WORK: A SPIRITUAL HUMAN DISTRACTION, A CURSE?

The Maniacal Laughter of the Damned: Why you can live and work in the real world without making a deal with the Devil

by Randy Vaughan

237 pages. Available from Booklocker.com

An open disputation of the myth of a so-called work ethic.

COMMENT: This ebook from Booklocker.com is recommended to all Seekers having a hard time surviving their conflict with human inconsequentialities. The following is from Booklocker’s catalogue, printed here with their permission.

About the Book

The simple fact is this:

There are two realities operating simultaneously regarding employment in this country. There are the occupations and careers requiring college education, degrees, and titles.

And then there are those for everyone else.

So what does a person who leaves high school and goes to college for four, eight, or more years and then moves into that specific field for which he has studied and trained—what does someone like that really know about working in America, really know about the hiring process, truly understand about looking for, landing, and keeping a job?

The answer to that one is easy: Nothing.

The Maniacal Laughter of the Damned: Why you can live and work in the real world without making a deal with the Devil is a non-fiction book that openly and convincingly disputes the myth of a so-called work ethic to conclude that the biggest mistake this country ever made was to confuse education for intelligence.

Contrary to conventional wisdom there is not more to life than working and making money. There is only life. In the final analysis, the only true ethical dilemma takes the form of a question made up of just seven words:

“How far are you willing to go?”

For nothing more than money and the stuff it will buy, how far are you, personally, willing to go? Are you going to live your life on your terms or someone else’s?

The Maniacal Laughter of the Damned will show you why answering that one question can and will lead to everything you would ever need or want to know about not only working, but also living, in the real world.

Anyone trying to make sense of the relationships and ensuing conflicts encountered daily in the workplace will find that this book gives words and meaning to what are often just feelings and intuitions. Readers can and will relate to the many stories told throughout the pages. Some make you laugh, others make you angry, and some leave your shaking your head in total disbelief.

So if you have ever worked for someone else as an employee, ever filled out a job application, sat through a job interview, or if there is a chance you will do this in the future, you will want this book. It tells the sometimes painful, sometimes incredulous and inane, truth that is the very stuff of working for a living.

Randy Vaughan lives in national obscurity in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia. With some sixty employers in his past, he still has no answer for “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He fears “growing up” amounts to giving up his very personhood.

A Finger Pointing to the Moon – Weltanschauung

https://zenothestoic.com/2018/11/20/a-finger-pointing-to-the-moon/

I almost recommend this beautifully crafted essay by a Follower of this Blog wholeheartedly, because it seems to me he is on the very edge of Realisation, and indeed, very often experiences Its fringes without recognising it. He cannot let go the Siren call of the richness of his gifted human life. Or so it seems to me. You may receive his insights and intuitions differently. I can’t accept the essay wholeheartedly because of his apparently despairing flounderings into the dead end of psilocybins.

The Doors of Perception

Reposted from zenothestoic.com

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern”.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Is it so strange that a deep interest in science should be combined with an equally deep desire for mysticism and transcendance?

I think not; the two can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Reality seen both from the intellect and from the senses. A yearning for transcendance. Some would say a desire to escape from the base reality. Which is all that is accessible to most of us in a “normal” state of mind.

Both science and mysticism offer us infinity. Infinite space and power. Infinite universes and time. Teleportation, downloading the mind into another form of matter, eternal life, time travel. Science is not ashamed to speculate on such matters. To an ancient people, we would appear as gods. In the far future, or in a distant corner of the multiverse, there exists intelligence with powers which even we would consider godlike.

The mind allows us to travel to such places and such times. To witness infinity, to feel the mind of “god”.

These days, few rational men believe in traditional religious systems. And yet through the ages the mystics have had glimpses of some alternate truth, some reality which in our ordinary minds is denied to us.

Science struggles to explain consciousness and yet some scientists tell us that consciousness is a law of nature all of its own. That consciousness “is”.

Not that consciousness is an emergent property of physical elements. But that consciousness is a law of physics itself. Universal consciousness, consciousness as the very “self” of the universe.

So listen to how the mystics describe their experiences.

Meister Eckhart:

“To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.”

Alan Watts:

“What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.”

Siddhartha:

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”

Both science and contemplation seek knowledge. Self knowledge, truths, the “truth”.

