“Where is now, the glory and the dream?”
These words of the poet, William Wordsworth, touch deeply what T.S. Eliot called our “dry cellar.” Our dry cellar, the absence of a vibrant inner life, shows up in a variety of familiar emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. These include boredom, doubt, confusion, meaninglessness, depression, suicide, addiction, urgency, restlessness, endless striving, dissatisfaction, ennui, and on. Where in modern times is the barely remembered “glory and the dream?”
A poignant sense of the subtle absence of an intangible something more to life, touches all of us. The busier we keep our self the more hidden it is, but when our psychology or physiology finally falters or fails us, as it will, there is an unexpected gap in our life, and it is then that we are most likely to experience the void that underlies our restless and busy lives.
Irrespective of personal circumstance, history, or culture, humankind longs for the sweet essence which exists beyond the veil of day-to-day life, its transient pleasures, and endless activity. That is our existential condition. We know there is something more to life, beyond our worldly activities and achievements that is hidden from daily sight. Hidden, that is, except for an indelible memory that quietly beckons us towards what is larger and holds greater meaning - a lost home we silently and barely remember.
The young child for whom all of life, in the poet’s words, is bathed in “celestial light” is blessed for a brief period of time (actually the longest of all mammals) to be cared for and protected by others. For this brief moment of innocence, the child, free of worldy pulls and stifling conventions, is able to experience and sustain a simple curiosity, unconditioned awareness, spontaneous delight, natural awe, and full presence in the moment, what the poet calls the glory and the dream. The young naively experiences the essence of what eludes the adult.
In time, the exigencies of worldly life begin their slow closing down of this celestial garden of life. Aldous Huxley refers to this as a “reducing valve” that inexorably narrows our conscious experience to what is essential for safety, protection, “success,” and the conduct of day-to-day life.
In time we learn to live within the constraints of culture, to adopt its mores, narrow our vision, produce, and achieve. The wonder and awe of childhood is contracted into a narrow ego structure, our day-to-day “I,” with which we live our lives, seeking to survive and prosper in the outer world.
This is a necessary chapter, or perhaps aspect, of human life. Our personal ego structure serves as the framework and reference point for daily life. It contains our beliefs, identities, perceptual habits, reaction patterns, assimilated values, and judgments. It becomes who and what we are - our day-to-day home, a utilitarian life, for good and difficult. It guides us in navigating the outer world. The cost paid is considerable, as our natural home becomes a distant memory.
What we are left with is our day-to-day life and world sprinkled with its recurring transient pleasures and satisfactions, loses and longings. Let me clarify that this is not to devalue the potential beauty and significance of daily life. It is only to note that it simultaneously and deceptively obscures the glory and nobility of our full human possibility.
And further, our day-to-day activities and ordinary sense of “I” fail to offer us a stabilizing vision and experience that can sustain us when our psychology and physiology fail us, as they will in time. Only an expansive vision of Self and life will allow us to create high level well-being in daily life and the capacity to traverse the great and unavoidable existential challenges of human life.
Let’s explore this profound yet natural home of “presence and being.” At least we will then know it when we touch it. The great American psychologist, William James, called the adult experience of our natural home a “religious experience,” a touch beyond the ordinary into the transcendent life, a touch into the essence of who and what we are.
This human experience is mostly hidden from common view and cannot be revealed or sustained through effort or will. We have all touched this fullness of being - through an immersion in nature, beauty, art, dance, music, intimacy and other activities in which we briefly “lose” our ordinary sense of self. But it’s likely we’ve thought these glimpse are only serendipitous occurrences, destined to leave as mysteriously as they arrived. Few will recognize it as who and what we really are at the center of our being.
Except for a fortunate few, this touch may be only a transient glimpse of your essence. Let’s take a closer look. In its partial or full experience, what James called the “religious experience” - irrespective if you are a monotheist, atheist, or pantheist” - is characterized by: 1) the dissolution of ego – the loss of the solid and autonomous sense of personhood, 2) the experience of wholeness, oneness, and completeness, 3) timelessness, 4) a profound gratitude and embrace of all, 5) a sense of certainty that one has touched the essence and final reality of existence and self, and 6) the realization of its ineffability, the inability to communicate this experience in common language. These are the universal markers of a religious, transcendent, or mystical experience. When you experience a “peak” experience of this nature, from whatever causes and however unexpectedly, note the presence of one or more of these universal characteristics. They will likely be transient, but do not mistake their transience for their essential truth and revelation.
Except for a few, most of us are meant to return through the “reducing valve” of consciousness into the narrower framework of ordinary life. We may have experienced some or all of these qualities for varying periods of time, usually very briefly. Although these experiences fade in intensity over time, they are often retained in memory as an indelible truth. Over time they serve as a signpost of the ineffable larger possibilities of life. For many these glimpses may result in long term changes in perception, well-being, compassion, and consciousness. That is the gift, the blessing, the grace of such visitations.
