HOLDING THE CENTER

[The top of this blog is in very light but still readable print for some strange reason which I have been unable to correct. After the ad, however, the print is fine. So read on and enjoy.]

I received this invitation from Chiron Publications to a Jungian webinar recently. It immediately jogged my memory of the poem by William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, which is shown here below the webinar ad. Having spent the last few months reading and absorbing many of the original Gnostic sources and texts from the first through the third centuries CE, I realized that I had a response to the overall questions of “what is happening and why”? I also realized that Yeats, who wrote this poem after the end of World War 1, is making particular references to the ominous consequences of a devolved Gnosticism being reborn in our postmodern world. A historical perspective of the effects of the original Gnostic cultural wave is valuable if not vital to the understanding of our current world situation. It seems that there is a new, dark, dualistic, puritanical, Gnostic current flooding the world now and that conscious choices must be made now to stem the tide. I touch on these matters following the Chiron Publications webinar ad and the above-noted poem. I do hope that the presenters in the webinar, the “six blind Jungian monks,” take the time to consider this “food for thought” offered here.

The Psyche, Politics, and the West in an Era of Turmoil    Featuring: Thomas Singer, Murray Stein, Warren Colman, Betty Sue Flowers, Joerg Rasche, and Steve Buser    Live Next Wednesday October 19, 2016;  11:30AM to 2:30PM ET  Six Blind Jungian Monks Tackle  Questions of The Psyche, Politics and Culture of the Western World in the Era of Brexit, Trump, Immigration and other turbulent social/political events. The Western world is besieged by rapid and frightening economic and social changes that are leaving many of its citizens feeling overwhelmed, confused and left behind.  In addition, the influx of immigrants from other parts of the world (from Syria and other countries of  the Middle East to Europe and from Mexico and other countries of Central America to the United States) raises vulnerabilities about basic safety, economic threat, and the clash of cultures.  In both America and Europe, these forces are deeply unsettling to those least able to adapt to change and most threatened by the loss of the world as they have known it.  Brexit in England and Trump in America are political examples of how disruptive these forces can be to the status quo.  For example, "Make America Great Again" is a perfect slogan to mobilize the yearnings and fears of many in America. This webinar will offer a  wide ranging discussion of our contemporary psyche(s) and the political/social/cultural/economic/ shifts that are profoundly disruptive to all citizens.  With the American Presidential election about to take place, this is a perfect time to both dive into what is happening right now and to step back and reflect on its cause as well as on its destructive and perhaps less visible, its creative potentials. _____________________ Many questions emerge in such turbulent times and the panel includes representatives from the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland and Germany. some of the questions that will be explored in this wide ranging discussion include: ·       What is happening in the psyche (s) of the Western World? ·       'How does the US Presidential Election look from the perspective of the UK vote in favour of Brexit?' ·       What is the difference between healthy and unhealthy narcissism in world leader? ·       Are there limits to inclusiveness with regard to both personal and group identities within any given nation? ·       What does it mean for America and the world that such a revelation of shadow has been generated by this election campaign? Can this be useful for our country's and the human world's further individuation? ·       Does the Donald Trump phenomenon represent an American cultural complex (s)? ·       To what extent are the political conflicts embodied in Trump and Clinton manifestations of underlying cultural complexes in the group psyche with their own long histories of conflict around issues of race, gender, ethnicity, social and economic class? ·       How has the immigration of Muslim peoples into Europe effected the psyches of different European populations? ·       With regard to gender, how are the figures of Trump and Hillary Clinton paired and polarized in terms of our notions about masculinity and femininity? Presenters Warren Colman is a Jungian analyst in London, UK. He is Consultant Editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology and the author of a recently published book on The Emergence of Symbolic Imagination in which he explores the role of culture as the medium for symbolic thought and suggests that symbols create the realities they represent. Through this work he has become interested in how social and economic changes impact on the symbolic life of a culture. The advent of Brexit and the potential election of Donald Trump as US President are illustrative of the dangers that arise when a yawning gap arises between a culture's dominant ideology and the lived experience of large sections of its population. Warren Colman is particularly interested in the disappearance of truth as an arbiter of political decision making and the emotional background to increasing fears about immigration.    Betty Sue Flowers, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus and former director of the Johnson Presidential Library. She has moderated executive seminars at the Aspen Institute, consulted for NASA, CIA, and the US Navy. Her publications include four television tie-in books in collaboration with Bill Moyers, among them, the best-selling Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. In addition to two collections of poetry, her books include Browning and the Modern Tradition; Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future; and, as editor, Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems in the Penguin English Poets series. Dr. Joerg Rasche is the co-editor of the recently published Europes' Many Souls: Exploring Cultural Complexes and Identities. He is Jungian analyst following his training in Berlin and Zurich where he studied sandplay therapy with Dora Kalff. Dr. Rasche is a child psychiatrist,working in private practice in Berlin. He served for many years as president of the German Jungian Association (DGAP) and was vice-president of IAAP.Currently he is president of the German Association for Sandplay Therapy (DGST). Also a trained musician, he has published many papers and some books on mythology, music, sandplay therapy, and analytical psychology,Dr. Rasche has taught in Central European countries for many years and is a training analyst for IAAP. Dr. Rasche was honored for his work on reconciliation between the Polish and German people by the Polish President who presented him with the Golden Cross of Merit. He gives concerts and lectures around the world.   Thomas Singer, M.D. is a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst who has co-edited several books on cultural complexes in various parts of the world, including North America, Australia, Latin American and is currently preparing a volume on Asian Cultural Complexes. In this series, he recently co-edited Europe's Many Souls with Joerg Rasche.He has explored the relationship between cultural complexes and politics in several conferences during Presidential Election years at the San Francisco Jung Institute. Other interests include his work on Ancient Greece/Modern Psyche that has grown out of conferences in Santorini, Greece. In addition, Dr. Singer currently serves as President of National ARAS, the Archives for Research into Archetypal Symbolism. Murray Stein, Ph.D. is a past president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) and also of The International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich (ISAPZurich). He is the author of (among others) Jung's Map of the Soul, Minding the Self, and Soul - Retrieval and Treatment as well of numerous articles on analytical psychology and Jungian psychoanalysis. He lives in Switzerland and is a Training and Supervising Analyst with ISAPZurich. Steven Buser, M.D.  trained in medicine at Duke University and served 12 years as a physician in the US Air Force.  He is a graduate of a two-year Clinical Training Program at the CG Jung Institute of Chicago and is the co-founder of the Asheville Jung Center.  In addition to a busy psychiatric private practice, he serves as Publisher of Chiron Publications This webinar adds onto the discussion from the recent book by Chiron Publications titled A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump. Authors Steve Buser and Thomas Singer continue the discussion of the issues raised in the book.

       THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

                                                             William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

When the Gnostic mind reigns, the center does not hold; the God of this world, this cosmos, and nature itself, is not to be trusted and no longer exists as unifying force. The unified universe of Platonism and Christianity (with counterparts in Buddhism and Hinduism and many Indigenous religions) is gone. That which was seen as a revelation or a reflection of divine beauty and order within all nature and all matter throughout the cosmos, no longer makes sense, and is no longer understood or accepted. The glue of society, culture and civilization is weakened. Nothing makes sense except to those who have lost hope in humanity and the world, have lost their senses, their connections with nature and themselves as “parts of nature,” instead, seeing existence as revolving around only themselves or, conversely, are no longer able to even see themselves but can only give credence to visions of unknown saviors; visions put forth in manipulative lies of hope and salvation. People lose their own vision, having given up their own minds and souls, their own ability to understand, and their own willingness to think for themselves. They lose common identity except that defined by fear and its unbalanced elements: hatred of and violence towards any imagined enemy, any “other,” which have been made real through absolute loneliness, alienation and despair. They gather then as hateful predators to insure their own survival even as they consume what is left of their souls and the world itself as if it were meat. For their God whom they had worshipped and held as sacred has become the Devil himself; they have been thrown into the world unawares and then out of the Garden to survive as dumb animals, but animals who are unnatural and do not belong in this landscape of earth, much less in their own physical bodies. In their state of darkness, ignorance and sleep, they are unable to see any goodness, any divinity within themselves, within nature or within their world, seeing only the dark images of their own thoughts and imaginations. And they see their lives only in and within the power of the great beast, the Demiurge, their Creator, rather than in any loving, merciful, universal Father.