Science uses instruments and machinery and conducts experiments. Science seeks truth through the intellect.

The quiet mind seeks experience directly. To feel the truth, to experience it.

Neither should be disparaged. Both should be embraced. Neither is complete without the other.

HUMAN CLUTTER VERSUS ULTIMATE REALITY

A Follower who feels he is a mystic has sent me emails on how Ultimate Reality is made up by humans. He quotes biblical references that make him sound religious.

This apparent confusion made me think of stories how “The Devil”, (or what nowadays I see is called, “The Negative Principle”), insinuates into and pollutes the truth of Reality’s existence…

This is how the correspondence developed:

ME: My experiences direct me and my Blog to serious Seekers, mystics, scientists and academics who are examining the phenomena of spiritual awakening to Ultimate Reality, not to people just wanting to be better humans.

Consequently, I avoid anything that identifies with mere human experience which, in my view, is not worth studying, including mythomanic human constructs such as religions. I avoid expressions of merely human experiences like “super hero” or “alter ego” (words that the Follower used).

I realise this might be provocative, even challenging to present day humans, so when a Master advised me to ignore social media when distributing the Blog I did so immediately. The consequent dissipation of such spiritually fatuous social media distractions has been dramatically purifying …

FOLLOWER: But you are still a human, right?

Not for long, just temporarily. As a mystic my experiences of Reality indicate I am in progress. I have duties and responsibilities as a human while I’m here but they are spiritually insignificant attachments that will disappear with the mind and body as the human experience dies and evolves into pure Ultimate Reality.

FOLLOWER: Mystics must embody the human experience too, or it seems they have excluded a part of the Whole, the One. They say that Jesus was fully divine AND fully human, not either-or (hypostatic union). He was fully both, as are you and me.

ME: The Jesus Conference of international metaphysicians, scientists, academics, theologians, religionists have frequently met and published their findings, studies and experiments. They have arrived at the conclusion the biblical Jesus left only a dozen or so words attributable to him, and no spiritual teachings, only human morality and ethics.

Bishop Spong, an attendee, says the spiritual is more important than the religious.

FOLLOWER: God or Ultimate Reality incarnates itself as human, as us, in all of our broken and suffering humanity.

ME: No. My experiences of Reality delivered no evidence of any God or gods or any religious teachings whatsoever. Humans seem to have little or no significance in the infinitely, ineffable, bigger picture of Ultimate Reality. I could be wrong about my use of the word, “little”.

FOLLOWER: … we are both human AND divine, we are both a part and the One, simultaneously. We can’t ignore or dismiss this embodied manifestation, it seems to me, or we’ve missed a critical part of the totality, the very expression of Reality on Earth and in this particular finite embodied body-mind.

ME: Reality is not an expression of anything. It IS absolutely all things in Itself, unique, of which humans are merely a part; in my experiences of Ultimate Reality.

FOLLOWER: I would go so far as to say, as Eckhart does, that God or Ultimate Reality doesn’t exist apart from our embodied nature in any manifest way.

ME: Eckhart is wrong about Ultimate Reality but right about “God”, if my experiences mean anything. God is a human construct. Reality is not. Reality is not God in the general, cultural accepted sense. Reality is outside humanity. Reality is enough. It cannot be taught or learned, only caught, experienced. The experience of Ultimate Reality is the beginning of all wisdom.

FOLLOWER: If we did not exist, Reality would not exist, it would only be unmanifest formless potential.

ME: No! Absolutely not. I would be astonished to hear an experienced mystic say that.

Reality is not manmade, in my experiences. It’s the other way round. Humans could not exist without Reality, nothing can. Reality is enough, It existed long before and will after humanity’s existence. It is beyond infinite, beyond even mere alpha or omega …

FOLLOWER: … Reality finds actuality, in my view. This body is Reality’s actualized form.

ME: No; nowhere near the case, in my experience. Reality is ineffable – completely beyond human understanding or imagination.

FOLLOWER: When we know our divinity fully we also know our humanity fully. We realize the Anthropos (fully “Human One”, or “Son of Man”).

ME: No. When we eventually know Reality fully then humanity ceases, is fufilled.

I agreed when the Follower said we disagree! However, my experiences are of Reality, not human “ideas” or experiences as the Follower suggests. I am guided not to clutter my experiences of Ultimate Reality with temporary human distractions, what one Sufi school calls “manmukh”.

