Random Signals #3

I want to end the year with some thoughts that are thoughtlessly incoherent. It’s been a good year, but challenges always ensue. I am arriving at an age where time is more of an essence (existentially) while being held by the timelessness of it all. Gratitude has been a key contemplation.

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I came across a recent article with Camille Paglia that affirms the same conclusion as Jonah Goldberg did in his stellar book: we need to feel our way back to go forward! 

Paglia says, “From my perspective as an atheist as well as a career college teacher, secular humanism has been a disastrous failure. Too many young people raised in affluent liberal homes are arriving at elite colleges and universities with skittish, unformed personalities and shockingly narrow views of human existence, confined to inflammatory and divisive identity politics. … I contend that every educated person should be conversant with the sacred texts, rituals, and symbol systems of the great world religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judeo-Christianity, and Islam — and that true global understanding is impossible without such knowledge. Not least, the juxtaposition of historically evolving spiritual codes tutors the young in ethical reasoning and the creation of meaning. Right now, the campus religion remains nihilist, meaning-destroying post-structuralism, whose pilfering god, the one-note Foucault, had near-zero scholarly knowledge of anything before or beyond the European Enlightenment. (His sparse writing on classical antiquity is risible.) Out with the false idols and in with the true!” (emphasis mine)

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I would add that comparative religious study would not go far enough. It does nothing in regards to Godlessness and decadence. We need to go deep, along with the breadth. And that means honing in on a path with intellectual rigor and open hearted imagination. As well as augmenting it with spiritual practices that would align one’s disposition with one’s belief. Good Metaphysics + Deep Mysticism = Reason + Faith = Truth + Beauty => Virtue + Love.

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As the year ends, I also want to note some favorite cultural artifacts. I really like these songs from Middle Kids, Mitski, Beirut, and Wye Oak. They are delightful to my ears.

I have also been augmenting my interest in indie music with an attempt to cultivate more knowledge around classical music. This podcast from Dacia Clay has been quite helpful.

In regards to film, this year has been less stellar than prior ones. First Reformed sticks with me because I got to see it at the Boston IFFB with director Paul Schrader in-house. It's also a compelling meditation on the roads that faith can make us rise and fall.

Roma is a masterpiece! It is a beautiful experience to see in a theater despite the Netflix release. My favorite film in quite some time.

I finally saw the classic It's a Wonderful Life. Shame on me.

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On the matter of gratitude, I have many things that come to heart: some of the thoughtful people on the “intellectual dark web”, the eternal presence of Joe and Bobo, David Thomas, the friends in my life that endure with their passions, the mistakes I make, the God-man that still affects us 2,000+ years later, Gagdad Bob, the online Bishop, my landlord, the lady who laughs and loves, Journey Home, the people who I see on the streets who God loves through me, the comedy of it all and those who nail it, film buffs, Jonesy Jukebox, Fulton Sheen, Ric Drasin, Brother David, meditations with Amy, Jeff, and John, the stars away from the city, the books that continue to inspire me, what remains when I go.

Google Verses Gödel

George Gilder is once again on to something beyond the typical monoculture thinking with super-AI technologists. He knows his Gödel, who claimed “every logical system necessarily depends on propositions that cannot be proved within the system.”

Yes, we can't escape metaphysics no matter how we try to deny ourselves in the process. And that's exactly what the materialist-techie types do. They believe “the human mind consists of electrical and chemical components that are unintelligent in themselves”; however, “By using their own minds and consciousness to deny the significance of consciousness in minds, they refute themselves.”

'But you can’t prove consciousness is immaterial', they may say.

Sure, but Gödel already demonstrated that mathematical statements can be true but unprovable. So why deny yourself some Truth too?

This is always the problem with super-AI proponents: they sell up their machines while selling themselves short; when the measure of AI should be the human mind. (Gilder notes: the human mind is “low-power, distributed globally, low-latency in proximity to its environment, inexorably bounded in time and space, and creative in the image of its creator.”)

Such is also the issue with Google. Gilder says, 

“The Google system of the world focuses on the material environment rather than on human consciousness, on artificial intelligence rather than human intelligence, on machine learning rather than on human learning, on relativistic search rather than on the search for truth, on copying rather than on creating, on launching human hierarchies in a flat universe rather than on empowering human beings in a hierarchical universe. It seeks singularities in machines rather than in human minds. The new system of the world must reverse these positions, exalting the singularities of creation: mind over matter, human consciousness over mechanism, real intelligence over mere algorithmic search, purposeful learning over mindless evolution, and truth over chance. A new system can open a heroic age of human accomplishment.”

