With the stifling heat, the horde of mosquitoes, and the rumblings of thunder, the past few days have been great for reading. After all, reading does not require one to stand outside, nor to expend any noticeable thermal energy, although it often requires thought – the kind of thing few people were paid for, or perhaps even cared to do, until a few thousand years ago. Thank goodness for progress.
And so I read, nearly two books in fact, and one followed the other almost as if in answer, as if the two authors were standing before an audience arguing their philosophies for a debate team. In my mind, it was the second book that won, hands down.
The first was by psychologist Steve Taylor, titled The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening. Taylor is an acolyte of Eckhart Tolle, who is one of the better known figures in New Age thinking, and Taylor’s ties to the New Age soon became abundantly clear. That does not mean the book is stupid or useless, however, for the New Age is more than crystals and eagle feathers. Here, Taylor brings forth the testimony of several people who have become “awake” and then goes on to explain their experiences and tie them together into a cohesive view. To become awake, one has first to be asleep, and that (according to Taylor) is the state in which most of us find ourselves: lost in the humdrum world of adult existence, suffering internally, chattering to ourselves incessantly to keep this fragile “sleeping” perspective alive. The awake perspective, on the other hand, dazzles with the brightness of existence, both through the eyes and mind, bringing us closer to the truth of ourselves – that we are miraculously conceived into a miraculous world. The awoke person, then, loses the dominance of the ego, which is useful only as a tool for practical tasks, and so loses all anxiety – about social standing, wealth, health, death – all that stuff that keep us “sleepers” sleepless at night.
We read of them and want to be of that number, and Taylor is more than obliging. We find that some people – he uses Walt Whiteman and Wordsworth as two examples – were born naturally awake, while others were simply granted that elevated status later in life. Most, however, became awake through spiritual practice or after suffering a crises, such as a great sickness or the death of an important loved one, whereby the egos were rendered mute, allowing the flow of our natural state to come on through. And it is our natural state: according to Taylor, we were all awake until about 6,000 years ago, when all but a few took part in the “Fall” into ego. Only those primitive tribes that were fortunately isolated from civilization maintained their openness, and these, as we all know, have since mostly met a horrible fate at the hands of us, the civilized.
Taylor goes on and on, and much of what he says is very worthwhile. I found that after reading the book, I wanted less to do with feelings of guilt or social inadequacy, which was worth the price of the book itself. However, there was an all-pervasive theme in the book that became annoying, and then led to almost destroying all the good points. You see, according to Taylor, our entire culture is a disaster, and by living in it, we’re klutzes. We SHOULD be awake, we poor fools, and we should run to our guru as soon as possible to do so. Taylor has even ranked gradations of awake-ness, and at the end of the book gives a test that scores us on just how awake we are. The questions themselves are sometimes blatantly political – heaven forbid that one has any conservative views – and, of course, we are supposed to try to fit ourselves into the awake category as well as we can by proper thinking – to be, what? Culturally acceptable to the New Age gurus?
Which reminded me of the term “woke” which is now used to extol those who clearly see such things as “white privilege” and patriarchy. It clearly represents an obnoxious moral self-righteousness of the politically correct, and is every bit as grating as the self-righteousness of the old-fashioned Bible Thumpers. Same dance, different tune (no insult intended towards the Bible or even some current PC ideas – rather, it is the exclusionary self-righteousness that is so distasteful). And on the noble savage, I believe I have the right to question the veracity of some of that, beginning with the terrible and constant warfare that most primitive peoples were involved in – for matters of social prestige and for “us vs them” thinking, among other things. We can certainly turn the table here and talk about New Age egoic myths in this book if we wanted to.