When we can no longer see the beauty of nature or find ourselves in nature, when we can no longer trust nature and ourselves as the reflection, order and goodness of the “Divine,” that is, a principle of essence or ground of being, we lose hope, understanding and direction. For, from the perspective of the first Gnostic cultural wave in the first to the third centuries CE, the whole universe was created in error by Error, and we ourselves cannot escape imprisonment in such a world of ignorance and evil. Yet, as social beings, there is an innate need, or at least tendency, to find “divine essence” within ourselves and others. The ignorance that comes to possess human minds and souls devolves into the form of anti-social actions, to the point of “evil” itself. But, at that moment, does the Truth then finally arise within us? Within humanity itself? Are we suddenly somehow “made aware” and able to “see the light” of understanding? Do we become aware of the great goodness and love that exists within and among us? Or, do we fail as a species, never fulfilling the potential of our “spiritual destiny,” destined to fade away or otherwise destroy ourselves?

I see that this as a choice we must make. Though it may seem to be the other way around, being in the world is far more challenging than avoiding the world; the via positiva is far more difficult than the via negativa, the kataphatic far more harsh than the apophatic. This a choice which requires that we sacrifice such pleasures as avoidance of the world’s helter-skelter and learn to find peace and quiet in the very midst of frenetic, distracting existence. It requires that we come together, cease our endless judgment and division, and be willing to trust others and ourselves. It is our purpose to create a “center to hold” if human life is to be able to continue in love, goodness, reason, and heartfulness.

Gnosis has devolved into dark division and separateness; the “elect” judge and condemn those who do not “know the secrets of God” but are simply of kind and good heart. Living is not a mental exercise, no matter how erudite or impressive. Rather, it is an act of love and faith in that love of all that lives. If we cannot act lovingly towards others, ourselves, and the planet itself, we are doomed. If the split way of seeing continues, we will continue to split ourselves, to disconnect and destroy ourselves. The Gnostic vision of cosmic duality must by choice and understanding be replaced with an evolved Platonic vision and version of existence in which we are able to experience and recognize a “center that holds,” a center that exists throughout the cosmos and that is one of love and awareness of others as ourselves, in which we treat each other as we would like to be treated.

*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

Gnosticism, so far presented here, has historical substance and reality, however, Gnosticism is also an archetype, a set of aspects ever-present, manifesting anew as powerful cultural and epic waves in the currents of history, often as seemingly necessary and worthy purging social movements but resulting in chaos and the destruction of order, including any sense of “center.” Yeats, well-versed in Gnosticism, Hermeticism and Theosophy, in The Second Coming, recognizes the “widening gyre” of the cosmic spheres meant to both define and contain the differing cosmic elements, as becoming unbalanced and unable to “hold its center.” We “falconers” who had once been able to merge and find ourselves within the “falcon” and act as part of and in accordance with nature, have lost this ability as we have accepted the Gnostic tenets of the essential “error” of our being, nature, and all creation, in which we reject the material world, including our own flesh, as anathema to our “true divine being.” In the Gnostic view, we are prisoners of ignorance and evil in this universe of matter: there is no virtue, no trust, no innocence, no “conviction,” no consciousness (for we have been created by a lesser god of pride and ignorance, who is compelled to imprison us in his world and maintain darkness so that the other-worldly light within us may not be revealed to us). And those minions, called Archons, of this mind come to dominate and to infect and enthuse humans to the point of “passionate intensity” in the creation of a world of even greater loss and depravity. Yeats recognizes this “Spiritus Mundi,” this Spirit (God) of the World as Evil personified, perhaps as the Antichrist, as Ialdabaoth, the Creator of the cosmos, the Demiurge, in the form of the Sphinx (with human head and lion’s body) arising from the desert, the realm of the dead and the remote past. These images are Gnostic ones. Has the “rough beast” been born into the world?

Commentators on Yeats’s poem note that this was the world he had witnessed during the First World War and was now observing—and experiencing—as the devastation of the civilization he had known. Perhaps what is occurring in the world now is simply an extension of that process, made here and now through the immediacy and strange intimacy of the internet. Perhaps it is quite similar to the “Gnostic revolution” that occurred twenty centuries ago and brought down the “pagan” Platonic and Christian “universal orders” held in place by “divine powers.” But then, Gnostic duality (with its Manichean-Iranian version deriving from the dual and independently “good” and “evil” gods of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, and the Syrian version of Valentinus, deriving from Greek philosophy itself, perhaps Egyptianized) has remained quite alive throughout history to our current time. Sts. Paul and Augustine carried it into Roman Catholicism and Calvin and Luther into Protestantism. Existentialism and Marxism hold much of Gnostic archetypes, if not actual beliefs. And now it surely appears that “things fall apart” and “the center cannot hold.”

I would be remiss if I did not elaborate a bit more on “original Gnostic tradition,” since this is, as I see it, the archetypal and metaphysical force that has come into play in a most powerful way in our world. In his Preface to The Gnostic Religion, Hans Jonas summarizes the “Gnostic epic,” so to speak, as follows:

Almost all the action would be in the heights, in the divine or angelic or daimonic realm, a drama of pre-cosmic persons… And yet that transcendental drama before all time, depicted in the actions and passions of manlike figures, would be of intense human appeal: divinity tempted, unrest stirring among the blessed Aeons, God’s erring Wisdom, the Sophia, falling prey to her folly, wandering in the void and darkness of her own making, endlessly searching, lamenting suffering, repenting, laboring her passion into matter, her yearning into soul; a blind and arrogant Creator believing himself the Most High and lording it over the creation, the product, like himself, of fault and ignorance; the Soul, trapped and lost in the labyrinth of the world, seeking to escape and frightened back by the gatekeepers of the cosmic prison, the terrible archons; a Savior from the Light beyond venturing into the nether world, illumining the darkness, opening a path, healing the divine breach. (xiii)

Let us briefly compare what might be called “classical Greek Platonism” and “classical Gnosticism,” as presented by Jonas:

Plotinus maintains the unity of all being in the universe, with no essential separation of the human and the non-human realm. Man is in his essence kindred to the whole cosmos … [and he is endowed with] the best in him, namely reason… He actualizes his kinship with the cosmic powers, that is, … he increases the original generic community of his being and that of the total cosmos [when he utilizes reason].