In the book, Gilder believes the “new system of the world” will be blockchains. Unlike the Markov chains of disconnected probabilistic states that Google uses, blockchains use hashes to preserve history, enhance trust, and extend truth. We would own our information, instead of it being overly centralized with risk to security, privacy, and actual costs.

Blockchains will be the low-entropy carrier to our high-entropy creativity!

Gilder says, “The inevitable conclusion is that machines based on mathematical logic cannot exhaust the human domain; they can only expand it. Every new mechanism frees the human mind for more creative adventures and accomplishments.” The question is whether or not blockchain will be the new mechanism that frees us evermore going forward. 

In the end, I would rather place my bet on a technology that aligns with Gödel than one that tries to play God.

The central mistake of recent digital culture is to chop up a network of individuals so finely that you end up with a mush. You then start to care about the abstraction of the network more than the real people who are networked, even though the network by itself is meaningless. Only the people were ever meaningful. — Jaron Lanier

Dr. Feelgood

This holiday season I do feel a bit more inclined to hand out alms. I don't have any delusions of grandeur that my actions do much good, but it does make me feel good.

Chögyam Trungpa coined the phrase “idiot compassion”; meaning, any compassionate act that enables the bad behavior of another. Like giving an addict money for food — when it will unlikely be used for those purposes. While the intention may be “compassionate”, the outcome will do little good for the well-being of the person. 

The general tendency is to give people what they want because we can't bear to see them suffer. Moreover, we do feel good about ourselves when we do it, and it helps deflect some of our own internal suffering. But this isn’t true compassion, or agape. There are mixed motivations involved, along with a lack of logic to see if the intentions are truly good.

These days everyone talks about compassion (along with tolerance) as though it’s the only virtue(s) that matter. But virtues always need to be balanced with other virtues, so they can be enacted in a way that is appropriate to the given circumstances.

Compassion also tends to work better in the microcosm than on the macrocosm. This is why political acts of compassion are so difficult. For example, if we opened our borders to everyone, would this eventually undermine the whole of a nation to benefit a few? The relationship between political ideals and cultural outcomes in a big, diverse society isn’t linear, therefore often leading to unintended consequences.  

(It should also be noted that compassion for the masses is often too abstract to be relatable. Recall Mother Teresa’s comment: “If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” That's why human interest stories of the individual always move people more than state-sponsored statistics.)

But our idiot compassion has a bigger consideration beyond the fact we can’t always trust our feelings: we also need to trust in something Higher. 

William Wildblood makes the astute point on his blog: 

“When you no longer have the idea of God as the centrally organising fact of existence you have to replace it with something else. Today that something else is the abstract notion of humanity, and humanity, abstractly considered, is regarded as just one thing with no distinctions within it allowed. It is seen in purely material terms and so everything is equal. There is no better or worse except insofar as better corresponds to this idea and worse is what goes against it. Compassion is defined as treating all humans and their cultural achievements in the same way, and anything that resists this tyranny (which is what it is) becomes branded as hateful.”

A poster then followed up with this comment:

“As a young man I read Flannery O'Connor's comment that in the absence of faith, we rule by compassion, "...and compassion leads to the gas chamber." It puzzled me then and it was some years before I began to appreciate the crucial truth of the statement. By Faith, I think O'Connor meant trust in God and His Providence; by compassion, I think she meant the sentimentality that views suffering as absolutely undesirable and irredeemable. In a materialist view, suffering has no value and should be eliminated at any cost. ...But as suffering can be salutary, and as hierarchy is God's creation and, therefore, the condition of our existence, the leveling and numbness is doomed to failure and, ironically, will cause even more suffering.”

When compassion is conceived only materialistically and with no ordering principle, we are prone to cause enduring spiritual harm. Dr. Feelgood may help with some of the symptoms, but never find a cure.

More Real Gnosis, Less Fake Nous

I took on another Robert Bolton book recently, to add to the two, here and here, I have already tackled. He isn't an easy read, since each sentence is jammed pack with something I need metabolize. But his genius is all there. He notes early in the book, that:

“The thought employed in the following chapters is an inclusive kind, which effects a combination of reason and intuition. This is to prevent thought from falling into the extremes of either an analytical philosophy with no transcendent dimension, or a mystical thought which aims at transcendence without the theoretical principles which would allow an objective grasp of it. Metaphysical thought has essential things in common with both mystical and rationalistic thought without having any need to identify with either.”

