Money is like Food (Part 9.)

Of course, life does come in and goes out no matter what we think or do; there is no refuge from it, no magic mantra to avoid it, no secret doctrine that teach us how to experience pleasure without pain, happiness without suffering. Choice exists, but that choice is more about response to life than control of life, and even this response to life is not an act of free will. This response to life is programed into our nature by the matrices of impressions stored in our mental bodies. In his commentary on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Chogyam Trungpa speaks about “the six realms of the world from the point of view of different instinct.”

Chogyam Trungpa says that the teachings—these are not his teachings, but the teaching common to Tibetan Buddhism—tells us that at all times, in every moment, enlightenment exists and enlightenment’s luminosity is present and accessible. To experience this ultimate experience, this awakened state of mind, a certain kind of “intelligence is necessary to connect with it. But this intelligence of which he speaks is not the intelligence we measure through I.Q. tests, it is not the intelligence of how smart or cleaver we are, it is something else, something much more profound, something transcendental, that when it connects to the awakened state of mind, it leads to “a sudden glimpse of meditative experience or Buddha nature, which could also be called the dharmakaya,” the experience of the unmanifest, inconceivable aspect of the Buddha nature, or what Meher Baba calls the Beyond Beyond State of God. Of course, this experience is only possible if we have the means to connect with that basic intelligence. If we can’t connect with this basic intelligence “and confused energy still dominates our process of mind, then the energy builds up blindly and finally falls down into different levels of diluted energy, so to speak, from the absolute energy of the luminosity.

I think we have all had this experience in one form or another. One goes to a meditation retreat, or is in the presence of a Perfect Master, or even an advanced yogi on the higher planes of consciousness, and we experience a kind of lucid bliss, a profound dynamic peace, clarity of mind. In that moment we understand life, we understand our own life, everything makes sense. But then the moment somehow passes, we can’t hold on to it. We can remember it, but it is not the experience anymore, it is the memory of an experience, and, in fact, the clarity is no longer there, nor the bliss or the peace. The energy falls down, goes to a lower level in accordance with our own sanskaric nature/instinct represented by what Chogyam Trungpa calls the six realms of the world.

(To be continued.)

Money is Like Food (Part 8.)

Eating, sleeping, procreating, and keeping from being eaten; this is the legacy,  cultivated over millions of pre-human forms from stones to plants,  insects to reptiles, fish to birds, and animals of all shapes and sizes, that we carry  into the human form.

This legacy, in the form of impressions—sanskaras—are seated in our mental bodies, and as human beings, we live through, exchange, and ultimately free our consciousness from these impressions. In the final stages, generally after millions of lifetimes, sometimes as men or women, poor or rich, Christian or Muslim, etc. etc. we free-up enough energy to ask the question, Who am I? This question has been working in us since our souls first entered creation and it has been this question that has been the driving force behind all of evolution, reincarnation, and involution of consciousness. But it is only in the later stages that question becomes conscious. But this question doesn’t become conscious all at once, it dawns, like the first rays of sunlight in the night sky, like the first day in winter that feels like spring, or like the innocence of childhood begins to fade into the realization of self-consciousness. With the dawning of this question comes the search for answers and with the search for answers comes the question to whom should I turn? Who knows?

Most people have heard of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Written in the eight century, English translations began to appear in the 1920’s as a result of the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the subsequent flight of many Tibetans, along with their teachings, to the western world. The book is generally understood as an exposition on what happens after death and a teaching regarding how to assist dying and the dead with their transition to the next incarnation. But, as the great Tibetan teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, points out in his commentary on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, translated by himself and Francesca Fremantle, “The book is not based on death as such, but on a completely different concept of death. It is a ‘Book of Space’. Space contains birth and death; space creates the environment in which to behave, breathe, and act, it is the fundamental environment which provides the inspiration for this book.”

In the next post, I will explore Chogyam Trungpa’s commentary seeking insight into the yogi’s statement that “money is like food; let it in and let it go out”, and how this dynamic expresses itself in life.

(To be continued.)

Money is Like Food (Part 7.)