Gnosticism, on the contrary, removes man, in virtue of his essential belonging to another realm, from all sameness with the world, which now is nothing but bare “world,” and confronts him with its totality as the absolutely different. Apart from his accessory outer layers contributed by the world, man by his inner nature is acosmic; to such a one, all the world is indifferently alien. Where there is ultimate otherness of origin, there can be kinship neither with the whole nor with any part of the universe. (263)

I quote Jonas on Gnosticism’s historical and culture influence and effect in the first few centuries CE and ask the reader to compare the Gnostic archetype and historical reality as it affected that world to its seeming affect in our current one:

The gnostic movement—such we must call it—was a widespread phenomenon in the critical centuries indicated, feeding like Christianity on the impulses of a widely prevalent human situation, and therefore erupting in many places, many forms, and many languages. First among the features … is the radically dualistic mood which underlies the gnostic attitude as a whole and unifies its widely diversified, more or less systematic expressions. It is on this primary human foundation of a passionately felt experience of self and world, that the formulated dualistic doctrines rest. The dualism is between man and the world, and concurrently between the world and God. … In this three-term configuration—man, world, God—man and God belong together in contraposition to the world, but are, in spite of this essential belonging-together, in fact separated precisely by the world. To the Gnostic, this fact is the subject of revealed knowledge, and it determines gnostic eschatology: we may see in it the projection of his basic experience, which thus created for itself its own revelatory truth [my emphasis]. Primary would then be the feeling of an absolute rift between man and that in which he finds himself lodged—the world. It is this feeling which explicates itself in the forms of objective doctrine. In its theological aspect this doctrine states that the Divine is alien to the world and has neither part nor concern in the physical universe; that the true god, strictly transmundane, is not revealed or even indicated by the world, and is therefore the Unknown, the totally Other, unknowable in terms of any worldly analogies. Correspondingly, in its cosmological aspect it states that the world is the creation not of God but of some inferior principle whose law it executes; and, in it anthropological aspect, that man’s inner self, the pneuma (“spirit” in contrast to “soul” or psyche) is not part of the world, of nature’s creation and domain… . (326-327)

… whoever has created the world, man does not owe him allegiance, nor respect to his work. His work, though incomprehensibly encompassing man, does not offer the stars by which he can set his course, and neither does his proclaimed wish and will. Since not the true God can be the creator of that to which selfhood feels so utterly a stranger, nature merely manifests its lowly demiurge: as a power deep beneath the Supreme God, upon which even man can look down from the height of his god-kindred spirit, this perversion of the Divine has retained of it only the power to act, but to act blindly, without knowledge and benevolence. Thus did the demiurge create the world out of ignorance and passion. (327)

The world, then, is the product, and even the embodiment, of the negative of knowledge. What it reveals is unenlightened and therefore malignant force, proceeding from the spirit of self-assertive power, from the will to rule and coerce. The mindlessness of this will is the spirit of the world, which bears no relation to understanding and love. … Power thus becomes the chief aspect of the cosmos, and its inner essence is ignorance. To this, the positive complement is that the essence of man is knowledge—knowledge of self and of God: this determines his situation as that of the potentially knowing in the midst of the unknowing, of light in the midst of darkness, and this relation is at the bottom of his being alien, without companionship in the dark vastness of the universe. (327-328)

What sticks in my mind is our “situation as that of the potentially knowing in the midst of the unknowing, of light in the midst of darkness.” As I previously noted, this is precisely the choice that must be made by those who “possess knowledge,” specifically, “knowledge of God.” Jonas notes the presence of “understanding and love” as, in my estimation, our proper and true ground of being. I do not wish to present Gnosticism as inherently wrong-minded or “evil”; it is a creation of dualistic perspectives with their own mythology and cosmology that took root in the minds of many at a juncture in history. It is nihilistic, anarchic, and even anti-social in scope and practice. I would submit that my criticism of Gnosticism may be more of a criticism of a most diminished human condition. Historically, those who “possess gnosis” of the transcendent, believe that they possess such knowledge or are the “elect of God,” have tended to see themselves as “superior” to others, and conveying this “superiority” to their impressionable and “passionate” followers. Even if they did not impose their beliefs upon others, their belief in their exclusivity was socially and culturally separative and divisive. They often chose to no longer operate within the common law and only recognized their own. Society broke down: the center could not hold. This is not to say that they did not possess true knowledge or even transcendent gnosis; they very well may. But, in the world of human beings, such gnosis “goes to the head but not the heart,” feeding their sense of separateness—and paranoia. When fear for survival takes over, there is no gnosis, no matter how right or how true; there is only catastrophe.

There are a number of other “Gnostic sources” I have consulted, including Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity from 330 BC to 330 AD by Francis Legge, Pagans and Christians: Religion and the Religious Life from the Second to the Fourth Century by Robin Lane Fox, The Other Bible edited by Willis Barnstone, The Confessions of St. Augustine (which is quite Manichean) translated and edited by Albert Cook Outler, and others. So far, Jonas seems to have the deepest understanding and the most thorough research. As a philosopher himself, he is familiar with both ancient and modern philosophers as well as both “pagan” classical Greek and early Christian apologists who understood Gnostic teachings well in order to be able to provide persuasive arguments against them. These apologists and critics of Gnosticism include Plotinus, Augustine, Irenaeus, Origen, and Tertullian. Jonas realizes that Gnosticism is informed by Christianity and Classical Greek thought and vice-versa. The threads of each are interwoven and Jonas is quite careful when separating them in order to reveal how Gnosticism is much the opposite of the other two, which are quite similar in many ways. Finding the “right” quotes from Jonas in order to display the various essential Gnostic teachings and their applications has been a most difficult process, for Gnosticism has many different threads. This one, by Jonas pertaining “gnostic dualism” and the consequent view of the psyche, also in light of the fact that Jung himself claimed to be “gnostic,” provides food for thought:

Gnostic dualism … regards the “soul” itself, the spiritual organ of man’s belonging to the world, as no less than his body an effluence of the cosmic powers and therefore as an instrument of their dominion over his true but submerged self. As the “terrestrial envelopment of the pneuma,” the “soul” is the exponent of the world within man—the world is in the soul. A profound distrust, therefore, of one’s own inwardness, the suspicion of demonic trickery, the fear of being betrayed into bondage inspire gnostic psychology. The alienating forces are located in man himself as composed of flesh, soul, and spirit. The contempt of the cosmos radically understood includes the contempt of the psyche [my emphasis]. Therefore what is of the psyche is incapable of being elevated to the condition of virtue. It is either to be left to itself, to the play of its forces and appetite, or to be reduced by mortification, or sometimes even extinguished in ecstatic experience. [This] indicates that the negative attitude to the world, or the negative quality of the world itself, though it does not give room to virtue in the Greek sense, still leaves open the choice between several modes of conduct in which the negativity is turned into a principle of praxis. (269)

The praxis may therefore be that of the libertine, the ascetic or puritan, of the loss of self in fantasy or altered reality (which is not so different than the first two).

I introduced “Gnosticism” as a major, if not the major, influence of change that has occurred in civilization in our present time. I believe it affects the whole world at this point. In Gnostic cosmology (of the Valentinian-Syrian school), the realm of Light is attacked by the powers of Darkness, which have each so far existed separately and independently of each other. Light sacrifices a part of itself, seemingly losing the battle to Darkness, believing that the devouring (and consequent absorption) of Light by Darkness will bring imbalance and disorganization to the Dark, thus halting its invasion of Heaven, the Pleroma. This is how the Light-Dark polarity works out in the West. In the East, the Daoists of two thousand years ago were able to maintain “Heaven” and “Earth,” “Light” and “Dark” separately but equally and in relationship to each other, each in its proper place and, in that respect, keeping the other in its place. But now it seems there is no longer any safety from the loss of the “center that holds all together.” I believe the “Gnostic” archetype and historical image is an effective and perhaps true representation of a force now both loose and loosed upon the world. It is insane, without any center at all, and it spreads itself like an infection of fear, loss of self, and extreme, passionate, and violent quest for this lost self. We who claim and believe ourselves to know point righteous fingers at “those others” who are “ignorant, irresponsible, inferior.” Each individual believes himself or herself to be “right.” We may have reached a crisis of individuality in which the pursuit of the “rights of the individual” destroy the cohesiveness of the whole. Or separate, warring groups of people destroy the cohesiveness of the whole.

