Self and Not-Self form an impenetrable paradox. The Buddhist concept/doctrine of Annata is only partly correct. It does not go far enough. But 600 years later Christ happened. Buried within the technique of realizing not-self is the capacity for perceiving the true “I” which, among other things, can never die.
People love the superficial wisdom of pop-songs like ‘Dust In The Wind’, Kansas.
They see a gritty realistic profundity in its sober tragic but poetic assessments.
They are incorrect in this.
People cannot sense their own eternity because they fail to correctly identify what the word “I” signifies when applied to oneself.
People simply do not yet realize what they are, who they are.
They associate identity with favorite, well-worn, constituent aspects of themselves, of their experience, memories, and feeling life.
But these constituent aspects they choose are precisely those things which camouflage their actual “I” from their detection.
By and large, they do not succeed in identifying or noticing cleanly what their core is, or what it consists of.
That is the human predicament at present, at this moment in evolution, in spiritual evolution.
We notice the noise instead, and key in on it. Over and over and over…
This redundancy itself is exhausting, and understandably so.
And the noise –is– ample. In many cases, deafening.
The oppositional forces do not, by any means, want humans to recognize their true “I”.
They do not want a general awakening into eternity, spiritual persistence of identity.
It is a tremendous advantage (to them) to retain human myopia and confusion about this as long as possible.
All institutions and earthly social orthodoxies support this conspiracy of manufactured ignorance.
Only individuality has the potential to pierce the veil.
Of course.
Only the true authentic individual can know “I”.
And even then, only in its beginnings.
The “I” is evolving, going through its birth pangs phase, if you will.
The ones who see it most clearly will of necessity be inclined to silence, privacy, on the subject.
General acceptance will be a slog.
But acceptance is not what will matter or turn the tide.
Actual perception and recognition and experience of the “I” is what will make the difference.
To know your “I” is but a small step apart from knowing that it is eternal.
All individual strife in life of a psychological character is but a school, a kindergarten for “I” studies.
The more intense the strife, the more in-depth the education.
It is a bit like shedding skins, super thin layers of an infinite onion.
What once was an indispensible and cherished ingredient of selfhood gradually dims in power, in allure.
(Part of the potential gift of old age.)
Our opinion of these key ingredients change, modulate. One by one.
Suffering is very often the crucible for this increase in insight.
By an ironic cognitive twist, becoming more “I” means losing more self.
Egoity is the guardian concealing the “I”-sphere from our awareness.
Selflessness is the rubbing alcohol which vanishes the veneer of illusion sheathing it.
•
Perpetuity is not the most important thing about the “I”.
That is merely a very helpful byproduct of finally achieving the realization.
In fact, the “I” is holy. It is a holy Divine thing.
When we sense it intuitively, we sense that about it.
It is as though we have an organ, a spiritual organ of perception, which can only see if it looks unselfishly.
Completely unselfishly.
The “I” flees from selfish perception.
•
The “I” flashes up from an ocean of chaotic impressions and impulses and desires and opinions, in swift nanoseconds.
It glistens and sparkles to life but does not wait to be observed.
You must be quiet, introspective, and slyly without intention to notice it.
Or lucky.
A legend says that God the Father is only met, usually while dreaming unconscious, once in a human lifetime.
Around middle age.
Think about this, and you can get a certain ‘artistic’ picture of the “I“.
Think then also about only coming to the Father through the Son.
But don’t think on it in a religious mood or context.
Instead be open-hearted and childlike about it.
It is only an intuition catalyst.
In fact, if religion bothers you too much, or you have strongly sectarian sentiments, ignore this entire recent section and stick with the original material.
•
But the “I” flashes up, ephemerally. Know this.
You have to school yourself to pay attention.
It is a grace to receive an authentic encounter.
•
In a future age, it will become generally widespread knowledge that the most single important thing about humanity on Earth is the birth of the “I”.
And only part of this will be given freely by Providence.
Part of it will have to be worked for.
And willed.
•
I am the “I AM”.
