It's all B.S.

Yesterday I met with Bhagwan Kevananda for our weekly lunch conversation. Over the last several months, Kev and I have been meeting for a few hours for what would be called Jñana Yoga, basically using dialog to burn out the thinking process. My personal meetings with Kev and Jim allow the time to be spent very tactically deconstructing my thoughts and beliefs with the ultimate objective of not thinking or believing anything at all. While the Sunday Sangha satsang is still my favorite public event that I regularly attend, these guys have been gracious in taking the time to help me surgically remove the remaining concepts that are rather subtle and elusive.

Yesterday was a big step for me. I know that the flame of truth has been raging for quite some time now. Kitty and I saw it catch with Rich and Buck back in April, and somewhere around late May, Andre’s second visit, the flame jumped to us and we rapidly began to disown the more gross concepts. Quickly concepts like karma, reincarnation, and souls went up in flames. Long standing beliefs were like dry kindling, disappearing as quickly as the trivial ideas, sometimes surprisingly so. Kitty’s thoughts of past lives, angels, and guides went up in smoke, too.

Just as a fire will quickly sweep through a dry forest and then lose momentum as the foliage is consumed, the intensity of the flame decreased as there became less fuel for it to burn. It’s easy to have a bonfire in your brain when you believe that there may actually be meaning to life or when you’ve heard from all the spiritual namby-pamby tree huggers that “God is Love.” “God is Love” has gotta go. God is Love and Hate and Fear and Bunny Rabbits and Jeffrey Dhamer. Even that concept has to go, too.

At the beginning, it is easy to explore your mind, find a belief, and then set fire to it. But eventually you start to have trouble finding the beliefs to burn. You have to start sifting through the ash to find the remainders of your belief system, and this is where the ego starts to make it hard on you. It sure as hell doesn’t want to make it easy for you to burn the whole house of cards down so it finds tricky ways to hide the beliefs that remain. They become subtle or hide out in lofty places, disguising as the Truth. Somewhere along the line you have to realize that there IS NO TRUTH, because anything you can think, any concept that you can speak or envision, is all a product of your mind. Even that sentence is a load of crap because it is a thought, an idea, a concept, and it is part of duality and therefore a lie.

So I know that the flame of truth has been burning in me and in Kitty for quite some time. I have sensed that this is a key phase as we work towards Liberation. (B.S.) I have been sourcing multiple mirrors that have supported this. (B.S.) As I recently worked a trip to Frankfurt, I had lots of travel time, and that’s where I get most of my reading and listening to audio files done. In Adya’s “From Awakening to Liberation” recording, he provides one possible outline of a generic path towards Liberation. It’s closely related to the Buddhist concept “Mountains, No Mountains, Mountains.” (B.S.) That’s where you start off where there are mountains and rivers before you, as you believe that there is actually such a thing as a mountain or river. Then you get to the point where there are no longer mountains and rivers before you because you come to know that there is no such thing as a mountain or river, or anything else for that matter, including yourself. Eventually you get back to where you see the mountains and rivers again as you learn to bring together the Relative world (this world of duality, the world of mountains and rivers) and the Absolute (the non-dual perspective where no thought or concept exists). (B.S.) Tim Freke would describe this last phase as Both/And instead of Either/Or. (B.S.)

In Adya’s description, during the first phase of mountains, you have mountains (thoughts, concepts, beliefs) to burn. At the beginning of this phase the Spark of Truth catches on the dry kindling and spreads via the Flame of Truth. Burn mother fucker, burn, as you watch idea after idea go up in flames. As I still see mountains but they are becoming obscured by the thick smoke. I sense that I’m running out of fuel for the flame, but I know there is more to burn. I am just having trouble finding what’s left to bring to the bonfire. (B.S.)

And this brings me to my interaction with Kevin yesterday. Over some yummy Chicken Panang and Moo Goo Gai Pan (B.S., but it was yummy!) Kev hit home that EVERYTHING is a bunch of B.S. Conceptually I knew that “this is all an illusion” and that “everything is a projection of my own mind,” but I wasn’t incorporating EVERYTHING. I was leaving room for some things that seemed closer to the truth. Like non-dualism. That’s a biggie for me. What do you mean that I have to give up the idea of non-dualism? But it does not matter how directly the finger is pointing at the moon, it is still the God-damn finger and NOT the moon, so it’s gotta go. So do things like the concept of the ego and the idea that I can do anything, anything at all, in the world of duality, that is not coming from the ego. The idea of Oneness, that you are God, that you are the Creator… it’s all gotta go. But the biggie, the end game that any authentic Seeker is ultimately trying to let go of, is the idea that you, your self and your Self, are anything but part of the illusion. That there even could be a You has got to go, and the idea that the You has got to go has also gotta go.

