Nikolai1

Maybe all these ideas that we need to remain undistracted / need to completed by opposing energies is irrelevant. The video cat posted suggested that anyone can inspire in us loving kindness, whether we live with them, work with them, ride the bus with them... Maybe this is the aim, to simply work with where we are. Single, or involved, both bring their challenges... And then there are acts of God...here are the real words of the medieval mystic Blessed Angela of Foligno, talking about her spiritual growth.

A very difficult situation is when you start a relationship before your own practice has really taken off and become serious. But then when it does your partner does not wish to, or is not able to go down the same road. As you become more emotionally grounded, this disparity upsets you less and you perhaps you feel no need to DO anything proactive about it. You find that you just accept the situation and know that trying to force your new worldview on your partner will achieve nothing. So the relationship can continue in a certain fashion. BUT, the truth is that you see and think about the world in completely different ways. My partner represents the common sense world view that I in my practice are busting a gut to move away from. She does not hold me back from formal practice, but her presence in my life obliges me to stay in my pre-practice worldview. Am I held back? I don't know if this is good or bad for me. It results in a tension that is not open acrimony (we are both too emotionally mature for that) but a tension that is still building all the time and surely must need a correction. I would dearly appreciate advice from anyone who has been through the same situation.

There's one thing I get, which although little, gives me lots of pleasure...Now when I close my eyes, rather than darkness, there is a very subtle inner light that adds a feeling of real depth. Imagine you decide to crawl out your tent and lie flat on the mountain, gazing up into the starry void. This is the beautiful feeling I get when I close my eyes - I see an infinite void. I see and understand that outer space is just the counterpart to an inner space, just as awesome and immense. To regard the stars and planets is to feel your own smallness and insignificance, to regard Inner Space is to feel the infinitudes that YOU contain. Macrocosm and microcosm are just different perspectives on the Self. All this doesn't exactly make the world a better place, but it fills me with beauty and happiness.

The third eye is always open in all people and it never closes, but it flickers. The measure of the flicker is how much light we see. When it is open wide we have much light. We call this vision the ‘present moment’. When the third eye flickers the light is dim and almost veiled. Things are seem only dimly, like shadows. We call this vision ‘thought.’ Time and space exist nowhere except as thoughts. Time and space are illusions created by the flickering of the third eye. We imagine that our thoughts are about things in another time in another place – but this is the illusion. There is no time and space – only a flickering third eye. The light is now bright and effulgent, now dim and shadowy. But light is the only thing there is. Spiritual cultivation reduces the flicker. The purpose of it is to help live more with the light. The light of the present gets brighter…the shadowy thoughts also get brighter. A person with a steady third eye literally and actually sees more light. Everything is brighter and more vivid. The reflection of an object in a puddle of water is as vivid and captivating as the object itself. The Zen proverb states that ‘the fish swim in the trees, and the birds fly in the ocean.’ This is the vision of a person with a steady third eye. As our perception of light increases we see directly all we need to know – perception and subjective understanding are united. Thought and thinking represents our need to veil the brightness in order to see the subjective meaning apart, in isolation. As our third eye grows steady we can take it all in a glance. It no longer needs to flicker. You no longer think, and your behaviour shows you that you understand. You utter words spontaneously, based on your vision alone, and people say “how did you know that?” You answer: “I don’t know it, I just say it.” The person with a steady spiritual eye perceives, and then acts. Because you perceive well, you act well. Everyone else is managing to do their intricate tasks, but the light is low and errors are made. You seem to be the only one wearing a head torch. Techniques Where our awareness is, there our light is. As our awareness prolongs, the light brightens. If the light gets too bright we must blink, or think. We can measure our tolerance for the light by the frequency of our thoughts and blinking. A person in deep meditation has no need to blink or think. Some people prefer to brighten further the bright of the present. These people live spontaneously in the moment and are capable of beautiful, flowing, effective action. Some people prefer to shed light on the shadows. These people are thinkers and they are capable of making their subjective conceptions of time and space so good that they nearly blend with reality. Both these techniques are good, but the aim is to blend them together. The spontaneous actor must learn to understand, the wise thinker must learn to act. The person with an unmovable, steady third eye has blended thoughts and perceptions into one vision. Life flows smoothly and well, and it is familiar and understood. Life is therefore loved and the source of deep joy.