Ultimate Reality is very pure, perhaps what the bible meant when it said, “I am a jealous God”, (Exodus 20:5; Dueteronomy 5:9; 2Corinthians 6:15; 2Corinthians 11.2).

FOLLOWER: I think the reason that we speak and write such “ideas” about our “experiences” is that Reality wants to express itself, it wants to guide humans to it, to knowing it as it is, and it does so through us. I agree that none of these “ideas” is pure Ultimate Reality as it is in itself, as it is experienced directly, but this is rather all a pointer, a symbol, a metaphor, a relative truth that points to that Reality.

ME: I don’t think you can reduce Reality to being a penitent. My experience is that Reality doesn’t need our help. I was made helpless when Reality called. Aren’t all mystics?

Reality does it’s own work. Human attachments and ego get in the way. Just look at the human practice of “spirituality”, its history. (“The Negative Principle” at work again?). Some ancient, we could say perennial, mystery schools have millions of followers but keep themselves safely hidden from human effects, the spiritual tourists, the curious and spiritually uncalled, those unprepared by Reality. Reality happens when we’re utterly still.

FOLLOWER: All that we say is human “ideas.” Every word, yours and mine.

ME: Not if you’re a mystic.

FOLLOWER: Why have a blog if you don’t want to clutter the experience with such human distractions?

ME: Good point. I resisted the uncalled for, long delayed promptings to start a blog on my experiences for a long time, then, giving in to what seemed the inevitable, the penny dropped and I began. It’s been an eye opener, a serendipity of spiritual profusion and validation. Truly, All Is Well.

So I was determined not to tell readers what to think, as the religions do, but lay out my Mystical Experiences of Reality for those who were already seeking, who to some extent understood as much as what was said as unsaid, whose discrimination was already under Reality’s will. Only consciousness can understand consciousness, (as Deepak Chopra has obviously experienced, and expressed publicly, (though he was referring to the limits of science).

My determination was somewhat achieved eventually by “unqualifying” social media followers as well as those whose hunger and thirst are still deeply entangled at a non spiritual level.

Some find the process of the Blog helpful, easily assimilated, natural – others difficult. Few seem to give up its personal challenges once committed to having it sent regularly to their email.

However, I wouldn’t presume to put a value on the work. Suffice it to say the spiritual processing I get as a result of publishing it has been beyond understanding, immensely humbling, benign and ineffably loving. I could not have been changed, or shown what I have been shown, without Reality. Sharing the Blog is simply obeying and communicating what I know of the Reality I have been shown, come what may …

Here are just some of the conclusions I have drawn from my experiences. They have already been published in the Blog.

Mysticexperiences.net

AFTER MER!?

Alan Watts suggested that after the mystical experience one could commit suicide or hang about to see what happens …

Alan Watts was a profound student of the historical experience of spiritual transcendence, a humorous, prolific author and public speaker on the subject as well as on Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Zen and Buddhism. He was a Zen Master and Buddhist. Born in Chislehurst, England, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began his Zen training in New York.

Mysticexperiences.net

SUMMARY Of BLOG’S CONCLUSIONS SO FAR

This Blog is a summation of a lifetime’s experiences and personal development as the result of multiple, spontaneous yearly experiences of Ultimate Reality.

After four years of writing about these experiences on the web page, mysticexperiences.net, I can summarise my conclusions as follows:

There is an Ultimate Reality over all existence, over everything known and unknown.
Humans exist as part of it.
Nothing exists outside it.
It is outside general current human experience.
It is not biological
It only manifests to individuals, for reasons yet unknown.
It is not created or influenced by humans.
Humans have no control of it whatsoever.
Nothing human affects that Ultimate Reality.
With human individuals it is benign, accepting, nurturing, gives ineffable joy.
It is indifferent to human constructs such as family, culture, or social organisations national or otherwise.
Human evolution could be absorbing into this Ultimate Reality, eventually making these temporary human bodies and minds extinct for something ethereal. Is this what human beings are all about?

mysticexperiences.net

RELIGIONS – AGAIN!

A long time follower of my Blog said, “You are getting too dogmatic. It is either your way or it is wrong. There are many paths to the same goal, whether that is MER or any other objective in life.”

It was not the first time the follower had expressed disquiet about my witness to the absence of religion in any of my experiences of Ultimate Reality.

