The eighth essay in The Ultimate Journey  is an attempt to give a feeling sense and a few images about: The Ultimate Destination:

Those who have stepped beyond the threshold into the mystery, outside of time, do not become disembodied spirits. They still have a physical body until that physical body dies. It is simply that their identity has shifted—it is no longer with the ego self or the unconscious urges and desires that drive most of us in our normal lives. Importantly, though, most of those who cross the threshold eventually find themselves back in the world of time—with the ego reasserting itself and again influencing actions and decisions.

Occasionally, though, a person is advanced enough to reenter the world of human interactions while maintaining awakened consciousness. What is more, these fully realized saints and sages can engage with those living in the world of time. When this happens, the awakened ones usually spend their energy sharing their wisdom, serving those in need, and/or promoting the health and well-being of the whole. Some of these wisdom figures have come to be important in their own cultures, and a handful have become iconic symbols the world over.

Beyond time and space

One crucial idea I am trying to convey is that time itself is a mental construct, a concept the mind creates for us to be able to function in the everyday world. Mystics have known this for thousands of years, philosophers have begun to understand it since Kant, and Einstein’s breakthrough insights have helped scientists come to grips with the fact that time does not exist in the way they had assumed. (See Carlo Rovelli’s fairly recent book, The Order of Time.)

All these insights converge to the conclusion that time is a concept in the mind rather than something that exists separately from the mind that creates it. This is a marvelous thing, crucial for being human. We must create time in order for the world we know and live within to exist. But one implication of this non-basic nature of time is that different cultures might come to understand it in different ways—which is exactly what has happened throughout history. To get a sense of this, read No Word for Time, Evan Pritchard’s fine book about native American culture. Or, for a mind-bending challenge, try to imagine what the word time refers to before the big bang. Of course, “before the big bang” suggests that time existed “before,” which it probably did not, so better still, meditate on how to think about the absence of time beyond the threshold of the big bang.

Just trying to formulate sentences about this topic makes clear that, when using our thinking minds, we are trapped in time. As an example, focus on the fact that the phrase “big bang” is a metaphor with no clear meaning. We do not really understand what it was, or is. We give it a date—almost 14 billion years ago—but since time did not exist before the big bang, and time is not what we have imagined it to be, what does that number really mean? Consider, for instance, that there seem to be billions of massive black holes throughout the universe, some having millions to billions of times the mass of the sun. Inside of each there is nothing that relates to what we think of as time. If a spaceship approached the horizon of a black hole, stayed there for a few of “our” minutes, then moved away, the occupants would discover that a million years had gone by for people on Earth. So, how long ago did the big bang happen for a black hole?

Thinking about time using quantum theory (the most accurate science we have) turns out to be really weird. But back to the big bang. That phrase is only a metaphor suggesting the universe appeared in a nanosecond out of nothing and nowhere. But nanosecond is a reference to time, so we are forced back to the questions: What is time, and how did it get here? When all and everything appeared, seemingly out of nothing, how did time become a part of it all? The answer is: We do not know. But the best scientific guess today is that time is not real in the way we have assumed, but simply a concept we have created in our minds for functioning in the everyday world—which is what mystics have been telling us for centuries. Thus, the big bang is just another name we put on one of the mysteries of existence as we try to make something that escapes our understanding sound scientific and understandable.

Like time, space is also weird, so when I talk about “being in the place across the threshold,” it is not actually a place. It is a state of being. But to communicate, we use words even though our words are not “the things themselves.” So I use the word “place,” but it is not really a place, for both modern physics and many mystics tell us that a place, as well as space, are simply useful concepts we create in our minds for functioning in the everyday world. (See Carlo Rovelli’s, Reality is Not What It Seems)

“In the world, but not of it.”

I know all this is pretty abstract, but it is crucial for conveying something very important. A few saints and sages through the centuries seem to have had an identity centered beyond time, yet to the people around them, these special beings seemed to be functioning in the world of time. One way to try to think of this is the idea that they were, “In the world, but not of it.”

The way I have come to understand this phrase is that a person has opened into a state that is completely beyond ego identity. Such persons are no longer pushed and pulled by unconscious drives and needs; they seek no special attention for themselves; have little desire to look after or take care of their worldly selves. These awakened ones might take care of their bodies to a minimal degree, as a part of the flow of the life force, but their attention is directed toward the All and their actions tend to serve the good of the whole. If they encounter someone who is suffering, they might well look after that person first, at the expense of their own needs. (This is quite different from those who have not yet developed a healthy sense of self, as described in Essays 5 and 6—people who sacrifice their own needs in an attempt to feel better about themselves.)

Looking at history in this light, many stories emerge in every culture about a few saints and sages who returned to the everyday world of time while their consciousness remained beyond the threshold. What did they do? They spontaneously cared for other people, for animals, for the natural world—for all and everything—because they knew that each and all was an inseparable part of the Whole. They knew that everything is one Being, one Existence, one Consciousness. They did not feel separate from anything, but rather, one with everything. They did not feel separate from the Buddha, Jesus, the Tao, or God. “I and the Father are One,” Jesus said. And, like Jesus, the saints and sages who have entered this state and stayed there have performed incredible acts of service for centuries. In Buddhism, many in this place have made the Bodhisattva vow, a commitment to put others before oneself. Or, more specifically, they have vowed to liberate all sentient beings before they themselves enter nirvana.

Some examples from the previous essay, Moving Toward the Ultimate:

1. Being centered in this place beyond the threshold allowed Jesus to say: “Not my will but thine be done.” Even if it meant crucifixion.

2. Being in this place allowed the Buddha to be totally untroubled by any criticism or attack, no matter how vehement, and to be unconcerned when sitting on the cold, hard ground in winter.

3. This is Ramana Maharshi, completely oblivious to the afflictions his body was suffering, joking with his doctor who was examining a tumor that was excruciatingly painful. Because his identity was located beyond the threshold, he could ignore the pain.

4. This is Peace Pilgrim telling her body, mind, and emotions to be still, and all would obey, even in extreme circumstances.

5. This is Bawa Muhaiyaddeen offering his life to an enraged man if it would reduce that man’s suffering.

6. This is Teresa of Avila, when people were criticizing her and even threatening to send her before the Inquisition, saying she had no desire for things to be any different than they were—and was filled with joy by all that was, including the attacks.