An unconscious belief is otherwise known as a 'fact' To the conscious person, all facts are opinions. All the conscious person's 'beliefs' are therefore not beliefs but authentic choices

Hi cat Like I said in the OP the spiritual eye is always open. There are moments, usually experienced as highly enjoyable when the flicker is hugely reduced - we are in the zone. The more we are in the zone the more our third eye opens - and we are capable or truly skilful, beautiful action. And yes, this can be interpreted as 'the spirit of the place'being with us. It doesn't matter how we explain it to ourselves - the point is the experience itself. You perhaps didn't think to notice, as you scrambled over the rocks, but had you stopped and covered your eyes with your hands - I think you would have seen the inner luminescence. It is its own benefit! To see the light is the end towards all good actions aim. Anyone with you on the rocks that night would have been privileged to witness you. There's nothing more to say or do - as you live by the light so too do others. And all the acts of deliberate kindness in the world are worth little unless they somehow help the recipient to see and to live in the light themselves. The light is always with us at various levels of consciousness. Usually we can't discern it directly but only through the prism of our external actions. For example a few months after learning to drive we might notice that we are doing everything, all the controls, reading the traffic without having to think about it. We are always driving well when this is the case - the third eye is driving the car. But we are having to discern its actions at some remove. The moment we try and capture driving with our consciousness our driving performance suffers. When the third eye appears as a fact of perception - as something we can actually consciously see then we are able to consciously choose to live by it. We are able to consciously drive with the same skill as we formerly could only so unconsciously. This is a very beautiful feeling. It is the feeling that you get in deep meditation, but is actually engaged in the world. Real things are transformed by it. You make things better, cook things better and with more enjoyment. People are beautiful, and respond to you and like you back. Even the girl at the checkout seem to respond to you well - all interactions go well when you are living in this frame of mind - in the light. If you want to live more and more like this...just look for the light. Whenever you remember - just stop and look for evidence of the light. Relax your eyes, notice the light brighten and grow more intense - your mood will follow. Then do what you intended to do. The link between the two physical eyes and the third eye When our third eye flickers it means that perception is frequently punctuated by thought. This means that the objects of thought are meaningfully linked to the nature of our perceptions. As thought deals with discrete concepts, the eye is led to seek discrete objects. The gaze therefore becomes sharp and focussed. Such sharp scrutiny requires the light detecting cells on the retina to become concentrated in one small area. Its called the fovea and it is a dense cluster of cells absorbing the light (the fovea is not yet-developed in young infants - the cells migrate in the early years to where they are needed) As flicker of the third eye reduces the physical eyes are less influenced by thoughts of discrete objects. The gaze becomes milder and and broader. You can observe this in anybody well-practiced in things like meditation. At the retina, the fovea becomes less concentrated - the light cells migrate back to where they are needed - which is across the whole visual field. This also means that less of the light is absorbed by the dense fovea behind the lens. Looking into the eyes of the person who sees this way is a different experience. The eyes have a lustre and sparkle which is due to increased reflectivity of the retina. When the third eye is becoming more and more steady you experience many of the same symptoms as retinal detachment: intense flashing pinpricks of light, squiggles in the sky, strange floaters etc. It isn't retinal detachment, but just due to changes at the surface of the retina. But in summary, a flickering third eye can be seen by absorbent physical eyes. a steady third eye can be seen by reflective physical eyes. I say all this because we shouldn't think that the third eye is actually a third eye - it is the eye that sees through eyes 1 and 2. Really first eye is a better word than third.

Intelligence is basically the ability to be sceptical. It is not falling for one-sided arguments. Unintelligent people have a poor ability to be sceptical. They therefore accept all sorts of things, and their worldview ends up full of contradictions. Trying to have a debate with such a person is like wading through a swamp. Intelligent people are better able to be sceptical. They therefore suspend judgement on more things, subscribe to less, and have a more coherent worldview based on robust premises which even they don't know how to doubt. But everyone has their limits. We all believe something or other. Ultimately the unintelligent and intelligent are both in the same boat when it comes to accepting those truths which transcend the intellect.

And if they are unconscious they can operate between people with any need for surface conscious affinity. This is hard. To fall in love with someone without anything tangible in the world to make it look sensible. Like your love is all in heaven and has no place here on earth. I'm sure this can only give opportunity for growth. I wonder whether spiritual growth allows you to become aware of unconscious complexes. Almost like you are able to fall in love with people you could never have considered before. I guess the lucky ones fall in love unconsciously, and there is no earthly reason why they shouldn't be together, so they are. The unlucky ones fall in love based on surface criteria that are more likely to change over time.

