Anxiety----reply

[Guest guest]

Dear Eric,

let it go.

Your bonds are your own.

You have chosen a path that need not be travelled,

but I see you as my path also,

no matter which way we choose

We will arrive together.

I love your wisdom and insights,

but tell me, is this worth this hanging on?

With much love and respect

eric.

Rev Charles, Dan, Jody & Friends,

1st, I agree with all the various insights quoted above, but would

like to add an observation of my own that has developed over the

years since my original involvment with the demands of a Guru, in my

case, Baba Muktananda. As it refers to effects that tend to

accompagny "serious" sadhana, or the conscious acceptance of the

results of ultimate or penultimate initiation, it may not have much

value for Rev Charles, with his obvious responsibility to craft

something of more general value for his parishioners.

All sadhanas, in my observation, contain demands that both point to a

position as it would be experienced if one were at the point of

"cause", or final Enlightenment, as well as serving as an exercize in

the expression of one's commitment in the face of being subject to the

increasing pressure of one's karma (usually negative) that immersion

in serious sadhana always brings in it's wake.

Examples of this rigorous discipline can be found not only in the

quote from Jesus about anxiety, which the disciple will experience in

any case, but also in his admonition to be as the "lilies in the

fields. who toil not, etc. We are not "the lilies in the fields", nor

even like them in our ability to sustain nourishment by merely

passively existing, nor can our imitation of their example serve us

without also serving up a healthy dollop of this same anxiety that

wse are urged to give up. "Turn the other cheek" falls into this same

category. It suggests an enlightened response, but it is also an

extremely unreasonable and anxiety provoking challenge to the

personal needs of a realistic person. It takes a position on negative

karma ( the original confrontation ) and then, ups the ante, so to

speak.

It's my firm belief, my findings, really, that all intense "short

paths" contain self contradictory demands like these. Just consider

the trials of Naropa or Milarepa in the Tibetan Tantric tradition.

Extreme disciples, but also extreme "achievers" or saints, have

always faced these kinds of direct challenge to the normal need to

protect and nourish the personal existence.

In Sufism, we can look to any number of renunciates like Hallaj with

his insistence on "an al Haq", that I am the reality (Allah), in the

face of mercilessly Dualistic jurists and Mullahs (who subsequently

crucified him), or Rabia's powerful, but equally dangerous and

provocative statements of Monism in the face of both sexist and

dualist leaders of the Islamic faith. In that ultimately sexist

society, she was given to point out in answer to one challenge about

her conduct in the face of men, her "superiors", that in the

intensity of her belief in Islam, she saw no "men", but rather all

were women in the presence of Allah. She has been handed down to us

by this most extreme expression of Dualistic sexism (the Islamic

tradition), as a woman who personified God's harsh judgments of the

male saints who frequented her company in spite of the prevailing

harsh codes of conduct to which they, as well as she, were subject.

Amazingly, she lived in Mecca and freely criticized the greatest

saints of her age.

Mirabhai and Lalleshvar in the Indian tradition were equally unmindful

both of their personal images and welfare, as well as the excruciating

anxiety their conduct in affirming the absolute ascendance of God and

his disregard of "normal" conduct must have cost them. They

contravened the rigid conventions of marriage, Brahmanism and

personal propriety and image in their flagrant and personally

volatile activities and socially provocative songs and poems.

Do I mean that each of these Saints, or great initiates, didn't

finally arrive at a condition where these normal challenges to life,

limb and personal image were consumed in the unitive fire of their

merger with God? No, I don't. But what of the seemingly endless

stages of sadhana that preceded this final union? they all had to

contend with their own pass-nots of defying the conventions of

society and self protection by taking on the harsh dictates of a

surrender that was almost "artificial" in it's ritualistic rigor.

To become a Buddha in one life, as Milarepa and Naropa attempted, or

to attempt merger in their chosen form of the diety as Rabia, Mira

and Lalli did, automatically entailed accepting and acting out

impossible dictates from the point of view of normal integrative

life.

To turn to the dictates of representing Jesus without thought of food

or clothing or personal welfare is yet another of these Karma

intensifying demands that paradoxically, finally, bring a saint's or

great disciple's personal karma to an end lifetimes before it could

have reached it's natural conclusion.

The rest of us accept as much of the discipline as we can, in an

ongoing if sometimes painful evaluation of our personal dedication

and possibilities. We try and dedicate "tomorrow" to the Lord, or the

"Reality"; we try and accept and forgive the animosity that life puts

in our way, even if we are unable to provoke further retaliation by

"turning the other cheek".

It seems likely to me that not many of us in these forums are up to

this kind of dedication either, although we fill up an a good measure

of our attention with spiritual development, or at least thoughts

about spiritual development.

To me it seems good to understand as much of the truth, the admittedly

relative truth, as we can. Ultimately, I believe, though I can't prove

it, that this kind of mental preparation and sadhana will bring us, in

this life of the next, into the company of one who can give us the

actual experience of merger, or nonduality, or God. But it is

important to realize that his/her demands will surely entail just as

much anxiety provoking thought and activity as the examples the Rev

Charles has just quoted us, and which I've amplified with examples

from other traditions.

yours in the bonds,

eric