I couldn't say it any better, but I could say it more often. I find that in many spiritual circles this metaphysical inclusion is sorely lacking. In fact, much of our notions around transcendence and logic has given way to today's recreation pursuit of unearned spiritual experiences, as depicted in the following meme:

There are many places we could go with Bolton's work: the false egoic self is not who we are, but there is a real self that is “the combination of the physical self of common sense and the soul with its world representations”; that “meaningful purpose must be founded on something both absolute and part of the self”; that Reason or Intellect in the Real sense, must involve a “third dimension, that of depth, which reaches to the essence of things and processes”; that our desire to know is not an option but for most it is “random, unfree, and ultimately self-defeating” when the path is for it to be “creative and free”; that when we decide to be hard on ourselves, consider that “that in us which convinces us we are despicable cannot itself be despised”; that free will exists, but in order to be fully free, it requires “causal power, circumstantial knowledge, and a relation to ultimate value”; that tradition matters in civilization, as it has been shown that how it endures is “in exact proportion as it imposes prenuptial and post-nuptial restraints upon sexual opportunity” (a challenging idea in our milieu); and that “if God was purely impersonal, man would in a real sense be greater than God” (good luck with that!).

Phew! You see what I mean. But I will tackle a little more thought around his ideas on Fate and Providence. 

We are only predestined by Fate, as it is our physical being based on our human nature (not Nature) that leads to a destiny, yet not necessarily our telos. If we are are just subject to Fate, we are merely a means to an end. Bolton says, “Conversely, Providence comprises of a different kind of order, one which combines with freedom, albeit a freedom with laws particular to itself, by means of which individual beings can realize purposes which are their own, and not of those of the cosmic system.”

Both Fate and Providence are complementary as Providence requires the constraining force of Fate to give it meaning. For instance, the fact we are limited in life years offers a sense of urgency to get on with it (for some!). 

The issue is that modernity has rejected Providence for the idea that we can control our Fate through progress. Bolton notes, “If this succeeded in the long term, mankind would have succeeded in opting out of its place in the cosmic hierarchy, while retaining a dominance over nature based on human powers and techniques alone. Nothing further from truth and stability could be conceived, nor anything better calculated to result in a stampede into the jaws of Fate in the its most inhuman form.”

All in all, Bolton is metaphysically on point, but acknowledges completeness will always be lacking. For the “grand unity of things as diverse as the personal and the impersonal, and the different traditions, can only be known in its completeness by its Creator.”

Exactly! So go ask Him.

What's Our Big Story? And Is It a Comprehensive & Unified One?

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We people are a funny lot as to how we can compartimentalize our lives. We all have a story we follow, whether we are cognizant of it or not. I am not referring to our personal story in this instance, but our big story behind our life's story. In other words, what guides us in life, to what we are directed for, and how we are calibrated for it.

In many cases, we are dualists when it comes to our big story. It’s sort of a metaphysical dissonance. I recently read books by Stephen Freeman and Nancy Pearcey that highlights the two-story scenario we fall into. For example, Pearcey notes how this dualism shows up in our modern sensibilities:

 

In short, the lower story is what we know (in this case, the Enlightenment with its positivism of science and reason); while the upper story is what we can’t help believe (some Romantic notion of humanity, or a religious impulse).

As modern thinkers, we often make a “leap of faith” from the lower story to the upper story. Intellectually we embrace the values of the Enlightenment, but this philosophy does not fit our whole experience of life. So we’ll attempt to affirm a set of contradictory ideas even though it doesn’t cohere to our intellectual system or even how we direct our daily lives.

Even a secular postmodernist will fall into this trap. They will believe we are “frisky dust” that evolved to carbon-based machines, while they somehow affirm values that have no basis in Truth. The performative contradiction is at hand!

 

Stephen Freeman says, “The word secular should never be confused with atheist. Instead it refers to a separation between our daily life and God.” We are condemned to religion: whether or not we believe in God, we will always find a god. It just comes down to what we decide our god is, and where we draw the fact/value line.

We do pay a price for this incoherent model with two rival visions. It offers belief without conviction, existence without significance, and relationships without joy. We are not made whole, and are left feeling doubt, confusion, and alienation.

