[MD] Be a dead man

[MarshaV]

--- What is meant by Spirituality and being Spiritual ---

What is meant by spirituality runs like a common 
thread through all cultures and religious 
traditions. It is expressed in the Christian 
tradition by the words: "He that loseth his soul shall find it."

A Buddhist poem expresses this intuition about spirituality in this way:

"While living, be a dead man, thoroughly dead.

Then whatever you do, just as you will, will be right."

But how are we to lose ourselves. How is it 
possible for the ego to do away with itself?

Any action that we take out of calculation, out 
of self-interest will strengthen the ego. All 
attempts made by the ego to do away with itself 
are fruitless and even counterproductive.

However this does not stop us from trying. All of 
us are subject to the slings and arrows of 
outrageous fortune. It is when disaster strikes 
that we take to religion and philosophy and 
meditation. And at these times we are hurting so 
badly that we are unable to think clearly. We 
think that spirituality or becoming spiritual will help.

And so we start our very complex efforts to lose 
ourselves. There are any number of methods. There 
is philosophy – both eastern and western. There 
is the venerable tradition of meditation 
exercises of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen and the 
like. There are sects and cults of various sorts.

Some enlightened masters do not think that 
meditation serves any purpose. J. Krishnamurti 
was an enlightened master who prescribed no 
meditation exercises whatsoever. Also we have the 
Taoist sages of antiquity – Lao Tzu and Chuang 
Tzu – who do not stress on meditation at all.

The ancient Chinese have expressed this dilemma 
very eloquently. They have described these 
efforts to lose oneself and grow spiritually as 
similar to trying to fix legs on to a snake. They 
have compared these attempts to those of a naked 
man trying to lose his shirt. In the Zen Buddhist 
tradition all these attempts are compared to a 
mosquito trying to pierce the hide of an iron 
bull. It is considered to be a task that is 
impossible of accomplishment through conscious systematic efforts.

And yet we are hurting. We are facing life and 
its challenges are totally beyond our capacity to 
cope or deal with. Take for example the sudden 
death of a young child through accident or murder 
or the like. The parents of the child will be 
hurting and will turn to religion and 
spirituality to deal with the pain. What are they to do with themselves?

Alan Watts, in one of his books – Become What you 
Are – says that we humans are fragile and 
sensitive beings and we do not like to feel pain. 
In this we are similar to all other organisms. We 
just do not like to hurt – whether it is anger, 
fear, greed, jealousy, physical pain or any other 
negative feeling. So we resist these feelings. We 
try to block these feelings out and avoid them. 
We construct fine intellectual explanations of 
our situation that are designed to make us feel better about ourselves.

Much of what is called philosophy is – according 
to Alan Watts – an attempt to talk ourselves out 
of ultimate feelings. For example – a person 
facing a life threatening illness. He would be in 
a state of absolute turmoil. He would be facing 
rage, terror, shock and the like and he would 
want explanations as to why this is happening to 
him. And so he will turn to philosophy or spirituality for consolation.

Yet if this person were to just stop resisting, 
stop trying to find explanations and trying to 
make himself feel better and simply accept that 
these feelings are irresistible and cannot be 
avoided and just feel these emotions then he 
would be finding his way out of his crisis 
situation. He would be able to lose himself, 
which is the main task of growing spiritually.

This happens when we give up resisting our 
feelings through the realization that there is no 
way to resist them or to avoid them. This is when 
life compels us at last to give in, to surrender 
to the terror of the unknown and then the 
suppressed feeling shoots out. It is at last 
given room to play itself out and the horror of 
our inevitable mortality is transformed to an 
almost ecstatic sense of freedom from the bonds 
of individuality. This is the goal of all spiritual efforts and spirituality.

A somewhat similar experience is described by the 
Tibetan sage Milrepa in the following words:

"In horror of death I took to the mountains –

Again and again I meditated on the uncertainty of the hour of death,

Capturing the fortress of the deathless unending nature of mind,

Now all fear of death is over and done."

So this is one way to lose ourselves – surrender 
to our feelings, especially in crisis situations. 
This means that we do not block them or avoid 
them, or take action of any sort when we feel 
bad, or try to find intellectual theories to make 
us feel better. You are feeling wretched – so 
simply feel wretched. Do not resist.

Now a few words about meditation. I had mentioned 
earlier that all attempts to change ourselves – 
through meditation or otherwise – are doomed to 
failure because the ego cannot do away with 
itself by taking action. It is like fighting 
darkness with darkness or a needle trying to prick itself.

But I have been meditating regularly these past 
few months – Vipassana Meditation as taught by 
S.N Goenka – and I have clearly benefited and 
grown and matured through these efforts. It may 
not take me all the way but through my meditation 
practice I have started the spiritual journey. 
There is clearly more than one way to skin a cat.

There other point I wish to make is that all of 
what I said is no reason at all to deny our 
interest in philosophy and meditation or 
spirituality, or try to repress our desire to 
grow or change. It would be best of course is we 
could just accept ourselves and not feel the need 
to change anything about ourselves. But if you 
cannot do this, if you feel the need to meditate, 
or if you cannot accept any aspect of yourself 
and want to take steps to change it then please 
give this need or wish room to play itself out. 
Denying or repressing our desire to change 
ourselves is clearly not the way out.

http://www.eastern-philosophy-and-meditation.com/spirituality.html




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DEFINITION of  Marsha, I, me, self, & 
etc.:   Ever-changing collection of overlapping, 
interrelated, inorganic, biological, social and 
intellectual, static patterns of value.