But experience of that absence seems an important prompting for the spiritually engaged – it seems worth sharing that religions are not the way, and certainly not the goal of existence, human or otherwise.

But I agree. I had mentioned my concern to others that my posts were getting didactic.

I’m afraid there’s no remedy that immediately suggests itself to my dogmatism because I determined right from the start of sharing my experiences I would not allow non-MER influences to veil, obscure, or impose on what I am given. It is not in my gift. I describe what I can then it’s up readers to make up their own minds about their destiny if they can.

Some readers will find my experiences and those of other mystics meet their spiritual condition of awareness and seeking. Others will not, especially if they’re not ready.

When I say people who are not ready, I mean they will be like those who when Dr Stephen Hawking likens the mind to being the programmer of the brain, then the “not readies” will be as humans running just on one outdated app. They will be mired in others’ old, secondhand, religious truths about human destiny, unmoved by their own unique promptings.

It should be remembered that though a religion sprung up after the biblical Jesus’s death, this Jesus did not leave any spiritual teachings. Even what the bible purports to reveal of his mystical experiences of Reality are hidden, veiled from everyone except those who have had those experiences too.

I have experienced religions in their various forms. The only kind way I can describe them positively is to suggest they are sincerely wrong and very often the words sincere, truth and integrity collide violently in them all.

Tao and Buddhism are not religions but are increasingly impurified by aspects of that enemy of Ultimate Reality, the human mind.

On the other hand I have experienced MER, which I found to be pure, incomparable, incompatible with religions. It gives on all levels of existence, even human existence – never takes. As the Bible says:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth”. 1 Corinthians 13 1

Paul was describing aspects of the mystical experience of Reality not human mind stuff like religions.

Experience is truly the beginning of wisdom and truth. MER is “The Greatest Achievement in Life” as Ron Krumpos has titled his widely read book on mysticism. I agree. I cannot betray my MERs, however dogmatic I might seem.

However, the blog Follower does have a point. I agree I’ve probably written enough on MER’s promptings on religions versus spirituality.

Anyway, as MER seems to be the primal factor in the evolution of all existence, religions on the other hand seem to be a dwindling consideration in pondering the human condition. Is this a sign of humanity growing up?

As for mystics and their different paths, I agree again. “No two mystics are alike,” says the Follower. “That is also true of any two physicians, financial advisors, physicists, or any other function.”

Seen through a human lens that makes sense. But mystics are a different lens. Actually, they don’t even need a lens to experience a conception of Ultimate Reality that is beyond current human comprehension. Their paths are significantly beyond ordinary human reach and their paths are not religious.

Ultimate Reality’s ways are not human ways, and human ways are not Ultimate Reality’s.

All Is Well.

mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICISM versus THE INNOCENCE OF EVIL?

Contemplatives from eight different religious traditions—Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Native American, Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic—met at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, to define their experience of Ultimate Reality as mystics.

After sharing their conclusions with other contemplatives and mystics they issued what became known as, “The Snowmass Conference Eight Points of Agreement”, as follows:

1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.

Comment: No, religions do not, as the slightest examination of some religions will show how mysticism is ostracised if not worse, derided, punished and far from accepted as mainstream or even allowable.

2. Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.

Comment: True!

3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.

Comment: For Reality, yes. If the implication is humans can attain it under their own volition, No! There is no evidence humans can achieve this enlightenment on their own. Reading and deep stud might bring humans to a realisation of Ultimate Reality, even a sympathy and empathy, but not the actual experience of this Reality.

4. Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.

Comment: Faith, hope and belief are for those who have not had the mystical experience of Reality. Those who have had the experience, (mystics), have no need of faith, hope nor belief because they KNOW. They do not need to “Fake It To Make it”.

Belief systems may be invented around the experience but with the actual experience these systems will eventuality fall under the weight of their lack of real foundation, as we see today.

5. The potential for human wholeness—or, in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness—is present in every human being.

Comment: The “potential for human wholeness” is a gift of Reality, comes only by the will of Reality (“grace”?). We are limited by human attributes, abilities, and species evolution in a reality created and nurtured by Reality alone.

6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others.

Comment: There is no “religious practice” nor “human service” or involvement that can create the experience of Reality. It cannot be experienced through artifice, ie., “art”, “nature”, animism “human relationships” or “service to others”.