It is from this place that Rumi, flooded with spontaneous inspiration—sometimes in a whirling dance—spoke thousands of pages of poems, giving voice to some of the greatest poetry the world has ever known. Listen to his words for a taste of where his identity was located:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there

When you are in that place:

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

In that state:

I, you, he, she, we
In the garden of mystic lovers,
these are not true distinctions.

And:

You say you see my mouth, ears, eyes, nose
—they are not mine.
I am the life of life.
I am that cat, this stone,
no one.
I have thrown duality away like an old dishrag,
I see and know all times and worlds,
As one, one, always one.

This is the place from which the Christian mystic Catherine of Siena could say: “My being is God, not by simple participation, but by a true transformation of my Being. God is my Being, my me.”

Because she dwelled in this place, when Catherine was very sick and in great physical pain she could still say: “If only you could understand how I feel. My mind is so full of joy and happiness that I am amazed that my soul stays in my body. And so much love for my fellow-men has blazed up in me, that I could face death for them cheerfully and with great joy in my heart.”

Dame Julian of Norwich, resting in this place, echoes Catherine’s words: “See! I am God; See! I am in all things; See! I do all things.”

Another woman who participated in the same experience several centuries earlier, halfway around the globe, was Izumi Shikibu—the 11th century Japanese poet. She wrote:

Watching the moon at dawn,
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely:
no part left out.

A disciple of the Indian sage Shankara proclaimed. “I am transcendent, nondual, unrelated, infinite knowledge. Sheer bliss am I, indivisible.”

And much earlier, another Hindu master, Ashtavakra, said of the unknowable mystery: “You pervade the universe and the universe exists in you. You are by nature Pure Consciousness.”

Wumen Huikai, a Chinese Chan (Zen) master in the 13th century wrote:

One instant is eternity;
eternity is the now.
When you see through this one instant,
you see through the one who sees.

The result of being in this state? Wumen describes the feeling that arises:

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Jumping across the ocean, and across centuries, Ralph Waldo Emerson planted the same seeds of knowing in the soil of early America, saying, “We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.” Emerson saw that, when we move beyond the threshold, we ourselves will know “the laws which traverse the universe.” Standing in this place, we understand that “to the good, to the perfect” we are born, no matter how far away we might feel from those things right now. If we will but wake to the possibility, “worlds, time, space, eternity, do seem to break out into joy.”

Emerson clearly experienced this highest possibility himself. He tells us about one such moment:

“Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, no disgrace, no calamity, which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God.”

Make no mistake: People are still crossing the threshold in modern times, often in the most difficult of circumstances. Robert Assagioli, a Jewish psychiatrist in Italy before World War II, was arrested and placed in solitary confinement by Mussolini’s fascist organization. He used his time in prison in an unusual way: meditating, attempting to penetrate to the very essence of who he really was. His meditations led to profound experiences, recorded in an article entitled “Freedom in Prison,” in which he described what he saw and experienced:

“A sense of boundlessness, of no separation from all that is, a merging with the self of the whole … Essential Reality is so far above all mental conceptions. It is inexpressible. It has to be lived … Joy inherent in Life Itself, in the Substance of Reality … The realization of the Self, resting and standing in Itself … The selfless Self … The three attitudes of the supreme paradox: No Self (Buddhist), Merged Into God (Mystic), Realization of the True Self (Vedanta).”

In my life

I have known these moments, but I have not stayed in that place beyond the threshold continuously. I don’t know whether all the saints and sages mentioned above stayed there permanently, but each was intimately familiar with it, and I believe some lived continuously there, in the consciousness beyond the threshold.

As for myself, after the timeless moments have passed, I have always found myself back in my ego life, with desires for comfort, pleasure, and power once again knocking at the door of my consciousness. Once again I feel concern about the praise and blame of others. Now, with my thinking mind, I am trying to write words about my visits beyond time, all the while knowing that what i am trying to describe is ineffable and indescribable. Yet it still seems worthwhile to try to say what I know and have seen.

In my personal life now, I remember my time out of time and have more clarity about the choices available to me. I see more clearly that I can choose to believe, or not to believe, many of the things my enculturation taught. I see that I have significant choice about the values and meanings I will organize my life around, and I am clearer about the actions that might lead to the highest possibilities life has to offer.

I am more free now, but I am also aware that I still have unconscious drives that are trying to shape and control my life. Gradually, though, I am learning ways to make them more conscious, and the more I do so, the more my conscious self is able to participate in life’s unfolding.

I dramatically remember that in my moments beyond the threshold there was only Being, there was only moving in the flow of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Now, back in the world of time, my ego tempts me to believe that I am in that place still, so I can do whatever my ego wants—and those actions will be aligned with the will of God. My ego often insinuates that its views come from the Higher Self, and so everything it is suggesting is fine. It tells me I am now selfless—as it advocates selfish desires.

If, however, I am fiercely honest with myself, I know when I have fallen back into ego mind. I know that true freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever the ego suggests. Rather, I must make choices: I can work to be more conscious of the forces inside me that are pushing and pulling my behavior, instead of giving in to them. I can choose to live by higher values and meanings, the ones I glimpsed when beyond time. Or I can drift back into unawareness and let egoic desires and unconscious whims again motivate my life.

So here I am, back in my ego life, trying to write about what I have seen and experienced. I feel a longing to be in that place across the threshold again, but I know I am not centered there now. I know in my thinking mind that, ultimately, there is no separation, but knowing this does not result in being able to live beyond the threshold. My identity, for now, has fallen back into my ego self. And even if I try, I cannot force myself back into that place beyond the threshold. Even if I say to myself: “Non-duality is the only reality,” “There is no self,” “All is One,” “I am completely surrendered to God,” “The world is an illusion,” “Everything is Emptiness,” “Love is my only motive,” saying or thinking these words does not shift my identity to that place.

When I am honest with myself, I know that thinking these thoughts will not take me back beyond the threshold. Even though I believe they are true, I also know that, right now, my ego and unconscious are present, even if I try to tell myself they are not real. I know I am not living from pure awareness right now, or in complete harmony with the Divine.

