The Night I Started to Cry

I was fifteen when my father died. I was a clueless, spaced-out teenager secluded in my private mental world. During my father’s wake, people came in and out of our house. Many of them I know, and many I do not know. I watched, disinterestedly, as people cried and recited or sang their very sad eulogies.

I did not shed a tear.

My elder sister asked me if I did not miss my father. I just stared at her. I did not know what to say to her.

Yes, I did not miss my father.

People were crying because my father died. They said he passed on, finally, after suffering from a long illness.

He died and I did not cry, because I did not miss him.

I did not know what death means.

My father, because of his work, spent a lot of time away from home. He came home on weekends, usually, but sometimes, he showed up after two or more weekends had passed.

Many months have passed since my father’s death. It has been a very longtime; I started to notice his absence. I started to miss him, badly. I know in my mind that he had died. Everybody knows that too. I had seen him sick, paralyzed, emaciated beyond recognition.

For days, family, friends and strangers alike watched a gaunt body lying still in a coffin . . . and then, when the appointed day came, the men quickly lifted the coffin and hastened off to the mountains to bury it.

But for some reason, an unknown, mysterious reason, I expected my father to just show up – one day – just like the many weekends he always showed up, without fail.

A year passed and my father never showed up!

In that moment, I got it – what they say death means – it is the reason people got very sad and cried.

Then I started crying, every night, for many years.

 

What is Spiritual and What is Not, And The End of Karma.

There’s this spiritual guru (who is known more for his other profession, though he prefers to be known more as a “spiritual person” — duh?) who wanted me to become a follower. Not that there is anything wrong with his wanting me to be one of his followers or students as I myself is always eager to continually grow and expand. He also appeared to be knowledgeable enough, charismatic, and thus, “followable”. And there was I, eager to learn more from a smooth-talking and good-looking spiritual teacher. I happily followed.

Initially, I thought that he and I share a lot of things in common, such as the deeper understanding of the “spiritual mysteries.” As I followed him, however, I realized that we are on a different level of understanding.

Through his teachings, one could discern that he has a very strong opinion about what spirituality is, or what it should be, and this did not sit well with me because of its presumptions:

It presumes that there is a spiritual reality and a non-spiritual reality, and these are two irreconcilable and incompatible worlds. This implies that there are spiritual people, like said guru and others who fall under the category of accepted “spiritual”, and then there are the “non-spiritual” ones who exhibit characteristics that fall outside the label of what is believed to be “spiritual”.

His continued reference on what is spiritual and what is not made him come across more of a moralist rather than an enlightened guru who knows what he is talking about. I was inspired to ask two questions:

Is his emphasis on what is spiritual and what is not an attempt to make people notice their lack of spirituality so they can get themselves more spiritual? Is it because he wants to get people to think and do more “spiritual” things rather than “nonspiritual” things?  Certainly, these are very lofty intentions.

However.

It also gives off the impression that people have to emulate his brand of spirituality wherein contained all the attributes considered “spiritual,” so that they can then be considered “spiritual”.

.

But the question we may be really interested in is, What is spiritual and what is not anyway?

In the highest context, the context of Non Dualism, Oneness and Non Separation (terms which are often referred to by so-called “spirituals” — which of course include above mentioned guru), as these identical terms exactly entail, there is no such thing as “spiritual” and “nonspiritual”. Rather, every thing and every one are spiritual. There are no higher level and lower level creations. No sinner and no saint.

Boring?

Good news!

Karma is non-existent — in the plane of Non Dualism. Everybody is saved, nobody is going to hell!

Oh, that’s bad news! It is surely unfair. What of the evil ones? Are they not going to pay for their sins?

It is certainly bad news to those who are selling salvation and expensive tickets to heaven. Their sales pitch will no longer appeal to the manipulated, frightened, guilt-ridden masses, and so they’ll run out of business.

It is also bad news to those who are hard to forgive others’ trespasses, and to those who absolve themselves from self-responsibility because they find it easier to blame the devil.

It is impossible to really grasp the understanding of Oneness while remaining in a dualistic mindset.