As your third eye brightens there is more light available for you. There is so much light that even a puddle of water - which normally gives a mere reflection - now gives a clear and vivid object. The fish really do swim amongst the branches. When you close your eyes the light continues to shine. You can go for walk in the darkest forest on the darkest night and your eyes will show you the path - this is actually true. The light you've gained is not some religious metaphor - it is real light to be used in the world. With your spiritual practice you have literally lightened up the world - you yourself have brightened the sun! This poses a question... If I can create extra light, then is it not possible that I created all the light? Is not the sun my crowning achievement? The moment I see the sun is the moment my light shines at its brightest. The sun does not illuminate me, it is I who illuminate the sun. And the darkness of night, I now see, is my own flickering eye - my own time for thought. The moon and stars are those fragments of my own effulgence that light the papers at my desk. What I call the moon is nothing other than my own inner light, made macrocosmic. To become aware of the light that shines behind closed eyes is the most significant moment in our growth. It is the moment when we realise that we are the source of all that we see. When Buddha became enlightened he said: "This threefold world is all my domain, and the living beings in it are all my children." In Psalm 82 of the Old Testament we are told that "Ye are Gods, sons of the most high all of you". Jesus reminded his followers to think the same of themselves: "Is it not written in your law that you are Gods?" (John 10:34). He tells us that he is the 'light of the world" (John 8:12) and he means this most literally and that we can also be the light. However subtle the first glimpses of the inner light are, when we see it shining for real within us, and actually brightening our world we are already as gods. Jesus again: "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" (Matt 6:22)

cat - I've always wondered about this. Why we meet someone and click / fall in love very quickly. Do you think this is more likely to happen the more we grow spiritually?

Hi Cat Whether you view this 'step down' as a mistake to be rectified is a matter of perspective. I guess in this thread I've presented the step down as a simple flow of events. Just as night follows day, cloudiness follows light. The constant 'flicker' of the light is simply something to be observed passively - as we do the diurnal cycle. Or, you can interpret the process agentically, where there is a need to act. This type of narrative will naturally posit things to do, and things not to do (mistakes). The mistake would be holding the belief that the third eye is just the physical eyes plus imagination . Concomitant with this belief might be the notion that the physical eyes need somehow to be first closed. This was the perspective I talked about a lot in The Philosopher's Tao thread, which was about dismantling our everyday earthly beliefs through scepticism. I understand that this is confusing - but spiritual enlightenment doesn't fit into the normal narratives of action and passivity. It seems that you have to present both - and hope that the leap can be made. You can say a) that we need to enlighten ourselves or that we are all already fully enlightened. Both are legitimate arguments.... For the intellect Heaven and earth are one, and also separate - therefore neither one nor separate.... God, if I could make people truly disgusted with all this speculation about heaven and earth then my threads will be worth something. For yourself you need and will get the different paradigm, on the inside - but you still need to say something to those who only understand the normal ones. This is such a frustrating problem. Jesus thought it best not to even use the normal: 'though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not understand' so he spoke in deliberate parables. And then he gets angry "perverse, unbelieving generation - how long do I have to put up with you" (Matt 17:17) Actually even the normal paradigms are parables, but because we believe in some of them as 'facts' we make no effort to interpret them. I think the new age movement created so many good fresh parables with which to reveal spiritual truths but they're already getting old. We're already starting to take them as real... Back to Gurunath...he lost consciousness for the same reason and in the same way as we lose perception and revert to thought. But rational thought is too clumsy for Babaji, and luckily for Gurunath he had other faculties to employ. He was able to filter out everything including the infrared - objectively speaking he looked unconscious but of course he wasn't - unconsciousness is impossible. Normal people think, and normal people dream. When we realise the limitation of thought we don't bother using it - the faculty atrophies, or is assimilated into perception. The same thing happens with the rather coarse tropes of the dreamworld - there comes a point when we don't need them and our sleep becomes deep and dreamless. But it's not a complete void, there are subtle levels of awareness that will be consciously perceived before long- abilities that were veiled by the effulgence of the dream. We all occasionally have experience of this awareness, but it gets conflated with the dream and we do not realise they are separate. We say the dream was very vivid - but the images of the dream were juts normal - the vividity was provided by this obscure felt understanding that can be so strong that it changes our mood and perceptions the whole next day. The dream has the same lucidity that underlies all our waking experience in the present Light.