But the problem is not life; the problem is misunderstanding life, having false expectations about life, looking in the wrong place to find something that is lost.

Mullah Nasruddin is a legendary Sufi teacher who humorous stories always reveal a deeper level of spiritual truth than first appears on the surface. One of his most well-known stories goes like this:

“A student observed the Mullah one night scouring around on his hands and knees under a streetlamp.

‘What are you doing Mullah?’ he asked, ‘Did you lose something?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I lost the key.’

‘And did you lose it here, under the streetlamp?’

‘No, I lost it back in the yard, in the dark.’

‘Then why are you looking here, under the streetlamp?’

‘Because, the light is better.’”

It does seem silly on the face of it, but the deeper truth is that things are not found where they are lost, things are always found in the light. The question, “Who am I?” is lost in life, but the answer is found in the light. The mistake is thinking that life holds the answers. It is not life’s fault.

Some months ago I wrote a blog about the four yogas as described by Meher Baba in the Intelligence Notebooks: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9967121#editor/target=post;postID=7263527971732491672

These four yogas define four approaches to life—they represent four ways to orient oneself to life. Using our original comparison that life is like food, the four yogas teach us how different types of foods effect out health and how different eating habits, as well as the processes of digestion and elimination, effect the overall state of the body, energy, and mind. Careful study of these yogas show that they all employ highly technical and difficult techniques and procedures and that one needs help with them from one who knows.

Jesus is quoted in the New Testament as saying; “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, give to God that which is God’s.” The four yogas help us to discriminate which are which.

Life, like, God, is never to be feared; but while life is to be respected, God is to be loved.

(To be continued.)

Money is Like Food (Part 6.)

“How old are you?”

“I’m sixty-five.”

A simple question and a simple answer, but…

Am I really sixty-five, or is my body sixty-five? You see, assuming that I am my body is part of the false premise. When the question, “who am I?” takes deeper root in consciousness the underlying, unchallenged assumption that I am my body begins to fall under suspicion.

“How are you today?”

“I’m sad, my friend died.”

But sadness is a state of the mind, and the failure to see oneself as something other than the mind is also part of the false premise. Of course, it may be a little awkward—a little ‘too much information’, as they say,—a little too ‘Spockyin’—to respond to the question, “How old are you?” with the answer, “I am ageless and eternal by my present body is sixty-five years old.”

And really, what difference does it make what we say, because the important thing is not what we say, or even believe, but what we experience—and experiencing that we are the body and/or the mind, and therefore limited, finite, and vulnerable constitutes the false premise upon which we build the constellation of needs described as eating, sleeping, procreating and keeping from being eaten—the successful accomplishment of which, we attempt to convince ourselves, will make us safe.

But it is a lie, and even the most deeply asleep of us know it—feel it—the difference being that in those most asleep this knowing/feeling is unconscious, while in the less asleep, this knowing/feeling becomes conscious and thus, in both the sleeping and the less asleep there is a profound distrust of life.

And how can there not be, when in spite of all our striving we see suffering and death all around us? Of course, we may try to convince ourselves that if we can somehow learn to strive better, or differently, we will be safe. But then again, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we learn, no matter how good we try to be, we still see that we are not safe, not secure, are not invulnerable to all the terrors of life. In other words, we see that ultimately, whether in the beginning, or the middle, or in the end our efforts fall flat. Is it any wonder that we don’t breathe freely, ingest and digest properly, let life come in and go out?

(To be continued.)

Money is Like Food (Part 5.)

So was it really fear of life? And if it was fear, where did it come from? In all the pre-human forms of evolution there is a constellation of needs that consume all the attention all of the time. These needs are, eating, sleeping, keeping from being eaten, and procreating. When consciousness makes the leap from the most last pre-human form to the most first human form, it carries with it this deeply rooted—deeply rooted in literally millions of  forms of evolution—constellation of needs.