So I’m wondering how a spiritual guru can genuinely teach about Non Dualism, Non Separation, and Oneness if their emphasis lies in the differences, the divisions and separations. Their persistent talk of sin or karma, saint and sinner makes their teachings trite and boring.

While it’s surely a reality that expressions of dualism abound around us, dualistic teachings further the divide rather than bridge the gap to encourage compassion and reconciliation.

Moreover, in a non dualistic context, nobody can really do anything to get more spiritual than they already are. It is a matter of recognizing one’s inherent spirituality, and recognizing exactly that same thing in others. Period.

Aw, I noticed I have become critical of moralistic gurus which makes me judgmental myself! I really, really don’t want to judge, but I just can’t help expressing my observations, sometimes.

Peace!

.

The Drunken Zen Master

Hui-k’o, the Second Patriarch of Zen passed on the bowl and robe to his successor, the Third Patriarch, Seng-ts’an, signifying the transmission of the Dharma.

Hui-k’o, who had received the seal of approval from Bodhidharma himself, then went everywhere drinking and carousing around like a wild man and partaking in the offerings of the brothel districts. When people asked how he could do such a thing, being a Patriarch of the Zen school and all, he would respond with:

“What business is it of yours?”

🙂

Emotion Vs. Intellect in Personal Transformation

If Knowing is Acting, how do we go beyond the intellect in order to really feel, understand, and truly know what the sages know so we can act accordingly?

If you ask the “how” or the process, I won’t be able to tell you in a precise way.

The process is different for everybody.

What I can only say is based on my version of the story which, naturally, is based on personal experience.

The “how” of every transformation necessarily involves the emotions.

Emotion is more powerful than the intellect. Emotions move the body, whereas the intellect may or may not. Intense emotions penetrate every fiber, every cell of our being, causing the transformation of these very cells; the transformation of our physical as well as energetic bodies.

How potent emotion really is?

How do you think people like Hitler are able to influence, as if in a spell, large numbers of people including undoubtedly highly intelligent ones? People whose I.Q. are even much higher than Hitler himself? He appealed to these people’s emotions.

How do you think political organizations and governments, religious institutions, capitalist companies and the media, stir and play with people’s emotions to advance their interests? By evoking fears, insecurities and even sympathy.

How do you think highly intelligent and technologically advanced aliens, such as the Greys, look up to us, very much desirous of that one thing that we have – our ability to feel? You would think that these advanced beings, on their way to greater evolutionary heights, fully equipped with high intelligence and technological prowess, would not be bothered to take an interest on little dramatic earthlings like us. But they do because of what we have which they had long killed within themselves in their unbalanced quest for technological advancement.

We can learn from their experience as they learn from us.

If emotions can be used in very destructive ways, it can also be used in very positive and transformative ways.

Deaths, separations and breakups profoundly affect us that their effect on us are almost always life-changing. Emotion is so powerful that people in love go crazy and it changes their body chemistry.

Emotion is a very effective tool for personal transformation which may eventually lead to that which we seek – enlightenment.

To use emotion for personal transformation, it is crucial that one is able to feel deeply and intensely. And you feel deeply when you fully engage with the world. You interact with other people who serve to trigger within you deep and intense emotional reactions that almost always lead to changes in your life.

In spirituality, this technique or process seems to be the opposite of the other path which involves withdrawing from the world. That path of withdrawing from the world, a path which many in the past have taken, may actually be a longer path.

It was after seeing the truth, after he was enlightened, that the Buddha aptly advised his followers to take the Middle Path.

In my personal process, I am both a recluse and a “party girl”. I immerse myself fully into the world and then extricate myself to contemplate on my experiences and extract the insights I got from them. I follow my passions and whatever it is that is summoning me. This oftentimes requires boldness and vulnerability as I can get hurt and wounded in the process. But each time I come out of an emotionally charged experience, I gain more invincibility and a new level of illumination.

So feel deeply. Live passionately in the world. Play hard. Taste fully the flavors the world has to offer. Seek balance between the two extreme paths. You do not have to deny yourself one thing in order to get another thing.

Finally, do not wait until you “know” what the sages know before acting on their deep realizations and teachings. Because deep inside you, something already knows what the wise ones know.