_______RS
[ Image : a yellow Citrine crystal. A gem stone which “I” always considered interesting. I am still unsure why. ]
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Just last week, I reposted “dust in the wind” on our family group when my daughter – while taking in the breathtaking mountains she is visiting – spoke of the ephemerality of it all. The song is just nostalgia for me, but your contrasting it with the more permanent ‘I’ is interesting.
No mention of Thou though, unlike Buber. Maybe it’s like the inbreath/outbreath thing: concentrate on just one and the other will follow ? 🙂
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Hi! Thanks for writing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good pop song. I loved the violin riff when it came out.
Anyway, these thoughts are what I think, and for sure others will think elsewise. But since you asked…
There is a certain false romanticism in the ‘all we are is dust in the wind’ trope. A shying away from encountering the massive reality of what we are.
It’s complicated a bit by ‘Don’t hang on…’ since that is a legit morsel of advice but does not contradict our eternity.
I think this highlights a core fallacy — the trope that for a thing to be eternal means it must be unchanging.
Which would be equivalent to saying it is not alive. Our immortality is not worth very much if we cannot perceive it.
Thus it is potential in nature, not realized. I could say much more, but it is a ‘comment’ 🙂
There is a kind of respiration character to reincarnations… inhaling karma, exhaling lived experience, repeat…
I will have to look more into Buber before I can speak to that part of your question. (Which I shall) 🙂
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Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Granted that most classics become tropey and romanticised if only because they have been around for long enough to work through the collective imagination to become stultified.
But it seems there are epochs and songs (and books and whatnot) that punctuate time more emphatically than others. Justifiably so for the acolyte, fully embracing the fallacy that you correctly point out: to be eternal means it must be unchanging.
The way out of this fallacy – I feel – lies in the opposite embrace: of the play of opposites. ‘I’ then is every bit the ‘other’ as eternity is every bit the ephemeral (same same with the peripheral comment and the main text :))
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It is interesting your polarities, and I suspect more clarified for me when I get the time to check on M. Buber. 🙂
I think of the equation ‘eternal = unchanging’ as a falsely introduced (to deliberately obfuscate) notion, concomitant with the Enlightment and Age of Reason during which it gathered unconscious steam. It reminds of a chat once, with a lady, who told that the idea of reincarnation horrified her. Because she could never bear to repeat this torture and these conditions. And I saw in a flash something not easily verbalized. The equation had been introduced not just for confusion but to sow fear. For my thinking was so different from hers: How was it even possible that she could imagine anything — anything — would repeat unchanged? The whole point of the repetition is the new experiences and the altered circumstances. Gender, nationality, temperament, outer circumstance… everything is up for re-staging.
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„A legend says that God the Father is only met, usually while dreaming unconscious, once in a human lifetime.
Around middle age.“
*smiling*
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Many thanks for your sharing. I know this sort of dream. Yes. 🙂
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😉
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so if my broad sweep of history is any guide, equating change with the play of opposites (after of course flipping the equation ‘eternal = unchanging’ to ‘eternal = perpetual change’) has untied many a mindknot over time, and if your friend was privy to this at the right time, it might have saved her many a tortuous thought 🙂
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Reminds me a bit of color as the deeds and struggles between lightness and darkness. 🙂
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Fascinating and thought-provoking. Your discussion made me wonder if some cultures have preserved elements of these insights, at least in part.
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Thanks, Carol.
The way I think of it,
Ancient times were such that all peoples or many knew about the impermanent nature of physical death,
that it was something like the changing of a garment.
But they lacked a real sense of ‘I’,
instead living in a kind of group or tribe, more communal awareness.
This is partly why ancestors were deemed so important.
So partly as you say – yes: the reincarnating but not the individuality.
This is also what I meant by the evolving part… the I is becoming more evident.
Yes, some cultures preserve that memory in varying degrees,
But in order for humanity to develop the intensely individual being while incarnated,
it had to lose direct awareness of ‘eternity’. Had to be cut off for developmental sake.
Now, task is to marshal and use the strengthened ‘I’-sense to know eternity in full consciousness
— before the rampant egotism which has necessarily arisen destroys everything.
