Scientific
Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the
White House!
Chapter 5: The Seamless Garment of Love
Birth and Ego-Death
There is neither a negative cause nor a negative purpose
of our birth. But we may mistakenly presume a negative cause
or purpose, and that negative presumption has power to
disturb our equanimity and orient us, via desire, toward
negative ends.
On the basis of various configurations of thought and
experience, we design a presumed state of mind and body,
which we then apply to the moments of our existence. Such is
the basis of habit and even philosophy. Where is wisdom to
be found in all the acts and talk and thoughts of men? When
will we be still and understand our own illusions?
There are no wisdom and no happiness except in the case
of utter Realization of the Real Condition of all
experience. And that Realization itself is only obvious when
the manifest self, or the self-defining and self-limiting
body-mind, is utterly transcended.
Previous to such self-transcendence, individuals pursue
forms of self-satisfaction, seeking thereby to experience a
release from the limits of the self. I have pursued and
tested and considered all such possibilities, high and low –
for my habit of living has been a spontaneous and freely
experimental effort toward Truth, rather than a
traditionally programmed exercise in sainthood. Therefore, I
have seen the body-mind in all its parts and relations. And
I finally understood that none of it was the method or means
whereby Truth is Realized.
We in our felt dilemma of existence are motivated toward
all kinds of bodily action – to enjoy, to know, to
influence. And we are also motivated to think, to perceive
inwardly, to possess mysterious and shining secret things.
Our pursuits in body and mind are all profoundly emotional.
They are efforts to solve a basic emotional, or, ultimately,
spiritual problem. And that problem does not tend to
disappear, even in all the successes of body and mind.
Our fundamental problem or dis-ease will not be overcome
unless we Realize the Truth, or the Real Condition of the
psycho-physical self, its knowledge, its experience, and its
world. And that Realization is itself a form of radical
intuition that transcends the dilemma and the self-defining
and self-limiting power of the body-mind.
In their pursuit of an “answer,” people think and act.
They believe and emote. They yield themselves to both
internal and external influences that can create temporarily
fascinating effects in body and mind. But their experience
does not Enlighten them – it does not make them wise, good,
truly happy, free, or even more intelligent. And people tend
to yield to whatever is most compatible with their
obsessions and most likely to produce an immediate
experiential illusion of release. People want to read and
think and propagandize themselves happy, but they will not
engage the discipline of silence. They want to enjoy curious
perceptions through arcane meditation, kundalini, and drugs,
but they will not understand themselves. They want the
consolations of money, food, and sex – or even the
paradoxical consolations temporarily created by the absence
of these – but they will not accept intelligent moral and
personal disciplines in their daily lives.
There is something immensely comic in the subhuman folly
of all mankind, but it is outweighed by the sorrowful
destiny to which each one of us is being led by a lifetime
of benighted self-seeking. The Truth, which is the only
happiness, is not Realized in any of the states of mind or
body. The Truth is Realized only in Ecstasy, or
self-transcending Intuition and Love of the Real Condition
of self, experience, and the world of things and beings. And
only when this Realization is profound, complete, and stable
are we established in a true, right, positive, and happy
course.
This Realization of the Truth or Real God depends on what
has traditionally been called “ego-death.” But ego-death is
just another phrase meaning Ecstasy, or the Realization of
Love. It is a wholly or ultimately positive Event, and it is
not an Event that negates our born existence, nor does it
imply that born existence is itself a misfortune.
Until we are awakened in our intuitive and emotional
understanding, ego-death, indeed, the whole affair of
spiritual Realization, will tend to signify a negative
process or Event, wherein the force of the being (felt as
“I”) is suppressed. And those who pursue ultimate
Realization prior to the awakening of true understanding
generally engage every aspect of the necessary discipline as
if it were a game of self-suppression – whereas in fact true
practice is always a form of profound and free
Love-Communion between the very being and the very Divine
Reality.
We are not born to be destroyed. Even death, we will
Realize, is only a form of transformation. The basic force
of the being is not intended for destruction. Rather, it is
drawn into more and more profound Awakening and Fullness via
the evolution or hierarchical development of experience,
which tests the being toward self-transcendence. If the
basic force of the being is negated in the process (that is,
if the experience of the body-mind produces a negative
reaction or critical suppression of the basic force of the
self), then liberating Help must eventually be given to us
so that we may continue to grow.
Paradoxically, the basic self-force or ego-force must be
strong if we are to Realize the Event of ego-death. This is
because ego-death is not the ultimate suppression or
negation of the basic force of the being, but it is the
release of that force from limiting identification with the
body-mind.
Whenever we become weakened by our experience, we suffer
in body and mind. And all of that is a reflection of the
frustration and suppression of the basic force of the being.
But the basic force of the being is identical to the
Transcendental Being. It is simply that it presumes itself
to be identical to the limitations of the body-mind.
Ego-death is the Awakening of the being to its Real
Condition of inherence in the Radiant Transcendental Being
in which all things and beings are arising.
The primary symptom of the suppressed self (or ego) is a
depression of feeling-attention (or love)-in relation to the
Radiant All-Pervading Divine Being and also in relation to
all manifest conditions (the world, other beings, and so
forth). Ego-depression is shown in a collapse of the energy
available for feeling-surrender to God and for serving other
beings. The secondary symptoms of such ego-collapse are all
the reactive emotions, petty habits of self-indulgence,
selfish and mean attitudes, physical weaknesses, and
unillumined opinions, beliefs, and philosophies that
characterize people at their worst. (From this description
it should be clear that, at the present time, mankind in
general is suffering from the disease or wound of
ego-collapse, rather than too great a sense of self. And
this Teaching is an offering of Divine Help in response to
that universal disease. It is intended to strengthen
humanity through recollection of the Great Life-Light that
is the Substance of this world. Such Divine Teaching has
Power to Awaken humanity to the Love and Fullness that is
naturally ever expanding from that dimension of the being
that Realizes its own inherence in the eternally Radiant
Life-Light.)
If the being is Awake to its Condition, it is
Ecstatic-that is, it already transcends the limiting
conditions with which it is conventionally associated.
Therefore, such Awakening has been likened to death-but it
is simply the death (or spontaneous and natural
transcendence) of the presumed limitations of the born self.
And once this Ecstatic Awakening is actual in the case of
any individual, the process of a lifetime is authenticated
and made fundamentally Life-positive. This is due to the
release of the Transfiguring Radiance (or Love-Bliss of the
Divine Self-Identity) into the plane of the body-mind. And
if the Enlightened individual abides in that Radiant
Self-Identity, the body-mind and even the world are
gradually Transformed by that Radiance-even eventually to
the point of Translation, or the Outshining of the body-mind
and this world. In that case, the positive purpose of our
birth has been fulfilled and our Destiny is beyond all
knowing.
Scientific Proof – Table of
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