Chapter 9: The Western Way The Restoration of
Laughter All the objects of experience and all the kinds of
knowledge imply and exploit the psycho-physical self (the
composite ego or total “I”), and each moment of experience
or knowledge defines or limits the ego (the functional
experiencer or manifest knower) and turns or fastens it upon
itself. Therefore, experience or knowledge of any kind
inherently involves finite or separated egoic existence and
functional or manifest self-confinement. And the continuous
process of experiencing or knowing tends to produce or
reinforce the defensive habit or reactive reflex of
self-contraction, self-meditation, and self-possession. There is no form of experience nor any kind or degree of
knowledge that can produce release from the three-phase (or
three part) cycle of experience, knowledge, and
self-confinement. As a result, the conventional core or
essence or effect of all experience or knowledge is the
mysterious sense of limitation, the mysterious feeling of
separation, and the gnawing presumption of the lack of
perfect knowledge. And the usual man, unaware of the
fruitlessness of his own ultimate motivation, is inherently
bound to a chronic sense of dilemma and to a life of seeking
for release, completion, or “reunion” via consummate
experience and ultimate or complete knowledge. No amount of experience finally releases or dissolves the
experiencer (the troubled ego), since all experience
involves and reinforces the psycho-physical or manifest and
composite self. And no amount of knowledge acquired through
experience or through contemplation of experience dissolves
the ego-sense, the sense of inherent limitation (selfness or
self-contraction), the sense of unbridgeable separation
(from all that is not oneself), and the growing presumption
of the lack of perfect or complete knowledge (or the
attainment of what is yet to be experienced and known). The
reactive ego-contraction tends to remain at the root of all
experience and all knowledge, and the total psycho-physical
self is, therefore, constantly bound by the sense of craving
for what is not yet attained. That craving sense is only the mood or self-perception of
the ego itself. That craving is the self. That eternal
dissatisfaction is the “I” within “me,” and that is “me”
altogether. Fear, sorrow, desire (or “lust”), and anger are
“myself,” since “I” am separate, alone, unfinished,
incomplete, and threatened “forever.” This fruitless
adventure in search for ultimate satisfaction, union, and
release is the necessary destiny of the relentless ego. “I”
is Narcissus, the self-centered body-mind. “I” is inherently
committed to the failure of its own search, to separation
from all relations, beings, things, and events. The
commitment or will to release via experience and knowledge
is a sham. It is idol worship. It is nothing more than
self-embrace. Its results are never more than frustration,
tension, and bewilderment. Therefore, experience or knowledge cannot satisfy or
release the self from itself. Only self-transcendence is
release from self. And, because the self is created,
defined, and limited by the composite of psycho-physical
experience and knowledge, the secret of self-transcendence
is the native or inherent transcendence of all experience,
all knowledge, all psycho-physical phenomena of every kind,
high or low. The Way to self-transcendence, or-since the self is
simply the craving sense, mood, or center defined by
experience and knowledge-the Way to transcendence of
experience and knowledge, is not to be found in any
manipulation of the psycho-physical being. It is not a
matter of seeking to abandon experience, knowledge, thought,
action, pleasure, pain, sex, food, breath, and so forth. Nor
is self-transcendence itself identical to any absence of
activity, or thought, and so forth. Quietude, or any
suppression of the experiential or knowing body-mind is, in
itself, a merely self-negating state, not a matter of
self-transcendence. The Way to self-transcendence is not to become the enemy
of Life, or of human existence, or even of ones own manifest
existence. To suppress the composite self or “I” is only to
intensify the mood of the self, which is the primary sense
of separation, limitation, and vulnerability. Nor is the Way to self-transcendence a matter of the
strategic embrace of ones own functional existence, to
exploit, until death, the psycho-physical potential for
experience and knowledge. The Way to self-transcendence is
not a matter of embracing the world for ones own sake, or
for the sake of experience and knowledge themselves, or for
the sake of any conceived ideal, result, or ultimate end.