I also know that the more I become conscious of my ego’s desires—and my unconscious urges, fears, and anxieties—the less they control my life. I know that the more I make conscious choices in harmony with the meanings I have glimpsed in moments beyond the threshold, the closer I come to crossing the threshold again. And I know that the more I choose to be guided by the values taught by the wisdom figures I admire and trust, the nearer I come to resting in Pure Awareness, able to just “Be” and to move in harmony with All and Everything. As I do the work necessary to become more conscious, I feel the hold of my ego and unconscious loosen, even though I am not totally free from their influence right now.

Why do bad things happen?

In the picture of life I am suggesting, why do “bad” things happen, not only to ordinary people, but to the great saints and sages as well? There is no question that, from one point of view, bad things happen to “good” people. To understand why this is so, it is crucial to recognize that all judgments of good and bad are from the ego’s point of view. All arise from a thinking mind that labels some things good and others bad—from a particular person’s ego perspective. As a simple example, consider that the team that wins a ball game is good from one person’s perspective and bad from another’s. It is not just ball games; the same is true for elections, romance, even wars. In most wars, one side eventually celebrates victory, feeling they have been successful. But that “success” has often resulted in the devastation of another country and many deaths among the “enemies.” So, while the winners are celebrating, the losers are mourning their defeat.

In our lives in the world, there have always been and always will be competition, conflict, loss, disappointment, sickness, and death. Rumi says, “good and bad are mixed.” The Biblical book of Ecclesiastes says the same. Good and bad are present in every individual life, as well as every family, community, and country. It is the price of having a human life. Good and bad are present in every spiritual community as well, for any time people congregate there will be those who are living, at least partly, from ego, and every one of those egos will at times be demanding, selfish, and suffering. To each and every ego, the flow of the Unseen Order will seem “good” when that flow accords with what the ego wants, and “bad” when it does not.

The crucial point is that God, the Tao, the Divine, the Mystery, the Unseen Order do not create or allow bad things to happen. It is always ego preferences and unconscious desires that lead to judgments about what is good and what is bad. That is why the Third Zen Patriarch said:

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

In the flow of All That Is, there is no good and bad as egos think of it. To enter an individual ego existence means entering the world of good and bad. The flow of life, of existence, is not organized to give each individual ego what it wants, so egos will always judge some things as good and some as bad. The only escape from “bad” things is to bring your life into harmony with the Unseen Order. Perhaps, as philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead suggested, the mystery, the sacred dimension is “an all-embracing chaotic Attractor, acting throughout the world by gentle persuasion toward love.” Perhaps that love is what we are to come into harmony with. But this is not what the ego seeks. The ego is seeking a different kind of love; the ego wants to be loved, wants to bring the Unseen Order into harmony with what it wants, rather than bringing itself into harmony with All That Is.

This is the heart of the Buddha’s message—that to be free of suffering means giving up all clinging and all aversion. To escape “bad” things means giving up all ego wishes and wants, even those that seem to the ego to be idealistic. This is what Jesus was conveying when he said that “those who lose their life will save it.” It is the heart of the vision so many mystics and near-death experiencers have had, such as this powerful mystical vision reported by Canadian psychiatrist R. M. Bucke (which is in complete accord with that of Alfred North Whitehead):

“The cosmic order is such that without any per-adventure all things work together for the good of each and all … the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain.”

But this happiness of each and all is not that of egos, but of the ultimate identity we all possess, or rather, the Ultimate that is the true identity of each and all.

Serving the Good

When I am in harmony with the whole, simply doing my part to serve the health of the whole, I am serving the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. But when my ego is in charge, I sometimes interfere with the flow of the Tao. I make mistakes that bring pain and suffering, mistakes due to misunderstandings, and mistakes motivated by anger and greed. I even make mistakes, through confusion and errors of judgment, that cause my ego self pain and suffering. I suspect you do this as well.

What should we do? First, accept that mistakes are a natural part of human life. As the Third Zen Patriarch said about accepting our imperfections: “We must be without anxiety for non-perfection.” Secondly, we must recognize that our mistakes are “grist for the mill.” Another Zen master was asked how he had been able to progress so far, and he said: “One mistake at a time.”

I have made, and likely will continue to make, many mistakes. I used to beat myself up for each one, adding to the pain and suffering each mistake was already causing. Gradually I am coming to see that the best response to a mistake is to acknowledge it and immediately ask: What can I learn from this? If I do this long enough, perhaps, like the Zen master, I will make enough mistakes and, learning from each, finally arrive at the Ultimate destination. Until this happens, mistakes are great teachers, if I use them wisely.

I am also coming to see that, even when my ego is alive and active, I can still serve the Good. I will not be able to do so perfectly. I will make mistakes. But I can make an effort to see the larger Good and serve it as best I can, while accepting that I do not see the whole picture. I can reach toward being guided by the Unseen Order as much as possible—but with humility—for I am sure that my ego’s perceptions are limited. That is the best I can do.

And it is enough. Making a commitment to serve the Good as best I can and doing the things I sense that might increase the moments I spend beyond the threshold are sufficient principles around which to organize my life.

The Ultimate

I know I will return to the Ultimate, the place across the threshold. I will “Be” there once again, beyond time. Perhaps it will happen again in this lifetime. I might even dwell there permanently before this body dies. If not, then I will return there when death frees me from the hold of my ego and unconscious drives. Death is not to be sought, but neither is it to be feared. Death is not the goal of life—yet it is the natural fulfilment of existence in a mortal body. What lies beyond death is Mystery. As Shakespeare so eloquently said in Hamlet’s voice (who was at the time fed up with life and its troubles and considering whether he should end it):

To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:

As Shakespeare clearly saw (there’s the rub), we do not know what happens after death; we know almost nothing about the “undiscover’d country,” that “puzzles the will.” Thus we must pause any time we think that death is an escape from the difficulties of life.

Those who are centered in the consciousness that lies beyond the threshold, though, can tell us more than Shakespeare was able to tell. And what they tell us is that the inner work we do here in this life matters, that everything we do to increase our connection and live in harmony with the Good affects the energy in which we spent the moments of our days. And they tell us that how we choose to live now affects whether we will cross the threshold during this life.

An example comes from the ancient Upanishads of India, which tell us that a mind “in deep absorption,” “grown pure and silent,” can “merge with the formless truth.” If you can do this in your present life, you have “solved the great riddle,” you have “found yourself,” and are now “free.” Your “heart forever is at peace.” The result of a life lived this way is that, before the body’s death, you enter this place:

Whole, she enters the Whole.
Her personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.
As rivers lose name and form when they disappear into the sea,
the sage leaves behind all traces when she disappears into the light.
Perceiving the truth, she becomes the truth;
she passes beyond all suffering, beyond death;
all the knots of her heart are loosed.