You may ask, “What now?” “What do I do with this information?” It’s a question I ask myself as well. First, know that the unacknowledged but insistent longing for more in the midst of day-to-day life may not be, as it may as it first appear, a lack of accomplishment in ordinary terms or an absence of transient sources of pleasure. Rather, it is more likely a calling from the depths, that gently yet persistently seeks to remind you of who and what you truly are, of the you that has no name.
Second, know with certainty that these glimpses, that occur when you lose your ordinary self and reveal your natural self, are real, truthful, and increasingly accessible with intention, effort, and grace. Do not be deceived into shrugging them off as serendipitous and illusory experiences. “That was great, but what does it have to do with me?” It has everything to do with you. It is you. Summon forth the courage and fearlessness to live in your truth and reality. T.S. Eliot asserts that humans can bear very little reality. Is that you?
Third, know that you must prepare yourself as an embodiment capable of stabilizing and living from your heavenly garden. That preparation is described in all great traditions: the 10 commandments of the monotheistic traditions, the 8 fold way or 6 perfections of the Buddhist path, the naturalism of the Tao, the 8 fold path of yoga, and so forth. The cultures are different but the essence of these directions is the same – establish an ethical and loving life in your day-to-day existence, cultivate virtue, and abandon non-virtuous behavior. Such a life prepares mind and body to live from the essence of your being.
Fourth, respect daily life and the ego structure that enables you to live human life on a day-to-day level. That is far different than investing in the over-sized, defensive, protective, and self-cherishing ego. It is using our intelligence, factual knowledge, capacities and skills to live a good and virtuous life and cultivate loving relationships. This reduced aspect of consciousness, our ego structure, serves day-to-day life, but it should not define who and what we are. Our center or reference point should progressively become our natural self. We live daily life with the healthy capacities and skills of our developed and acquired “I.” But our natural state is always in the background, sourcing all with the serenity, wisdom, and compassion that is seamlessly interwoven into our authentic being.
Finally. We must pursue a daily path that will stabilize both a virtuous life and our natural self. This will enable serendipitous glimpses of our true self to slowly stabilize and progressively become the touch stone of our life. There is no single path, but there are paths that are time-tested. You must carefully choose for yourself.
Meditation and contemplative practices flow through, in one form or another, most of the great traditions. They prepare and take one towards the essence of who and what we are. It must be evident from my sharing that meditation is not about relaxation or accommodating to the unhealthy aspects of day-to-day life. Its two aims are first, creating a healthy human life and second, living that life from a deeper knowledge and experience of who and what we truly are.
Ultimately that requires that meditation aim at a direct experience of our authentic “self” and the ultimate nature of reality. A still mind is the pre-requisite. Direct experience, non-duality, and an open and unconditioned awareness are the characteristics of such a meditation. Once the mind is relatively still, we go directly to essence, to the source. We know who we are from the experience of who we are, not from an intellectual knowledge, relaxation, guided meditation, or repetitive meditation practice.
Non-dual meditation is a subtle, but not difficult meditation. It requires right intention, personal commitment, and correct instruction. It does not promise that you will live each moment in the innocent garden reserved for the protected state of childhood. We are no longer innocent. Yet we have, unlike the child, the capacity to reveal and live once again in this garden while sustaining the healthy capacities of an adult human life.
But our sense of an independent and autonomous personhood is tenacious and persistent. It will resist and serve as an obstacle to touching and sustaining our true essence. So, the preparatory practices are essential in softening the ordinary “I” and increasing the probability of revealing and stabilizing our more essential self. However, the final experience must open on its own, as it cannot be commanded by the effort and will of the obscuring ego.
Once again, T.S. Eliot’s words:
We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
A child cannot know or protect its birthright – an open consciousness, spontaneous delight, simple curiosity, awe, and easeful direct experience. Parental protection drops away and social and cultural imperatives pull us towards worldly life, narrowing the divine view. But as adults, we can once again touch the sacred and essential self, and this time have the acquired wisdom to know it, protect it, and nurture it. Where we return is from where we started, almost! That “almost” makes all the difference. What we return to is a “conscious innocence,” a condition of compete simplicity and ease informed and stabilized by wisdom gained.
Not only will we touch home along the path, but we can at all times experience its presence in each of the seemingly mundane moments of life. That is Wordsworth’s closing advice in his ode to youth’s wonder lost. It is ultimately the eyes of perception that decide upon heaven or hell. Are the eyes of perception obscured by confusion wrought by the tenacious belief in the ordinary sense of “I,”or is your perception cleansed by claiming the clear and unconditioned perception of your natural self? Heaven or Hell lies in the balance.
We know there is something more to life that is now hidden from us. Hidden, that is, except for an indelible memory that quietly beckons us towards what is larger, towards what holds greater meaning, towards a home we remember, a home once again revealed as the crowning achievement of human life.
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