Where our conversation really started to help was when I realized the correlation between my shower meditations, my trips to the desert, and my waking life. Back in July 2009 I started to have these awesome meditations in the shower. A big part of these meditations was getting to the core of Self-inquiry. At least that was my experience at the time.

Self-inquiry sounds like an interrogation, where you’re asking questions like “Who or what am I?,” you get an answer, and that allows you to move on to the next question so you can seek out the next answer. It doesn’t work that way. Self-inquiry is looking within. It has to do with getting away from words and turning to experience to reveal the answer.

So in July, I found myself looking within. As I stood in a meditative trance, perfectly balanced in the stream of water, internally I was diving, falling into the center of my being. As I dove, scenes flashed before me. As I recall them now, they were very bright scenes, a lot of white light with a little dark black background. The visual image was very often two-dimensional, as if it were appearing on a large TV screen. Sure, there were times where it was 3D, but for the most part and in contrast to my my trips to the desert months later, there was much less depth to them. As I plummeted endlessly towards my core, these scenes would appear and my fall would cease as I stopped to evaluate them.

Early on I realized that these scenes were diversions, figments of my imagination thrown up by my ego to distract my inner journey. While some of the scenes were revelatory, most of them were trivial. Some were awesome sexual visions and I could take them off on wild rides as long as I wanted. Fortunately my sex life is already rather incredible so while these diversions could really be tempting to take way down the rabbit hole, I didn’t feel too pulled in by them and I was able to let them go.

Other scenes were of other worlds similar to Salvialand. Sometimes people unknown to me would act out meaningless vignettes and it was easy to let go of them. But when you’re inundated by scene after senseless scene, it can get kind of boring. This, too, was an ego tactic, trying to fool me into thinking that I really wasn’t onto something. The fucking ego is a crafty bastard and it will run through every program it can to distract your quest to discover who or what you really are.

Fortunately I had been drowning myself in this stuff for several months by this time. Since January, when I met Kitty and started attending the Sunday Sangha satsangs, I had been living, breathing, talking, and dreaming about this material. I had plenty of opportunities to employ the concepts (B.S.) like “nothing outside of self exists” and “why am I manifesting this?” So when it came to these scenes in the shower meditation, I was able to deflect them rather handily.

Inside of two weeks I had hit what I then thought was the core of myself. This came about as I became more and more adept at brushing the scenes aside. As quickly as they could appear, I was able to release them, discarding them as a distraction thrown at me by my ego. But as quickly as I could brush one aside, the next would appear. This became quite an interesting challenge and I had to adapt by stopping from discerning what the scene was before letting it go. This realization, that ANYTHING that the ego would throw at me was an illusion, a distraction, an untruth, allowed me to switch from using a sword to cut away a scene before me to just disbelieving EVERYTHING as it came. I became so effective at this that I could let go of the scene BEFORE the ego could throw it up. (B.S.) The ego tried to keep up, but the scenes truly became a blur. My visual image became so filled with white light as the residual image of several previous scenes piled up on each other. I was no longer distracted by any images, I was just aware of a white light that was imposed over a pure black background. (B.S.) The ego saw what was happening and not long after it realized this wasn’t going to work so it gave up. (B.S.) And that is when I came to some of my most profound revelations of that period. I came to the center of my being, which was a deep, dark, single pixel of pure blackness. (B.S.) I came to know that I was truly NOTHING. (B.S.) I tried to fling myself into this Nothingness, what I came to call at the time The Void. (B.S.) At first I was unsuccessful, it seemed impossible to do so, and I was flung out to the far edge of existence. (B.S.) I was able to have an awareness of still being right up on the Void while also being on the edge of the Universe looking across it to its center where I, the Void, was. (B.S.) Eventually I was able to insert myself into the Void, a paradox I know, but this journey is filled with paradox so why not? (B.S.) I was able to be no-dimensional as I was the pure Nothingness which meant that I was also the Everything of the Universe. (B.S.) I was even able to be the membrane, the screen, between the Everything (the manifest) and Nothing (the unmanifested potential). (B.S.) I experienced what it was to be God. I experienced Creation, not as a mastermind genius scientist who created objects, but as the actual Source of creation and I could actually FEEL the Universe and everything that was being created as it came from me and projected into the world. (B.S.) I realized that I was being projected, as if on a multi-dimensional screen, and I was able to determine where the scene was being projected from, to look back down that projection through the column of light back into the projector and see that I was the projector itself. (B.S.)