(Just how I see it) 🙂
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Interesting, Rob. I wonder how this fits with the vision quest of Ojibwe youth to find their “guide” and their gifts which they needed to master for the sake of their people. I don’t remember the details, but one of the European visitors commented that it was unique for people to take on the responsibility of suffering for a spiritual vision in order to take on the responsibility of living their life for the sake of all their people and all of their relations, including the earth, waters, and all creatures. (I can look on my bookcase if your want to know the details.) Youth had the fredom to be unique individuals but connected to a web that included all creation. I’m not sure how many youth or adults saw it that way, though, or how many might do so today. I only know it’s the sense I got from my mother by observing the way she tried to live her life despite a great deal of adversity and loneliness. She was simply a humble healer who had the courage to use her many amazing skills to help others. Some of her work carries the names of others who did nothing but wanted the glory, and she was fine with that.
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Thanks — alot to work with here, I will likely miss things 🙂
I think it fits well. This coming of age ritual is something I’ve come across for various N. American tribes in different forms. Of course I have no personal experience there. (where did the Ojibwe dwell again?) I associate the suffering part, the body posted up in the intense sun heat with piercings pulling on their skin for hours, etc. — I think the aim of this was to exit their consciousness outside of their physical body temporarily so the spiritual perceiving could be experienced. (It is similar to ancient Old Testament concept behind baptism… the idea was to almost lose consciousnes, come near to death, so a threshold could be crossed and non-brain cognition could ensue, spiritual perception. And this a vision could occur. The heirophant conducting the baptism had great skill and knew or could perceive how close the life body was to permanent death as opposed to merely being temporarily excarnated. This was the real meaning of baptism, an almost drowning, an initiation ritual… the modern idea of pouring holy water over infant’s heads is crazy and absurd.) THe Ojibwe ritual used intense pain to foster consciousness exiting the physical; the baptism of OT used sudden shock of near death. I would guess with the Amerindians that serious preparations happened before the vision quest ritual, discussions about finding what one’s true purpose was. The ‘I’ knew the true purpose, but it was not yet able to fully incarnate, It had to be communicated with elsewise, received visions from in altered states. And I would guess not all people did this, but exceptional ones were chosen. The bit you mention about finding one;s special role for the good of earth and tribe is beautiful, I love it. Great that the European noted it.
Your mother sounds exceptional. It indicates greatness that she had no concern for personal accolades — she knew she did not heal, nor did any other healer. The healing always comes from the spiritual worlds. And she was the conduit, the beseecher.
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PS forgot to include… whereas ancient initiations used externally applied means to temporarily exit the consciousness from the bodily limits, the task now is for individuals themselves to take this up in full alert consciousness. The suffering comes in different forms now, isolation, aloneness, being misunderstood, many societal things, not so much in physical pain causing a loss of normal consciousness. Now, some people have sufficient ‘I’ to take this task on, and more and more will.
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Again, a very interesting discussion, Rob. Accoriding the verified oral history, the Ojibwe (or Anishinaabegeg) origianlly lived on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere in northern New Engald. When they experienced a serious unknown diease, they began a westward trek along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes to find a safe home. On their way, they established small settlement along both sides of the river and lakes. Today, there are more than 20 Ojibwe tribes from Minnesota to Montana, and more than 100 First Nation reserves in various Canadian Provinces.
If I remember correctly, the youth did fast for four days with only water to drink and remained praying and awake for most of the time. But as in all aspects of life, not everyone succeeded in their dream quest. I read a really sad autobiography of one such young man who grew up bitter and became a very judmental and harsh Chiritian Reverand. Of course, in a divide and conquer world, he was able to do a lot of damage to the Ojibe. Their kindness to women and children was unacceptable to the Christians and settlers, and their land of course was always the coveted prize. I’m being a bit sarcastic here, but it’s honestly what I read in so many of the accounts for those times. In the current US govenrment policy decisions, it’s clear how little that’s changed for the better.
It is something that concerns me a great deal depite the blue wave and token wins of a few Native people.
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