Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 On Fri, 22 Jun 2001 16:50:37 -0000 " mortivan " <mortivan writes: >Could he possibly be rationalizing his guru Adi Free Da Bubba Da >Franklin Kalki Samraj JuJuBee's behavior? > >-mort Hi Mort, For a few moments, " I " was genuinely perplexed by Wilber's take on simultaneous 'transcendance'/'indulgence' (Big/little ego) model. But, upon reading your follow-up, a humorous light bulb went on:-) I've actually met the guy in the bookstore where I work....no trace of " self " -lessness observed here (in fact, he seemed eager to talk about himself and his accomplishments), no wonder he's into dual-cultivation of ego's. I don't see him parting with his 'little' treasure anytime soon. Thanks for your humorous commentary. Karen ______________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 Dear List, Below is an interesting article written by Ken Wiber. Any comments ? ~dave PS. Tried to clipoff most of the redundant stuff; apologise for the length. Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself. " Precisely because the ego, the soul and the Self can all be present simultaneously, we can better understand the real meaning of " egolessness, " a notion that has caused an inordinate amount of confusion. But egolessness does not mean the absence of a functional self (that's a psychotic, not a sage); it means that one is no longer exclusively identified with that self. One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of " egoless " is that people want their " egoless sages " to fulfill all their fantasies of " saintly " or " spiritual, " which usually means dead from the neck down, without fleshy wants or desires, gently smiling all the time. All of the things that people typically have trouble with-money, food, sex, relationships, desire-they want their saints to be without. " Egoless sages " who are " above all that " is what people want. Talking heads is what they want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser instincts, drives and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for advice on how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress it, deny it, escape it. In other words, the typical person wants the spiritual sage to be " less than a person, " somehow devoid of all the messy, juicy, complex, pulsating, desiring, urging forces that drive most human beings. We expect our sages to be an absence of all that drives us! All the things that frighten us, confuse us, torment us, confound us: we want our sages to be untouched by them altogether. And that absence, that vacancy, that " less than personal, " is what we often mean by " egoless. " But " egoless " does not mean " less than personal, " it means " more than personal. " Not personal minus, but personal plus-all the normal personal qualities, plus some transpersonal ones. Think of the great yogis, saints and sages-from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers-from bullwhips in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them instigated massive social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. And they did so not because they avoided the physical, emotional and mental dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very foundations. No doubt, they were also plugged into the soul (deeper psychic) and spirit (formless Self)-the ultimate source of their power-but they expressed that power, and gave it concrete results, precisely because they dramatically engaged the lower dimensions through which that power could speak in terms that could be heard by all. These great movers and shakers were not small egos; they were, in the very best sense of the term, big egos, precisely because the ego (the functional vehicle of the gross realm) can and does exist alongside the soul (the vehicle of the subtle) and the Self (vehicle of the causal). To the extent these great teachers moved the gross realm, they did so with their egos, because the ego is the functional vehicle of that realm. They were not, however, identified merely with their egos (that's a narcissist), they simply found their egos plugged into a radiant Kosmic source. The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, alive to the pure atman (the pure I-I) that is one with Brahman; they opened their mouths and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its radiant God. Saint Teresa was a great contemplative? Yes, and Saint Teresa is the only woman ever to have reformed an entire Catholic monastic tradition (think about it). Gautama Buddha shook India to its foundations. Rumi, Plotinus, Bodhidharma, Lady Tsogyal, Lao Tzu, Plato, the Bal Shem Tov-these men and women started revolutions in the gross realm that lated hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years, something neither Marx nor Lenin nor Locke nor Jefferson can yet claim. And they did not do so because they were dead from the neck down. No, they were monumentally, gloriously, divinely big egos, plugged into a deeper psychic, which was plugged straight into God. There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of " transcending ego " : it doesn't mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. (As Nagarjuna put it, in the relative world, atman is real; in the absolute, neither atman nor anatman is real. Thus, in neither case is anatta a correct description of reality.) The small ego does not evaporate; it remains as the functional center of activity in the conventional realm. As I said, to lose that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage. " Transcending the ego " thus actually means to transcend but include the ego in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, enfolded, included and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means we do not " get rid " of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it fully, live it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions and mind, they do not erase them. Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply to live it with a certain exuberance. When identification spills out of the ego and into the Kosmos at large, the ego discovers that the individual atman is in fact all of a piece with Brahman. The big Self is indeed no small ego, and thus, to the extent you are stuck in your small ego, a death and transcendence is required. Narcissists are simply people whose egos are not yet big enough to embrace the entire Kosmos, and so they try to be central to the Kosmos instead. But we do not want our sages to have big egos; we do not even want them to display a manifest dimension at all. Anytime a sage displays humanness-in regard to money, food, sex, relationships-we are shocked, shocked, because we are planning to escape life altogether, not live it, and the sage who lives life offends us. We want out, we want to ascend, we want to escape, and the sage who engages life with gusto, lives it to the hilt, grabs each wave of life and surfs it to the end-this deeply, profoundly disturbs us, frightens us, because it means that we, too, might have to engage life, with gusto, on all levels, and not merely escape it in a cloud of luminous ether. We do not want our sages to have bodies, egos, drives, vitality, sex, money, relationships, or life, because those are what habitually torture us, and we want out. We do not want to surf the waves of life, we want the waves to go away. We want vaporware spirituality. The integral sage, the nondual sage, is here to show us otherwise. Known generally as " tantric, " these sages insist on transcending life by living it. They insist on finding release by engagement, finding nirvana in the midst of samsara, finding total liberation by complete immersion. They enter with awareness the nine rings of hell, for nowhere else are the nine heavens found. Nothing is alien to them, for there is nothing that is not One Taste. Indeed, the whole point is to be fully at home in the body and its desires, the mind and its ideas, the spirit and its light. To embrace them fully, evenly, simultaneously, since all are equally gestures of the One and Only Taste. To inhabit lust and watch it play; to enter ideas and follow their brilliance; to be swallowed by Spirit and awaken to a glory that time forgot to name. Body and mind and spirit, all contained, equally contained, in the ever-present awareness that grounds the entire display. In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: is this not you yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float quietly across the sky, is this not your very own limitless Being, waving back at you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 Could he possibly be rationalizing his guru Adi Free Da Bubba Da Franklin Kalki Samraj JuJuBee's behavior? -mort Nisargadatta, " D. Sirjue " <dsirju@n...> wrote: > Dear List, > > Below is an interesting article written by Ken Wiber. > Any comments ? > > ~dave > PS. Tried to clipoff most of the redundant stuff; apologise for the length. > Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos > > The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because > they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the > dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself. " Precisely because the ego, > the soul and the Self can all be present simultaneously, we can better > understand the real meaning of " egolessness, " a notion that has caused an > inordinate amount of confusion. But egolessness does not mean the absence of > a functional self (that's a psychotic, not a sage); it means that one is no > longer exclusively identified with that self. > > > One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of " egoless " is that > people want their " egoless sages " to fulfill all their fantasies of > " saintly " or " spiritual, " which usually means dead from the neck down, > without fleshy wants or desires, gently smiling all the time. All of the > things that people typically have trouble with-money, food, sex, > relationships, desire-they want their saints to be without. " Egoless sages " > who are " above all that " is what people want. Talking heads is what they > want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser instincts, > drives and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for advice on > how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress it, deny > it, escape it. > > > In other words, the typical person wants the spiritual sage to be " less than > a person, " somehow devoid of all the messy, juicy, complex, pulsating, > desiring, urging forces that drive most human beings. We expect our sages to > be an absence of all that drives us! All the things that frighten us, > confuse us, torment us, confound us: we want our sages to be untouched by > them altogether. And that absence, that vacancy, that " less than personal, " > is what we often mean by " egoless. " > > > But " egoless " does not mean " less than personal, " it means " more than > personal. " Not personal minus, but personal plus-all the normal personal > qualities, plus some transpersonal ones. Think of the great yogis, saints > and sages-from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not > feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers-from bullwhips > in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its > own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them instigated massive > social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. > > > And they did so not because they avoided the physical, emotional and mental > dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they > engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very > foundations. No doubt, they were also plugged into the soul (deeper psychic) > and spirit (formless Self)-the ultimate source of their power-but they > expressed that power, and gave it concrete results, precisely because they > dramatically engaged the lower dimensions through which that power could > speak in terms that could be heard by all. > > > These great movers and shakers were not small egos; they were, in the very > best sense of the term, big egos, precisely because the ego (the functional > vehicle of the gross realm) can and does exist alongside the soul (the > vehicle of the subtle) and the Self (vehicle of the causal). To the extent > these great teachers moved the gross realm, they did so with their egos, > because the ego is the functional vehicle of that realm. They were not, > however, identified merely with their egos (that's a narcissist), they > simply found their egos plugged into a radiant Kosmic source. The great > yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not > timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and > Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, alive to the > pure atman (the pure I-I) that is one with Brahman; they opened their mouths > and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its radiant God. > > > Saint Teresa was a great contemplative? Yes, and Saint Teresa is the only > woman ever to have reformed an entire Catholic monastic tradition (think > about it). Gautama Buddha shook India to its foundations. Rumi, Plotinus, > Bodhidharma, Lady Tsogyal, Lao Tzu, Plato, the Bal Shem Tov-these men and > women started revolutions in the gross realm that lated hundreds, sometimes > thousands, of years, something neither Marx nor Lenin nor Locke nor > Jefferson can yet claim. And they did not do so because they were dead from > the neck down. No, they were monumentally, gloriously, divinely big egos, > plugged into a deeper psychic, which was plugged straight into God. > > > There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of " transcending