As with the pre-human forms, so with the most first human form, this constellation of needs consumed all the attention all of the time—and this continues for literally thousands, if not millions, of lifetimes—lifetimes sometimes rich or poor, female or male, bright or dull, white, black, yellow, or brown etc. Of course, over time there is a kind of refinement that takes place in the constellation, for example, keeping from being eaten transmutes from literally keeping from being eaten to concerns and strivings for things like insurance, monetary security, health insurance and healthy habits. The drive to procreate is another example; in the human form it expands to include things like a concern for one’s appearance, desire for money and power, and the inclusion of subtle, and not so subtle, embedding of sexuality in all forms of art and entertainment. Man’s attraction to, and need for, religion is not free from this constellation either—for does not man seek security from and success within the constellation of needs from his religion, by attempting to be good, or obtain help or relief from some higher power, or to separate and elevate himself from others and their vulnerabilities?

Only after thousands or millions of lifetimes does the constellation’s hold on consciousness begin to weaken sufficiently for an iota of attention to become freed-up to consciously ask the question; “Who am I?” With the emergence of this question into consciousness a new dynamic is created in the form of a struggle between the pull of the constellation and the call of something beyond the constellation, because, that simple question, that apparently innocuous question, has within it the seed of a power to totally annihilate the constellation of needs and the false premise that all of life is built upon. And what is this false premise?

(To be continued.)  

Money is Like Food (Part 4.)

I was so angry with myself, so disappointed, I made a promise that I would never again worry about money—and I have to say, that since that day, I never have. Not that I go hog wild, buying anything I want, spending as much as I want to—I’m still practical; I still consider if I can afford to buy something, and if I can’t I don’t—I just don’t worry about money anymore.

What is money anyway? It is an instrument of exchange. You spend, one way or another, in the currency of energy, time, effort to get it, and then when you have it, you exchange it for something you want or need. Money is an instrument of exchange, I get that. You take it in, and you spend it out. The yogi said that money is like food; take it in and let out. Like food, if you take it in, hold it in, there is constipation, there is disease…

So after the day at the antique store I stopped worrying about money, but I didn’t stop worrying. As a matter of fact, and it took me while to realize it, I was actually worrying more, was afraid more, was holding my breath more. What was going on? I had learned, and to the best of my ability, practiced all these spiritual teachings. I was a follower of Meher Baba, and didn’t Meher Baba coin the phrase, “Don’t worry, be happy.”? Yet, I was afraid, maybe more afraid than I had ever been.

What I began to see, was that life was like food and I had to learn to let it in and let it out. Money had been a metaphor for life, and life frightened me to death. Interesting, the use of the word death, because death didn’t frighten me all, life did. I knew this…

 I had  been staying in a fancy hacienda in Cuernavaca, Mexico, when a drunk and surly sheriff walked in on us demanding beer and whiskey. I sat across the table from him as he drank and drank and became more and more testy and aggressive, telling us that he was the Sheriff of the State of Morelos and that he could do anything to us gringos—that he could kill us.

I watched as he played with his gun in his holster. I watched as he took it out and pointed it at me and my friends. I listened to him repeat how he could kill us and that he was going to fire his gun. And then I saw him slide the gun across the table to me saying that if I was a man I would pick up the gun and shoot him. Well, I didn’t like the guy at all, I thought I just might kill him.  I picked up the gun and held it in my hand. I considered what I would do if I shot him—could I make it back to the border without getting caught? The border was a long way off. And then, I realized that I didn’t want to kill him—that he wasn’t worth it. And so, I took the gun and slid it back across the table to the drunken sheriff and told him he wasn’t worth shooting and if he wanted the damn gun fired he should pick it up and shoot me.

I was in no way frightened; I was just really pissed-off. And so I stood up from the table and walked across the room to a cabinet against which my guitar was leaning, thinking if I’m going to die, I would die playing my guitar. I levied myself up onto the cabinet and began to play. And then gun went off. It was a little stucco room and the sound was deafening. It drowned out everything else, the sound of my guitar, and immersed me in a ringing silence that lasted a timeless moment.

Then, out of the silence came the sound of the sheriff’s insane laughter, growing louder and louder. He had shot his gun, had his “gun orgasm”, and no one had been shot…

No, I wasn’t afraid of death, but I was afraid of life.

(To be continued.)