The Buddha summarized what he taught this way: “There is, oh monks, an Unborn; neither become nor created nor formed. Were there not, there would be no deliverance from the formed, the made, the compounded.”

How does one get there? The Buddha instructed, “Vigilance is the path to the Deathless, Negligence the path to death. The vigilant do not die.” He goes on:

One who does evil grieves in this life
Grieves in the next, Grieves in both worlds
One who makes merit now rejoices in this life
Rejoices in the next, Rejoices in both worlds.

The Buddha’s message is that our task in this life is to let go of grasping and clinging, then to “make merit,” and we will cross the threshold, discover the deathless, find nirvana for ourselves before the body dies. What will that be like? When the Buddha was asked whether nirvana was bliss, he said: “Yes: Bliss, my friends, bliss is nirvana.” Crucially, this bliss is not something only those in the distant past could find. It does not require a particular set of practices or beliefs. In the mystical experience of R. M. Bucke, continuing the quote above:

“I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life now.”

Turning to the Christian mystics, their message is that you will discover, as medieval theologian Meister Eckhart put it, “The ground of God and the ground of the soul are one and the same.” In the same vein, modern mystic Thomas Merton said, “If I penetrate to the depths of my own existence and my own present reality … then through this deep center I pass into the infinite ‘I Am’ which is the very Name of the Almighty.” When you do this, you enter Teresa of Avila’s Seventh Mansion, and can dwell there while living in your current body—until that body dies. You have moved into and dwell in the “ultimate union” that she vividly describes.

If this happens to you, how will you spend your time? Many of the great saints and sages tell us that helping those in need is one primary way that those who have crossed the threshold spend their life energy. With the Bodhisattva vow, many Buddhists commit to a beautiful example of this. In a dramatic Christian parallel, Teresa of Avila says that, if you come to permanently dwell in the Seventh Mansion before the body’s death, “The soul must let ego bring it back to the ordinary world, to the seeming separateness of individual life.” Why? To finish the work that having this marvelous thing called existence is about. Taking Teresa’s life as an example, that work involves tireless service to others.

What is it like for consciousness to permanently dwell in the Seventh Mansion, while the physical body is still in the world of time? If it happens in you, the transformation of your identity will be complete and you will be filled with a new energy. “The soul who has dissolved into God reemerges with a vibrant wakefulness.” You are in “a permanent place of peace”—no matter the difficulties encountered in the world of time.

My here and now

Only a fully awakened heart/mind permanently experiences, during life in the everyday world, the state the saints and sages describe. But the more I am able to shift my identity to the highest stages they suggest while living in this particular body/mind, the closer I come to complete fulfillment of this life. And the more I intentionally choose to live from love and compassion, the more my identity shifts from my small, ego self to the “radiant, intimate, deathless source.”

To emphasize once again, I am not living my daily life now in the place across the threshold that a few saints and sages seem to have been able to permanently occupy. I am not writing this essay from that state of consciousness. Rather, I am trying to capture fragments of what I have seen, offering a few hints and guesses that might help you on your journey. In my here and now life I am simply living from the highest level I can, practicing acceptance, gratitude, and humility, and sharing what I have learned as best I can with those who are making the journey themselves. This is where I will be until the natural death of this body comes, or until my consciousness is able to permanently rest beyond the threshold.

In moments of illumination, when stepping beyond the threshold of time into the timeless dimension, the seer is absorbed in the beauty and wonder of what is seen, becoming the shimmering glory of Being itself. Ego identity disappears. All that remains is the mystery of Being, of Existence, of Consciousness.

How did Existence come to exist? How is it there is Consciousness of Existence? How did Being come to be? When beyond the ego, these questions disappear. There is only the miracle of Being. The feelings that arise when I touch this place are wonder, love, compassion, and gratitude. Sometimes even joy. Love and gratitude for the mystery of Being, for Consciousness, for the Tao, for God. And for the guides who have helped me reach as far as I have been able to travel. I feel compassion for all other beings and for the beauty and wonder of the world. In this place, I see that everything is connected, all and everything is a part of the Whole which I am. Which you are.

Is what I say true? Listen to Rumi’s answer:

Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,
if you know, if you’ve known it
from before the beginning of the universe.

May you move toward the Ultimate as fully as you desire,

David

The seventh essay in The Ultimate Journey concerns the ways we try to understand and talk about Ultimate things, the difficulties of doing so with words and concepts, and suggested ways to move forward.

Naming the Mystery

We do not know how this universe in which we experience consciousness came to be. Yet everything we surmise suggests it has been governed by laws from the beginning. There are at least 26 constants of nature upon which the existence of a universe necessary for human life depends. And since the beginning of human culture, the great wisdom figures have told us there are values and moral guidelines that are necessary as well. Every culture has lived by values and some kind of morality, and all wisdom figures have said that their source is God, the Tao, Buddha-nature, the Way, Allah, Brahma, Great Spirit, Ein Sof, and so on.

All these names are words we humans have created to point to the source of existence, as well as the source of the meanings and values that are important for human life. But each of these words is a human concept, and not one is the thing itself. All these words are meager attempts to make intelligible to our thinking minds something that is just there. This “Isness” simply appears to our consciousness as soon as we become aware that we exist.

The wisdom traditions describe this Source differently, but all assert that there is a larger Reality, “Something Greater” than our everyday perspective. For Plato and Socrates, it was the World of Pure Forms or Ideas: “There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colorless, formless, intangible essence … knowledge absolute in existence absolute.” This World of Pure Forms provides guidance for human life—for those who learn to access it.

Confucius taught that we must follow the “Way of Heaven” if we are to find fulfillment in life, and Lao Tzu called the Source the Tao, while making clear that it can never be captured in a name: “The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth.”