To counter this, and in order for us to embrace a life with dignity, freedom, personal identity, and ultimate purpose, we need to be part of a comprehensive, coherent story that affirms life within Reality! In his important book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntye says, “I cannot answer the question, ‘What ought I to do?’ unless I first answer the question, ‘Of which story am I a part?’”

In this, he was saying we are not defined as much from our history, as we are from our end! When I am part of a telos, I can align my disposition towards it in such a way that allows me to part of a story that shapes my deepest loves and longings.

As in Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, most stories follow a typical mythic structure. Much of this structure comes from biblical themes that include an origin (Creation), struggle (the Fall), and a return (Redemption)

Pearcey says, “This comprehensive vision of Creation, Fall, and Redemption allows no room for a secular/sacred split. All of creation was originally good; it cannot be divided into a good part (spiritual) and a bad part (material). Likewise, all of creation was affected by the Fall, and when time ends, all creation will be redeemed.”

Yet even when attempting to overcome the long-standing secular/sacred dualism, if our worldview is too small or partial, then we can still bump up against powerful dualisms in the secular world as well. These meta-narratives aim at privatizing and marginalizing the biblical message within their own teleological stories. Once again, we are all condemned to religion!

Content from Nancy Pearcey's book "Total Truth"

The difference is these stories fail to fulfill the total Truth of Reality. They are only distorted versions of it! These stories are not comprehensive, or unified in such a way that they would address all our deepest longings and passions. What story would make our lives part of one singular story (and not a collection of fragmented parts)?

There is probably only one story that can do that, which in essence, would be the true myth which all the others were pointing to! 

Everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure. — Dávila

God-less Merit

I'm going to contradict myself here, as I actually do see much good in the modern world. But there are always the trade-offs; such as, how we now relate to existence.

There’s good reason why we feel so separate, autonomous, independent, alone: we choose to see things this way.

We see ourselves as substances, but without relations. 

Decartes initially articulated the divide, which then got fleshed out more so with Locke. I don’t believe these thinkers compartimentalized things on their own. As Jonah Goldberg says, “We tend to give too much credit to intellectuals for creating ideas. More often, they give voice to ideas of impulses that already exist as pre-rational commitments or attitudes. Other times they distill opinions, sentiments, aspirations, and passions that already exist on the ground, and the distilled spirit is fed back to the people and they become intoxicated by it.”

Consider it all part of the Fall.

At some point we became intoxicated with the new science. In this, “we let one’s method dictate what counts as reality, rather than letting reality determine one’s method” (Feser).

The world was no longer enchanted with beings, animated with the supernatural, and gifted with aliveness! It was now a world of objective observation of the fragments. And “What is often regarded as a “discovery” arrived at via empirical scientific inquiry was in fact a stipulation concerning the nature of scientific method, a limitation, more or less by fiat, of what would be allowed to count as "scientific"” (Feser).

This should have got stuck in our claw, but we indulged to gain God-less merit. “If the science of the moderns has “succeeded,” then, it might be argued that this is in large part because they stacked the deck in their own favor” (Feser).

The traditional Scholastics did not see an epistemological and representational gap, or the self as buffered. There was relation and unity between things, with forms and matter making a whole. The unity between the parts was “organic and necessary, not mechanical and contingent.”

The character of existence was relational: this exists because that exists, and they exist in one another: inseparable, but distinct: substances-in-relation.

But these relations were not just horizontal, but vertical too. In fact, it is only because of the Trinity that we can relate to existence at all. 

It is in the Trinity, where we can relate as existence itself.

Twice Borns: from Suffering to Redemption

William James, in his seminal book The Varieties of Religious Experience, draws a contrast between what he calls “Once Born” and the “Twice Born” people. I am, and you are also dear reader since you are here, in the latter category.

Once Born people appear biologically predisposed to happiness. They tend to be easy-going, upbeat individuals who are more accepting of their place in life. More often than not, they're not spiritual seekers in the modern sense, and if they have any spiritual disposition, it is usually a faith they were cradled into. 

By contrast, Twice Borns feel there is something wrong with reality that must be resolved. As James expounds, “There are persons whose existence is little more than a series of zigzags, as now one tendency and now another gets the upper hand. Their spirit wars with their flesh, they wish for incompatibles, wayward impulses interrupt their most deliberate plans, and their lives are one long drama of repentance and of effort to repair misdemeanors and mistakes.”