All of that is an abusive passion, an unliberated craving,
in which the primary effect of self-possession, anger, and
despair is the only certain attainment. There is no Way to self-transcendence, since all progress
or change is only a modification of the self, or the
continuation of confinement to separation, limitation, and
the unsolvable dilemma of craving for union or release. The
Way can only be a matter of self-transcendence. The Way
must, in every moment, be actual and perfect
self-transcendence, or else self-transcendence is never
Realized. Then what is the Way? Just as interest in the Way is
founded upon insight into the necessary egoic-confinement
that is the inherent result of psycho-physical experiencing
and knowing, the actual process of the Way is also a matter
of insight, or direct and immediate intuitive understanding,
in every moment. Insight reveals the factuality of reactive
self-confinement and the fruitlessness of the search for
salvation, release, or perfect fulfillment. And radical
insight is itself the very moment of self-transcendence. And what is that radical insight that is itself
self-transcendence, or release of the mood and motivated
effort of self-confinement? It is the native Realization or
Intuition that no matter what “I” may experience, or
reflect, or know about the apparent realm or process of
subjective and objective phenomena, “I” do not know what
even a single thing is . “I” am inherently and eternally
Ignorant. What is “I”? What is the world? What is energy or
Life? Neither limited nor complete experience or knowledge
could ever modify or dissolve the inherent Ignorance that is
the fundamental Condition of the experiential and knowing
psycho-physical self. By maintaining stressful or motivated
interest in more and more experience and knowledge (or
subjective reflection of the world of phenomena), “I” may
postpone confrontation with the ultimate Fact and
Consequence of inherent Ignorance. But this confrontation is
both necessary and ultimate, and the Consequence of that
confrontation is immediate and wholly Liberating. Ignorance, or inherent non-confinement to any limitation,
is always already the very and ultimate Condition of the
body-mind, the manifest self, the composite “I.” In any
moment that this insight prevails, there is no
self-confinement, no limitation created by the intrusion of
any experience or form of knowledge. To abide in this
insight or intuition of ones native Condition is to
transcend all the forms of self-confinement, self-awareness,
object-awareness, awareness of limitation,
separation-awareness, and craving or seeking for release via
more perfect or complete experience or knowledge. Even as
all kinds of experience and knowledge arise, and even as the
conventions of mindfulness of “I” (or the sense of limited
experiential self-existence and the sense of separation from
various levels of phenomena or knowledge) arise, if the
intuition of Ignorance is Awakened in that moment, no limit
is established, and the drama of the threatened self is
inherently transcended. Therefore, the Way that I Teach is the Way of Radical
Understanding, or this Radical Intuition of Ignorance, which
is the same as Divine Ecstasy (or self-transcending
Love-Communion with the Radiant Transcendental All-Pervading
and Only God). For those who Understand, there is only God.
No experience, no knowledge, no object, no other, and no
internal or subjective state ever binds the Divine Self, the
Transcendental Heart, if there is “Remembrance” of God (or
the Transcendental Condition prior to self-confinement)
through radical Intuition of inherent Ignorance. The Way is this: “Hear” (or understand) the criticism of
the usual life of self-confinement and the torment of
self-generated seeking. “See” (or surrender to the Living
God) in the Company of the perfect or complete Adept, who
abides always in Ecstasy, whatever arises. Awaken to the
stable Intuition of self-transcending (or
experience-transcending and knowledge-transcending)
Ignorance through the Grace or Divine Presence that Radiates
in the Good Company of the Adept (who is a Spiritual Master
in the seventh stage of life). And, through that Intuition,
Abide always in Ecstasy, constant Love-Communion, or
inherent Identification with the Radiant Transcendental
Being that is the Truth or Real Condition of “I” and “God”
and “the World.” In this manner, you will exist only in the
Divine Condition or Transcendental Domain, but you will also
inevitably fulfill whatever functional role is your
temporary destiny as Man and beyond Man in the Realm of
Nature. This is the Wisdom that transcends all events, all the
science, attainment, and failure of mind, all of culture and
household consolation, all the dread or “News” of cosmic and
downtown stress, all the terminal pleasures that penetrate
silence, circumference, measure, probability, and death.
This is the Restoration of Laughter, the Revelation of the
secret Cause, the beginning and the end of matter, light,
and every kind of universe.
Scientific Proof – Table of
Contents