In Part, this thesis came about because I was rereading Ram Dass. At one point in “Love Service Devotion,” Ram Dass is talking about the Gita, and he says something along the lines of “There comes a point when our choice isn’t between different forms of social and moral responsibility. It’s either social and moral responsibility or unitive consciousness.”
We’ll come back to that, but it got me thinking. Dualism is the sickest of consequences of the “rational gaze.” It makes us examine our surroundings as opposed to experiencing them. It makes our thinking Linear and surface-level, when our processes should be about depth. It gives undue importance to the beholder, at the expense of “the beheld.” It’s worth asking whether the rational gaze’s distance is worth the loss of an experiential mode of being. I tend to think not, and if that’s true, all of the above mentioned conditions are illnesses for which working on Logos is the healing medicine.
Practically, this messes with the way we use four words: God, Time, Remembrance, and Self. Let’s stop for a moment and talk about each one.God: I’ve lightly touched on this already. “God” isn’t separate from “us” but in the dualistic mindframe, prizing separateness and distinction as it does, puts the rational gaze’s typical distance between the two. The trouble is, the things of God buck examination. Contemplation is a state of rest that eliminates the distance between God and the one experiencing it. It is the pre-verbal, lived experience of “I AM,” in a way that doesn’t permit a sense of self distinct God. However, as soon as you say “Wow, so this is what Contemplation is” dualism’s distancing tendencies reassert themselves. Another example of this is Emmaus. The disciples spoke with the stranger on the road until their hearts were burning within them. When the bread was broken, so were their hearts. But as soon as they recognized Christ, he disappeared from view.
Time: Now is the only moment that exists. To use an inadequate image for it, if time extends at all, it’s a matter of depth, not length or width. That is to say, in the now, we have our choices, and the psychological wounds and emotional formation that influenced our making them. Everyone’s choices have social consequences, and in each moment, we experience our “purgatorial predicament" the fruits individual and communal action. Some of it is helpful, some of it’s a penance to endure. But it’s all a “lawful” rolling out of the way we do our purgatory in the space of our current breath-cycle.
Thinking that time is linear, that there is a future or a past into which it extends, necessarily makes it a mental construct, not a lived reality. After all, the mind, the seat of illusion, is the only place such concepts of time can exist.
I’ve spoken in the past about how the west has a concept of "chronos time", a lineup of minutes our minds seem to be addicted to, and a "kairos time,” which is the present moment. It may be our inability to live in the present that accounts for the lack of a more permanent concept of enlightenment or absolute samadhi. The buddhist ability to identify enlightened people, folks who never really re-identify with the ego after an experience of contemplation, may be partially due to a buddhist’s increased ability to live in the present. Our western addiction to linear time might be part of what continually throws a wrench in the gears of more abiding states of contemplation. If the east is Joshu’s dog, which we learn has a viable buddha nature, the west is the same dog, in the throes of chasing a squirrel.
Remembrance: Our elder brothers in faith scooped me on this—everything I have to say about this word is gaffled straight from the Jewish people. It’s all true though: remembrance isn’t a calling up of an event into a mental television screen. It’s a re-entrance into the moment being remembered. Passover is the prime example here. The ceremonial question isn’t “How is passover different from other nights”—instead it’s “how is this night different from other nights?” Remembrance makes the past spacious, and renders it present. Catholics beg, borrow and steal, applying the thinking to the passover meal they redub “the Eucharist.” When we remember it, it’s not there and then anymore, it’s here and now.
Self: We have to understand this as a dynamic term. I don’t want to be inaccurate here. As a goal we constantly hold in front of us, non-self is pivotal. And given dualism’s tendency to separate the self from God, we constantly need to say, with Shakyamuni, “NOT TWO!” Truly, just as a buddhist or hindu has a self right up till they enter into Nirvana, so Catholics will have some form of “Selfhood” right up till the point that they’re fully divinized. But Shakyamuni is instructive here. “Not Two” is a procedural meditation, and has another step. Those who say “Not Two” have eventually to say “not one.” Just as we have to say we’re not separate from God, we have to eventually allow our “self-consciousness” to subside as well. This is the truth that’s embedded in the center of Divinization. If it’s true that we still have a self in God—I sincerely don’t know either way, and I’m not sure it matters—our consciousness of it has to subside completely.
In short, we need to question the way dualism messes up language. But there’s a way, too, that dualism warps choice making. It deserves equal scrutiny, and brings us, I think, kicking and screaming back to the Ram Dass quote mentioned above.
It’s not a direct quote, actually, but the sentiment’s his, and it stands: "There comes a point when our choice isn’t between different forms of social and moral responsibility. It’s either social and moral responsibility or unitive consciousness.” In light of this, in the true buddhist sense, whether we should serve the poor or have a beer becomes a non-question. That is to say, we certainly should serve the poor, and we will. We certainly should have a beer, and we will. What we choose to do with our Present Moment becomes unimportant in light of the way our purgatorial predicament will face us with a deepened consciousness alternating between selfishness and magnanimity. That’s just the way the spiritual journey works.
“How do I deal with the death of the ego?” For a person on the spiritual journey, this is the question of questions. In a way it's similar to the reactive and poor choices made by grieving people in denial: moral and social choices, made by people who are ignoring the death of the ego, tend to have unhealthy results.
Unitive consciousness is the result for a practitioner who, whether in stages or quite suddenly, has laid his ego to rest. Zen talks about Absolute Samadhi or enlightenment to point to this kind of permanent distance from the ego. In the Christian tradition this kind of self-realization is unnamed, and hasn’t been seen in the church on any grand scale since the aftermath of Pentecost.
Over and over, it’s Koans that get the work of “Egoic Death” done. And for those who think Koans only have a place in East Asian traditions, I would respond resolutely: Christianity has space for them as well. Christians have heard it said “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.” I say to them, “Koans collapse time, making all times present.” Christians have heard the same mouth say “The Father is always with me” that later screamed “WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” I say to them that Christ crucified is the ultimate Koan, and Koans unite opposites. Christians have heard it said “Here I am, send me!” I say to them, “Koans collapse place, making all locations ‘here.’”
I say again: dualism is a sickness, the original mental illness. But the sacramental economy leads us out of our minds and back into our senses, and Koans lead us back to oneness with our source. With the right treatment, the prognosis is good: we who have the medicine needn’t fear the malady.
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