The experience is caught, not taught. It cannot be evangelised, prosyletised or politicised.

The experience It is not abandoned by Reality to the vagaries of human stewardship, gifting, human effort, or human qualification. It is uniquely spontaneous and non human.

7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.

Comment: Yes. But Reality is taking care of all that. Reality’s expectations are not yet our expectations, nor our current expectations Reality’s. Reality is in overall charge, not us.

8. Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life.

Comment: No it isn’t. It is essential for the religious life – concocted however sincerely by humans – but is not a requirement of experiencing Ultimate Reality. That, evidently, has been too important to Ultimate Reality to be left to humans.

… spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.

That’s right.

Number 8 seems to contradict itself. There’s muddle.

Summary of Comments

I’m puzzled by the idea these eight contemplative results of the experience of Reality are being associated with the idea religions can now take charge of some implied need for “religious practices”, for “faith”, for the need to worship nature and love each other etc, when the very experience of Reality expunges all need for suchlike human preoccupations.

The mystical experience of Reality (MER) makes it axiomatic we become better human beings while we are human but there is more afoot than being merely human, as MER primarily attests. If we don’t get this we don’t get MER.

The fruits of the experience of Ultimate Reality are not mere human mind stuff, emotion, mythomania or meme. As part of human evolution into Reality, MER rids us of these old, materialistic human rigidities.

The message of Ultimate Reality is that Ultimate Reality is in charge of creation, which includes the human condition, and that humans have been given no stewardship of this reality whatsoever.

Yet I see the same assertive human distortions, (power grabbing?), in some of the eight points that also misled the biblical Jesus and lead to the failure of his mission.

It is sad to see such spiritual hubris persisting to this day by way of religions. It brings to mind the C.S. Lewis tale of the elder Satan comforting the younger Satan for letting his pupil have feelings for “God”. The elder Satan counselled the young Satan to divert his pupil into Christianity.

While these eight points are a welcome demonstration of the human condition emerging from its chrysalis to awareness of its spiritual identity, it’s sad to see it’s still being stifled by the demands of human mindsets like religions. Is this the innocence of evil at work?

Mysticexperience.net

THE EXISTENCE OF “CONSCIOUSNESS”

“The existence of both cosmos and consciousness, each in its own way, constitute deep problems, perhaps grand mysteries beyond human knowing. Some claim that the two mysteries can only be solved in parallel, together, not in series, alone. Some base their claim on religion, a few on science, others on the belief that consciousness is ultimate reality.”

—Closertotruth.com (This site interviews leading scientists and academics from all over the world on understanding human existence).

Comment: Consciousness is another word for “growth” in my view because everything experienced by humans has always shown this development of growth, this coming into being: evolution, emergence.

At one time we’re told, humans didn’t see in colour. Now we do, but do we see all the colours, shades and tints that exist? Are all sounds even available to our ears?

Similarly, there is a great deal more unseen in ultimate reality that ordinary humans, unlike the mystics, can’t even guess at and has nothing significant to do with matter, not even earth, the stars and planets.

Even the mystics don’t know it all yet; they’re probably the precursors of what’s to come for humans before humans dissolve into Reality as some scientists like Dr. Michio Kaku imply we will.

Only some of us, mystics in particular uniquely experience this “consciousness”, this ultimate source of all existence and development.

The mystics know it is a process of an ever continuing beginning of wisdom, of knowing and understanding our real Reality.

This “consciousness” is not just what we are now or what we have been, or even human history. It is ultimate reality; where we’re going.

Importantly for humans to understand, from the evidence of mysticism this “consciousness” of Reality, is not in the stewardship of humans – religions, science, or ideologies; of anything human. Reality rules, not humans.

The good news is, Reality is benign, accepting, nurturing, giving never taking, endless.

All is well.

Mysticexperiences.net

YOU DON’T HAVE ANY “PROBLEMS”

QUESTION: You say you’re not a teacher, a guru etc. You say you’re not here to pass on your experiences of Reality. So what do your experiences mean?

ANSWER: I am growingly persuaded my experiences are for my benefit, so are tailored accordingly just for me. I don’t know why.

They are not experiences with a general meaning applicable to everyone, though they do have basic physical similarities with other historical experiences of Reality.