I've come to realise that our love for a special individual and our love for God are the same feeling. The illusion is that the person causes our feelings of love, and so we get attached to that person in particular. But this is all back to front. Our love is always there, for all people, but we don't believe it - so it gets focussed on one person. I now realise that we can both have many different loves, AND that there is one true love waiting for me. The one true love will be there when we stop loving anyone in particular.

Hi Cat, Yes, that's the third eye! Such a beautiful feeling, when you realise there's a light that is always with you. You switch off the lamp and it's still there. You close your eyes and it's there. You close your eyes, and cover them with your hands then bury your face in the pillow...and it's still there, completely unchanged. So beautiful, so comforting. The third eye is related to all sorts of wonderful visions, but for me the way it transforms everyday vision is a true spiritual gift. I think that artists are born with this third eye open. They see a beauty, and realise that others aren't seeing the same thing, and so they try to recreate it for them. Artists want people to see their paintings and that's not vanity, it's charity. All spiritual practice reduces the flicker, as the flicker IS the distinction between the present moment and time. And all the dualities of self and other, birth and death good and bad etc are based on time and space. Virtue, as in the de is the state of being when we find it easy to live without causing harm and distress. We find it easy to forego certain aims if we see that they create discord. We find it easy because we are aware of our true untouchable, always joyful self and no longer need to chase joy on the outside. So, yes, being virtuous and having a steady spiritual eye are the same thing. Cultivation of virtue, which is a spiritual technique, is about deliberately depriving yourself of what you consider to be good, sacrificing their own needs for others etc. People need to do this when they haven't yet realised that the true good is always shining within : ie their third eye flickers. They truly believe in external 'goods' and it is because of this belief that they think it is worthwhile to deprive themselves of them in order to transcend them. The flicker is reduced when they learn that they are able to live well and be joyful even in the absence of what they imagined to be good. I should say though that nearly all people like this first fall into the trap of viewing their abstinence as a 'good thing'. They merely swap one set of external goods for another. It is when they realise that they don't need pleasures or their mortifications that they are truly aware of the good within. Firstly, all words like resistance belong to everyday human emotional life and don't really capture the automatic nature of it. We can call it resistance, because that is how it feels, but ignorance of the sublime would also work the same, as would inability to withstand the sublime. I'm sure we've all had the feeling when confronted with the sublime of a certain bafflement, or fear, or something. We find that the experience abruptly ends, and it feels like we have something to do with it. But it is simply a matter of causality. When our spiritual eye is flickering our perceptions of the sublime are soon punctuated by thought - and we cannot help it! Because we were loving the sublime, we try and rationalise why we would go and spoil the moment by reverting to thought. Hence the talk of fear, resistance etc. But if our spiritual eye is not strong we have no choice but to veil the effulgence and work out the meaning and depth of that moment through thought. Thinking is like those heat-detecting cameras which work by filtering out all the competing wavelengths except for the infra-red. Yes, the image is hugely simplified but the light that gets through is easier to work with. We are 'resisting the sublime' all the time, but only because we need to. As we become better at apprehending the beauty of the world, we resist it less - and then its easy to notice when we do resist. Needless to say, the sense of sublimity is extremely strong in these moments - for example when we look into the eyes of a woman we love. Anyway, when we 'resist the sublime' we do so only to better grasp it. But until we can grasp the sublime directly and fully this resistance is going to leave us dissatisfied.

