Rabbit Holes and the Teachings of the Avatar and the Perfect Masters

Some years ago, I became friendly with one of my guitar students and from time to time after a lesson we would drink a glass or two of wine and talk. Gary was an intelligent and interesting guy with unique ideas and perspectives on a wide range of topics, one of which was the events of September 11, 2001. Gary believed that we had not been given the whole truth of the event—the real story. His reasoning and his explanations were quite detailed, and he supported his thinking with the testimonies of many “experts” he found on the internet. But for him, 911 was just a single example of a much larger and much more insidious global conspiracy. In his own words, he said that when he went down that rabbit hole, he never came out again. I remember quite clearly that he used that expression, went down the rabbit hole.

 

On other occasions, and over more wine, actually Gary preferred beer which he always brought to his lessons and drank out of mason jars, he shared with me more and more his beliefs that high-ranking government officials were participants, consciously or unconsciously, in an elaborate global conspiracy orchestrated and executed by a cabal of wealthy and powerful people he called the Illuminate. Gary believed that humanity at large was in a state of sleep. He believed his mission what to educate people—to wake them up. Gary died in 2018. I wish he were still around these days because all that I have learned recently about the ideas and beliefs of these movements like Qanon, the Proud Boys, etc., my friend was espousing nearly word for word years ago, but allow me to digress for a moment…

 

Readers familiar with my blog might be wondering why I’m now writing about the politics and affairs of the world, since my blog, Embedded with the Kali Yuga, has always steered away from such themes in favor of the more enlightened and enduring teachings of the Avatars and Perfect Masters. But stay with me a while longer and you will see that this posting is not about the relative truth or falseness of my friend’s theories, but about the broader question of rabbit holes and their relationships to the teachings of the Avatar and the Perfect Masters.

 

What first got me thinking about all this was that term rabbit holes. It was the very term Gary used years ago in describing his personal journey and it is the same term I have heard recently used by both commentators and followers of the various political and social movements of the day. When Gary used the term, it was not meant to be pejorative, though he freely admitted how much suffering and difficultly accompanied his personal search. Gary was well aware that his road to the truth caused him much suffering, but he believed that the pain was worth it if he could help to awaken sleeping humanity and ultimately lead the world to a better state of fairness, love, and enduring happiness. Yes, Gary was an idealist; his heart, if not his head, was usually in the right place—but, of course, this is only my opinion.

 

So, what really is a rabbit hole? Broadly speaking, I would say that a rabbit hole is a domain of thought, feeling, belief, conviction, and action. Like Gary, I do not suggest anything inherently pejorative in my use of the term. In other words, I do not apply the term only to those domains I personally disagree with.

 

At the same time, I’m not suggesting that in terms of rightness or wrongness all thoughts, feelings, beliefs, convictions, and actions are the same, nor do I deny that there isn’t some objective criterion to judge the relative truth of any individual rabbit hole, I just don’t claim that I personally know and am able to apply that criterion. To put it more simply, I remain open to the idea that any one man’s truth might just be another man’s rabbit hole.  In other words, I am asking the question, cannot science, religion, the arts, politics, and causes of all kinds be considered rabbit holes too?

 

Certainly, one can argue against this, but I wonder, on what grounds? Would not any argument against it have to imply the knowing of some truth that is greater than another’s truth?

 

In moments like this, with questions like this, I turn to the teachings of the Avatar and the Perfect Masters, though I concede that others will consider these teachings to be just another rabbit hole as well.

 

“He returns to the door from which he first came out, although in his journey he went from door to door.” – Maulana Shabistari

 

In the book, God Speaks, this phrase is quoted while discussing the topic of reincarnation and its relationship to the counter-theory of one lifetime. Maulana’s assertion seems to reconcile both points of view. In this instance I suggest that we can substitute the words rabbit hole for door.

 

He returns to the rabbit hole from which he first came out, although in his journey he went from rabbit hole to rabbit hole.

 

But what is the rabbit hole from which the wayfarer first came out and later returns through? All my studies have shown a remarkable consistency on this point among the Avatars and the Perfect Masters. The rabbit hole is creation itself.

 

Meher Baba explains that creation is the dream state of God. It is an intermediate state between God’s deep sleep dreamless state and God’s fully awake I am God state. Creation, God’s dream state, is where and how God acquires the consciousness to know himself as God. It is an essential state between deep sleep and fully awake and is thus very important, but the Avatar and the Perfect Masters continue to remind us, that because it is a dream it is not real.

 

Seen from this perspective, all rabbit holes within the original rabbit hole are equally unreal, though we can observe that different rabbit holes precipitate different subjective experiences of pleasure and pain and different rabbit holes impede or facilitate progress on the path to the ultimate goal of the awake state.

 

Meher Baba explained, “The saint is bound by a golden chain and the sinner is bound by a spiked chain, but the goal is to be free of all chains.”

 

So where does this leave me? I believe that the Avatar and the Perfect Masters have indicated that I should stay true to my own beliefs and convictions but be wary of taking any pride in them or becoming too attached to them. Certainly, a feeling of superiority toward the beliefs and convictions of others should be guarded against. For what do I really know? Also, to try to remember that suffering is suffering, no matter what the cause, and having known suffering myself, I should feel compassion for others—all others, no matter what rabbit holes they may have gone down.

 

 For have we not all been journeying from rabbit hole to rabbit hole since we first entered the original rabbit hole of creation? And is not the purpose of all this journeying to gain and perfect consciousness in order to ultimately find our way out of this original rabbit hole and gain Reality? Then perhaps these days, even more than some others, it is important to realize and to remember these words of Meher Baba,

“But in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the human mind has in it an inborn tendency to try to restore to itself a deep an unshakeable faith in the intrinsic sanity and value of life.” – Discourses of Meher Baba