I feel my experiences are still developing me beyond just being a present day human.

Q: So your experiences have no message for humanity?

A: Not directly from me, no. My example might help, but that would be a process that’s not in my hands.

Q: Is that why you don’t teach, invite pupils, get into social internet sites, ask for money?

A: Yes. I’m directed and developed by my mystical experiences of Reality every moment of my life. There are more important things afoot for me than being merely human. For me, extraneous human clutter is dealt with by the fruits of discernment and avoidance.

I have the code word humans gave me when I was born – my human name. But now I wear the masks my experiences have given me. They help me endure the human experience.

Q: Presumably you have none of the natural human problems?

A: There’s nothing usual about human problems.

All human “problems” are man made, creations of the mind. The mind, like the “problems” it creates, dies on death. (Is everything outside Reality in entropy?).

Even if your troubles seem to come from another person or exterior circumstances, it is you that has allowed yourself into that situation. You are oblivious to the consequences you have allowed your mind to sleepwalk you into …

Your mind is in default most of the time, just going along with other defaulting minds without ever thinking for yourself – just going with the human herd. Do you have any real values, do you need what values you think you have or have you just accepted what stuck as you slept through a life without examination?

The mind works autonomously as a means of evolution. But uncontrolled, running mostly on default, it’s an impediment to human development. It denies humans the real contentment that MER (The Mystical Experience of Reality) indicates is every human’s true inheritance. Contentment is snatched away by minds running on default.

In Reality there are no problems. There’s no need for them this side of Reality either.

Q: What’s the answer?

A: I can only suggest just being still, getting down to examining the very roots of the “problems” you’ve allowed yourself to get into. This will need persistence, change.

Just persist. The practice becomes a habit, a powerful, transcending habit.

There are no “troubles” in Reality or real ones out of Reality, none whatsoever …

All your lifetime’s un-examined accretions of lust, anger, greed, all your personal, family, social relationships, ideological attachments, attitudes, and finally, ego are nothing to do with the real you buried under them. As you progress they will peel off as if you never had them. The real you will emerge in full bloom.

If you’re called to be a Seeker the process will soon grip you and lead you on. It’s an easier process for you. You were born for it.

However, all humans can find themselves, know themselves and be content this side of Reality.

Reality seeks you as much as you seek Reality. Reality is the real reason for being.

Mysticexperiences.net

The Path of the Mystic: The Gospel Of John — Seeking Spirituality

If one were to ask for a list of the most influential and sacred scriptures regarding the Divine and its self-realization by mankind, I’m sure a number of different responses would be offered. But I am also sure that three sacred texts from three different world religions would be at the top of that list; […]

via The Path of the Mystic: The Gospel Of John — Seeking Spirituality

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES OF REALITY: VOLUNTARY OR NOT?

Long-time follower of this Blog, Ron Krumpos, starts the debate.

Ron has degrees in philosophy from Northwestern University, Lucknow University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His book, The Greatest Achievement In Life, is a comprehensive account of mysticism as experienced today. Ron interviewed 10 mystics from around the world to write it. It is a free reprintable pdf book with more than 70,000 downloads so far.

Ron: Keith, you said about MER, “It’s caught, not taught.” In religious terms what is ‘caught’ is grace. Divine grace is spiritual assistance not specifically earned by its recipient. Most mystics believe that divine grace is offered at all times

Keith: Grace is “A state of sanctification by God” according to Word Web dictionary. But that’s just an historically religious statement that gives the words “sanctification” and “God” old cultural meanings that have nothing to do with my experiences of Reality every year from the age of about 14 years to my late thirties.

Is there any empirical or experiential evidence that the experience is offered at all times? It’s not an option.

If MER (Mystical Experience of Reality) is an evolutionary factor could this suggest we will all become this Ultimate Reality finally anyway, grace or no grace? (Is that what the biblical Jesus meant when he said, I and my Father (God) are one?).

Ron: … in all places and to all beings, the sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry.

Keith: “… sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry” is unlikely if my experience is to be trusted.

The phenomena is spontaneous and does not need or accept invitations or permissions. The idea that anything could “block its entry” seems self contrary.

I certainly didn’t want to block my special experiences, nor could I have resisted such an engulfment even if I’d known how … The ineffable joy, oneness with all things then, now and forever, the knowledge, understanding, and humility, all given without any taking is truly ineffable. I was my true self. I tried desperately, bitterly to resist being gently deposited back into my humanity when each episode ended. There was never any question of choice in any of it.