In Judaism, Moses brought guidance from “I Am That I Am.” Muhammed received guidance for living from Allah (who has 99 names), as conveyed through the angel Jibrīl (or Gabriel). In Christianity, Jesus provided guidance by interpreting the Jewish scriptures as inspired in him by Abba. (In English, Abba is often translated as Father, but since Jesus’ original language was Aramaic, when he referred directly to this Source he would have said “Elah”—unless he spoke Syriac Aramaic, and then he would have said “Alaha.” We don’t know which Aramaic dialect he used.) Jesus probably spoke Hebrew as well, so he would at times have used the words “Elohim” or “Yahweh” for the Source. Whatever words he used, Jesus clearly said that he did not himself think up what he taught, but that it came from Abba, Elah, Alaha, Elohim, or Yahweh.

Some people today assert that the Buddha rejected the existence of an underlying Source, but even a cursory look at his teachings suggests this is not the case. The Buddha did not claim he made up the Eight-fold path, but instead that he discovered it while seeing the truth of all things. “In that instant, I saw,” is how he described his dramatic awakening that night under the Bodhi tree.

During that night he “saw” back over a thousand of his incarnations and “saw” the true nature of reality. What he saw in his journey beyond time, beyond the threshold of the everyday world and everyday consciousness, was that there is a path to awakening, a Way that he later put into words and concepts. But to emphasize again, he did not claim to have originated this Way, or the core values of compassion, lovingkindness, and equanimity; he did not say he made up the guidelines for ethical living known as the five precepts. Rather, he told us he saw into the heart of things, that he “saw” the underlying rules of how the universe is, and thus how we should live in it.

If the Buddha had not grounded his message in a transcendental understanding, what he taught would have been completely nihilistic. He often said that it did little good to talk about the Ultimate, but he did not imply that an Ultimate did not exist. And he certainly did not suggest his guidance for moral conduct was not grounded in the Ultimate. The reason he did not spend much time explicitly talking about the existence of an underlying Ultimate Reality is that everyone he talked to assumed it to exist. When he used words like “the deathless” or “nirvana,” he knew that every person he was speaking to knew these words and knew they pointed toward an underlying Source of existence, to which beings returned if they found liberation. At the same time, the Buddha knew it was easy to get caught up in words, become confused by concepts, and thereby miss the deepest truths, so he focused on how those listening to him could reach the deathless state, rather than philosophizing about it.

The exact same thing is true of every other great wisdom figure we know: None claimed they personally created the wisdom or values they taught; rather, they said they were conveying what they had “seen” through a glimpse into the depths of the Mystery. Neither Moses, Jesus, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Muhammed or any of the other great sages and shamans of human history said they had personally created the rules for living they taught; rather, they said they had seen how we should live, that it had been revealed to them.

Of course, their respective messages appear somewhat different to us today, but my guess is that the differences come from the different world situations each was living within, as well as the impossible task of putting what they saw into words. They were each attempting to convey the true nature of Reality, as well as the guidelines necessary to bring oneself into harmony with it, but they could not avoid the confusion that words and differing cultures create. They could only hint and suggest, using riddles, metaphors, stories, and parables. And then, when the traditions began to pass down their teachings in a structured way, the messages became more distorted with each passing generation.

What is God?

Most reading this essay grew up in a culture where the word “God” was used to point toward the Ultimate, so let’s focus on that word for a moment. God is a word that points to a concept, an idea that is somewhat different in every human mind. No person’s concept is “the thing itself,” and no human has the only correct concept. The same is true for the words Tao, Allah, Yahweh, El, Elohim, Father, Great Spirit, the Absolute, and on and on. These are all human words we use to describe human concepts in an attempt to understand and speak with others about the indescribable—the Mystery within which we exist.

The names Jesus, Confucius, Muhammed, and the Buddha refer to human beings who lived in the past, but each name brings forth different concepts in each person’s mind. Each of us has a different understanding of who these people were, sometimes radically different. And no person’s concept is “right.” No one has an exclusive claim to the accuracy of his or her concept.

In the same way, emptiness is a concept, nothingness is a concept, and selflessness is a concept. The same for non-duality and no-self. Each is a concept, and everyone’s understanding of these concepts is different. Salvation is another concept, as are Enlightenment and Awakening. The crucial thing to understand is that these words do not point to anything more real than the phrase “everyday world.” The everyday world is just another concept in the mind. All words point to human concepts that have different meanings in each person’s mind.

Although it might be even harder to grasp, “you,” who you think you are, is a concept. When you have the thought “I” or “me,” these are concepts in your mind that point to an ephemeral and changing image that exists only in your mind. None of these images are the “real you.” In fact, much of “you” is hidden from your conscious mind in your unconscious, excluded from your image of yourself. Further, who you are to each person you know is different, sometimes radically different, because each person knows only a small part of the whole. The same is true for your images of other people, as well as for your images of the objects in the world around you.

What I am trying to make vivid is that every word we use points to concepts that are not real things. All our words point to concepts in our minds which have different meanings in every human mind. Further, all our concepts are constantly changing within our own minds. This is very hard to understand with the thinking mind, because this is not how we were enculturated in the modern world. We were taught to look for hard facts, not slippery concepts that are different for each of us. But anyone who truly grasps this underlying truth will find it extremely valuable, for it opens up the world in new and exciting ways and reveals dramatic new possibilities for growth and fulfillment.

If you begin to explore the nature of your own mind, you will gradually recognize that everything you are thinking and seeing is a concept created in the mind by a process that you do not understand. No one understands it. The concepts you have just appear, as if by magic, and very few are consciously chosen. When you were young, you did not consciously create or choose any of the concepts that appeared in your mind, and few people ever learn to choose their concepts skillfully. But if you begin to explore the nature of reality more deeply, you will see that there is no solid, final reality out there. It is all concepts. All and everything is the play of light and shadow. Your mind takes this shimmering rainbow of existence and turns it into concepts with which you construct a reality, using the framework into which you were enculturated. For most people, the world they experience springs forth from an unconscious source their whole lives. But you can learn to work with the creation of your reality in a conscious way. This, however, requires training, discipline, and effort.

If you begin to do this, you will start to understand that words and concepts are simply tools to be used when useful—and laid aside when not. No concept in your mind is “The Truth.” Wisdom is to know which words and concepts are useful in a particular situation, and how best to use each in the situations you encounter. Words and concepts have great value because they are terribly useful for functioning in the everyday world. They are totally necessary as tools for that purpose.