Sounds like us Twice Borns are a tad cursed. And yet, James argues that some of the happiest people are actually Twice Born. How so? Well, the Twice Born attitude towards life often leads to an existential “crisis”, often accompanied by a strong desire to make sense of things. This leads us to find authentic meaning, significance, and purpose. Also, as seekers we are more conscious of any inner turmoil where First Borns may repress aspects of their confusion. As such, the challenges of Twice Borns are not seen as obstacles to happiness, but rather as the means to achieve a deeper and more lasting happiness.

This all leads me to highlight Gerald G. May's Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology, which I consider a terrific book for anyone who identifies as Twice Born. It’s one of those books I wish I read when I began my quest, as May is astute at pointing out all the traps and distortions fledgling spiritual aspirants will often come across. 

Why do we go off the rails? May says, “The problem here is not so much what one believes as how rigidly the belief is held. Extremes of monism and dualism get into trouble not because they are inherently right or wrong but because they create frozen images of reality. They reduce the way things are to systems that, though they may be comprehensible, are so strict and brittle that they fail to embrace the vibrancy of real life. They miss the mystery. If unitive experiences could teach us only one thing, it should be that life is infinitely vast and mysterious, and that it is a process so rich and dynamic that the more we understand of it, the more mysterious it must become.”

Hence, we must “be willing to surrender one’s habitual tendencies to either solve or ignore mystery”, as well as be “willing to risk some degree of fear.”  As they say in Zen: If it’s in the way, it is the Way.

May adds, “But while we may not be able to realize union, we can at least escape from separateness and keep our self-image. We can seek a series of romances; we can deaden our awareness; we can lose ourselves in activity; we can try to convince ourselves that our willfulness is really willingness.”

There's plenty of distraction for all of us to restrict awareness. But even in our “attempts” to relax “involves an effortful act of shutting out stimuli.” This is a fascinating point, as it appears all artificial stimulants to relax are just other forms of distraction from what is.

The table below from May's book clearly shows the ways we can dull or restrict the mind, when open, relaxed alertness is the path...

As Twice Borns, “The hunger for love is not a simple matter of wanting to love or be loved by other people; nor is it just the psychological gratification that comes with feeling that others think you are important to them. Nor is it just the basic desire for human contact. All these things exist as strong forces within the human psyche, but still there is something more. We are touching here upon a desire to be in love with life itself, with creation, with the universe, or with God.”

The flavor of May's teaching is Christian, although he pulls from many traditions. But I do find his Christian disposition to be of importance, as I believe the spiritual guardrails are more emphasized throughout his book. For instance, here are some additional insights I find useful that are typically not found in an Eastern approach:

“As arid as theology may seem in our modern experience-oriented world, it remains one of the best human protections against spiritual distortions. It is somewhat ironic that as our culture probes into the realms of spiritual experience as a reaction against too much dry theology, we are ever more in need of that theology to keep our explorations sane.”

“Deepening willingness is the only thing we can “do,” the only “how to” of the entire process.”

“And while we do not necessarily find God through the sacrifice of our self-importance, we may indeed become more willing to realize that God has already found us.”

“We must repeatedly remember that we cannot in any way design or accomplish our own spiritual growth.”

“Words of Scripture, senses of divine presence, and intellectual ability are no longer things of themselves, no longer even means to an end. They are windows of special clarity into the ever-present mystery of creation. They are in fact gifts that expand the even greater gift of not-knowing.”

“Duality, at its core, is every bit as mysterious as unity.”

“In sin, this separation is a mistake. In evil, it is intended.”

“Wholeness can mean anything. Psychologically, it can mean coping, or growth, or happiness. Spiritually it can mean belonging, re-union, or autonomy. It can be used to justify either willingness or willfulness. One of the destructive uses of wholeness, in my opinion, is the attempt to presume that psychological growth and spiritual growth are synonymous.”

“Jacob Needleman says that psychology and spirituality should be separated rather than integrated because 'the former seeks to help a person solve the problems of living; the latter deepens the Question of human life itself. For the psychotherapist, therefore, the great challenge is to assist the patient in solving his problem without closing his Question.' ”

“Our error is in thinking that we are, can be, or should be separate, autonomous, independent, alone, or otherwise away from God and each other. Or in jumping to the conclusion that because God transcends us and all our imaginings, God is not at the same time immediately present and alive within us.”

