The Better Deal

What I realized through my own experience is that there is the possibility for two contrary perspectives. One is interested (passionate); One is disinterested (dispassionate). One is involved the other uninvolved. In the work that I have begun, I see this time and time again. It is particularly evident in couples. A partner gets infected by spiritual principles, either one or both, and there is a palpable disconnect, usually it is accompanied by condescension and a complaint that my partner doesn’t "get it" and is in the way of my spiritual progress. There is the attempt to wake them up, take them to satsang and share spiritual insights out of books. All is an attempt to remain nobody and to turn the partner into another nobody.

But, if you are lucky, the partner, usually the woman, will pull you back into involvement with life, and you will feel alive again. You will feel connected. You will feel here. You will see that beneath the complaint that "my partner doesn’t get me", is another complaint, much more true. It is the complaint that “I have not lived. I have not loved. I have not been loved. It wasn’t safe to come out, so I hid. I wasn’t welcome, so I left. I left ordinary life in search of the true life, eternal life.” Meanwhile resentment, criticism, and judgmentalism mounted. Tension came pouring in. There seemed to be a judgment about everyone who did not want to die, psychologically. There was a judgment that one who was uninvolved was much more evolved. A line from Nisargadatta Maharaj comes to mind. “I don’t even need my own self.” That’s this spiritual attitude in a nutshell. That’s the freedom from suffering, the freedom from desire, the freedom from I and my, but at what cost, absolute aloneness and complete disregard for one’s self, as an individual.

My experience and what I’ve noticed in others is that, while there is a connection to a universal, a sort of spaciness that keeps the mind quiet, the individual is not regarded, not cherished, not seen. Rather, it is seen through. The individual is dismissed and collapsed into oneness. What has dependent existence is collapsed into existence itself. “There is no other.”

Humanly, this is unsatisfying. It is not enough. The prospect of not suffering, of non- involvement is not enough. There is a complaint. “I’ve not been allowed to be me.” “I’ve not been allowed to be loved. I wanted to be liberated. As it turns out, I have liberated myself from the possibility of being loved, of being cherished, of being seen rather than seen through.

There is a felt sense of freedom, but it is a freedom from. It is freedom from the person, from the individual and all its concerns. The line from John of the Cross, “leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies,” comes to mind.” Yes, the cares are gone, but so is your investment and interest in you. The secret, as Krishnamurti put it, is - "I don't mind what happens to me."

There is something to be said for not being bogged down by self-concern. That is, in itself, liberating. The problem comes when you are complacent regarding your own self, when you are at enmity with your own "me." The dichotomy of true and false gets created, and discrimination begins. Discrimination then leads to elimination, and something or someone gets intellectualized out of the picture or "dissolved."

How is this wholeness? To say it was an illusion, so it doesn’t matter, to say nothing is lost because it wasn't "eternal" is not to deal honestly. Something is definitely lost. Selfhood is lost. Ownership is lost. Responsibility is lost. Ego is lost. Personal identity is lost. Ambition is lost. Choice is lost. Relationship is lost. Oneness in exchange for all of that. I can’t say that you got the better deal. Maybe “either or” is not the way to go. Perhaps, “both and” is better.

Man is neither an angel nor a beast, but if he tries to become an angel, he will become a beast.