ego " : it > doesn't mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. (As > Nagarjuna put it, in the relative world, atman is real; in the absolute, > neither atman nor anatman is real. Thus, in neither case is anatta a correct > description of reality.) The small ego does not evaporate; it remains as the > functional center of activity in the conventional realm. As I said, to lose > that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage. > > > " Transcending the ego " thus actually means to transcend but include the ego > in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then > with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, > enfolded, included and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means > we do not " get rid " of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it fully, live > it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths > are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions and mind, they do > not erase them. > > > Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant > manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including > the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply > to live it with a certain exuberance. When identification spills out of the > ego and into the Kosmos at large, the ego discovers that the individual > atman is in fact all of a piece with Brahman. The big Self is indeed no > small ego, and thus, to the extent you are stuck in your small ego, a death > and transcendence is required. Narcissists are simply people whose egos are > not yet big enough to embrace the entire Kosmos, and so they try to be > central to the Kosmos instead. > > > But we do not want our sages to have big egos; we do not even want them to > display a manifest dimension at all. Anytime a sage displays humanness-in > regard to money, food, sex, relationships-we are shocked, shocked, because > we are planning to escape life altogether, not live it, and the sage who > lives life offends us. We want out, we want to ascend, we want to escape, > and the sage who engages life with gusto, lives it to the hilt, grabs each > wave of life and surfs it to the end-this deeply, profoundly disturbs us, > frightens us, because it means that we, too, might have to engage life, with > gusto, on all levels, and not merely escape it in a cloud of luminous ether. > We do not want our sages to have bodies, egos, drives, vitality, sex, money, > relationships, or life, because those are what habitually torture us, and we > want out. We do not want to surf the waves of life, we want the waves to go > away. We want vaporware spirituality. > > > The integral sage, the nondual sage, is here to show us otherwise. Known > generally as " tantric, " these sages insist on transcending life by living > it. They insist on finding release by engagement, finding nirvana in the > midst of samsara, finding total liberation by complete immersion. They enter > with awareness the nine rings of hell, for nowhere else are the nine heavens > found. Nothing is alien to them, for there is nothing that is not One Taste. > > > Indeed, the whole point is to be fully at home in the body and its desires, > the mind and its ideas, the spirit and its light. To embrace them fully, > evenly, simultaneously, since all are equally gestures of the One and Only > Taste. To inhabit lust and watch it play; to enter ideas and follow their > brilliance; to be swallowed by Spirit and awaken to a glory that time forgot > to name. Body and mind and spirit, all contained, equally contained, in the > ever-present awareness that grounds the entire display. > > > In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of > the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts > wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever > at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: > is this not you yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? > When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float > quietly across the sky, is this not your very own limitless Being, waving > back at you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 - " mortivan " <mortivan <Nisargadatta > Friday, June 22, 2001 12:50 PM Re: Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos > Could he possibly be rationalizing his guru Adi Free Da Bubba Da > Franklin Kalki Samraj JuJuBee's behavior? > > -mort You mean the Kalki Avatar is here, already ? ~dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 He called himself that for a while anyway. I don't think he could find any white horses in Fiji. -mort Nisargadatta, " D. Sirjue " <dsirju@n...> wrote: > > - > " mortivan " <mortivan> > <Nisargadatta> > Friday, June 22, 2001 12:50 PM > Re: Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos > > > > Could he possibly be rationalizing his guru Adi Free Da Bubba Da > > Franklin Kalki Samraj JuJuBee's behavior? > > > > -mort > > You mean the Kalki Avatar is here, already ? > > ~dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 No problem, Karen ;-) -mort Nisargadatta, Karen R Sattler <ksattler2@j...> wrote: > > Thanks for your humorous commentary. > > Karen > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 22, 2001 Report Share Posted June 22, 2001 Yes, it's typical " Ken Wilber style. " Not much else to say except he has his opinions like everyone else. Why attach importance to opinions, even your own? :-) Namaste, Omkara Nisargadatta, " D. Sirjue " <dsirju@n...> wrote: > Dear List, > > Below is an interesting article written by Ken Wiber. > Any comments ? > > ~dave > PS. Tried to clipoff most of the redundant stuff; apologise for the length. > Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos > > The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because > they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the > dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself. " Precisely because the ego, > the soul and the Self can all be present simultaneously, we can better > understand the real meaning of " egolessness, " a notion that has caused an > inordinate amount of confusion. But egolessness does not mean the absence of > a functional self (that's a psychotic, not a sage); it means that one is no > longer exclusively identified with that self. > > > One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of " egoless " is that > people want their " egoless sages " to fulfill all their fantasies of > " saintly " or " spiritual, " which usually means dead from the neck down, > without fleshy wants or desires, gently smiling all the time. All of the > things that people typically have trouble with-money, food, sex, > relationships, desire-they want their saints to be without. " Egoless sages " > who are " above all that " is what people want. Talking heads is what they > want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser instincts, > drives and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for advice on > how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress it, deny > it, escape it. > > > In other words, the typical person wants the spiritual sage to be " less than > a person, " somehow devoid of all the messy, juicy, complex, pulsating, > desiring, urging forces that drive most human beings. We expect our sages to > be an absence of all that drives us! All the things that frighten us, > confuse us, torment us, confound us: we want our sages to be untouched by > them altogether. And that absence, that vacancy, that " less than personal, " > is what we often mean by " egoless. " > > > But " egoless " does not mean " less than personal, " it means " more than > personal. " Not personal minus, but personal plus-all the normal personal > qualities, plus some transpersonal ones. Think of the great yogis, saints > and sages-from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not > feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers-from bullwhips > in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its > own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them instigated massive > social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. > > > And they did so not because they avoided the physical, emotional and mental > dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they > engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very > foundations. No doubt, they were also plugged into the soul (deeper psychic) > and spirit (formless Self)-the ultimate source of their power-but they > expressed that power, and gave it concrete results, precisely because they > dramatically engaged the lower dimensions through which that power could > speak in terms that could be heard by all. > > > These great movers and shakers were not small egos; they were, in the very > best sense of the term, big egos, precisely because the ego (the functional > vehicle of the gross realm) can and does exist alongside the soul (the > vehicle of the subtle) and the Self (vehicle of the causal). To the extent > these great teachers moved the gross realm, they did so with their egos, > because the ego is the functional vehicle of that realm. They were not, > however, identified merely with their egos (that's a narcissist), they > simply found their egos plugged into a radiant Kosmic source. The great > yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not > timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and > Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, alive to the > pure atman (the pure I-I) that is one with Brahman; they opened their mouths > and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its radiant God. > > > Saint Teresa was a great contemplative? Yes, and Saint Teresa is the only > woman ever to have reformed an entire Catholic monastic tradition (think > about it). Gautama Buddha shook India to its foundations. Rumi, Plotinus, > Bodhidharma, Lady Tsogyal, Lao Tzu, Plato, the Bal Shem Tov-these men and > women started revolutions in the gross realm that lated hundreds, sometimes > thousands, of years, something neither Marx nor Lenin nor Locke nor > Jefferson can yet claim. And they did not do so because they were dead from > the neck down. No, they were monumentally, gloriously, divinely big egos, > plugged into a deeper psychic, which was plugged straight into God. > > > There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of " transcending ego " : it > doesn't mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. (As > Nagarjuna put it, in the relative world, atman is real; in the absolute, > neither atman nor anatman is real. Thus, in neither case is anatta a correct > description of reality.) The small ego does not evaporate; it remains as the > functional center of activity in the conventional realm. As I said, to lose > that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage. > > > " Transcending the ego " thus actually means to transcend but include the ego > in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then > with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, > enfolded, included and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means > we do not " get rid " of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it fully, live > it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths > are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions and mind, they do > not erase them. > > > Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant > manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including > the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply > to live it with a certain exuberance. When identification spills out of the > ego and into the Kosmos at large, the ego discovers that the individual > atman is in fact all of a piece with Brahman. The big Self is indeed no > small ego, and thus, to the extent you are stuck in your small ego, a death > and transcendence is required. Narcissists are simply people whose egos are > not yet big enough to embrace the entire Kosmos, and so they try to be > central to the Kosmos instead. > > > But we do not want our sages to have big egos; we do not even want them to > display a manifest dimension at all. Anytime a sage displays humanness-in > regard to money, food, sex, relationships-we are shocked, shocked, because > we are planning to escape life altogether, not live it, and the sage who > lives life offends us. We want out, we want to ascend, we want to escape, > and the sage who engages life with gusto, lives it to the hilt, grabs each > wave of life and surfs it to the end-this deeply, profoundly disturbs us, > frightens us, because it means that we, too, might have to engage life, with > gusto, on all levels, and not merely escape it in a cloud of luminous ether. > We do not want our sages to have bodies, egos, drives, vitality, sex, money, > relationships, or life, because those are what habitually torture us, and we > want out. We do not want to surf the waves of life, we want the waves to go > away. We want vaporware spirituality. > > > The integral sage, the nondual sage, is here to show us otherwise. Known > generally as " tantric, " these sages insist on transcending life by living > it. They insist on finding release by engagement, finding nirvana in the > midst of samsara, finding total liberation by complete immersion. They enter > with awareness the nine rings of hell, for nowhere else are the nine heavens > found. Nothing is alien to them, for there is nothing that is not One Taste. > > > Indeed, the whole point is to be fully at home in the body and its desires, > the mind and its ideas, the spirit and its light. To embrace them fully, > evenly, simultaneously, since all are equally gestures of