Read this book!

Between the New Age and the Dry Age

I just read a unique and compelling conversion story by Roger Buck. Cor Jusu Sacratissimum means the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is where Buck points the reader towards as an attempt to renew Christendom as well as the catalyst for his own change of heart. Part of my interest in his book was based on his reverence for Valentin Tomberg, who like for me, was influential for Buck.

Unlike most conversion stories, Buck came from the New Age to Catholicism. This is as idiosyncratic as it comes, since I’ve known too many who have attempted the inverse (myself included to some extent). 

But some may say there is no conversion to New Age, since most just see it as a spiritual, but not religious abstraction where there is no club to join. While somewhat true, there are some principles that are implicit to New Age. 

Buck defines New Age as a “Western (primarily Anglosphere) Synthesis of Pre-Christian world religion (absent Judaism). Plus: Twentieth-Century Imports from Secularism, Liberalism, Psychotherapy, Ecology, and the Esoteric. Minus: 20 centuries of Christian Theology and Tradition (particularly Catholic).”

This definition displays the Achilles heel for a movement that likes to see itself as holistic and inclusive. Right here, we can see there is some incoherence in a movement that denies its own intolerance or sees itself stripping out the “superfluous” from most religions. Moreover, much of New Age kowtows to worldly sensibilities, which often waters down the moral safeguards and implicit teleology found in tradition. 

For those looking for a mystical aliveness, there is no question that New Age offers something from secular humanism. But as Buck acknowledges, New-Agers prefer to replace God with more banal, impersonal terms, such as being, energy, field, and consciousness. Not to mention, the intellectual rigor that gets lost in abstract and empty platitudes. This has a depersonalizing effect towards what it means to be truly human as “in the world but not of it.” Instead, a subtle bias towards being “of the world but not in it” gets emphasized. 

Buck says, “All of this is to avoid the preconceived notions of traditional religion without really truly understanding traditional religion fully.” He does acknowledge that the legacy of Protestantism in the Anglo-American world and the liberal excesses in the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II has done a disserve for seekers of tradition. He also notes that the idea is “not go back to fundamentals but rather go forward with developing tradition.” Or as they say, mutatis mutandis. 

For him, restoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the only option for the West. On this path, the mystical experience is where “fire meets with FIRE”… where “nothing is extinguished in the human personality but, on the contrary, everything is set ablaze.” 

I definitely appreciate his conviction and the less-worn door he came through. There is an education in all of this.

No spiritual quest can progress very far without becoming religious. — Gerald G. May

Just Be

Here's over 2500 years of meditation instruction distilled into barely a phrase. It’s the cosmic joke that you can’t really laugh at, but hopefully we can smile along with it.

Anyhow, my knowing mind is a bit jarred right now. And I consider that a good thing, because not-knowing is always subsequent to knowing. But for my omniscient-wannabe mind, this takes a lot of intention without effort. In fact, I wish I could write more symbolically today because this discursive language just moves me away from what is.

Yes, I am meandering. I just did a self-retreat, following along to some audios from a retreat Jeff Carreira had in August. I've known Jeff for several years, and he's become a very skillful teacher at distilling the dharma for a post-secular demographic. There's an elegant and affable simplicity as to how he teaches, and it was just what was needed now.

Writing about retreats is challenging. We can be on point with insights, but lose the circumference of the depth. I’m sure that’s what Dávila meant when he said: To be stupid is to believe that it is possible to take a photograph of the place about which the poet sang.

That’s why I can only write for an audience of one. I could never authentically write in the way that would be consumptive for the masses. 

But for what it’s worth for my reader of one, here’s my big takeaways. These are not necessarily quotes from Jeff, but an amalgamation of his direct pointers, my paraphrasing and interpretations, and whatever Truth needs to be brought out in this moment...

Humility is to accept we have seen without evidence. The bottom line is faith matters! We take more things on faith than we realize. Even science is predicated on uncertainty (see Karl Popper’s falsifiability). So the leap is always part of the process that can happen in any moment when we decide. God is always there, even when not seen with certitude.

I don't want to believe all my hard meditation work is for naught. Come to mediation as a beginner each time. It’s the only way we can be open enough for the unexpected to occur. And things also occur the way they need to. We all have our own karma.