Then, on to Alan Watts, a former Anglican priest who became something of a trickster guru when he got into Zen and moved to California in the 1950’s. In his book, Tricksters, Interdependence, and the Cosmic Game, he tells us much the same thing as Taylor when talking about our ego selves and the culture that helped spawn them. In fact, it was Watts, as much as anyone else, who informed the New Age philosophy back in the ‘60’s and 70’s. But there is an enormous difference here: Watts doesn’t care, and doesn’t think the universe cares or that we should care, either, about whether we are “awake” or not. His point is that regardless of what we think, we are a part of the God-stuff of the universe. That we don’t know that this is a game that we ourselves have made to grant greater perspective on the universe – for to be an undifferentiated part of it would bring no perspective at all – is ultimately unimportant. In fact, we need the bad to know the good, the dark to know the light, the ignorant to know the truth. We are all connected in the game, the wise and stupid, evil and saintly, and are all part of the shared God that keeps everything going. Deep inside we know it’s a game. We can wake from it anytime we wish – which we all do on at least some level at death.
So we remain ignorant because we choose to, and that’s OK – as parts of God and his plan, how could it not be? In fact, according to Watts, religion is a trick to show us just how ridiculous our questions are about the meaning of it all, because we know it already and are hiding it on purpose. We cannot be told that because we choose to believe something else, and so religion is meant to throw us back onto the impossibility of our questions. From the Zen koans to the Son of Man, we are meant to be bamboozled until our folly is shoved into our face. And then, we are supposed to laugh. Be joyful. It is a game and behind it all is what we have always wanted – and always have had and always will have, even during this game of hide and seek.
Watts doesn’t answer all of MY questions, and of course would not think to do so. It is enough for him to let us know that this is a game. But he gets to the nut of “being awake” without the status, without the holier than thou spirituality, and without politically correct thought. “Don’t worry, be happy” might be his motto, and in times of great fear and pain – no matter how invented it might really be – I don’t think this would grant any great consolation. But the essentialness of the universe, and of our being, IS answered, albeit in a necessarily slippery way, and we don’t have to worry about it at all. We don’t have to feel guilty, we don’t have to feel any more or less holy than someone else, and we are free to think and live our lives as we choose. We are always children of god, no matter what, and when the time comes, you will bring yourself to know that. Until then, love and laugh. Not that I will fully let myself be that way, nor would I want to always be that way, but it’s a darn good start. FK
And so I read, nearly two books in fact, and one followed the other almost as if in answer, as if the two authors were standing before an audience arguing their philosophies for a debate team. In my mind, it was the second book that won, hands down.
The first was by psychologist Steve Taylor, titled The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening. Taylor is an acolyte of Eckhart Tolle, who is one of the better known figures in New Age thinking, and Taylor’s ties to the New Age soon became abundantly clear. That does not mean the book is stupid or useless, however, for the New Age is more than crystals and eagle feathers. Here, Taylor brings forth the testimony of several people who have become “awake” and then goes on to explain their experiences and tie them together into a cohesive view. To become awake, one has first to be asleep, and that (according to Taylor) is the state in which most of us find ourselves: lost in the humdrum world of adult existence, suffering internally, chattering to ourselves incessantly to keep this fragile “sleeping” perspective alive. The awake perspective, on the other hand, dazzles with the brightness of existence, both through the eyes and mind, bringing us closer to the truth of ourselves – that we are miraculously conceived into a miraculous world. The awoke person, then, loses the dominance of the ego, which is useful only as a tool for practical tasks, and so loses all anxiety – about social standing, wealth, health, death – all that stuff that keep us “sleepers” sleepless at night.
We read of them and want to be of that number, and Taylor is more than obliging. We find that some people – he uses Walt Whiteman and Wordsworth as two examples – were born naturally awake, while others were simply granted that elevated status later in life. Most, however, became awake through spiritual practice or after suffering a crises, such as a great sickness or the death of an important loved one, whereby the egos were rendered mute, allowing the flow of our natural state to come on through. And it is our natural state: according to Taylor, we were all awake until about 6,000 years ago, when all but a few took part in the “Fall” into ego. Only those primitive tribes that were fortunately isolated from civilization maintained their openness, and these, as we all know, have since mostly met a horrible fate at the hands of us, the civilized.