the One and Only > Taste. To inhabit lust and watch it play; to enter ideas and follow their > brilliance; to be swallowed by Spirit and awaken to a glory that time forgot > to name. Body and mind and spirit, all contained, equally contained, in the > ever-present awareness that grounds the entire display. > > > In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of > the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts > wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever > at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: > is this not you yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? > When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float > quietly across the sky, is this not your very own limitless Being, waving > back at you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 23, 2001 Report Share Posted June 23, 2001 Dear Dave, Thanks for posting this interesting piece from Wilber. This article reminded me of an incident that I witnessed recently. Several months ago I saw a sign at the Harvard Co-Op bookstore's window in Cambridge by Wilber, saying that Andrew Cohen's message needed to be heard. For quite a while I'd seen Andrew's flyers posted around this area by his students (disciples?) and was curious about him. Finally I went to see Andrew last weekend. I asked him how his message was different from Advaita and what happened with Papaji but that's the subject of another conversation. Someone in the audience, an older man in his late 70s, was very skeptical and had a problem with the notion of egolessness. He definitely didn't see Andrew as a spiritual sage. I cannot remember exactly what he said but he accused Andrew with something like, " You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself by giving retreats in France. So I see a big ego there on the stage. " I cannot say Andrew handled the old man's outburst well which made the confrontation even worse. Andrew has been teaching for the past 15 years. He's familiar with the nondual and dual views. Out of the spiritual teachers I've seen recently I could say that he was even more knowledgeable and open than Francis Lucille who seem to fit the image of a sage more than Andrew. So what is going on here? I agree with Wilber in the sense that the human mind idealizes how a spiritual sage should be. For most people Andrew just didn't fit the image of an ideal sage. I'd noticed how the human mind creates these ideal images when I read the short story of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It seems that the mind is idealizing either how a yogi (mystic) or a bogi (hedonist) should be. In the Herman Hesse story, Siddhartha sees the divine not in the mystics or hedonists but in an ordinary man by the river. In other words, the middle of the path was how the writer reconciled the conflict. One of the reasons I am fond of Advaita is that, when one sees everything, including (+) divine, (-) profane and (neutral) ordinary, as the manifestation of the Being, then one is less likely to be consumed in the drama. Hur > The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because > they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the > dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself. " Precisely because the ego, > the soul and the Self can all be present simultaneously, we can better > understand the real meaning of " egolessness, " a notion that has caused an > inordinate amount of confusion. But egolessness does not mean the absence of > a functional self (that's a psychotic, not a sage); it means that one is no > longer exclusively identified with that self. > > > One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of " egoless " is that > people want their " egoless sages " to fulfill all their fantasies of > " saintly " or " spiritual, " which usually means dead from the neck down, > without fleshy wants or desires, gently smiling all the time. All of the > things that people typically have trouble with-money, food, sex, > relationships, desire-they want their saints to be without. " Egoless sages " > who are " above all that " is what people want. Talking heads is what they > want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser instincts, > drives and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for advice on > how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress it, deny > it, escape it. > > > In other words, the typical person wants the spiritual sage to be " less than > a person, " somehow devoid of all the messy, juicy, complex, pulsating, > desiring, urging forces that drive most human beings. We expect our sages to > be an absence of all that drives us! All the things that frighten us, > confuse us, torment us, confound us: we want our sages to be untouched by > them altogether. And that absence, that vacancy, that " less than personal, " > is what we often mean by " egoless. " > > > But " egoless " does not mean " less than personal, " it means " more than > personal. " Not personal minus, but personal plus-all the normal personal > qualities, plus some transpersonal ones. Think of the great yogis, saints > and sages-from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not > feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers-from bullwhips > in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its > own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them instigated massive > social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. > > > And they did so not because they avoided the physical, emotional and mental > dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they > engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very > foundations. No doubt, they were also plugged into the soul (deeper psychic) > and spirit (formless Self)-the ultimate source of their power-but they > expressed that power, and gave it concrete results, precisely because they > dramatically engaged the lower dimensions through which that power could > speak in terms that could be heard by all. > > > These great movers and shakers were not small egos; they were, in the very > best sense of the term, big egos, precisely because the ego (the functional > vehicle of the gross realm) can and does exist alongside the soul (the > vehicle of the subtle) and the Self (vehicle of the causal). To the extent > these great teachers moved the gross realm, they did so with their egos, > because the ego is the functional vehicle of that realm. They were not, > however, identified merely with their egos (that's a narcissist), they > simply found their egos plugged into a radiant Kosmic source. The great > yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not > timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and > Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, alive to the > pure atman (the pure