Eschewing Obfuscation

You have religionists who are satisfied to hold "God" separate from themselves and remain essentially unconsciously self-conscious.

You have "readers of every esoteric literature" who are satisfied to assert that "I am God" without having ever removed their egos; and remain essentially unconsciously self-conscious.

You have materialists who deny "a God" in favour of an independent self in a chance universe, "full of potential" without themselves ever actually plumbing and plumbing that "self" and examining that ego, or developing the contemplative intuition to ever receive Knowledge – nor ever realizing the untold potential of the divine Human form; thus remaining for their part, essentially unconsciously self-conscious.

And you have those who, by whatever name or title they’re designated or which status they’ve achieved in this world or the next, actually do the Work of pursuing soul-knowledge, consciousness of Self, of examining the ego inside and out and expressing life beyond it, becoming "realized".  It is a Work of love, of devotion.  And this more than anything enables us to follow suit.

It’s not for one to judge, others or oneself, on this – but to be observant toward it, to avoid bullshitting and to eschew obfuscation.

Transcendent Generosity

 

To restrict generosity to what your coffers can or cannot offer, is to miss Buddha's intent, by measuring oneself against the many noble philanthropists who have given from their coffers.

That is one kind of expression of generosity.  There are others.  And each manner of generosity is but a manner - the actual practice of any or another will increase the capacity for practicing generosity - according to that manner.

Karuna:  compassion, lovingkindness, a sovereign love - these both are, and give more possibility for, more generosity.  "I'm doing" or "I'm not" or "I can't" - are all assertions of ego.

There is generosity of time, or of thought or feeling, of visualisation, of word, of action - in breadth and in depth.  This is to be meditated on.  This is what is meant.  This generosity is conscious and intelligent, genuinely free of idiot-naive generosity, free of shoulds or musts, free of  trendy "tolerance"-peddling, or of any cult of political correctness.  Real generosity is sovereign in nature, an authentic expression of one's basic sanity, of Heart-Mind.

It is found and cultivated in stillness - not the deadening of thought but its enlivening through the discipline of first studying one's own mind.  There is no judgement here, just objective observation and reflection.  Concerning generosity with material wealth, however vast and impressive or comparatively humble: motives objectively considered reveal the inherent nature behind it.  It's not that generosity is in itself "wrong" - the reference point directing it may however be decidedly conscious or unconscious.  Some acts of generosity are driven by notions of compensation, or of guilt, or of control and domination, or of recognition and reputation, or tax benefits, or of a duty.  It can generate a good feeling or feeling of goodness, of being good, doing good.  It can also generate joy, enhance lovingkindness.

To differentiate and exercise discriminating wisdom, generosity is for meditation, in this one studies one's mind and what is moving it.  Real altruism is All-True or it is nothing.

Generosity toward strangers without or at the expense of one's person, or of one's family - or in the case of a head of State: at the disastrous cost of one's people and nation - is the neurotic and irresponsible experiment of a manipulative ego with issues.

Helper-Syndrome has nothing to do with generosity, yet always uses this as a cover for this destructive behavior.  There is no self-image in real generosity, there are no deals.  So if you build a huge clinic which becomes an institution of standing, you build it.  If you give your last dollar to someone in need, you give it.  There is already a law of reciprocation, you needn't look for any.  One needn't stack "points" - generosity comes from an inner wealth, not an inner poverty.

In meditating on this one expands toward oneself, toward those near, and those loved.  This cultivates the feeling and is authentic of itself.  The expansion builds outwardly toward community, toward one's own environment of sentient Beings, toward the world as one applies visualisation. It builds inwardly toward one's own past, present, future - without harboring wishes or desires in the conventional sense, just steadily cultivating lovingkindness.  It is not to deny or dismiss or belittle emotions - anger, fear, panic, concerns, preferences - it just transcends all of these.

It is not practiced according to rules or ideologies, it is the free expression and demonstration of following one's true nature.  The most generous thing one can do is to embrace and practice this, and transmit it by example to those hungering for a taste of benevolent reality.

 

Dakinis in the Cellar

(first written down, Berlin 1998)

A familiar feature from my childhood was my parents' "unfinished basement". We played down there, my mother hung wash there in bad weather, we sometimes slept there, we stored boxes of merchandise, my father kept his desk there, my brother instructed me in oil paint and led his two younger siblings in some very creative scenario building for play there. It was (for a child) a large area, divided not by walls but by two-by-four beams, structures through which you could easily slip from one "room" to the other.

These became the basis for the "trees" in the following dream. The Basement was also for me very spooky, and I feared it as an Abode of My Unconscious in childhood as much as I used it regardless of this.

The dream may have recurred twice or three times, or else the one time I dreamt it just made that strong an impression; in any event, I was no older than 12 by my reckoning.

I was familiar then with two story-settings and their brutal endings which no doubt influenced the set-up of the dream: Grieg's “Peer Gynt“ and the Greek classic of Artemis/Diana being inadvertantly caught bathing by a young man out hunting with his hounds. In both cases the male intruder meets with a rather nasty end.

So – I'm dreaming of being in The Basement which is now a woods, I'm watching through the 2x4 "trees" onto what really is an open concrete floor but in the dream is a wooded clearing, a bit surreal: green, dank, earthy, breathing with nature's primal heat, quiet, serene, yet full of anticipation.

At first empty, there quietly enters an auspicious assembly of, at most a dozen maidens. They are dressed, but etherically/erotically lovely – their entire color is blue, soft and glowing, and they are, it appears, ghosts or spirits as it were, not corporeal – yet no less desirable.

I watch and I sense that for all my je-jumping hormones, I should keep a respectful distance, exercise some restraint, and keep still. Good call, as it turns out. For just a few feet away from me to my right I notice a young fella (older than I however) suggesting Peer Gynt or the Greek hunter. He's dressed a little haphazardly, bloused sleeves and open shirt and all, hair unkempt, his eyes innocent yet rolling out of control, his face breaking into a sweat: He Can't Handle This. He watches too, as the maidens form a circle and dance like fairies or like Isadora Duncan, as surreal as they are sensual. But nothing happens – yet. (I gasp.)

Well, the kid finally breaks down and dashes into their midst, throwing himself into the dance – did he also make a grab at one of the ghostly maidens? I think so – and of course, could not. The female Master standing in the middle of the circle was none too pleased and gave a thought-command. With a fury the poor guy was pounced on by all, and rent asunder.

As this occurred, or perhaps immediately after – the female Master gave me a very direct and auspicious glance, and with a sober and compassionate face of lovingkindness communicated wordlessly to me: "OK, Joe, this was a test and you just passed – so don't make the same mistake he did with your erotic gifts; you're fortunate to see what you got to see and make it out of here; now here's a gift from me to you: you will grow to understand and appreciate deeply the finer Being of Woman and what she really Is, and this itself will bless you." I'm paraphrasing here, but that was it.

Considering this twenty years later I thought of what our Murshida back in our Boulder group used to call the "Invincible Woman" and I thought of the Dakini-energy which accompanied our training. And I saw this adolescent dream sequence in a better light.

Two deades still later as of this first writing, I think I got that right.

That Master-woman in my dream was the Invincible Woman, the assembly may well have been the Dancin' Dakinis. And it doesn't take Carl Jung to figure out that I'm both "me" and the "other guy" in the story. My life bears out the truth of this dream.

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/08/invincible-woman-internalized-from.html