The miracle of the sacred is it shows it’s going to be okay although problems persist. On a fundamental level we are all okay existentially even if things must change, but that fundamental place is the best place to act on that change.

Why do we meditate? It is an access point to the Divine, so we can see the sacredness in life. It can liberate us into life, so we don’t lose our center while participating in the Passion of life. Moreover, we don't become indifferent to life, but indifferent to the afflictions of the mind that don't allow us to fully engage in life!

People will do anything to avoid pain. Spiritual bypassing is just another version of this. We can always find some avoidance activity. But eventually we have to become available for the pain so God can be available for us. We can love our afflictions as old friends, so as to not always be thrown by them. It's not always easy, but something is strengthened by the struggle.

You can only get good at what you practice. Meditation (as technique) isn't something you necessarily want to get good at. Better to just be. Don’t do meditation, let the mediation find me. Grace, not so much effort.

It takes a lot of humility to identify with an experience you barely have. And yet, there is no spiritual experience that will change your life. It just gives us an excuse to change. We are always empowered to change by allowing to be changed. 

Give more attention to the part of ourselves that has clarity over confusion. Better to make life decisions from clarity.

Most people are looking for a better deal than life itself. There is no better deal than just being. The issue is we are not comfortable with life itself.

Awakening is a function of the life you're living. It is not a personal quality! You can't have it, like intelligence or attractiveness. 

Good pointer: Don't try to meditate, just let the part of you that already knows how to find the meditation, and then just rest there and forget yourself. Let your mind be busy while you rest in the Truth of who you are. I don’t need to strive; it’s the commitment to show up that takes care of the effort needed for effortless. There is an Unconditioned Freedom no matter what my experience is.

Where there is Kundalini that overwhelms, gently talk to the Kundalini to underwhelm.

As I mentioned earlier, not-knowing is always subsequent to knowing. But if we can just be, we can fall in love with the not-knowing more than anything we can know. Spiritual experiences don't add up to the way things are, but affirms that the Truth adds up to a lot more than we can imagine. 

In that Freedom, the edges will keep revealing themselves in the midst of our love for what is.

So, just be.

Can We Love Unconditionally?

The short answer is, well, I would say no.

To get more nuanced, we need to define what love is. I know there has been many good (and really bad!) songs written about it, but I think we're all still a little confused about this loaded word. James Thurber acknowledged this when he said love is “that pleasant confusion we know exists.”

I believe the ancient Greeks had it fairly right when they distinguished love in the following ways: agápe (divine unconditional love), éros (romantic/erotic love), philía (friendship/brotherly love), and storgē (compassionate/filial love). Freud would probably add a healthy narcissism for oneself, a self-love or positive self-regard, as part of these forms of love.

Eros, philía, storgē, and self-love are all manifestations and gradations of divine agapic love. But unlike agapic love, these forms of love are conditional. There is always a subtle manipulation going on within ourselves (our fears and our desires) in relationship to others as finite beings. And for convenience sake, we have created a false consciousness in which things-in-relation are seen as separate for us.

I know there are some that would say the love a mother has towards her baby child is mostly unconditional. While somewhat true, even the young mother has her challenging moments. And let's not forget that child will someday grow up to be an incorrigible teenager where that "unconditional" love may not always be so accessible. 

I believe that's why Aquinas defined love as “to will the good of another.” He understood that most of us are not infused with the grace of agapic love at all times. As such, love requires a commitment or covenant even when we don't necessarily "feel" it. If the feeling-sense of love is not there in the moment, then we may need to cultivate a willingness of love for the other. (One person told me when she couldn't feel love for someone, she would thank God for loving them. I've found this to be a helpful practice for myself.) Moreover, the practice of love for others can help dissolve some of our self-image and self-importance to make way for more agapic love over time. As such, we can see where faith, family, work, and community are vital to our spiritual growth.

But if I’m acknowledging there is this agapic love, then why would I say we can’t love unconditionally? Here’s the rub: we really can’t do it! 

As long as we're identified with our self-image, then love will always have “to remain a marketing sort of business, something to be given and received, and always with conditionality. It does not know anything of unconditional love because it is only while self-image sleeps that unconditional love is realized. For self-image, unconditional love must remain a matter of faith rather than experience, and it is almost invariably unwilling to risk itself for faith” (Gerald G. May).