Crucially, you cannot change the meanings of words and concepts just because you want to, for your understanding of the words and concepts you use is deeply embedded in your unconscious. Further, when interacting with other people, you must use words and concepts in the way they have come to be used in the culture in which you are living. You could call a hammer a rock, and at some point in the distant past that usage might have taken hold, but trying to change it now will only confuse you and everyone else. The language conventions within which we live started long ago, and changing how you work with these tools is not easy, and almost never worth the effort.

As you grasp this new reality, you recognize that wisdom is to learn to use the words and concepts of your culture skillfully, while holding them lightly, knowing they are tools, not hard, fixed things—including the words God, selflessness, Yahweh, Allah and the rest.  None of our words are ultimately real things. They are, however, relatively real. In fact, everything we know and think is relatively real. That is not a problem. It is not something we need to get beyond. Getting beyond the relative reality of the everyday world only takes us to the relative reality of the words and concepts we use to talk about the mystery beyond the threshold. (Tibetan sage Tsong Khapa used the image of crossing a threshold to describe what happens when we move into the Mystery beyond words or concepts). The crucial thing to grasp is that everything the mind thinks, will ever think on this side of the threshold, is limited to the relatively real.

What, then, is real? All and everything is “just as it is.” There is nothing beyond what is. Reality cannot be pinned down further in words or concepts, or with our thinking minds. Whatever is Real beyond the veil of our thinking minds we cannot think. We cannot describe it except by using relatively real words.

All is not lost, however, for we can “Be” it. We can step into that field. We can get beyond our words and concepts and open into Pure Being. We can catch an intuitive glimpse beyond the threshold into the Mystery.

St. Paul was sharing this truth when he said: “For now we see through a glass, darkly” and “now I know in part,” conveying the limitations of what we are able to see before we cross the threshold. But Paul says that when he crosses the threshold, “then shall I know.” And with that knowing, he shall also be “known.” Perhaps, in that place, as many mystics have reported, “The knower and the known are one.”

Glimpsing the Ultimate 

From my own glimpses, and aided by the insights of Tsong Khapa and Meister Eckhart, I have come to better understand something I have been trying to grasp for a long time: How to think about such words as emptiness, nothingness, selflessness, no-self and such. What I have finally come to see is that emptiness is empty. Emptiness only has a meaning in comparison to something that is different from it. The word emptiness has no meaning except in relation to something that is not empty. Neither “empty” nor its opposite can exist without the other. (If it interests you, play with the thought “There is no God” in the same way—for that assertion only has meaning if you hold a specific concept to which it is opposed.)

In the end, emptiness and words like it are just more concepts. Because they sound vague, they avoid some of the problems of theistic words, but they are just words trying to explain the unexplainable. After wandering in the wilderness of non-dual “thinking” for a long time, when I finally came to see this, something dramatic happened. Robert Thurman describes the happening this way: “The world is back!” (Thurman discusses Tsong Khapa’s ideas in depth in his audio program, Buddhist Theory of Relativity, and James Finley does the same for Meister Eckhart in Living Wisdom: Indestructible Joy and the Path of Letting Go.)

Upon seeing that concepts such as emptiness, nothingness, no-self, and the like do not capture a final reality any more than does the concept “everyday world,” I penetrated for a moment with what Thurman calls “wisdom’s diamond drill” to the heart of reality. I saw both emptiness and the everyday world for what they are—relatively real. The world, it turns out, is real, but relatively real, just as emptiness is relatively real. They are simply two sides of one coin.

Penetrating to the heart of existence and non-existence, I saw that all and everything is one interconnected construct of the mind. There is no separate hard reality. Ultimate Reality certainly does not contain a separate, fixed thing called “I” or “me.” Having the idea of a personal self is a useful construct to function in the everyday word, but it is not an ultimate thing.

I saw that everything arises simultaneously as a part of the whole of existence. No part can be separated from the rest, for everything is an inseparable part of the whole. Therefore, everything arises simultaneously, leading to the Buddhist idea of dependent origination—your perception of yourself and everything else is always mutually arising. Nothing can arise that is completely separate from the rest. I can create concepts of separate things to use as tools—from quarks to atoms to solar systems to an infinitely expanding universe to multiple universes—but these are not things in themselves, just useful tools, useful concepts. Useful when used skillfully.

In the same way, I saw that my concept of my ego self, as well as my images of other people and objects in the world are real, but only relatively real. I saw that these relatively real things should be respected for what they are, but not given overly much importance. I saw that the ego lives of others are only relatively real, but I also understood that they are powerfully important to many people, so they should be respected.

In the bedrock of what is, I saw that what I perceive and experience is not determined by a reality “out there” but is greatly influenced by where I focus my attention. And to a great extent by what I expect to see. Therefore, as William James said, “To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away … and dissolve the fear in our minds.”

William James—unlike most others I have focused on in this series of essays—did not spend much time in an expanded state of consciousness. He tried, studying it intensely in both a personal and scientific way. But although he was perhaps the greatest philosopher as well as psychologist in American history, he was not able to enter expanded consciousness very often. Yet he developed a deep intellectual and intuitive understanding of it, and his words can help us understand it ourselves. With deep insight he saw that, since we tend to “disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use,” it is crucial to realize that the way we look determines what we see. An extremely valuable example: James advised, “Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” He went on to say that love, faith, trust, and generosity reveal what cynicism, suspicion, hatred, and fear can never let us discover. Think of the implications if more people practiced this insight.

Once you have glimpsed that there is no hard, fixed reality out there, and seen that nothing is completely separate from anything else, you begin to intimately know that you are a part of everything. You come to see that Existence is one, Being is one. All and Everything is One. To use a metaphor, if everything there is is one body, then the ego “you” is a cell in that body, but the largest you is the whole body. In some schools of Kabbalistic thought, Adam Kadmon signifies the entire world which arises as the first refraction of the light of Ein-Sof (the Infinite). This first emanation of Ein-Sof created everything that is, and each of us is a piece of that original emanation of light. And our largest self is the light itself. Similarly, in the Upanishads of India, Purusha is the universal spirit. It literally means “man,” or all of humanity. It is the eternal, authentic spirit, the cosmic being or self, the one consciousness. It is in everyone at all times. It is eternal and indestructible.

Whatever imagery works for you, glimpsing the primal interconnectedness of all things brings forth a natural response of compassion. It brings forth in me gratitude for the miracle of Being, the miracle of Existence. It moves me to do what I can to serve the whole, to keep the one body of existence healthy and strong, vibrant and alive—just as a cell in my body naturally functions to keep the whole body functioning well. (Unless, of course, it has become a renegade like a cancer cell.)