I-I) that is one with Brahman; they opened their mouths > and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its radiant God. > > > Saint Teresa was a great contemplative? Yes, and Saint Teresa is the only > woman ever to have reformed an entire Catholic monastic tradition (think > about it). Gautama Buddha shook India to its foundations. Rumi, Plotinus, > Bodhidharma, Lady Tsogyal, Lao Tzu, Plato, the Bal Shem Tov-these men and > women started revolutions in the gross realm that lated hundreds, sometimes > thousands, of years, something neither Marx nor Lenin nor Locke nor > Jefferson can yet claim. And they did not do so because they were dead from > the neck down. No, they were monumentally, gloriously, divinely big egos, > plugged into a deeper psychic, which was plugged straight into God. > > > There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of " transcending ego " : it > doesn't mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. (As > Nagarjuna put it, in the relative world, atman is real; in the absolute, > neither atman nor anatman is real. Thus, in neither case is anatta a correct > description of reality.) The small ego does not evaporate; it remains as the > functional center of activity in the conventional realm. As I said, to lose > that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage. > > > " Transcending the ego " thus actually means to transcend but include the ego > in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then > with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, > enfolded, included and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means > we do not " get rid " of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it fully, live > it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths > are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions and mind, they do > not erase them. > > > Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant > manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including > the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply > to live it with a certain exuberance. When identification spills out of the > ego and into the Kosmos at large, the ego discovers that the individual > atman is in fact all of a piece with Brahman. The big Self is indeed no > small ego, and thus, to the extent you are stuck in your small ego, a death > and transcendence is required. Narcissists are simply people whose egos are > not yet big enough to embrace the entire Kosmos, and so they try to be > central to the Kosmos instead. > > > But we do not want our sages to have big egos; we do not even want them to > display a manifest dimension at all. Anytime a sage displays humanness-in > regard to money, food, sex, relationships-we are shocked, shocked, because > we are planning to escape life altogether, not live it, and the sage who > lives life offends us. We want out, we want to ascend, we want to escape, > and the sage who engages life with gusto, lives it to the hilt, grabs each > wave of life and surfs it to the end-this deeply, profoundly disturbs us, > frightens us, because it means that we, too, might have to engage life, with > gusto, on all levels, and not merely escape it in a cloud of luminous ether. > We do not want our sages to have bodies, egos, drives, vitality, sex, money, > relationships, or life, because those are what habitually torture us, and we > want out. We do not want to surf the waves of life, we want the waves to go > away. We want vaporware spirituality. > > > The integral sage, the nondual sage, is here to show us otherwise. Known > generally as " tantric, " these sages insist on transcending life by living > it. They insist on finding release by engagement, finding nirvana in the > midst of samsara, finding total liberation by complete immersion. They enter > with awareness the nine rings of hell, for nowhere else are the nine heavens > found. Nothing is alien to them, for there is nothing that is not One Taste. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 23, 2001 Report Share Posted June 23, 2001 - " Hur Guler " <Hur1 <Nisargadatta > Friday, June 22, 2001 11:46 PM Re: Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos > > I agree with Wilber in the sense that the human mind idealizes how a > spiritual sage should be. For most people Andrew just didn't fit the > image of an ideal sage. Don't blame the public for not buying into an image that the " new age gurus " create for themselves. By and large , these seminars are exorbitantly priced and are led by people who have their human flaws just like everyone. They may have some things to teach and their lessons may be worthwhile but for the most part they prey on the gullible public with overblown promises. If Mr.Cohen was truly " egoless " he wouldn't have even reacted in a hostile manner towards the old skeptical man. The public does not blame these people for not being Superman, they blame them for false advertising and hypocrisy. I have never met a " sage " who advertised his seminars as follows: " The teachings of (insert philosophy) may help you live a fuller, happier life. They may help in stress reduction and a sense of ego dissolution. There are no guarantees, and the process is a long and painful one. (insert philosophy) has helped me to live a fuller, more spiritual life, but the process is again a very hard one. I, myself, have not completely dissolved my ego and there are times in which I have spiritual dillemas and doubts just like anyone. I am offering to teach what I know for a moderate price so that most everyone can see what I have to offer and decide for themselves if the beautiful philosophy which I adhere to is right for them too " . The fact is, most seminars cater to the upper-middle class aging babyboomer generation. Who else could afford a grand or more for a simple 3 day retreat. Mr.Cohen and others like him, while having some knowledge to share are most definately anything but egoless and they certainly enjoys their creature comforts as much as anyone. Is this bad? No not necessarily but it often goes against the very teachings which they themselves espouse. The public didn't automatically decide what a sage should and shouldn't be like, they got their notions from the very ascetic texts with many of the pop gurus lecture on. Somehow I get the feeling that if they were completely truthful, instead of resorting to slick marketing gimmicks, they may not be able to afford their wordly comforts very well. Kind Regards, Jeremy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 23, 2001 Report Share Posted June 23, 2001 Pardon for indulging in an opinion (i am not a teacher :-), but both Wilber and Andrew Cohen *do* seem to be " in it " for the ego gratification and money. Both have been harshly criticized for their statements and approaches. i have been on these 'nondual lists' for the past 2 1/2 years. Everyone i know who has read Cohen and/or Wilber extensively (and who seems to be coming from a 'genuine place' themselves) feels this way. i have read maybe 4 Wilber books, and twenty of them could not compare to the " impact " of Nisargadatta's " I Am That. " As for Cohen's material, the only experience i have is with What Is Enlightenment magazine (www.wie.org) but he does seem to be given to outlandish and self-centered comments. imo, the world could do just fine without either of them in the " spiritual teacher " role. Namaste, Omkara Nisargadatta, " Hur Guler " <Hur1@a...