To me, as noted earlier here, it seems that the answer begins with each of us choosing to be with others rather than against them. To do that we must be able to recognize ourselves as the other. This is most difficult for those with the Gnostic temperament of distrust of the world-as-ignorance. The world we see is the world we have created through our beliefs. If we loved one another, the world would be a loving place. If we forgave one another, the world would be forgiving; we would have another chance. This requires profound sacrifice from each of us who may actually “possess gnosis,” but also possess an inherent fear for our own survival and see ourselves as quite separate from the person next to us or from the group of others who seem so different from us. It has to start somewhere. What comes to my mind are the Irish women, Catholic and Protestant, who chose to stand in between the Irish men, Catholic and Protestant, who were all ready to start firing at each other towards the end of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Our lives may not be so immediate or dramatic as that, but it does become a matter of “turning the other cheek” (which is a “Lighting of the Dark”) in a world of intolerance, fear, and blame. How do we change what people think, much less how they think? By changing what we think, how we think—of ourselves, others, the world, and life itself. Kindness, love, forgiveness, understanding, appreciation, trust have to start with ourselves. We bring a calmness and then a peace; a sanity and a sense of safety and acceptance. I think this is how the world changes. This is how we bring about “Heaven on Earth.”

I have thus far avoided using Jungian terms since this essay is meant also for the general public. Of course I am speaking of individuation and how to get there. The process of individuation itself can make us too separative in our individuality. Daryl Sharp, paraphrasing Jung, in The Jung Lexicon, writes:

The aim is not to overcome one’s personal psychology, to become perfect, but to become familiar with it. … Individuation involves an increasing awareness of one’s unique psychological reality, including personal strengths and limitations, and at the same time a deeper appreciation of humanity in general [my emphasis]. (68)

Jung’s own thoughts regarding the pitfalls in the process of individuation, as noted in his Collected Works, also come to the fore:

As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation [my emphasis]. (“Definitions,” CW6, par. 758)

Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to itself. (“On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW8, par. 432)

Individuation has two principal aspects: in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the second it is an equally indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other … [my emphasis]. (“The Psychology of the Transference,” CW16, par. 448)

Sharp interprets the split that can occur in the process of individuation, according to Jung, and Jung more specifically presents the consequences if there is not adequate “production of values” to the collective world in which one lives:

Individuation and a life lived by collective values are nevertheless two divergent destinies. In Jung’s view they are related to one another by guilt. Whoever embarks on the personal path becomes to some extent estranged from collective values, but does not thereby lose those aspects of the psyche which are inherently collective. To atone for this “desertion,” the individual is obliged to create something of worth for the benefit of society [my emphasis]. (68)

Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from collectivity. That is the guilt which the individuant leaves behind him for the world, that is the guilt he must endeavor to redeem. He must offer a ransom in place of himself, that is, he must bring forth values which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the collective personal sphere. Without this production of values, final individuation is immoral and—more than that—suicidal [my emphasis]….

The individuant has no a priori claim to any kind of esteem. He has to be content with whatever esteem flows to him from outside by virtue of the values he creates. Not only has society a right, it also has a duty to condemn the individuant if he fails to create equivalent values. (“Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity,” CW18, pars. 1095f)

What I refer to as “devolved Gnosticism” is a description of the “negative values” that derive from it and draw one into oneself and out of the world and being in and connected with the world, with others. Jung recognizes this as well and says, to paraphrase, that there must be a “balancing out,” as it were, between that which one takes from the world and that which one gives back to the world, the collective. He pointedly notes, “Without this production of values, final individuation is immoral and—more than that—suicidal.” It seems that there has been much taken and not enough production of values in service and contribution to the world, that the movement inward of those modern-day Gnostics has metaphysically and literally “sucked the world dry,” that the negative, hopeless mind-set of too many people of influence has become a self-fulfilling prophecy spreading throughout the world. And so, those of us who may and can, must now make the choice to change the way we think, the way we see, and what we think and what we see. It is up to us to “turn the tide.”  

JUNG AND GNOSTICISM: A CONTRADICTION

This is addressed to anyone who possesses an understanding of Jung and an understanding of Gnosticism, not as taken from Jung's understanding, but from your own studies of independent Gnostic sources. 

            In my studies of Gnosticism, including The Gnostic Religion by Jonas, which is a specific study of the various schools called “Gnostic,” both “pagan” (Syriac-Egyptian [Valentinian and others] and Iranian [Manichean], and Christian, and of the history of the development of this cosmology, I come away with a far different view and understanding of Gnosticism than Jung, who claimed himself to be Gnostic in his view. To be brief, Gnostics, in general, saw the “cosmos” as created in “error” and egotism (at best) by the Demiurge son of Sophia, consort/mate of the Foremost God. The Gnostic view is that, between Spirit and Matter, the twain cannot meet. Being incarnate is imprisonment for the Spirit, and it must go through seemingly endless forms and their lives before it can finally return to the “First Father.” This is a most simplistic and brief summation of an extremely complex narrative which I will present in my blog: Metaphysical Forces in Flux: What on Earth is Happening? (metaphysicalforcesinplay.blogspot.com). To the Gnostic mind, nature or the world, as well as the whole cosmos itself, is certainly NOT “sacred” at all, but is to be endured and worked through. The myth of Narcissus would be a Gnostic tale, for it relates the mesmerizing beauty of the reflection of the Light of God in nature, including human beings, and of the enchanting illusion it creates for us and holds us in.

             Jung seems to have another view of Gnosticism as universal and unifying, which is actually a Platonic (and Platonic-Christian) perspective. Gnosticism has logically evolved, through Sts. Paul, Augustine, and other Church Fathers, into Calvinistic views expressed either in Puritanism or Libertinism (also noted by Jonas). Catharism fits into the latter category (which is another narrative as well).

             Jung also equates Gnosticism with alchemy. In my studies of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Alchemy, I admit that there is some overlapping (in one section of the Poimandres by Hermes Trismegistus), but that they are far more distinct than Jung (and his followers) seem to comprehend. Without going in to details, the indications from Gnostic and Hermetic sources is that Gnostics were NOT engaged in alchemy, nor were they interested in magic or sorcery. I think Jung mistakenly merged Gnosticism with Hermeticism, which is strange because they are essentially oppositional (according to Ebeling’s The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermetism from Ancient to Modern Times). Regarding Hermeticism, there were two main schools: Southern European (Italy) and Northern European (Germany). The Southern School was more “spiritually-inclined” and Christian, whereas the Northern School was more “magically-inclined,” practiced alchemy, and “pagan.” Paracelsus is connected closely with the Northern School ("Alchemo-Paracelcism"). I consequently have to question Jung’s notion of himself as a “gnostic,” since both the earth and nature were anathema to the Gnostics as far as sacredness was concerned, or that he discerned the profound differences between Gnosticism and Hermeticism.

If anyone has any thoughts regarding these issues, I would be most willing to hear what you have to say, but, as noted above, it is important that they come from your own understanding and interpretation.