Now, over the weeks that this was happening, I was blown away by the revelations. I was able to support my conclusions by seeking out writings by many authors, some famous and highly regarded, others that were lesser known but had resonated with me. (B.S.) I had finally found the Fountain of Knowledge and my understanding of this world and how it works was expanding rapidly. For an intellectual guy like me, I had hit the jackpot. (B.S.)

Or so I thought at the time. Around October, well into my shower meditations, I started doing two things that would take me to the next phase of my growth. (B.S.) The first was meditating in the savasana pose, also called the corpse pose. It’s really quite simple, you just lay there on your back, hands by your side, and meditate like you would in a seated position. But for some reason this pose resulted in some very deep meditations. The other thing that dramatically changed the game was I prepared for and went on two Vision Quests out in the desert. (B.S.) During these sessions, I had revelations that were mind blowing. While the revelations in the shower appeared to be very real, it seemed that they were lacking a dimension when compared to the intensity, complexity, and beauty to these new realizations. (B.S.)

During my normal daily life I was aware that I had gone from having a mystical or deeply spiritual experience once every month or so during 2008 to several per week, often several per day. There was a sense of expansion, or of consumption, or of progress, or whatever it is that enabled me to contrast what I thought last month or at the beginning of the year and then note the understanding and lack of belief in my current understanding. (B.S.)

But in the last two to three weeks I realized that something was amiss. I was looking for things in me to burn up and I was having trouble finding them. I started to sense that on one hand I needed to burn up all of my beliefs but on the other it would be impossible to search and destroy each belief, one by one. A feeling crept in that I was going to need to transcend this method of changing struggling within the level of illusion to something that was from a higher level, a greater magnitude. (B.S.) Where I was using a sniper rifle, I needed an H-bomb. But where was I going to find that H-bomb? They don’t just sell them down at Wal-Mart, or Soul Depot for that matter. (B.S.)

Finally, in my discussion with Kevin yesterday, I was presented with my H-bomb. (B.S.) I suppose if you listened to our conversations in reverse order you might be able to find a thread and could find a way to describe it as linear. But we don’t go into it that way, and we have no planned topic or any intention of issues to resolve. We just sit down, get our food, and Kev starts to download a program streamed just for me. As the conversation meandered we started discussing the Maya, a rather typical discussion in most spiritual circles. Why this time it struck home with me when I have participated in this conversation countless time, I cannot explain. But several things clicked and I started to realize that all of those apparent revelations in the shower and desert meditations were really just distractions keeping me from getting to the heart of the matter. (B.S.) It’s not that the revelations aren’t meaningful in the world of Maya (B.S.), it’s just that my ego had found my weakness for knowledge. Forget the awesome sexual visions that some guys would get hung up on. And it long discovered that I was truly fearless and that visions of devils and serpents and gruesome corpses was lost on me. (B.S.) It even had to give up on threatening me with thoughts about my son, Tristan, as I, along with assistance directly from Tristan himself, was able to break the very strong parental protective shell that I had long held for him. (B.S.) (It’s incredible having a conversation with an eleven year old who is not afraid of death but is so attached to his iPhone and Xbox!) (B.S.) Screw all that, I had told the ego, and so it quit trying to ply me with those visions. But that crafty mother fucker finally found the one place that I didn’t even think to look as a distraction, and that was revelation and knowledge of the “Truth.” (B.S.)

Somehow in our conversation yesterday I was able to see that all of those grand visions were just distractions keeping me from going even deeper. Many Buddhist and Hindu tales talk about diamond dust, gold dust, rubies and gems galore, blinding seekers, dazzling them while the elusive Truth lay just beyond. “These eyes are blinded by sadhus (Seekers) and siddhis (powers that come with spiritual growth) and this third eye is blinded by diamond dust” Jim once said. And while not directed at me at the time, it is certainly appropriate for me now. (B.S.) The diamond dust are the revelations and visions that I had been having. They were keeping me from the First Bardo state described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the state where, if you can just keep brushing aside the fantasies and fearful visions, Grace just might step in and tap you on the back of the head. (B.S.)

After my two Vision Quests, I knew where I had “gone wrong.” (B.S.) Out in the desert, especially when I was alone, I was “blessed” with many visions that most people never, ever get to experience. In deep meditation, rather than going back to the First Bardo, I allowed the temptation of obtaining vast knowledge to surpass my desire to become truly Self-less, and I spent that precious time soaking in the revelations. (B.S.) To be fair, it does not seem that I did not consciously make the decision to revel in the visions in lieu of returning to the First Bardo state. (B.S.) When I contemplate with deep integrity on how things went down, it seems that it was a lack of experience that allowed me to become so distracted by these great visions. (B.S.) And so my practice of late has been focusing on becoming mindless in my meditation, retraining myself to forego the wonderful revelations that come so that I can have as pure of a clear mind as possible. (B.S.)