The search for pleasure is the search for God, and the taste of pleasure is the taste of God. Some pleasures are brief and related to specific situations – we call these ‘pleasures’. Some pleasures last long and are felt in many different situations – we call this ‘God’ Normal life is a long, laborious attempt to gain pleasure in as many specific situations as possible. We go to great lengths in order to experience what we and others around us view as pleasurable. The normal person is therefore stupid and unskilful…but they understand pleasure, therefore they understand God. The spectrum of normality spans between two poles: 1) Those who gain shallow pleasures from a wide array of situations. We all know these people. They have fun but no delight. They have many interests but no passions. They are well adjusted to the variety of society. Extremes of this type find nearly everything ‘quite fun’. Their pleasures are of quantity not quality. 2) Those who gain deep pleasures from specific situations. These are enthusiasts who are devoted to one abiding passion. Here it is about quality, not quantity and the extreme of this type is the alcoholic or drug-taker. These two poles represent the searching and the finding of God in normal society. All people already know God in their own way. Normal life also encompasses what we normally consider the religious life. The type 1 normal person who happens to belong to a religious community will live a constant round of nice services, cake sales and edifying activities for the youngsters. The type 2 normal will be shut up in his flat, arousing his kundalini and experiencing pure bliss. None of this has anything to do with the life of expertise. The expert is the person who can combine the euphoric depths of the drug-taker with the breadth of the fun-seeker. The expert is the saint. The saint has found God both in his depths, and wherever he happens to look. To become the expert you must become bored and disgusted with all your pleasures. This is very rare – people are normally having too much fun. For the type 1 to become a saint they must ask themselves “is there more to life than this?” But few receive the grace to ask that question. For the type 2 to become saint they must ask themselves: “are there other ways of getting this bliss or must I remain closed off all my life?” But to explore this question means walking away from their bliss and few have the grace to do that. In summary, normal life IS the spiritual life. Cultivation is simply deepening or broadening what we already have and know.

CT Yes, alcohol brings a genuine connection to the divinity and is much deeper in that respect then many of the pleasures that people pursue. But...it is and always will be very bad technique. The connection it brings, though deep and genuine, is too brief and alcohol comes with many negative side effects. I could never recommend it, but I do endorse it. Alcohol, however bad a technique deserves and needs to be recognised. Alcoholics anonymous has always recognised the role of spiritual realisation in addiction. Consistent with its Christian origins the narrative is dualistic. We are weak and humble sinners, but if we make the appeal then a merciful higher power can help us. What I'm suggesting here is the non-dual counterpart. God, I'm saying, was with us when we were drinking. It was for God's sake that we drank. And he will be with us even more when we stop and find him in other pleasures. This is much more likely to make sense people in an hedonistic age...and there is no need to bring big heavy words like God into it all - though I did in the OP for rhetorical effect. Here are the 12 steps of AA in case any readers weren't aware of their intensely spiritual nature. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

No! I've never suggested that alcohol should be turned into some kind of technique! the only people I might recommend alcohol as a technique to are those Type 1 people who are intellectually attached to tee-totalism - but even these it would be as a kind of thought experiment. I'm not trying to formulate a spiritual tradition here. I am merely talking about the role of pleasure in the search for God. We are all on the path to God whether we realise it or not. 'Normal' life is the slow meandering way. The spiritual life is merely a fast-track of the same route to the same destination. Spiritual practice accelerates what events in time and space are achieving at their own pace. The spiritually aware person quickly learns lessons that the normal person must repeat a few times. To be in samsara is to be repeating lessons, but you are not trapped in an endless cycle. The ageing process itself brings spiritual development in even the most unconscious people, death liberates all. The spiritually conscious ones die before they die. It is in this context that I wish to place alcohol. The instincts of the alcoholic are sure and correct. This is one thing he needs to know. In fact this could be the technique: to listen hard when I explain the meaning of alcohol, and then never touch a drop again.

Hi all, The alcoholic is at one end of the scale, he knows the divine, and is pursuing it in his own way – but I think we’re all agreed that he is nothing more than a novice, spiritually speaking. Maybe it would be interesting to shift to the other end of the scale – to how the spiritually proficient understand desire. If a person has a very strong desire but he can clearly see that pursuing it will create harm, then the spiritually robust person is able to withdraw. The Tao is the virtuous way, and if your actions might be considered bad from anybody’s perspective then your desire does not accord with the way. You must have the spiritual strength and trust to sit back and wait. One of two things will happen: Either, the object will fade as an object of desire. If this happens then you know that the object did not adequately meet your desire. You will therefore find that you are able to swiftly move on to another object that will fulfil the same desire, hopefully in a way that is virtuous (I.e does not cause harm or conflict with others). This cycle of search, desire, disappointment, search is normal life. Or, changes in time and space will make attainment of the object possible without a breach of virtue. All desire is for God. Desire objects that manifest in the world are either deeply spiritually satisfying or only briefly so. If something is spiritually unsatisfying we know it in one of two ways: 1) We attain the desire, but it soon leaves us dissatisfied again – either for the same type of desire or dissatisfied more generally. 2) If unattained, we are able to easily locate the same quality elsewhere – and our attentions move on. If a specific object is spiritually satisfying we find that we yearn and yearn until we get it. The closer the object is to God, the more we will yearn for it. We might yearn for a certain person for many years. If transformations in time and space allow our union to be virtuous and we finally get to be with that person they will satisfy us deeper and for longer. But our yearning will return at some point because we will realise that our yearning for this woman was actually a yearning for God. Only God will truly satisfy our yearning, but many people don’t realise this. It is a moment of huge good fortune when we realise this to be true of ourselves. Our search for pleasure becomes truly intelligent. But things must be done in the right order! If you are yearning for a woman, then she is your God and there is no other. Do not think that we can bypass things of the world and go straight for God. The ascetics think they can do that with their mortifications - but simply end up lusting after more mortification. God is nothing in particular, but always takes some form or other. If your yearning is for a woman, and time and circumstances are making it harder and harder, then the universe will step in and you will fall in love with another woman, who will be yours without any breach of virtue. There comes a time when no specific object of desire can fascinate us. It is only in this state that we find ourselves consciously yearning for God.