A GNOSTIC DREAM AND OTHER APORIAS

I dreamed of the insanity of the world as the human mind is possessed and manipulated by destructive and hateful demonic forces. In my dream I, as a once-willing participant, must play along until I can actually plan a viable escape and hopefully bring others with me. This dreamview ties in closely with a Gnostic view that in descending into human form, one must acquire the powers of that human level in order to survive there; not only acquire but excel in utilizing such human powers, which are also, by the way, flaws and failings from the once-divine perspective. The Gnostics, in general, believe that humans, and all creation (including the cosmos itself), for that matter, were created by a demi-urge with much error and ego. There is an irony, a paradox here: in order for the pure, divine being to incarnate, it must become low and tainted as is necessary in its human form. It must even allow itself to become indoctrinated, as it were, in the laws and rules and afflictions of that level of being, and then slowly make its way upwards once again, realizing (by the grace of the First God) its heritage, and beginning to shed that which is of the world. And so the demi-urges, the demigods of mythology are given gifts of magic and helmets and weapons that they may be protected in the world of men and be able to win the battles they must fight in the world on their ways both through Hell and on their way back to Heaven. They must literally allow themselves to be insane, maintaining just a bare thread of sanity to hold them in their direction within this labyrinth of the world. They must give up all faith and all hope of faith in order to descend to the very bottom of Hell, otherwise its germs will still fester within them, hoping to be brought into and to infect Heaven itself. In Dante’s Inferno, he gets to the very bottom of Hell and then it reverses itself (astrologically, from the nadir to the apex or mid-heaven) and he is injected into Purgatory and its view of the Light of Paradiso (Heaven) on the mountaintop. So it is with the insanity of existence; one must plunge into it and come out on the other side in absolute sanity. It is not so much a matter of faith as it is a mere thread of sanity (and perhaps faith is a mere thread of sanity) that does lead, if unraveled step-by-step with patience and courage, out of the dark and dangerous labyrinth. The journey leads into Hell first. We take on the garments of hellish existence and live in them, slowly, gradually making our way through the trials and tribulations and utter despair and seeming eternity of Hell itself, before we finally emerge, finding ourselves blinded by the Pure Light, after our seeming eternity in darkness and suffering. We do emerge from it and we will emerge from it. In the meantime, in the process of living in bodies in the world, we must recognize the reality and power of the insanity, and curse it for its demonic presence to the world, that others may see. It is no longer a matter of degree, of relativity, but rather it becomes as clear as day. There is no reconciliation to be made. “Get behind me, Satan.” All manner of power and temptation, of falsity, of appearance are offered and are even real and true as far as they go, but they don’t go very far at all, and this I know. They are mostly gone when the body dies (though identities do remain, leading us back again into form). Krishnamurti advised us to read nothing, to not take the ideas of others into our minds, lest we become infected and overcome by ideas that are not ours. He seemed to say that we are best left to our own minds and souls to lead us. While I understand the protection he is offering, I also feel that we must weigh the truth of what is said even as we must sometimes take wrong turns in following the map of our lives. We must learn by our mistakes. As David Miller says, in so many words, “They are not wrong; they are mis-takes." We are not to stop because of them, as if we even could.  

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There is the notion of “breaking out of one’s cycle of being,” of one’s habitual way of being by which and through which one becomes one’s self, one’s personality, one’s particular “cage” in and through which one ultimately chooses to live. It’s actually a quite horrendous existence we live, particularly in all of our “creature comforts.” It is these comforts that keep us, maintain us, and contain us as lowly creatures, rather than as something much more than that in essence and quality. I can see the validity of “denying the world” by an ascetic life, for “the world” is only as a “passing fancy.” A most wonderful, temptingly beautiful passing fancy it is, but it is quite short-lived and it’s falseness in that respect is a most deceitful and painful identity for those who choose it, which is probably almost all of us. Very few escape it or can escape it, and it may be that we must immerse ourselves in it and identify with it to have a proper and necessary life experience, that is, we must pay homage to the gods of earth and flesh while on earth and in the flesh, otherwise, we cannot ever get through it. But I believe it eventually becomes a matter of doing so without producing more karma for ourselves that has the effect of bringing us back into the “worldly fold.” One cannot help but be entranced by the beauty that is in and of the world. The Gnostics (and others) believed this to be a reflection of divine, beatific beauty itself, captured and held by the cosmos (and/or Sophia) both for the sake of creating life here, for such beauty holds such power, and to remind incarnated humanity of its own divinity (when it is capable of seeing beyond only itself).

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We are as the moth that still circles the flame. We are meaning-seeking so that we may live. Without meaning we have no reason to exist. As we crumble in our bodies, the façade falls away; we begin to see through it. Everything begins not just to fall apart but to fly out as if from centrifugal force, flying out from the center. What comes to mind is Steiner’s notion that we blast out into space when we vacate our physical body at death. Does “the center” from which “we” emanate always hold? That there would be a center is either real and true, or it is something that we want to be true, which is to say that it “means” something that must be true for us. If we explode out from something or someplace that once existed on a level of being that exists no longer or was only real on its own level temporarily, did it ever exist? I understand that the only way to justify our own existence is to “learn something” from our experience of living our lives. This “learning something” is “finding (or making) meaning.” If we did not “learn,” we would not evolve, not develop, not even survive, or so it seems. It is as though the First Creator became somehow aware of Itself after eons of unconscious existence, and suddenly needed meaning, which it to say purpose, place, proof of and justification for Itself; so we have Parvati emanating from Shiva. The reflection, the mate, time and space, other, come into being. 

MY LIFE AFTER DEATH

I died a little while ago; maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days, maybe weeks, though probably not months; there is no time as such in this bodyless state. So I don’t know how long I’ve been like this. What I do know is that I had hoped that my life might “pass before my eyes” before I died, but it really didn’t. In retrospect, dying was more like falling to sleep, which is not so difficult for me, though waking up to pain and bad dreams a few hours later, as was my habit, was difficult. I seem to have awakened from my death, but am not in pain and haven’t had any bad dreams; I am strangely feeling rather “neutral,” for want of some way to describe myself, which is quite different than I am used to. With no physicality, I seem to be left with my thoughts and feelings, which remain quite body-centered; it is as though I have a body but there’s nothing here. I still feel my body, even sensations of a sort, and my bodily senses feel somehow intact, which seems to indicate that much if not most of my physicality was in my mind all along. I don’t literally feel my flesh in that state but I feel as if I am still in my flesh. Perhaps this bodily identity will fade as I “proceed” in this different reality. What I “see” is the life I just “left.” Like I said, I wish I could have seen this before I passed rather than now, though I doubt whether it would have made any difference. I was already experiencing almost first hand many of my life memories as very vivid moments of “being there” again; feeling it and being it. I may convey some of these somehow always poignant moments as my narration goes on.

          My priority now is to somehow make sense of the whole process we call “life and death.” Though I am aware that at this point I am “suspended” in “nothing,” outside of time and space, that is more of a conception than anything else. I feel as if I am meant to “make sense” of my life in this phase of the “life and death process.” I don’t know if this means that I should discover a context for it all, a “greater life” in which I exist. Obviously, something like this has to be the case, otherwise I would not even be thinking and feeling as I am now. I do toy with the notion that “I” do not even exist, and am the thought of something in which I think that I do exist. But this is more conception. I think that I am here at this point (rather than this moment) to “review” and even reexperience my life so that I might come to comprehend what it is, was, how “I” fit into it, and how I came to believe that it was “my” life as seemingly opposed to the notion that Life was living and manifesting through “me.” My “life story” is not the issue; what “my” life was and what “I” learned and am learning from it is the crux.

          For some years prior to my death I was preparing for this “moment.” My state of mind and emotion is not one of fear nor particular discomfort. Rather it is one of intent with a sense of responsibility and focus. I am of the belief that if I don’t come to some adequate understanding of my degree of fulfillment of my “life’s purpose,” I may remain in this limbo state indefinitely. It may be that I am being given some kind of opportunity and test rather than being rushed through my own unpreparedness and desire into a new body even as I speak. I have heard that this is the tendency of most human beings and, given my own identities, can see how true it is. At least I have settled myself to the extent that I plan to go into the details of my existence and to hopefully come to some kind of honest self-revelation and consequent self-understanding, which, as previously noted, would be an understanding of myself in relation to my life and to the life and death process overall. Once I breathe a sigh of relief perhaps something will open, though it may require many sighs of relief, many openings, and, by logic, just as many closings, hopefully behind me. I may have to transcend my tendency towards “hopefulness,” which I believe I have to a certain extent. Hopefulness is the step-child of hopelessness. I believe I will have to abandon them both and simply be able to be here with all as it is now.

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On the other hand, if you will, I started feeling uncomfortable in a physical body at various junctures in my life, finally realizing that I actually “didn’t belong” within the confinement of a physical body. I am realizing right now that I feel better without it; it is extremely limiting and unnatural for me. I’ll talk more about this at another time. These are pieces worth telling. Some of us are given certain experiences by and through which to become aware of certain aspects of “our” being and of life itself. It is up to us to notice what is happening and to respond to its particular “lessons.” If we don’t learn in the “school of life,” it seems to me that we are destined to repeat the lessons until we do learn them quite well, until they are “second nature” to us. The “learning” is not simply an intellectual process or physical discipline, though they do have their place; it is more than that. And only we can learn for ourselves; no one else can take these tests for us.