Ron: “God’s grace is the beginning, middle and the end. When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck deep in water and yet crying for water.” Ramana Maharshi.

Keith: The implication of this quote seems to be that everyone can experience the phenomenon of their own volition if they just pay attention. This is not my personal experience. My experiences were spontaneous, as I’ve said.

Ron: “God continually showers the fullness of his grace on every being in the universe, but we consent to receive it to a greater or lesser extent.” Simone Weil.

Keith: By the same logic a tulip could consent to rain or refuse it. It seems unlikely MER has ever been or could be left in the care of humans any more than to plants.

The hard question here is, can we do anything personally about emerging into what the mystics tell us we truly are?

On the evidence of the biblical Jesus’s attempts to evangelise the mystical experience of Reality, and other such failed attempts of historical note, plus my own anecdotal witness, I’d have to say No.

Mysticalexperiences.net

MYSTICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS II

The consciousness of the MER I refer to (see Mystics and Consciousness Part I) seems unique to mystics. It is that consciousness of MER that defines the mystic, in my experience.

I suspect there is an even greater consciousness even today’s mystics haven’t yet experienced. Even that greater consciousness might not be the limit of such evolutionary progress. There are likely many more, greater and greater levels of cosmic consciousness that both humans and mystics in their present form will never experience.

Present human consciousness seems limited to a primary human level of evolution. But mystical experience of consciousness are different. They do not have usual human biological limitations at all.

Mystics are not so much ‘wired’ differently but are used differently to experience vastly more about an endless, benign Reality. …

Mystic brains seem to receive their consciousness rather than create it, as some scientists propose. (This might explain why those who accept reincarnation claim mystics wont have to face the human experience again after bodily death).

Mysticexperiences.net

WISDOM AND MER

The gift of mysticism?

Are the fruits of MER (Mystical Experience of Reality), not so much the analytical thinking, logic and reason of the rational human animal, the plodding, careful integrity of the scientific truth seeker that takes us through the practicalities, the physical aspects of life? Or is it the experience of Reality that is MER?

Is MER the evolutionary unveiling of a much truer, non-human perception of our existence?

Is it a profound insightfulness, intuitive empiricism, a dissolution of our materialism, an engulfment by the joy, love and true everlasting self of true wisdom, the complete knowing of the Reality in which all things really exist and have their true being?

Is our destiny nothing so mundane as the stars and planets? Are we more than that?

Are we emerging?

Is this what the historical phenomenon of mysticism is all about: that All Is Well?

Mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Non mystics take their consciousness from the society or culture in which they find themselves.

Largely by default they absorb and are taught the commonality of their experience of existence by the entertainment industry, plays, films, books, TV, taboos, fads, fashions, trends, religions, cultures, societal norms, ideologies, politics and suchlike – all impermanences, mostly mythomanic.

This is the extent of their consciousness. Gurus call it “sleep walking”. This lower defaulting consciousness defines the limits of most humans. They are not mystics.

Mystics are given the big C Consciousness of the Reality of cosmic existence. This Blog calls the experience the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER), in which all things ever known and unknown, including matter and spirit have always and will always exist.

Some modern physicists are suggesting Consciousness is evolutionary human “emergence”. Elsewhere in this Blog I have likened the process to the chrysalis effect.

Whatever, that experience is what makes mystics fundamentally different. It’s probably why Drs Burke then Sinetar suggested mystics are a separate human species. Some of today’s physicists suggest this Consciousness could be the cosmos’s fundamental nature from which everything emanates (what older generations reduced to a diminutive worldly humanoid they called God?).

Whatever, this experience is why mystics ignore the unrelenting impermanence of human consciousness. To them and true Seekers mere human consciousness is a hindrance to evolutionary fulfillment.

There is not much of value at the level of ordinary human consciousness unless you want to stop evolution, just remain in comfortable stasis with the perennial struggle to be a better human being.

(Ironically, being a better human being is axiomatically, automatically achieved as a by-product of capital C Consciousness, MER).

Ignatius Loyola who despite founding the Jesuits was brave for his times by admitting mystic reality is nevertheless “the better part” of human fulfillment.

Mysticexperiences.net