Self Discovery

 

What do we mean by "self discovery"? How far do we wish to delve into the mystery of our selves. Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung were pioneers in the same way as Danial Boone: where once an Indian trail crossed the Cumberland Gap there is now a four lane highway. Without having scratched the surface how will be plumb the depths. 

In this narrative, of now however many years, I have tried to point out the stratigic importance of meditation. There is absolutely no doubt that the ordinary untrained mind is overwhelmed by the white noise of animal nature. This would be fine if it weren't for proliferation and for the violence inherent in the creature that we are.

It is not shocking that we fuck and that we kill each other. We've done all that from the dawn of time. Yet as a being we are the soil from which an entirely new animal might emerge. An animal that, though an unapologetical biological being, perceives its self with utmost clarity.

And that's a start.

Romantic Notions

 

What is "The Who"? 

If this "Who" reduces to a repository of territorial imperatives which make up the bulk of the personality then the individual is a myth, and we find before us mere plaid, woven of universal animistic themes.

The universal animistic themes which make up the foundation of the personality are the laws of a jungle which is everywhere the spontaneous product of nature.

So the question before us is this: does there exist an element within us above and beyond the obvious animal.  Is there a True Self: an entropy dissipating Awareness that is capable of perceiving and entering into a symbiotic relationship with the jungle.

If such exists it is a product of the jungle in the same way that a butterfly is a product of the caterpillar, and the degree of separation is absolute and irreversible.

Once found in this state we will notice that the common condition of the animal which is humanity, is to paper over the various laws of the jungle with romantic notions.

"The cypress tree in the courtyard."

The "Not Self"

 

The "Not Self" has cleverly camouflaged itself in our enlightened modernity. Psychology has taken upon the individual the sins and excesses of the ancient behavioral ruts which long ago were identified and separated from the individual psyche as the influence of the gods. The influence of Mars, of Aphrodite, and of other assorted gods were admitted to be influences outside of individual will. This implies the existence of a Will that is self referential and entropy dissipating which we might refer to as "The Real Self." While it was recognized by the ancients that the energy of the Real Self was subverted and preempted by the sway of animistic archetypes, moderns say "I" to the sway of the ancient gods and lose the ability to Awaken.

The Easter Bunny is Kali's rabbit. The birds and the bees are her minions. The flowers are a riot of sexual longing.

Why should a fish suspect the existence of water

The Undiscovered Animal

With the awakening of Awareness it becomes obvious that much of our personality before the dawning of Awareness was driven by the domain of the animal. The animal exists in an impersonal realm of biological necessity, and uses Awareness to exploit resources of nutrition and tribalism to its instinctual benefit.

When Awareness discovers the animal the tables are turned and the animal becomes a resource rather than a ruler.

Idle Thought

 

It occurs to me that the "Holy Ghost" of Christianity and the "Buddha Nature" of classical Buddhism are one and the same.

Perfomance of Narrative

It has been remarked in fables and philosophies that the world is a stage and we must play our part.

This is absolutely true.

From birth, through narrative and inculcation, we are trained to our roles. There is no aspect of cultural being that is not charged with, and dominated by, roles which have become normative by way of social evolution. One individual is a potentate another is a peasant. Had these individuals been born into other circumstances the structures of their lives would be correspondingly different. There exists a cultural eco-system populated with creatures adapted to every niche and cranny. 

The question before us is what is it that finds itself so adaptable.

Our roles, our personalities, our pride and our prejudices, are garments woven by the creature that we are in response to the vagaries of its existence.

What is the Who? 

Ascent

 

In the ascent of the Universe to self recognition through the vehicle of Life's ongoing sophistication of Awareness, humanity is merely a moment of convenience.

So near

Yet so far.

Monkey Business

 

Let us imagine one million monkeys silently evolving in empty space. Each one can access all of the knowledge, religious and secular, that exists in the universe, and yet they are asleep.

The awakening of Awareness that I have been referring to as "Enlightenment" is not the monkey waking up to Awareness. It is Awareness waking up to the monkey.

Intuition

Beneath the world that the mind of humanity has created, lies an undiscovered (and unsuspected) world of intuition. 

The works of genius which have given men and women so many comforts and so many horrors were first intuited, and then crafted, into being. The mind's distorted twisting of the fruits of intuition will be the end of us all

But that's not the point. 

The point is that with the awakening of Awarness the mind no longer rules the intellegence, and we enter a magical realm of unerring Intuition. 

Physicality

All existences are physical existences. 

The force-field of a magnet is invisible to the human eye, but non-the-less its physical existence is incontrovertible. The awareness which we find in all life is also a field phenomenon, and in the same way as magnetism, awareness is dependent upon specific agregates of matter for its activity. In much the same way that magnatism is a much utilized yet wholly mysterious phenomenon known only by its affects, the Awareness which is the substrate of all identity is a wholly mysterious phenomenon known only by its affects. 

The "What" that is the "Who" of our daily life is a field of Awareness, and our humanity is the form made necessary to its existence: our humanity is a vehicle and an abode and a means of proliferation. Awareness (like magnatism) has only one quality: Awareness. In every creature we find Awareness, which is the very stuff of life, totally identified with the vehicle that maintains it. It is quite inevitable that this should be so. It is also quite inevitable that at a certain point in the evolution of living organisms, Awareness should achieve self-recognition and become the seat of identity, thus entering into an entirely new relationship with the natural world.

It is not too great a stretch to consider that such an awakening might be the entire thrust of evolution to begin with.

Shakespeare Reads Thucydides at a Dylan Festival

 

I have a friend who suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. She suffers terribly. She can’t eat. She can’t sleep. As therapy I have recommended cultivation of “The Historical View.“

In the prelude to his account of the (431 BC) Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (a general on the losing side) says that if people understood how stupid and unnecessary the war was then perhaps this sort of thing need never happen again. In the plays of Shakespeare we find a catalog of cruelty, cunning, and chicanery worthy of any modern despot. Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A Change’n” was something of an anthem for a certain idealistic set back in the day, but the times have slogged on in the same muddy rut.

The creature that we are continually recreates the forms made inevitable by the animal that it is.

My friend immediately found Donald Trump recast as Shakespeare's Richard the Third, but it hasn’t seemed to help much.

I think we’ll try Ecclesiastes next.