Hi CT I think maybe SriChi has noticed what I'm wanting to talk about - that you are worried that encouraging people to enjoy alcohol will lead to dependency. Of course, many people are addicted to alcohol. But they are addicted because nobody has the courage or the wisdom to tell them the truth about alcohol. It takes great courage and faith for the alcoholic to stop drinking. They must believe that they can live and be sustained in a world without alcohol. When we call alcohol bad we do not do help them. The only thing they need to know is that they can get what they need elsewhere. And yet we don't point this out to them because we don't understand it ourselves. The problem of alcoholism is the problem of tee-totallism: same thing. Though it sounds paradoxical, this is the deepest truth that can be said on the matter. It is the ignorance of those that deride alcohol that keep the alcoholic trapped as a drinker. The most helpless alcoholics want to be and aim to be tee-totallers. If they knew the true worth of alcohol then they would also know that it can be substituted by other things. Therefore, CT, your fear that advocating alcohol creates dependency on alcohol is the very thing that creates the dependency. It takes huge courage to actually help an alcoholic, huge daring. If you don't have courage then you can never be a healer of any description. What is the hardest most daring thing to say to an alcoholic, the statement most full of pure trust? It was not wrong that you drank.

Love this OP! It reminds me of a conversation I had with a Christian who told me that the 10 commandments aren't prescriptive, they are descriptive. It changed the way I viewed them completely. The 10 commandments are what happens to you, if you are lucky enough! You won't go around killing... You won't go around stealing... etc

CT In the OP I talked about a spectrum between those who can take pleasure diluted across many activities at one end - and the drinker and drug take at the other. The first is a seeker of breadth and the second is the seeker of depth. The task for both is to ascend from their starting points. Each needs to find the divine in the depths and the breadths. Yes, it would be wonderful if we all got an intense kick from watching the moon. But we don't. This is reality. And rather than make the drinker feel deficient, I just want him to know that he too has his own ways. He won't disagree when I say his methods need to be perfected. The average fun seeker, kitten lover, cake-baker is wholesome to a degree. But we have no culture of calling these people bad names. Maybe we should start, for consistency's sake because spiritually speaking these people are as unregenerate as the raging alcoholic. These people need to be coaxed out of their banal, complacent ways. They profane creation with their weak bloodless celebration. With their mild Pharisaical self-satisfaction they offend any hero who knows we can do better. The true spiritual teacher beats the criminal with his stick...beats also the Pharisaical law-abider. Or he embraces them both. Both are true ways and are in fact the same way. This is hard to understand. Even Jesus had to side with the criminal, so as to achieve greater rhetorical effect.

