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| YHWH |
It may be at the end or the beginning of some important person or plan in one's life.
Or it could be when one is suddenly delivered from some miserable illness and what formerly was just ordinary becomes Transcendentally Beautiful!
Then all of a sudden...there it IS..a sense of being transported unto...THE LIVING SPIRIT!
It mayn't ANNOUNCE itself as 'Enlightenment' as such.
It could be an indefinable sense of ANOTHER dimension alongside ordinary reality. We were too busy with our plans, pasts, and fears to notice.
I stole the term 'Behold the Spirit' from a book by Alan Watts, which had a huge impact on my life when I was a young seeker.
I later had the opportunity, along with a few others, to spend a weekend retreat with him in Santa Barbara, in a private home in what was to be the last year of his life.
I tend to judge other people's personal failings, and he definitely had them.
He drank wine throughout the whole weekend. And he shamelessly FLIRTED with a lovely young woman in the audience who was obviously besotted with his wisdom and not-so-subtle attentions!
He wasn't perhaps the All-Seeing Mystic I had hoped to see. Although he did have that amazing and sophisticated English-speaking voice and some well-tailored Zen Master robes!
His understanding of the Divine was similar to my laissez-faire understanding of God, the Universe, and Everything, at least at that point.
I've started to pay a lot more attention to cultivating morals and the right associations these days.
This Thing we all seek is Elusive. It is Subtle- the Thing we're seeking, or at least I am. But, shift one's focus, and it is right before us!
And, at least Alan Watts and Ram Dass were UPFRONT about their human 'weaknesses'. And as a recovering alcoholic, I'm certainly pained that Watts ended up being so dependent on alcohol.
He ended up having to give up driving, apparently; he was so drunk all the time. He died in his sleep at 58.
No matter how 'non-dualistic' one thinks one is, alcohol is a lying, devious drug that takes no prisoners. I also happen to believe it prays ESPECIALLY on spiritually oriented people.
Why do you think they call it "Spirits?"
Speaking of this, I've suddenly remembered an amazing Jungian writer on the subject of God, Love, Alcohol and Addiction. Here's a wonderful quote of hers:
“We are human beings. And a human being has a divine creative intelligence. One way or another that creative intelligence is going to find an outlet. If it can’t find an outlet through the imagination, which is its natural route, it will find it in a concretized way. That becomes compulsive because there’s no way it can find what it’s looking for in a concrete way. You can’t find the Divine Mother in gobbling food….. If our creative energy is blocked, it will find an outlet in some kind of distorted religion, or addiction. An addiction to me is a distorted religion.
“Jung pointed out that it was no accident that alcohol is also called ‘spirits’ and said that the alcoholic’s thirst for alcohol is equivalent to the soul’s thirst for ‘the union with God.’
“Alcohol in Latin is spiritus, and you use the same word the for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritus,’ he wrote … in 1961. It’s an alchemical formula. It takes spirit to counter spirit.
“Looking at alcoholism and addiction as a longing for spirit might mean that something very different is going on in our society. One might say that we don’t have a crisis with alcohol and drugs as much as we have a spiritual crisis. Addiction is the perversion of spirit, our spiritual nature turned inside out, devouring itself. The epidemic of addiction can also be seen as spirit trying to reenter our society...
“A longing for alcohol does symbolise a longing for spirit. Think of the Greeks with Dionysus, the god of the vine. Intoxication and the transcendent experience with the god were intimately connected….. Alcoholics are longing for spirit because they are so mired in matter, but they make the mistake of concretizing that longing in alcohol. Maybe if they really understood what they were longing for and could go into the realm of the imaginal, the soul’s realm, then something very different could begin to happen.”
“Addicts are trying to run away from God as fast as they can. Paradoxically, they are running right into her arms. Consciousness makes them realise how the soul is trying to lead them into the presence of the divine if only they can understand the symbolism inherent in the addictive substance or behaviour.”
“All the running is away from the tragic fear that we are not loved. Unless we perform well, we are not lovable. That terror leads to self-destructive behaviour. It can also lead to global self-destruction. Addictions may be the Goddess’s way of opening our hearts to what love is – love of ourselves, love of others, love of the dear planet on which we live.”
“Lots of people are trying to find spirit through sexuality. Through orgasms they think they can be released from matter; for one brief moment they hope to experience this extraordinary union of spirit and matter. But if they can’t bring relationship into sexuality then it’s just a fly-by-night thing. Eventually it just becomes mechanical…. Sexuality without love is matter without spirit. People who are unable to love may be addicted to sexuality and be driven over and over again to try to find love. What they are projecting onto sexuality is the divine union they so desperately lack within themselves.”
“Jung said the opposite of love is not hate but power, and where there is love there is no will to power. I think this I a core issue in working with addictions. Sooner or later, the feminine face of God, Love, looks us straight in the eye, and though her love may manifest as rage at our self-destruction, she’s there. We can accept or reject – live or die.“
“THE GODDESS ENERGY IS TRYING TO SAVE US.”
From Conscious Femininity by MARION WOODMAN (1928-2018), Canadian mythopoetic author, poet, analytical psychologist and women’s movement figure, published 1993.
Spiritual Promoters like Sidi put on a great outward SHOW of their Religiosity, yet, in the end, led others to despair, financial loss, and sexual victimization.
Or to lose one's life and time following such a leader around, hoping for a repeat of the initial peak experience one had in the 'early days.'
And then, should we consider trying to leave, we lose the people who were important to us who remain 'in' the Cult we just left.
And I include my son Ibrahim in that group. Even though he probably doesn't consider himself religious, he ultimately couldn't resolve the tension between myself and his cult-obsessed mother.