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Marley’s ghost exclaims to Ebenezer Scrooge that the chains he wears around his neck were “forged in life.” I wanted to be able to free myself from fear and ignorance before I died rather than after. “Before the fact” one has time to do such things; after the fact there is no time. Now I have all the time I need but now it feels more like a requirement than a choice; in fact it is a requirement if I am to get free of myself, of the thoughts and emotions that imprison me, that I believe I actually am, that “are” me. it is true that we approach death as we approach life, though it is not so simply as to say that we either live in fear and ignorance or not, for the material world itself is proof of fear and ignorance in and of itself. As I got older and my body began to fail, I began to be able to “see through” the physical world and all the distraction we generated so as to avoid the “spiritual” world in which we also exist. We make much more of “survival” than survival itself. Our survival is more about worry generated by our fear and ignorance that it is simply about survival. Nature, its animals and plants present a much different version of survival.

          I was a “good” person, perhaps even exemplary. I cared for my disabled daughter for many years and then to my disabled wife for many more. It was no hard choice for me whatsoever; I did what was there for me to do. It was not particularly a hardship, though for someone else it might have been. And I was to remain sufficiently self-centered the whole time, though think much of my life and my focus revolved around my daughter and then my wife. I did “take on” much of my wife’s pain, making it my own, though I have no idea whether this helped either of us. I felt much sorrow for her pain, prayed to many gods (as I had done for my daughter as well). In the end, things were as they were; I had to accept them as such.

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As in life, so in death, so they say. So much of my life was defined by pain—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. You could see it in my face as a little boy in third grade and as an old man looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. Life in the flesh seems inherently disappointing, just as life not in the flesh may be such as well. So far, my life not in the flesh has been a kind of review of my life in the flesh, which I remember as sad and disappointing. This is not to say that there were not very enjoyable moments, even parts, of my life, but such pleasures and fulfillments are bittersweet, for they pass and then one compares any other moment with them, with the pleasure, contentment, and beauty they may have held. I needed to have learned to accept disappointment and pain too as part of living, but instead I let it break me down in my ability to endure and withstand. I did learn to love enough to put the happiness and smile of another, however momentary, before my own. I loved to see my wife smile and my daughter smile. That my wife had to suffer such pain in her body and her mind was a knife that cut into my soul, a knife wielded by the same God who brought seizures to my daughter and snatched her words away. Of course I am aware of this simplistic perspective, however it is the one in which I was immersed and which I absorbed into myself as a child, and which I believed in my skin even though in my mind I could clearly see its unreality. I wanted to believe in a loving, merciful, forgiving, healing, powerful God, and did until my child was born with profound autism. In truth, a great part of me has always believed, has always kept faith, if not in a God, then in the basic and intelligent goodness of human beings. However, even much of that was lost as I saw people with whom I had thought I understood and with whom I believed were my friends became as rabid dogs and turned on me and attacked. I knew that my father loved me but could not understand when, as a young child of six, he would go into a rage and come at me with a belt. I suppose an understanding of sorts was attained when I had glimpses into his mind which was on the battlefields of WWII such as Omaha Beach and the Ardennes Forest. But I was still disappointed that my father could not love me like other fathers loved their sons; in a manner that did not make bruises and draw blood.

          My third grade school photo shows a little boy wearing large black-rimmed glasses with a forced half-smile and deep sadness in his eyes. Those same glasses would soon be snapped in half at the middle when my father slapped me across the face for having my elbow on the table while eating my dinner. Those glasses would hit the wall so hard that they would break into two pieces. I would later pick them up and wrap some black electrical tape around the center to hold them together in one piece so I might wear them and be able to see; I had a stigmatism. A few days after that my father would yell at me for breaking my glasses; he had no memory whatsoever of being the one responsible. I made the mistake of wondering why my father could not be like the fathers of my friends, who I believed were kind and loving towards them. But in time I learned to duck when it was simply a hand to hit my face at the dinner table, though such movement on my part further infuriated my father to the point of taking off his belt to use on my back. I could say that these beatings were my ultimate undoing, for as I aged, the small fractures in my ribs became the source of extreme arthritic pain that I could see in my face in the bathroom mirror. From the third grader to the old man in the mirror.

          You would think that after death a person wouldn’t be pondering on these kinds of memories, for they are painful. You would think that a person might be able to somehow get through them during his or her life, to comprehend what they were, what happened, forgive, and just get over it. But instead such memories are carried over beyond death, to be relived then, out of time, even though the memory is vividly in time. I do not recount such memories so that I can blame; I am not trying to find fault with my father, but am trying to understand my own thoughts, conclusions about myself and about life that I made; inaccurate conclusions that I may be able to comprehend now that I am not so distracted by the outside world. However, do not think that just because one is dead that the “outside world” no longer exists; in fact they bring it with them in their own minds. That I have done this is probably testament that others do as well. In this “moment” I can literally “see” everything that I saw through my eyes during my life; in fact I even notice things that I did not notice in those moments. Everything is recorded; it is as though our eyes were cameras and all is stored within us. I remember Monarch butterflies lighting on tomatoes in my garden for a sip of water after I watered it. And that wonderful moment with my father at Catskill Creek when he overturned a rock a crayfish swam out; we were both so surprised and, looking into each others’ eyes, laughed together, his hand tenderly on my shoulder. My father loved me very much. I loved him as well.

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Much of this “remembering” I did during my twilight years in dreams. Memories revealed themselves to me almost every morning; sometimes I would wake up in tears, of joy as well as sadness, and sometimes I would awaken in shame at my uncaring, indifferent, cruel treatment of others. I have noted that, upon death, I have remembered my past life, however, when the boundary of one life is removed, previous lives have also been remembered just as distinctly as my most recent one. I will reveal this in due time.

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I actually had a rather exciting life, which had such distinct phases or “acts” that I always tended to see it as different existences in the same life. I tended to both be very engaged in my work in the world and very involved in my seeming spiritual reality as well. The latter was always detrimental to my close relationships, that is, my marriages, until my third marriage in which that quest for meaning and context had the effect of holding the relationship together. When I made the decision to become a Conscientious Objector before I was drafted to go to Vietnam, I did much to define myself and my life in a certain spiritual context. The fact that I was unwilling to kill others and unwilling to participate in a war in any way, and that I was willing to stand up for my principles with a high risk of going to prison if my claim was refused and I still would not participate, required that I actually make decisions that would affect me and the living of my life deeply. I married my first wife before I was assigned to do two years of Civilian Service and she came with me and worked as a houseparent in an institution for emotionally disturbed children as did I. Rather quickly I discovered that the place, now modernized but once a Victorian establishment, was downright haunted. The little boys to whom I was houseparent were terrorized by the ghosts of those adults who had died in an epidemic, perhaps smallpox or cholera, that swept the area at the turn of the century. The boys would see them at night and the malicious spirits pinched their toes, severely frightening them. They would come running to my room, scared out of their little wits, individually or in small groups. We practiced a technique which I imagined might have some effect in which the boys were to exclaim to the ghost there bothering them, “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave me along and leave this house, never to return.” I wasn’t a church-goer myself but my kids were primarily black children from Harlem in New York City; I assumed most of them had had some exposure to Christianity in their local churches, even though they had come from very abusive, neglectful, and dangerous homes. We practiced this technique a bit and then a few of the boys, even a four-year-old, tried it and it seemed to work to repel the ghosts temporarily for the children. But it didn’t work for me; I could still feel the spirits all around me, literally tearing at me with unseen fingers. I could almost visually make them out but my wife was able to clearly see them, which was terrifying to us both. Their presence in our room at night filled the space with a cold, impenetrable inky black cloud; we were paralyzed in fear, and, for me, morbid fascination, until it would dissipate. I wanted to understand what this whole thing was, what was going on. I found a small ad in a magazine, perhaps The Atlantic, that offered meditation to “transcend astral energies.” I had read that “earthbound spirits” fed on the astral, or emotional, energy of those whom they haunted, and assumed that if I were able to raise my energy to the higher, mental level, the ghosts would no longer bother me, my wife, or my boys. The meditating group turned out to be a theosophical organization, which taught much about the “World Avatar” and presented very detailed and specific “esoteric” meditations. I started to religiously, if you will, practice the meditation and did so to the point that I was somehow able to elevate my consciousness above the astral, or so I believed. The effect was that the spirits no longer bothered me, my wife, or the boys. I assumed that it had to be because I somehow was able to “protect” them all, which leads to my point that I came to think that I was perhaps the World Avatar. I kept on meditating and maintaining celibacy, which was also highly recommended if not required in the theosophical writings of Alice Bailey. And so, my wife and I had no sexual relationship, and I was unable and unwilling to discuss this issue with her whatsoever, which is not what composes a marriage. Though together, we never talked. It was fine with me but horrendous for her. I had no idea what relationship was and was unable to relate emotionally. We still lasted together almost five years. After the two years of Alternative Service, we spent another two attaining Montessori Teaching Certificates at the UN in New York City and then in Ithaca, New York. It may be that I had undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome and had had it since birth, in which I was born six weeks premature and spent the first month or so in a lamp-heated incubator like those used to hatch eggs, and was so frail that I wasn’t even touched. “My own little world” became more prevalent and real than the outside world with people from the very beginning—of the most recent life.

