the history of this luminescent birthing of Integral consciousness.

All births are messy and bloody and chaotic—that is the nature of evolution, creativity, and new beginnings. I spoke with one delightful woman, Nomali Perera, who was a veteran of the creation of the Integral Institute from it’s earliest formulations. I told her how grateful I was for the work that she and the others had done at Integral Naked and Integral Spiritual Center. I added how much these offerings had enriched and deepened my life, along with my ILP. I told her that in my little hamlet of Teasdale Utah, I had gotten a very pure dose of the Dharma (the pure teaching/the essence). She said, “you got the Dharma and we got the drama.”  Indeed. Well, bless all of you that went through the early trails and tribulations of I-I.

I read a book one time on the making of the movie Casa Blanca, and the whole process of making this film was one of the most screwed up, dysfunctional things one could imagine. From day to day they didn’t know where the script was going; anger and a sense of the impossibility of the task and near despair ruled. What was the ultimate result? It was a masterpiece of the American Cinema. So to all of you early pioneers, thanks. Did you create a masterpiece? I think so, and at the very least you created hope. Hope in me. Hope enough for me to pick myself off ground where I had fallen again and again, where every first tier giant I jousted with turned into a windmill and knocked me on my butt. With the rage of a wounded warrior, I kept throwing myself back into the fight with an existential fatalism whose only answer was to resist the sputtering collapse of my world. But that has changed. I see and feel things so differently now. Hope is reborn. The sun is rising in my soul. Though all the fissures and the fractures and the cracks, I can see light shining through. You all were extraordinary in the gifts you gave and made available. So, good job. Well done, and thank you.

From the script of Casa Blanca:

Rick: I congratulate you.
Victor Laszlo: What for?
Rick: Your work.
Victor Laszlo: I try.
Rick: We all try. You succeed(ed).

I am home again, and still in the process of metabolizing and assimilating our sojourn to Europe. Again I am brought back to Assisi… During our stay there (Pam and me), I took a walk to visit the ancient church San Damiano (a church so old it was falling down in Francis’ time) that Francis/Francesco had rebuilt with his own hands.

The story goes that Francesco was praying before the altar of the then-falling-down San Damiano. As Francesco looked at the crucifix before the altar, it seemed to speak to him and said something to the effect of, “Francesco, my Church is falling down. It needs to be rebuilt.” Francesco, at first taking this message literally, immediately set out with great passion to rebuild San Damiano. (Later, BTW, Francis realized that that the voice was not speaking about physical church buildings, but the sorry state of the body of believers.) This led to his selling some of his father’s very expensive cloth, and the famous confrontation in front of the town and the Bishop of Assisi in which Francesco stripped naked and handed his clothing back to his father, telling him he was returning everything his father had given him, as now he had only “his Father in Heaven.” Thus Francesco renounced his large inheritance and embarked on his career as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. For a beautiful portrayal of this incident, I recommend Zeferrelli’s moving film on the early career of Francis, “Brother Sun Sister Moon.”

Anyway, I found myself walking to San Damiano by myself. Pam was elsewhere that day. The church is located about a kilometer out of the southern gate of Assisi, but seems much farther. This being mid-December I saw very few people on my journey. The church and the cobblestone path that leads there are still surrounded by groves of olive trees. When I reached San Damiano, I found the simple unadorned chapel and meditated for an hour. Even in Francis’ life time the San Damiano had been converted into a cloister for Francis’ first female followers, St. Claire and her sisters. Claire lived here until her death in 1253. After my meditation I walked through the cloister where Claire (Italian Chiara) and her fellow nuns had lived, and where they had cared for Francis in his final illness. Here he had composed his famous “Canticle to the Sun.”

During the meditation and subsequently, a great pain began to form in my heart center, and continued to intensify throughout my visit to San Damiano. As I have learned, I did not resist the pain but allowed it to be there. I was, however, puzzled. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but pain wasn’t it. As I was leaving the church I asked myself, “Why the pain?” The answer came in the words of Jesus, “He who would follow me must take up His cross.” What I took this to mean is that the path of spirituality, or contemplation, is not just about hanging out in the Light, but in a very real sense it means to open yourself up to your own personal pain, and also to the pain of the whole world. I was profoundly rocked by this insight and breathed deeply into my suffering heart. I felt new respect for and identification with Francis, Claire, and their brothers and sisters. Their heroic efforts to follow a path of love and humility, one that entailed tremendous suffering but also brought forth a radical joy, is said to be the mark of the true Franciscan spirit: radiant joy burning through the tears in an absolute loving embrace of all that is.

For the contemplative and for those of us on the path of spiritual transformation and awakening, pain is a gift and a teacher. Through our repetitive opening to all that is and all that arises in our daily interior practice, we learn to stay with and be with all that arises: the joy, pain, thoughts, boredom, impatience, feelings of emptiness and disconnection, and all that which arises in the infinite space that is our true Self. The feelings, emotions, and thoughts all arise, transform, and pass into the brilliant clarity of the Seer, the Witness, our “true face.” Paradoxically, perhaps, this opening to the relative world of form and change does not leave us in the Light while leaving the suffering and transitory nature of the relative world behind. Quite the contrary, it begins the union of Heaven and Earth, the transcendent and the eminent. The Dead world comes to life as we realize that within ourselves and without, there is no place where God isn’t. This is not just a thought, but a whole body awareness, one that causes a complete reordering of our relationship to reality. This reordering may take years, but therein lies the adventure, the fun, and the infinitely creative process of making our finite, small self the channel and vehicle of our Big Self. The Eros of the search for God transforms and leads into the Agape of the “great give back” to life, as we realize what and who we really are, and give back the utter joy of this realization in our service, relations, and creativity.