Taylor goes on and on, and much of what he says is very worthwhile. I found that after reading the book, I wanted less to do with feelings of guilt or social inadequacy, which was worth the price of the book itself. However, there was an all-pervasive theme in the book that became annoying, and then led to almost destroying all the good points. You see, according to Taylor, our entire culture is a disaster, and by living in it, we’re klutzes. We SHOULD be awake, we poor fools, and we should run to our guru as soon as possible to do so. Taylor has even ranked gradations of awake-ness, and at the end of the book gives a test that scores us on just how awake we are. The questions themselves are sometimes blatantly political – heaven forbid that one has any conservative views – and, of course, we are supposed to try to fit ourselves into the awake category as well as we can by proper thinking – to be, what? Culturally acceptable to the New Age gurus?
Which reminded me of the term “woke” which is now used to extol those who clearly see such things as “white privilege” and patriarchy. It clearly represents an obnoxious moral self-righteousness of the politically correct, and is every bit as grating as the self-righteousness of the old-fashioned Bible Thumpers. Same dance, different tune (no insult intended towards the Bible or even some current PC ideas – rather, it is the exclusionary self-righteousness that is so distasteful). And on the noble savage, I believe I have the right to question the veracity of some of that, beginning with the terrible and constant warfare that most primitive peoples were involved in – for matters of social prestige and for “us vs them” thinking, among other things. We can certainly turn the table here and talk about New Age egoic myths in this book if we wanted to.
Then, on to Alan Watts, a former Anglican priest who became something of a trickster guru when he got into Zen and moved to California in the 1950’s. In his book, Tricksters, Interdependence, and the Cosmic Game, he tells us much the same thing as Taylor when talking about our ego selves and the culture that helped spawn them. In fact, it was Watts, as much as anyone else, who informed the New Age philosophy back in the ‘60’s and 70’s. But there is an enormous difference here: Watts doesn’t care, and doesn’t think the universe cares or that we should care, either, about whether we are “awake” or not. His point is that regardless of what we think, we are a part of the God-stuff of the universe. That we don’t know that this is a game that we ourselves have made to grant greater perspective on the universe – for to be an undifferentiated part of it would bring no perspective at all – is ultimately unimportant. In fact, we need the bad to know the good, the dark to know the light, the ignorant to know the truth. We are all connected in the game, the wise and stupid, evil and saintly, and are all part of the shared God that keeps everything going. Deep inside we know it’s a game. We can wake from it anytime we wish – which we all do on at least some level at death.
So we remain ignorant because we choose to, and that’s OK – as parts of God and his plan, how could it not be? In fact, according to Watts, religion is a trick to show us just how ridiculous our questions are about the meaning of it all, because we know it already and are hiding it on purpose. We cannot be told that because we choose to believe something else, and so religion is meant to throw us back onto the impossibility of our questions. From the Zen koans to the Son of Man, we are meant to be bamboozled until our folly is shoved into our face. And then, we are supposed to laugh. Be joyful. It is a game and behind it all is what we have always wanted – and always have had and always will have, even during this game of hide and seek.
Watts doesn’t answer all of MY questions, and of course would not think to do so. It is enough for him to let us know that this is a game. But he gets to the nut of “being awake” without the status, without the holier than thou spirituality, and without politically correct thought. “Don’t worry, be happy” might be his motto, and in times of great fear and pain – no matter how invented it might really be – I don’t think this would grant any great consolation. But the essentialness of the universe, and of our being, IS answered, albeit in a necessarily slippery way, and we don’t have to worry about it at all. We don’t have to feel guilty, we don’t have to feel any more or less holy than someone else, and we are free to think and live our lives as we choose. We are always children of god, no matter what, and when the time comes, you will bring yourself to know that. Until then, love and laugh. Not that I will fully let myself be that way, nor would I want to always be that way, but it’s a darn good start. FK
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