When I see this clearly, when I can rest in the experience of this vision, I have no anxiety or fear. There is no pressure to do or be anything, for I know that my small ego self is not in charge. I am simply a part of the whole and need only fulfill the natural rhythm of the whole, and if I will simply move into harmony with That, I will naturally serve the health and well-being of the whole.

It is crucial, however, when absorbing these insights, to avoid falling into the pit of “you create your own reality.” The way this idea is often understood is a misunderstanding. The ego does not create the reality in which it is embedded. The ego can gradually change what is included in its thinking, how it thinks about itself and the world, but this kind of change is slow and difficult. It is possible to escape the gravity field of the thinking self, but no one can do this simply by thinking, “I am not my ego.” This is just another ego thought. Only by a fundamental shift, a profound seeing that “I” am not the ego will I even begin to make such a change.

History has given us models for this kind of profound shift of identity, the two most famous being that of Jesus and the Buddha. Jesus had done nothing to attract anyone’s attention outside of friends and family until the age of 30—when he went off to the desert for forty days. When he came back, his identity and life mission were deeply intwined with the Divine, and he spoke with an authority his neighbors had never heard before. And from that profound shift he dramatically affected world history in just three years.

The Buddha began his night under the Bodhi tree with a sense that he had not accomplished the aim for which he had given up everything and to which he had devoted all his time and energy for six years. The handful of fellow-seekers he had been traveling with had even abandoned him because they considered him a failure. Yet he emerged from that night a transformed being, walking and speaking with a dignity and presence that had a profound effect on countless people thereafter. And following that night he had a message that hundreds of millions of people have used to organize their lives during the 2500 years since that event.

The dangers

The danger those of us who have not had such a profound transformation must deal with is this: If we convince ourselves we can create our own reality without a total shift of identity, we will try to create the reality that our egos wish for. Even more dangerous, all the unconscious urges, ambitions, fears, and anxieties that have shaped and molded our lives up to this point will still be active and we will try to create the reality they crave. The only solution is a change of identity like those undergone by Jesus, the Buddha, and a few other exemplars such as Ramana Maharshi, Teresa of Avila, and Peace Pilgrim. Short of that, you and I will still be living under the influence of our egos and unconscious drives. In that place, our work is to come to truly know all the parts of ourselves as thoroughly as we can and gradually do the work to shift our identities to higher levels. But this is no small matter, and certainly not accomplished by the thinking mind alone, or simply by saying “I am not my ego” or “I create my own reality.”

If we come to believe those ideas before a total transformation has been accomplished, we will think our personal desires deserve to be fulfilled and we will have fallen into narcissistic nihilism. In this place, the ego thinks it deserves what it wants. And so do all other egos. Organizing in this place, we will be in a world where all egos are constantly competing with each other for the “good things” of life. But since lots of “good things”—like fame, power, money, and the most desirable partners—are limited in supply, our lives will be lived in a dog-eat-dog world. This kind of life always ends badly.

This is the reason that every person who is not completely awakened, or continuously one with the Divine, needs to be guided by a moral code. And it must be a moral code tied to one of those developed through the centuries by the great wisdom traditions, for if every ego felt free to create a moral code for itself, each of us would do it in a way so as to maximize our own advantage. The result? A totally nihilistic world, where each ego is trying to get what it wants any way it can.

Of course, some people claim they are being guided by their “higher self,” and perhaps a few are. But all too often this is just a rationalization for the ego to do whatever it wants. Few of us have truly learned to tell the difference between the voice of the higher self and that of the ego. It is not easy, for the ego is very clever at disguising itself as the voice of the higher self. Of utmost concern, the more a person has gotten in touch with the higher self, the greater the danger, for the ego learns the language of the higher self and becomes skillful at presenting its desires in that voice.

Thus, to truly be able to participate in the creation of reality, you must first come to know at a profound level who you really are, beyond the ego, and then you must turn control of your life over to that which is beyond the ego. Only after these steps can you, the deeper you, participate in the creation of the larger reality of which you are an inseparable part. Only then do you realize that your personal urges, ambitions, fears, and desires were organized to fulfill ego desires and unconscious drives. Until you know this fully and completely, trying to create your own reality is an attempt to manipulate shadows. The world is not real in the way the ego imagines, so the ego will never succeed in creating its world.

To escape this trap, the ego must understand and accept that existence is not organized to fulfill ego wishes and desires. The ego must accept this fact if the real you is ever to cross the threshold and dwell there for any length of time. This is the meaning of the Third Zen Patriarch’s words in Verses on The Faith Mind:

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

What, then, is Awakening?

With this preparation, I can now try to say how I understand awakening, or becoming fully enlightened, or opening into Christ Consciousness, or living fully from Buddha-nature, or becoming One with the Divine, the Tao, or God, or any other words one might use for stepping into the Ultimate. Each of these phrases has come to mean for me a state in which the heart and mind are pure, free of all ego desires and unconscious cravings, having no remaining personal preferences. This does not mean there is no order to one’s life. The lives of the great saints and sages suggest that order at this level of being comes from living in harmony with the Unseen Order, living spontaneously from the promptings of the Source. A life so lived usually consists of time spent contemplating the mystery, being absorbed in bliss, serving others, and/or contributing to the good of the whole.

As for “the Ultimate,” the most I can say is that Ultimate Reality involves a sense of Being, a sense of Existence. Being is. It is the starting point. How did Being come to be? We do not know. It is a mystery to us. The two most solid things we have are a felt sense of Being and Consciousness of our existence. Behind that we cannot go with our thinking minds. Thus, the closest approach we can make to speaking about the Ultimate is to say that we are aware of Being, of Existing, and of having Consciousness. And, going one step further, these things do not seem personal to us alone, but are somehow shared with others.

Words fail miserably here. Thinking fails. Our thinking minds have not been able to understand Consciousness, Being, or Existence. These things are just there, at the beginning, whenever we start to think, and our concepts cannot satisfactorily explain them to us. We can only “Be” consciousness, “experience” existence. Words and concepts cannot take us further. We create concepts and words to point to these things, but this is the thinking mind attempting to create something substantial to hang on to. This is the thinking mind’s attempt to reify, make real, something that is ultimately a shimmering play of light and shadow.