He can't make the jump to see her obsession with Sidi is more like mental illness than the generosity and kindness towards all that is the mark of a person whose spiritual growth is matured.
So he's rejected me, as he has tried to do before. (I don't think it will bring the result he is seeking. Because it's not based on Love--which he, and all of us, ARE seeking).
This is how and why I finally got up the nerve to write and publish all this. I had nothing to gain from keeping it quiet anymore. At least I'm no longer a silent part of the con game. It's a huge relief.
And to anyone who had losses due to Sidi, I am very sorry, and I hope you recover from them.
However, if anybody feels that contact with Sidi in such a way led them to a VALID spiritual connection, I am more than happy for them. In fact, I'm RELIEVED he helped somebody.
I see that reflected in the case of some of my old-timer Fuqara friends, who are lovely, sincere people who probably benefited from not being in much actual contact with Sidi in his final years.
I think Sidi turned into an uninhibited predator after his wife died, but I don't really know -- (or, at this point, care).
He may have lost his loadstone with her.
"God is closer to you than your jugular vein."- Muhammad (PBUH).
That's a quote with a decidedly mystical tone. Despite the often harsh, masculine tone of much of the Qur'an, at least to my thinking.
I am not always comfortable with the image of God as a cosmic parent. Although I sometimes feel I NEED that in moments of INTENSE Fear, Illness, or Brokenness.
I feel there is also a DANGER in objectifying God like that.
A God 'Defined' is a God 'Confined.'
To start talking about Him like that is to generate a Picture of God that isn't God.
That Picture is mostly what people think of when they think of God if they think about God at all.
I can't get mortality off my mind for very long. The desire for transcendence is ingrained.
Not because I am especially virtuous, but because I'm SCARED!
I am curious and frustrated that the Riddle of Existence has no easy answers. Although I'm convinced of its value and importance, I am also impatient with the pace of meditation.
Even MORESO, now that I am older and in increasingly poor health, as I approach the inevitable end of this incarnation.
And I can't understand why hardly anybody else seemingly feels the same.
My experiences with Sidi taught me what goes wrong when you base your belief system on a single, dramatic change in an otherwise mundane life.
All the excitement I felt was because I really FOUND something substantial and good.
Today I simply FORGOT the same critical point that I had already learned about the dangers of committing one's life energies to another unknown and untested human being.
I thought that I didn't need to be cautious. Caution wasn't necessary. Wrong!
Well, maybe there's also a 'good side' to it. I never would have learned about Buddhism if I hadn't ever ventured out of my comfort zone.
I had a soft upbringing with my parents, who loved me! Unfortunately, this upbringing left me unprepared for opportunists like Sidi.
I imagined that a spiritual teacher similarly had my best interests in mind. I never DREAMED I would simply be USED as I had been by Sidi for promoting his own ends.
Even though, in the early days, there was no money requested, I was free to come and go to his house as if I were a member of his family. Asking Sidi if we could come for the summer was mostly a formality. Unless there was a war imminent, the answer was always 'yes'.
(And I can remember both Aisha and I crying one summer when he forbade us to come for that reason. It touches my heart to remember those innocent times.)
He changed. I think he possibly turned to the dark side. Most of his followers today literally scare me.
There is nothing scarier than someone who thinks they can play God. Whether it was Sidi forcing strangers to get married, or Aisha changing her children's father, or whomever it is selling unproven medical nostrums or multilevel marketing plans alleged to meet with Sidi's approval.
Well, it's too late for regrets now, but at least I'm wiser today. Sadder, but wiser.
I also know that whatever wisdom I THINK I have found, I need to check it out my state with other sojourners.
I love that the Buddha offered experientially-based teachings taken directly from his personal process.
And how he avoided questions unrelated to the critical issue of the unavoidable, unspeakable sufferings that are all too likely to befall each of us in this life.
And the suffering of old age, sickness, death, and separation that are absolutely INEVITABLE.
When I first encountered the Buddhadharma, I should have stuck with it. Maybe it seemed too renounced to a guy in his 20s.
I certainly discovered how utterly PAINFUL an 'Un-Renounced' life can be!
Maybe I'm making TOO MUCH out my failed marriage and incomplete parenthood experience because I DON'T GET IT that 'into every life a little rain must fall?'
Maybe all that was part of my process--my karma.
The mind can be a good friend, but it's a terrible master. We HAVE to take the time to train it.
Teaching the mind to be one's friend is a good idea for me right now. Many friends were and are on the same path as me today. We're pledged to help support each other. I'm not alone.
We all took refuge with the Buddha, His Teaching, and Each Other to be there for us as we go through, we hope, our own ego's dissolution.
And I love my Beloved Friend Jesus, too. He reminds me of Unconditional Love's Beauty and Power. How needed it is in the world and in our daily lives. We Buddhists get a little cerebral sometimes.
I think devotion can play a tremendous role in helping us keep our 'hearts open in hell.'
The cool thing is that you don't need to believe anything to accept the possibility of Ego Dissolution.
It will happen anyway, whether we like it or are prepared for it. It's ALREADY in the cards for us.
So, it makes sense to prepare in advance and put 'Dissolve My Ego' at the top of my to-do list.
I used to think Life was all about finding and worshipping TRUTH in all caps--rather than just doing Truthful Acts and watching Truth gradually unravel itself as a consequence of my practice.
I hope to have time to realize that, and I hope you do, too. Could it really be this easy? Acting our way into Good Thoughts? I've no reason to believe otherwise. So, I'll see you on the Other Shore! Or are we already there?
Good luck!
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