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One important thing I neglected to mention earlier is that one of the first “sensations” of no longer being in a physical body is the great pleasure at no longer being in physical pain. I got so used to experiencing chronic pain in my back that it became a constant limitation and relentless pain in my back. I noticed this too when I was stricken with Reyes Syndrome in the mid 1980s and was essentially paralyzed by nerve pain throughout my body for six months. The slightest movement in my body as I lay in bed caused my whole body to spasm in extreme pain. When I came out of that condition as a result of fasting for maybe three weeks, just being in a pain-free condition was the most pleasurable experience I had ever known. Of course one adapts to anything and as I tell you this I am feeling nothing at all like I did when I had a body, though, as I previously noted, I do have physical-like sensations directly and closely associated with memories of my life. As I got older and moved into a painful physical condition, I did tend to forget how it was to be in my body when I was in my teens up into my 60s.

          

THE SOUND OF WATER FLOWING OVER ROCKS

Simply the mention of sound of water flowing over rocks evokes that sound, I believe, in just about everyone. A title that brings what is to me a wonderful sound to mind. And probably an image of water flowing over rocks as well. The sound is not so much a sound but many sounds, many tones. I hear high, low, hollow, full, loud, soft, hard, gentle. While hiking on a ridge just south of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, I was lured down into a thick, steep redwood forest by what I thought were human voices, but which was in fact the sound of the stream below, its water flowing over rocks. Not wanting to climb back up the very steep hill, I followed the stream, believing it would lead me to the ocean, but it turned back on itself, meandering behind a low ridge above the sea. Feeling lost, especially now that it was getting dark, and tired after hours of walking by the stream, I saw what seemed a deer trail headed up a less steep hill, climbed it, and found myself overlooking the Pacific. The forest had been so thick and canopied by redwoods, and a haze so fogged the sky that I hadn’t even been able to see the sun.

These days I hike back into another redwood forest, the Forest of Nisene Marks in Aptos, California, almost every day. I sit on “Michelle’s Bench” next to a small arched, rusted steel bridge over the stream. Under the bridge, out of sight of those who do not know it is there, is a stone statue of a sitting Buddha, perhaps two feet high. It is festooned with flowers and various offerings of trinkets, coins, bills, photos, rocks, and the like lay at its feet, and beads hang rounds its neck. One photo is of a twelve-year-old girl who died of food poisoning while vacationing with her family in Costa Rica. She was a friend of one of the girls in the family who lives next door to me. From the bench, I see the stream flowing over rocks rather cacophonously but also a bit melodically, like a thousand chimes of many sizes being struck perpetually. I love it there. The sound washes over me and through me. It becomes me and I become it. I feel it as through it were my own resonating rhythm. I bring it with me with me in my mind, in my cells, and I hear it whenever I want to and sometimes when I’m not even thinking of it.

The reason I am writing this is because I want to leave a record, a chronicle, a story of this, my life, which is a culminating of many other lives I have lived. It may be that I have done much the same in those lives, however I don’t remember. I do this somewhat in service to those who might benefit from what I have to say, but also because I want to actually hear what I have to say, what I have learned about being a human being in this lifetime. I don’t think it will be particularly instructional, though I do have my own way of seeing things, of course. Mostly, I think it will be a kind of narrative consisting of many stories of all kinds, emanating from my experience and understanding of my own life and of existence in general. Sometimes “my own life” may fade into a sense of being much greater than a single existence; sometimes it may even seen to overlap with the lives of others, with all life. I have read that life is actually life and death; like water flowing over rocks. It has no real beginning or end. We believe very much that we are born and that we die, and that there is a quite separate “me” and “you.” But I have found that, though this is true as far as it goes, it only goes so far. Life includes both this process of being born into a body, leaving that body, existing in other “states,” and, for just about all of us, being born into a new body, over and over again. When I say that I have “found” this, I mean that I have experienced it. Obviously, I have also interpreted my experience. I don’t pretend to insist that you must agree with what I say, much less believe it, however, whatever I convey to you has been my experience, is my understanding and interpretation of it, though further experience and my understanding and interpretation of that could be quite different. I attempt to speak as though I am observing myself as someone other than myself whom I believe I know well. There are some things I will probably avoid, though I will also probably try to find ways to present them that are more subtle and implicit. My intent is not to embarrass myself or make myself too vulnerable. I have done that in my life, and now realize that some secrets are to be kept. However, as one is able to disidentify with oneself, with who one has believed oneself to be, usually as one gets older, one is able to reveal more, and thus be better able to be of benefit to others as well as oneself.

The sound of water flowing over rocks can be hypnotic, mesmerizing; it sings all but is not song. We may poetically or philosophically or metaphorically say that it “finds its way to the ocean,” but this is not necessarily true at all; it may dry up in a drought or flow back into the earth. Gravity makes its movement possible. And water, if it keeps flowing, knows no obstacle, but will fill up all low places and again overflow upon its course. Water does not “know” its destination; it just follows topography and gravity down and down. It may flow into greater streams and then into the ocean or it may evaporate and return to the sky to be moved elsewhere and then be released again far away. Are we as the water flowing over rocks? Are the laws of our movement—gravity and geography, the lay of the land—much like the laws of flowing water? Is our destination similarly as determined as well as undetermined? We think we know where we are going, but all we are really certain of is our death. But, like flowing water, what we call death may also be seen simply or not so simply as a change of form, not unlike water evaporating and rising up into the clouds, only to be rained down into new streams in different places. But the difference between us and the water is that we worry about our lives and spend almost every minute of our existence trying to determine and control just where we will flow to, whether in this life, this form, or the next. We are surely not cognizant of the inherent cycle in which “we” are involved and evolved. I find myself not knowing where to go, where to flow, in the writing of this book, for it has no “determined destination” as I tell myself. “How can I get there is I don’t know where I’m going?” I ask myself. “Why do I even want to sit down and write words if they have no expressed purpose? There is just no meaning in that at all. No inspiration.” Yesterday, in scorchingly hot weather, I walked back into the deep redwood forest of Nisene Marks, found my spot where I strip down and ease into the cold water among the rocks. I float on my back looking up at the leaves a few feet above me, the sun’s light illuminating them. This water flowing over the rocks holds me up as I grasp rocks below the surface with my hands so that the current does not move me further down the stream. In that moment, life does become a dream; I become a dream of myself, of my eyes, of how I see, even of what I see. The rocks, the stream have no regulations; their rules are simple: the rocks are hard, the water is wet. If I slip, I could hurt myself. If I go in the water, I surely will be wet. We are not worried about each other. Now, if I happened to come across the large mountain lion that lingers in the tree above the trail at dusk, I might be concerned, I might worry. But even with the six-inch red-green crabs that scurry out from under the rocks to see what this great white whale is doing lounging in their patio, I don’t worry, though I can be wary.