Guidance from the Source

Let’s go back to the place where our personal stories begin. When we come into the world and begin to live a human life, it is not possible to organize a life in the world around a “shimmering play of light and shadow.” So, Reality is split apart, “torn asunder” to use a more Biblical phrase. We now have an everyday world, which our ego learns to navigate, and All That Is—to which the traditions apply various names, such as the Tao, Abba, emptiness, no-self, God, the Absolute, Yahweh and many more. The traditions also tell us that All That Is can give us guidance for our lives, and each tradition provides its own version of that guidance.

To move through this life in which we find ourselves, then, one way forward is simply to live according to the guidance of one of the traditions, using the names and guidelines that tradition prefers, asking no further questions. But in the modern world, as we encounter other names and traditions—with the proponents of each proclaiming they and only they have the right name—it is easy to get bogged down in trying to decide which name and tradition is correct.

William James, trying to avoid this confusion, called the Ultimate the Unseen Order. This phrase has the advantage of conveying one thing that is central to all traditions—that there is an underlying order in the universe that arose simultaneously with the arising of All That Is. Unless this were so, there would be no coherent universe, but only unrelenting chaos. James also emphasized that all the wisdom traditions say that the only way to a fulfilled life, the only way to experience the “supreme good,” is by “finding the right relationship” to the Unseen Order.

James made clear that the common thread in all the wisdom traditions, their shared view of life’s ultimate goal, is to come into harmony with the Unseen Order. The only way I know to accomplish this is to use the core guidance of the traditions, which all say:

1. Life has a meaning beyond personal desires and whims, and there is a higher Good that is not organized around fulfilling ego desires or unconscious drives.

2. Some values and moral guidelines are grounded in a Source that lies beyond personal preferences. This is the only escape from nihilism.

3. True fulfillment only comes from living in harmony with the Unseen Order.

Circling back to a problem I have addressed several times: All attempts to explain this guidance to ourselves or to each other must use words and concepts, thus all such attempts will be incomplete, only partially accurate, and will always be subject to differing interpretations. This means that every system of moral guidance, all values and meanings we are given will be problematic. Every interpretation is subject to human error, which makes it hard for anyone trying to live in the everyday world to know what is right or how to act. Further, the uncertainty created by this situation gives the ego great latitude to persuade each of us that the things our egos want is what the Unseen Order wants.

Sometimes I wonder if all the differences we argue about when discussing the Ultimate are differing projections by each of us onto the veil that hides the Mystery from us. It is quite possible that our ego minds create all the differences we think we see, as each person projects onto All That Is the image that his or her ego desires.

Maybe, then, the best way forward is to stop talking about these things, as the Buddha suggested, and just follow his rules for living. Or commit ourselves to following the words of Jesus, as passed down to us in the Sermon on the Mount. Or commit to another tradition or teacher. But which one? And whose interpretations? “Ay, there’s the rub,” to adapt Shakespeare’s wonderful phrase. There is always a “rub,” a complication, such as the fact that after the Buddha said we should not talk about these things, he talked about them numerous times, and gave moral imperatives and various rules for living that he said were non-negotiable—which can only mean that they were grounded in an Ultimate of some kind. Further, the Buddha clearly indicated that a person could not even start on the Way he was offering, or reap its fruits, without first committing to some of these moral precepts.

It seems clear that, if we are going to attempt to approach the Mystery and find a path into harmony with it, we must learn from those who have gone before us. No one can make the whole journey without help and guidance. But anyone who shares what they have learned must use words and concepts, so what they say will always be imprecise and subject to interpretation. Thickening the plot, it is usually the ego that does the interpreting. This is not a bad thing, as long as we understand the limitations of words and concepts. The path up the mountain requires that we follow directions from those who have gone before. Although this is necessary, we must always remember that all guidance will be imprecise, because it must be given in words and concepts.

At some point, climbing the mountain toward wisdom and understanding involves crossing a narrow, dangerous bridge. On one side lies a pit of traps set by misguided and power-seeking teachers and organizations, each using words and concepts to lure the naïve traveler off the bridge and into their grasp. Falling into their arms can feel relieving for a time, because it seems we are freed from the burden of making difficult decisions. And it can be valuable to use this side of the bridge as a place to rest for a while. But it is easy to be lulled to sleep, and never return to the journey.

Falling on the other side of the bridge carries us into snares of our own making, into ego wishes and unconscious wants that open into the abyss of narcissism. The siren song on this side is the ego convincing us that we can figure out the mysteries of the universe by ourselves. Falling in the direction of narcissism often feels good at first. It is like feeling weightless in a falling elevator; you feel you have broken free of the law of gravity.

But this is not true freedom; the elevator will eventually hit bottom with a crash. All wisdom teachings tell us that values and morals have been part of the fabric of the universe since its beginning. If we do not respect them, we will crash headlong into them at the bottom of the fall. With the crash we will discover that we have become prisoners of our own petty urges, slaves to endless desires for more—more of that which never brings true satisfaction. As D. H. Lawrence said:

“We are not free when we are doing just what we like … We are only free when we are doing what the deepest self likes. And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.”

Because we have so many different motivations within us, motivations that conflict with each other, to try to follow all of them is a fool’s errand, doomed to failure. If we always follow only our personal urges and desires, trying to maximize our pleasures and minimize our pains, we will end up spiraling down toward greater frailty, increasing sickness, and finally into a meaningless old age and death.

The only way through is to find guidance, surrendering personal wishes and desires, and following the wisdom and discipline of an institution or teacher. It is impossible to find one’s way through the jungle of narcissism without this kind of help at points along the way.

Gradually, however, as we learn and grow, our sense of what we are doing will become stronger and we will feel increasing clarity about the right path for ourselves. As we gain wisdom and strength, we discover that we can, we must, increasingly find our own way. Guidance will still be valuable, but as our connection to the Mystery deepens we will be able to provide discipline from within ourselves, and our intuition will provide an increasing sense of the direction we must go.

As we continue up the mountain, we will feel our lives increasingly in harmony with the Unseen Order. There will, of course, be rough stretches. When they come, remember that all the great wisdom figures have said the journey is not easy, but that following the trail toward the Summit, the Source of the River of Existence, the Ultimate, is the only way to a fulfilled and complete life.

May you have a good week,

David