During our conversation yesterday I started to recognize a pattern to the distractions, from the two dimensional child’s play of the early shower meditations to the deeper, more realistic and convincing visions in savasana and during the desert Vision Quests. But all of these distractions were coming when I was in deep meditation. The big ah-ha of the conversation was that THIS was the ultimate distraction. This “reality,” where my body supposedly is made of matter and I am supposedly an individual, this is the craftiest illusion that my ego has come up with, and it probably is the best it will come up with. (B.S.)

Think about how friggin’ detailed this illusion is. The tattered Windows OEM sticker on the bottom of my six year old Dell. The ground in my coffee that slipped through the filter and into my mouth to annoy me. Blech! The tattered, yellow registration sticker on the license plate of the dirty car in front of me. The tiny shred of skin on the top of the roof of my mouth from the insanely hot nacho cheese that scalded me… it won’t go come off no matter how much I toy with it with my tongue. The stack of bills on the kitchen counter waiting for me to address, enabling me to maintain mild level of anxiety about finances. (B.S.)

This is a very short list of the infinite details that make me think that this place MUST be real. (B.S.) And it’s not only the mundane things help solidify this reality. (B.S.) The super lows easily drag us into thinking this place is real. For me, when I get angry I start to lose the observer. It has been a while since I totally lost the observer, but it is definitely the easiest way for me to get lost in the Maya. And the super highs are the diamond dust that I just talked about. Basically, it’s EVERYHING that we can think about that anchors us into thinking this is reality. (B.S.)

This was the main revelation that I had in the conversation with Kevin. Intellectually, I understand that “this is all an illusion.” (B.S.) When we say this, we mean that everything that we think is real is just a dream in the mind of God. (B.S.) The key word there is “everything.” Once you’ve been at this game for a short while, it easy to look at this text in front of you, be it on a screen or on a piece of paper, and acknowledge that it is unreal. (B.S.) You can easily adapt to accepting that from the Absolute perspective all of the material things in front of you are part of a dream, is one big video game or holodeck, is projected from an intricate holographic projector. (B.S.) You can learn to gradually train yourself that the hard, manifested objects are part of a grand illusion, but at some point you have to disbelieve everything including abstract concepts such as suffering, the Tao, high spiritual experiences, your intuition, and ultimately, your sense of self. (B .S.)

I guess the major leap I took in this conversation was the understanding of the totality of the concept. (B.S.) Whereas before I would say “everything is Maya” but not fully grasp what EVERYTHING was, I now genuinely understand the depth of what this meant. (B.S.) Kevin recognized this major step and we spent some time hitting home that not only were these high spiritual revelations just as unreal as the rest of the Maya and were just diamond dust, but the mundane “real world” and my own sense of self were illusion, too. He suggested that with every single thought that I remind myself that this is all just a bunch of bullshit, and that is why you’re seeing (B.S.) throughout this writing. (B.S.) Every time that I complete a thought I try to remember that this is all bullshit. (B.S.) As I am going throughout my day, I am silently saying “B.S.” to myself as often as I can. (B.S.) And you’re seeing how often I am doing this in this writing. (B.S.) It’s my own personal mantra, and the theory is that after reminding myself that this is all B.S., all an illusion, all untrue from the Absolute perspective, my Relative perspective should start to lose value.(B.S.) The idea is that by devaluing this Relative perspective enough I can slip into accepting the Absolute perspective as the default view. (B.S.) That’s the “No Mountains” phase in the Buddhist “Mountains, No Mountains, Mountains” saying. (B.S.)

Don’t get too wrapped up in the idea that this Relative perspective has no value. (B.S.) Once you get back to the second “Mountains” phase the Relative world has meaning once again. (B.S.) But we’ve been conditioned our entire lives to believe that this Relative perspective is the ONLY reality, and this process requires that one entirely gives up that attachment, however so briefly, to perfectly own the Absolute perspective. (B.S.) After that we can take Buddha’s Middle Path and accept all perspective, the Absolute and the myriad Relative ones, as the total truth. (B.S.)

And so now my practice is to acknowledge that every thought, every concept, every material object, and ultimately my sense of self is all a bunch of bullshit, pardon my language. (B.S.) And that includes everything in this writing. (B.S.)