> wrote: > Dear Dave, > > Thanks for posting this interesting piece from Wilber. This article > reminded me of an incident that I witnessed recently. > > Several months ago I saw a sign at the Harvard Co-Op bookstore's > window in Cambridge by Wilber, saying that Andrew Cohen's message > needed to be heard. For quite a while I'd seen Andrew's flyers > posted around this area by his students (disciples?) and was curious > about him. Finally I went to see Andrew last weekend. I asked him > how his message was different from Advaita and what happened with > Papaji but that's the subject of another conversation. > > Someone in the audience, an older man in his late 70s, was very > skeptical and had a problem with the notion of egolessness. He > definitely didn't see Andrew as a spiritual sage. I cannot remember > exactly what he said but he accused Andrew with something like, " You > seem to be doing pretty well for yourself by giving retreats in > France. So I see a big ego there on the stage. " I cannot say Andrew > handled the old man's outburst well which made the confrontation even > worse. > > Andrew has been teaching for the past 15 years. He's familiar with > the nondual and dual views. Out of the spiritual teachers I've seen > recently I could say that he was even more knowledgeable and open > than Francis Lucille who seem to fit the image of a sage more than > Andrew. So what is going on here? > > I agree with Wilber in the sense that the human mind idealizes how a > spiritual sage should be. For most people Andrew just didn't fit the > image of an ideal sage. I'd noticed how the human mind creates these > ideal images when I read the short story of Siddhartha by Herman > Hesse. It seems that the mind is idealizing either how a yogi > (mystic) or a bogi (hedonist) should be. In the Herman Hesse story, > Siddhartha sees the divine not in the mystics or hedonists but in an > ordinary man by the river. In other words, the middle of the path > was how the writer reconciled the conflict. > > One of the reasons I am fond of Advaita is that, when one sees > everything, including (+) divine, (-) profane and (neutral) ordinary, > as the manifestation of the Being, then one is less likely to be > consumed in the drama. > > Hur > > > The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely > because > > they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into > the > > dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself. " Precisely because > the ego, > > the soul and the Self can all be present simultaneously, we can > better > > understand the real meaning of " egolessness, " a notion that has > caused an > > inordinate amount of confusion. But egolessness does not mean the > absence of > > a functional self (that's a psychotic, not a sage); it means that > one is no > > longer exclusively identified with that self. > > > > > > One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion > of " egoless " is that > > people want their " egoless sages " to fulfill all their fantasies of > > " saintly " or " spiritual, " which usually means dead from the neck > down, > > without fleshy wants or desires, gently smiling all the time. All > of the > > things that people typically have trouble with-money, food, sex, > > relationships, desire-they want their saints to be > without. " Egoless sages " > > who are " above all that " is what people want. Talking heads is what > they > > want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser > instincts, > > drives and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for > advice on > > how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress > it, deny > > it, escape it. > > > > > > In other words, the typical person wants the spiritual sage to > be " less than > > a person, " somehow devoid of all the messy, juicy, complex, > pulsating, > > desiring, urging forces that drive most human beings. We expect our > sages to > > be an absence of all that drives us! All the things that frighten > us, > > confuse us, torment us, confound us: we want our sages to be > untouched by > > them altogether. And that absence, that vacancy, that " less than > personal, " > > is what we often mean by " egoless. " > > > > > > But " egoless " does not mean " less than personal, " it means " more > than > > personal. " Not personal minus, but personal plus-all the normal > personal > > qualities, plus some transpersonal ones. Think of the great yogis, > saints > > and sages-from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not > > feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers-from > bullwhips > > in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world > on its > > own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety; many of them > instigated massive > > social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. > > > > > > And they did so not because they avoided the physical, emotional > and mental > > dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but > because they > > engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its > very > > foundations. No doubt, they were also plugged into the soul (deeper > psychic) > > and spirit (formless Self)-the ultimate source of their power-but > they > > expressed that power, and gave it concrete results, precisely > because they > > dramatically engaged the lower dimensions through which that power > could > > speak in terms that could be heard by all. > > > > > > These great movers and shakers were not small egos; they were, in > the very > > best sense of the term, big egos, precisely because the ego (the > functional > > vehicle of the gross realm) can and does exist alongside the soul > (the > > vehicle of the subtle) and the Self (vehicle of the causal). To the > extent > > these great teachers moved the gross realm, they did so with their > egos, > > because the ego is the functional vehicle of that realm. They were > not, > > however, identified merely with their egos (that's a narcissist), > they > > simply found their egos plugged into a radiant Kosmic source. The > great > > yogis, saints and sages accomplished so much precisely because they > were not > > timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic > Ground and > > Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, > alive to the > > pure atman (the pure I-I) that is one with Brahman; they opened > their mouths > > and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its > radiant God. > > > > > > Saint Teresa was a great contemplative? Yes, and Saint Teresa is > the only > > woman ever to have reformed an entire Catholic monastic tradition > (think > > about it). Gautama Buddha shook India to its foundations. Rumi, > Plotinus, > > Bodhidharma, Lady Tsogyal, Lao Tzu, Plato, the Bal Shem Tov-these > men and > > women started revolutions in the gross realm that lated hundreds, > sometimes > > thousands, of years, something neither Marx nor Lenin nor Locke nor > > Jefferson can yet claim. And they did not do so because they were > dead from > > the neck down. No, they were monumentally, gloriously, divinely big > egos, > > plugged into a deeper psychic, which was plugged straight into God. > > > > > > There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of " transcending > ego " : it > > doesn't mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something > bigger. (As > > Nagarjuna put it, in the relative world, atman is real; in the > absolute, > > neither atman nor anatman is real. Thus, in neither case is anatta > a correct > > description of reality.) The small ego does not evaporate; it > remains as the > > functional center of activity in the conventional realm. As I said, > to lose > > that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage. > > > > > > " Transcending the ego " thus actually means to transcend but include > the ego > > in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper > psychic, then > > with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage > taken up, > > enfolded, included and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And > that means > > we do not " get rid " of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it > fully, live > > it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher > truths > > are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions and mind, > they do > > not erase them. > > > > > > Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant > > manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, > including > > the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but > simply > > to live it with a certain exuberance. When identification spills > out of the > > ego and into the Kosmos at large, the ego discovers that the > individual > > atman is in fact all of a piece with Brahman. The big Self is > indeed no > > small ego, and thus, to the extent you are stuck in your small ego, > a death > > and transcendence is required. Narcissists are simply people whose > egos are > > not yet big enough to embrace the entire Kosmos, and so they try to > be > > central to the Kosmos instead. > > > > > > But we do not want our sages to have big egos; we do not even want > them to > > display a manifest dimension at all. Anytime a sage displays > humanness-in > > regard to money, food, sex, relationships-we are shocked, shocked, > because > > we are planning to escape life altogether, not live it, and the > sage who > > lives life offends us. We want out, we want to ascend, we want to > escape, > > and the sage who engages life with gusto, lives it to the hilt, > grabs each > > wave of life and surfs it to the end-this deeply, profoundly > disturbs us, > > frightens us, because it means that we, too, might have to engage > life, with > > gusto, on all levels, and not merely escape it in a cloud of > luminous ether. > > We do not want our sages to have bodies, egos, drives, vitality, > sex, money, > > relationships, or life, because those are what habitually torture > us, and we > > want out. We do not want to surf the waves of life, we want the > waves to go > > away. We want vaporware spirituality. > > > > > > The integral sage, the nondual sage, is here to show us otherwise. > Known > > generally as " tantric, " these sages insist on transcending life by > living > > it. They insist on finding release by engagement, finding nirvana > in the > > midst of samsara, finding total liberation by complete immersion. > They enter > > with awareness the nine rings of hell, for nowhere else are the > nine heavens > > found. Nothing is alien to them, for there is nothing that is not > One Taste. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 23, 2001 Report Share Posted June 23, 2001 Nicely stated Jeremy, fwiw i agree with your comments below. Namaste, Omkara Nisargadatta, " Jeremy Frost " <frost@t...> wrote: > Don't blame the public for not buying into an image that the " new age > gurus " create for themselves. By and large , these seminars are exorbitantly > priced and are led by people who have their human flaws just like everyone. > They may have some things to teach and their lessons may be worthwhile but > for the most part they prey on the gullible public with overblown promises. > If Mr.Cohen was truly " egoless " he wouldn't have even reacted in a hostile > manner towards the old skeptical man. The public does not blame these people > for not being Superman, they blame them for false advertising and hypocrisy. > I have never met a " sage " who advertised his seminars as follows: > " The teachings of (insert philosophy) may help you live a fuller, > happier life. They may help in stress reduction and a sense of ego > dissolution. There are no guarantees, and the process is a long and painful > one. (insert philosophy) has helped me to live a fuller, more spiritual > life, but the process is again a very hard one. I, myself, have not > completely dissolved my ego and there are times in which I have spiritual > dillemas and doubts just like anyone. I am offering to teach what I know for > a moderate price so that most everyone can see what I have to offer and > decide for themselves if the beautiful philosophy which I adhere to is right > for them too " . > > The fact is, most seminars cater to the upper-middle class aging > babyboomer generation. Who else could afford a grand or more for a simple 3 > day retreat. Mr.Cohen and others like him, while having some knowledge to > share are most definately anything but egoless and they certainly enjoys > their creature comforts as much as anyone. Is this bad? No not necessarily > but it often goes against the very teachings which they themselves espouse. > The public didn't automatically decide what a sage should and shouldn't be > like, they got their notions from the very ascetic texts with many of the > pop gurus lecture on. Somehow I get the feeling that if they were completely > truthful, instead of resorting to slick marketing gimmicks, they may not be > able to afford their wordly comforts very well. > > Kind Regards, > Jeremy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.