As I climbed the hill back to Assisi, the pain I was experiencing grounded me and humbled me in the realization of the great work that had transpired in this beautiful place. Francis and his followers had risen to the spiritual challenge of their time and gifted us all. You can still feel it there strongly. I know that God is everywhere, but there are places where goodness and love seem to linger in a special way, like a beautiful scent or a song heard through the trees. As I ascended to Assisi, I asked myself, can I, can we, meet the challenge of our times with similar heroic intention, love, and creativity so that I/we might bless the world with my/our life, love, work and play? All in the endless creative flow and flux of evolution and creation held in the awareness of who and what we really are? It could happen.

Again T.S. Eliot:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope. For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

This passage from Eliot’s “East Coker” is not just pretty poetry but an accurate description of the interior journey, of the inner work. We must be still and wait. There can be great activity both emotional and intellectual as we “Be still,” because being still does not mean freezing the universe, it means holding it in the greater context of emptiness and pure awareness. Imagine a wiggling bug on the surface of a vast, still ocean. From fifty thousand feet looking down on the ocean we would say that the ocean is still indeed, even though our little bug is shaking all over. In the context of emptiness, this vast endless spaciousness, no matter what the ego or mind does, it happens in stillness: the Witness is always still. (Or as Ken Wilber says, “Emptiness is simple—it has no moving parts.”)

To further look at this, imagine you are a hundred meters under the ocean in still, calm water. There could be a tsunami passing over your head and at that depth all will be still. In our daily meditation, as we plunge ever deeper into this vast spaciousness that is our true Self, we are less perturbed by the disturbances on the surfaces, the peripheries. This does not mean that we ignore the surfaces either, but we can, for the first time perhaps, become really effective in dealing with these surface manifestations. Now we can hold them in their true context, and we can do so with lightness, wisdom, and compassion. We can dance the dance of life with beauty, skillfulness, and grace, because we have seen and know our original face: the vast consciousness from which all arises.

We don’t “hope” or “love,” because we have “faith” in the waiting. Because as emotions, thoughts, and feelings arise in the vastness of our true Self, they will release and self-liberate, and the understanding and wisdom that arise from this waiting is of a nature and order that seem to be from a different altitude and magnitude than our formerly contracted state could have grasped. This is just one of the reasons that “cultivation through repetition,” or daily practice, is so vitally important to our future as individuals, as a species, as a planet, and so on. Because from these states of expansion and transcended awareness, a creativity and intelligence that we are perhaps just beginning to realize can burn through the fog of our separate, isolated, little self-dreams and can allow us to truly create the world anew in all quadrants, lines, stage, states, and types.

“We wait without thought, for we are not ready for thought.” Not yet. When I plunge into these depths I cannot stop my mind from doing what it does most of the time. That is, think. I do, however, bracket my thoughts, not believing the fictions and stories that it spins about what is arising. They are just stories that my little mind creates and they will keep me stuck if I pay them heed. After I go through the darkness or whatever is arising, through the surface into the vast stillness, then I am ready for thought. In that darkness comes the light, and in that stillness the dancing. Again, the problems that we have created are not solvable from the level, state, or consciousness that created them. At the level on which they were created, we just create more problems, more karma, more knots. To undo the knots and problems we have created on our surfaces we must go through our surfaces into the depths of our true being. From that depth we can cultivate the ability to release, unwind and untie the traumas and dramas and fictions that keep us prisoners and asleep.

Let me introduce a question that I often use in teaching that functions something like a Zen koan. It is a question that, if we struggle with it and find the solution in ourselves, leads us to a new level of understanding of the deepest essential levels of reality, and provides us a glimpse of our true self, our “original face” before our parents were born, before the Big Bang. This is the question: How could a Jew forgive the Nazi? Given these Nazis had murdered your children, wife, husband, parents, family, friends, indeed your whole world and culture. How could you forgive this? Stop reading. See and feel this. See the doors being kicked in, in the middle of the night. Feel and smell the stench of the cattle cars, the claustrophobic horror. See the Nazi SS guards, look at them, feel their arrogance and their cruelty. See the attack dogs with them as they open the cattle cars and force your family out, separate them and strip them, and prepare them for the “showers,” the gas chamber… See your family dying in the gas chamber, slowly, horribly, obscenely. Feel it. See it. Smell it. Hear it. And ask yourself, “How could a Jew forgive the Nazi?”

It is not humanly possible. It is too much, way too much. Some people say, “Well, you can realize that you have the same potential for hatred and cruelty inside yourself.” Maybe. But you did not do it. You made choices that did not lead you there. It simply doesn’t wash.

How does the Jew forgive the Nazi, or the Shia the Suni, or the Palestinian the Israeli, the Indian the white man, the slave the enslavers, and vise versa on and on through our whole bloody history. Can it be done? Is reconciliation possible? Can we forgive?

TO BE CONTINUED…