This gets into all sorts of notions of what the self-image is. Buddhism nails much of it. According to Dumitru Stăniloae, man is “nothing but a mass of component parts, with no inner unity, therefore there is nothing in the human being that can call for, or make possible, any ultimate love. Altruism of any kind, whatever its tinge, and however ardent it may be, can only be a procedure for getting rid of desire.” Hence, when identified with this self-image, we are always subtly defensive in our self-serving manipulations and unable to open our heart fully.

The way out is the way up. If we can offer up our self-importance as a sacrifice to God, then we find something beyond the self that can love unconditional. May says:

“Agapic love is ultimate, unconditional love. It is a love that transcends human beings both individually and collectively. Because it does not originate from within individual people, it is not influenced by their personal desires or whims. It is a universal “given” that pre-exists all effort; it neither needs to be earned nor can it be removed. It is only agape that is perfect and capable of casting out fear, for it is only agape that cannot be taken away. Narcissism, eroticism, and filial love are all conditional forms of love; they can be influenced by circumstances and by personal whim. ... But agape suffers none of these vicissitudes. It is permanent, eternal, and completely unflappable. The only choice humans have in relation to agape is whether or not to recognize its presence, to “realize” it. We can neither magnify nor destroy it.”

When this is realized, the disparity between an inner longing for unconditional love and an outer experience of conditional love is resolved. We also find our center, and paradoxical unity that can love unconditionally as persons in relationship in God and with others.

I may not always love you

But long as there are stars above you

You never need to doubt it

I'll make you so sure about it

God only knows what I'd be without you 

— Brian Wilson and Tony Asher  

In an erotic “high,” the world disappears in love. In the spiritual “high,” the world appears in love. — Gerald G. May

Know Your (Sacred) Surroundings

In a recent interview, Peter Thiel said we need to look up and not so much around (which just creates a mimetic trap).

He studied under René Girard, so he's aware that the wisdom of crowds can easily devolve into the madness of crowds. It's an easy trap if we don't stand deep and high. So perhaps better to center ourselves vertically, otherwise we just fall into utter horizontal fragmentation that is never unified.

I'm getting this point in another book I'm reading by Jonah Goldberg. His thesis is that civilization is fragile, but works because our pluralism is centered around deeper principles. Once those principles go, we just become pre-modern tribal power mongers trying to subsume or battle everyone else. Watch the news lately?

But maybe there are some things worth being with down here. 

Shall we get a little woo-woo? Well, I suppose this blog often touches on the woo, but hopefully holds on to enough traditional and intellectual rigor to not let the other ‘woo’ come in. We’ll leave that to the Deepak’s of the world.

I found this (white paper)* very compelling. What it shows is how much relational exchange goes on beyond the physical. And not just between us as people but also the objects we come into contact with. We are indeed always transmitting and receiving energy and information with each other.

One profound example, that has been scientifically verified, is that highly-conscious human beings can change the properties of an artifact through focused intention on it. “Not only can properties of inorganic materials such as pH of water be changed in line with the intention, but liver enzyme activity (chemical potential) of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) can be augmented.” This can be tested on any device that is unimprinted to where it becomes an Imprinted Host Device (IHD). This setup is illustrated below, and has been replicated numerous times.

This has huge implications for how we consider sacred relics! Many relics that have been offered virtuous intentions by saints and sages throughout the ages can potentially store and continue to transmit this information to others. I know when I enter some sacred spaces, it's no accident that my state changes immediately. It's as if my contemplation is being done to me.

Moreover, “Another important observation is that the Buddha [sacred] Relics have an aspect of consciousness and one could even say that they have an innate intelligence. It is well observed that relics multiply in reverential environments; they also disappear if kept in what we could consider ‘unholy’ places like trouser pockets! In this sense they are meta-stable. ... A dynamism enters from these higher dimensional intelligences through the Relics.”

The cliché is true: we are all interconnected in more ways than we realize.

We are what we consume, what and who we surround ourselves with, what we think, and who we love, or... 

Mass ↔ Energy ↔ Information ↔ Consciousness

Best to get right with our surroundings above and below!

* All references and illustrations are from the paper “The Sacred Buddha Relic Tour: For the Benefit of All Beings” by Nisha J. Manek, MD, FRCP (UK) and William A Tiller, PhD. Presented at the Annual Toward A Science of Consciousness Conference: Forum on Eastern Philosophy Symposium. University of Arizona Center for Consciousness Studies, Tucson, Arizona, April 9th, 2012.