Hi CT, Yes, most people are simply living their lives, following pleasures haphazardly. But this doesn’t mean that their pleasures are not important and meaningful – it means that their methods are awry. If people could only link their pleasures to a higher purpose. In other words, if they could only believe that their pleasures are just rudimentary versions of much greater pleasures then they might to stop indulging in what you call diversions and start structuring their pleasures. We must appeal to the hedonist in us all. There is no greater misapprehension then the idea that the spiritual life means the renuniciation of pleasure. How did this idea come about? From people who think the worldly and the spiritual have nothing to do with each other. From people who think alcohol is bad and has nothing relevant to offer the spiritual seeker. From those people who think we should sober up and go to church instead. I say sober up by all means, because only by sobering up first can we get properly drunk. Yes, I agree with this. The traditions have a very broad-based appeal and are useful for that purpose. But unless these traditions are actually achieving an inner effect on the individual - an inner transformation - then they are not working. There are many people attending Mass under duress, or because they think they should. To these the Mass is useless. The system must always answer to the individual. The unwise can’t see this. Unless these traditions are being enjoyed on the inside, spiritually, they are not working. If we cannot replicate the grandeur and solemnity of the service in the privacy of our own room we have attended church in vain. If vodka does what the Mass cannot do, then stick with the vodka for now. This is the safest course at present. But never imagine that the vodka is an end in itself. Do that and you’re as bad as those fools in the church. If you can’t follow their system then you must be a grown-up and devise your own. Start with the vodka if you must, but if you get stuck there then your own religious conscience will impel you on and call you bad names, and so will everyone else. Serves you right!

The spiritual life is a kind of alchemy. In any given moment there is dross and sublime essence and our task is to separate them. The dross is the outer circumstance and the essence is the pure inner truth, peace and rapture that might be discerned if only we knew how. To those who do not know the spiritual life the dross and the essence are the same thing. They feel the pleasures of life but they do not have the wisdom to extract it alone. They therefore carry on seeking the essence all mingled and disguised by the dross. They take both together. Their attachment to things spiritual are all bound up with their attachment to dross. This is attachment to the things of the world. The discerning person notices that the sublime can be felt within, independent of the outer form it arises in. They have discerned the essence but at first only in a subtle, barely noticeable dose. With time they recognise it better and better. They learn to identify moments where the essence and the dross are less firmly welded. They find that what they once gained from liquor is better gained from prayer. As time goes on the essence, that inner good that lasts independently of the dross, adheres to them more and more. In each moment they are somewhat aware of its existence. What started out as a brief 'high' after a shot of vodka is now something forever coursing in their veins. They know that they lacked this when they were younger, and they see that others don't possess it as they do. This inner good is now associated with all manner of outer circumsatnces. The inner and the outer are the same. But this baffling change of state needs a name and they see in flash that it has many: God, Tao, Higher Self. Those who call alcohol bad names are not entirely wrong. But they are focussing on only one half of the story. Yes, alcohol gives you a hangover, yes it makes you violent and unfit to function. But it also gives you something of the utmost importance: the essence that is God. To depend on alcohol is vulgar, but to dismiss it out of hand is an act of the utmost spiritual vulgarity. Things aren't so simple as we think. There is no such thing as an unmixed bad. When we open our eyes to the true nature of alcohol, we understand the behaviour of the alcoholic. Now we can admire him for what he's seeking, and sympathise with him, and help him. This argument applies to all our pleasures. When we find God we can't help but laugh. We knew him all along, but had to go searching for him in certain places. These places we called our pleasures. God isn't something new and exotic - something completely out the leftfield. If that's what you're expecting then you'll be disappointed.

Yes, in reality he would. What I meant is that the expert has lived both ways of life and is therefore able to synthesise them into something else

Let’s suppose I am a well-educated, healthy young male with a wealthy family and connections in high places. The beautiful young woman who loves me is from a similarly wealthy background. But I am dissatisfied with my life and nothing I ever do or get is good enough for me. I spend my days moping and bemoaning my lot and life in general. To most people my dissatisfaction is viewed as a moral failure. If I cannot appreciate my good fortune then not only have been badly spoiled, but I am unable to empathise with those who have far less than I. The virtue of life to the average person is to be ‘content with your lot’. But to the spiritual teacher your dissatisfaction is itself the virtue. It is both evidence of refinement of soul, and the crucial motivation to steer you through the tumult of samsara. A lesser person would be happy and revel in such a lifestyle. How do we know when we have passed through samsara and attained enlightenment? When we are forever ‘contented with our lot’. Any thoughts?

I think the paradox is resolved if we think of it in terms of inner and outer satisfaction. The moaning rich boy has no inner satisfaction, therefore he can't take pleasure in anything. His critics have inner satisfaction, but they are deluded. They believe that their satisfaction comes from outer things, and that anyone who can't appreciate outer things are deficient. The saint realises the potential of the rich kid because the kid is open to the idea that satisfaction must come form within. He will therefore become consciously aware of a way of living that others have but aren't yet conscious of. And they won't become conscious...until they become dissatisfied. The spiritual life is about understanding that we already have on the inside what we think we need on the outside.