 124. Philosophy � Greek |
Learning to Know
is not Spiritual Development
"The impression that most people have of a developed one is that he knows everything. In reality, knowing everything is not a sign of spiritual development. Rather, spiritual development is a universal understanding that is deeper than intellectual knowledge. It is a kind of integration, an achievement quite the opposite of being scattered or fragmented by mere book learning. It exists above superficial discussion or exploration.
Some people who are very knowledgeable have only attained intellectual development and have not experienced spiritual integralness. Only the spiritually developed one has escaped from behind the conceptual walls which keep one from experiencing the integral truth."
"When spiritual integration is applied to the world's problems, it produces the best possible solutions, above those of worldly leaders. True solutions can only be found through right understanding by all moral worldly leaders of human society and by not being partial or playing favorites. True benefit occurs when beneficial and applicable ways of solving problems have been found and applied to society. This is called being governed by the principle of wu wei or naturalness. It is to do nothing extra."
"When spiritual integration is applied in personal behavior, one becomes aware that good or correct behavior comes from one's own development. His conduct comes to accord with what he says. A person of spiritual integration will be trusted in a foreign place just as he is trusted by the people of his home town."
"The way of a spiritually developed one is as direct as an arrow flying out towards its target. However, a spiritually developed one offers his talents to his society only when the right leadership invites him. At other times, he withdraws himself, his talent and capability, and keeps it like a scroll book that can be rolled up and kept tightly hidden in one's bosom. During that time, he has no communication with tyranny."
Narcissus "IS" the "Thinking Mind" (i.e. the psychological personality)
The usual man is trapped in a loveless orgy of knowing what is. He must be liberated into the moral and spiritual ecstasy of irreducible Ignorance and Love.
The usual man is self-possessed and self-divided. The two halves of his brain and of his body as a whole are in conflict, even out of communication with one another, like a divorced couple. Thus, his sense or conception of life is one of inherent dilemma, as if the universe were frustrated to the degree that it had become a mortal self, and it fears to fall in love again.
The usual man conceives of human existence as a problem, or a primal and irreducible dilemma, and he seeks solutions by exploiting his own separate parts, or all his capacities for experience. He is reactive, and subjectively oriented. Yet, he is motivated toward experience and repetition of experience in the functional and outward realms with which he is already familiar.
The usual man is in fear of the loss or death of self, of defined body and conceptual mind. He is bound to the solutions of Narcissus, or the habits of self-possession, founded on self-division. Narcissus is himself the waking state, the conscious or verbal mind. The usual man is bound to this state of consciousness and defends it with all sorts of rational nonsense. He feels threatened by the nonrational dimensions below and above the verbal mind, below and above the conceptual or knowing mind that defends him against both the unknown and the unknowable. He recoils from the subconscious and the unconscious, the wordless realms of feeling and energy. And he remains bound to his life of self-defense against the powers outside verbal consciousness - so that he remains unaware of the realms of superconsciousness and intuitive ecstasy above and beyond the verbal mind and the knowing self.
The usual man seeks knowledge, solutions, and power - to control what is beyond knowledge and beyond the waking or verbal states of mind. He is often mean, righteous, rational, blithe, and apparently fearless. He is always weak in love, in sacrifice, in sensual sensitivity, and in understanding of the essentially selfless or undefinable nature of the body-mind self.
If we can discriminate between our mechanical and our truly ecstatic ways, if we can awaken from our self-divided mental and bodily states, if we can be shaken out of the subjective and self-defining recoil from the unknown and our own vulnerability, then we can be the ecstasy of self-sacrifice and "see' the Vision of Eternal Life. If we can be awakened from the inherent sleep of the verbal mind, if we can identify with the formless fire below the brows, if we can relax the tension at the brows and so release the brain to the truly awakened mind above and beyond thought, then we can feel we are not self or limits but a living process moved to ecstasy beyond the body-mind.