I should learn from the water, from its confident flowing. It will flow until there is no water to flow or until gravity or geography changes what is low to what is high. If only the flowing water could wash all the thoughts from this head of mine. I immersed my head in the cold flowing water and heard the sound of water flowing over rocks from under the water. After a while I became a bit hypothermic, for when I rose out of the water, I got quite dizzy and almost fell. It dawned on me that crabs are cold blooded.

Water flowing over rocks must follow gravity down. It is always falling down, always seeking the lowest place. Daoism views water as humble in that respect, though it also fills up and flows over, knowing no obstacles. “And the lowest shall be the highest.”

On the other hand, the water just flows; it is just dumb water, as it were, doing what it does, following gravity down. There is no inherent meaning in it whatsoever; it can be so easily poeticized, metaphorized, interpreted, given umpteenth meanings. And as for its’ “sound,” that’s all it is, just the sound of water flowing over rocks; nothing else than that. The sound “says” nothing, but, for many, it is soothing to the ear and relaxing to the mind. To go against my own mention of the absolute meaninglessness of water flowing over rocks and use it metaphorically, I see that our lives can be likened to “dumb water” flowing over rocks, just following gravity down. We just flow along obliviously until this particular stretch of stream ends, though only in our particular awareness and identity. The sound of water flowing over rocks can be the curious, attractive sound of life itself: the sound of samsara. It draws us somehow; it is elusive, incoherent, inchoate; we find ourselves always in its wake, its vacuum. We want it to be real. We want to believe in it, grasp it, possess it, and, in so doing, make ourselves real as well. For we know that our lives, as water flowing over rocks, are nothing that can be grasped or possessed, much less believed in or made into reality.

SPIRIT AND KNOWLEDGE, TAO AND GNOSIS, HEAVEN AND EARTH

In my study of Gnosticism in its particular forms and schools, both pre-Christian and Christian, I am struck by the fact that, when taken literally, it leads to all profound dualities of good and evil, with equally profound consequences. The more modern form of Calvinism led to the concretization of the flesh-as-evil, of the woman-as-evil, of others-as-evil. The body was sinful, the witches were burned, the Jews were “exterminated,” the poor and sick were being “punished by God” for their sins. Of course, I am aware that Gnosticism is surely not alone responsible for literal interpretations and barbaric behaviors, but that when “truth” gets into the hands (and minds) of the uneducated, the superstitious, the unenlightened, the literal consequences are devastating. While I find the various Gnostic narratives very interesting and containing much veracity in their own way and as a worldview, I see why the mainstream version of Christianity “won out,” though it too is threaded through and through with the extreme duality of Gnosticism, be it through Paul, Augustine, the Irish Catholic Church, the African Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox confessions, the “Puritan ethic,” etc. The modern Christian ideals of “unity” and “love” as essential themes of existence are far more attractive and of benefit to the world than the alternative.

     For over fifty years I have read and worked with the Daoist-Confucian Yijing (I Ching) as well as Buddhist and Hindu sources. I have appreciated that, in contradistinction to the Christian and Western emotionally-laden and judgmental narratives in which we are constantly faced with the “daimon” of Jung, “demonic, evil forces” of Gnosticism and Christianity, and “God” and “Devil” in hand-to-hand bloody battle, the Daoists and Buddhists offer us the alternative of “acquired (mental) conditioning,” and “original nature” or “Dao” in relation to Essence of Being (“God”). On LinkedIn I half-seriously listed my “skill” as “Mindlessness Trainer,” a parody of the “Mindfulness Trainer” fad, but also in all seriousness. Whoever heard of the “Mindless Way”? It is the Way of the Dao. And it is NOT the Way of Gnosticism, and its overweening parallels in Christianity. Recently I picked a book out of my library after a few years of being unread: Cultivating Stillness: A Taoist Manual for Transforming Body and Mind, translated by Eva Wong. I would like to simply quote from it, noting its positing of “spirit” and “knowledge” as opposite in nature and effect.  

The spirit tends towards purity, but the mind disturbs it. (35)

Humans are created from the descent of heavenly breath and the ascent of earth vapor. The spirit is the original nature in us. When humans contact earthy air, knowledge emerges in them. Opposed to knowledge is the spirit. The spirit is formless and is incomprehensible to mundane thoughts. It governs the life-maintaining functions of the body. Knowledge is active, mischievous, and intelligent. It changes constantly. Spirit, on the other hand, is the master of humankind. … In Confucianism it is called the soul. It is never born and it never dies. When it leaves the body it becomes a ghost. Cultivate compassion and it will become an immortal or a Buddha. (35-36)

            

The existence of the spirit is connected with the existence of the body. It emerges with conception in the mother’s womb. [When the child is born, spirit] descends into the flesh and blood of the infant. Simultaneously, with the first breath, knowledge enters the infant’s body to dwell with the spirit and the mind. From then on, knowledge takes control of the human being and the spirit loses its place. The seven emotions and the six desires arise. Day and night the spirit dissipates until it disappears. Earth, water, fire, and wind gradually lose their strength and the body loses vitality. Knowledge is a part of the self. When the body dies it leaves the shell. Even if you live to over one hundred, like is still a dream. At death the ghosts will escort the spirit to hell. There, good and evil deeds accumulated during your lifetime are evaluated and you will be rewarded or punished accordingly. The good will be given another lifetime on earth to enjoy earthly happiness, or will become ghosts and receive offerings or incense. The evil will be given another lifetime to reap the punishment allotted to them , or be reincarnated as animals and not escape the ten thousand kalpas (lifetimes).  (36)

I concur with the Anthroposophical view that after death it is we ourselves who watch our lives pass before us and willingly choose to reincarnate so that we might right our wrongs and fulfill our karmic responsibilities. In addition, the Purgatory of Roman Catholicism seems to be for those who, for reasons perhaps of inability to understand, to take action for themselves, or lack of spiritual development in general, in the absence of the possibility of reincarnation (due to the religious perspective of Christianity), must proceed towards Heaven through a purging, hellish realm, relying purely on the prayers and encouragements of the living to move them forward towards the Heaven that does await them.

The spirit tends toward purity and stillness. Knowledge tends toward action and disturbs the mind so that it cannot be still. As this continues, the body and mind are injured. When the spirit weakens, a hundred illnesses arise. Therefore, we need to realize the value [my emphasis] of the human body.

we need to appreciate the fortune of being born in the human form and the fortune of encountering the teachings of the Buddha and the Tao. You who are born in human form should not spend your time foolishly. You must value your original nature and your life. Recognize the difference between spirit and knowledge. Recognize the difference between the human mind and the mind of Tao. Do not mistake the human mind for the mind of Tao, and knowledge for the spirit. Do not mistake the false body for the true body.  (36-37)

The various scriptures reveal extraordinary thoughts,

Open them systematically and you will see wonders.

Now that spring and autumn have passed,

You only wait for morning and evening to fill the emptiness.

Rely on purity and stillness as the remedy… (38)

There is the Gnostic-Christian view of Heaven or Earth, of Spirit versus Matter, in which the twain can never meet and the battle must be waged until all ends. The Daoist-Buddhist view is one of Heaven and Earth in which the two may be balanced and in harmony, with each in its proper place, as presented, for instance, in the Yijing with its foundation of the yin-yang (Earth and Heaven, respectively) energies.