Hi John B:
Before you become to deeply involved in pursuing knowledge of the
spiritual level through a long and expensive period of guided
meditation, I recommend you read Chapter XI of Ken Wilber's book,
*The Spectrum of Consciousness.* To give you the flavor of his
cautionary tale, here are some excerpts:
*Although for convenience sake we have been speaking of Mind as the
deepest level of the spectrum, it is not actually a particular level, let
alone deep. The level of Mind is in no way buried or hidden in the
obscure depths of our psyche, on the contrary, the level of Mind is our
present and ordinary state of consciousness, for, being infinite and
absolutely all-inclusive, it is compatible with every imaginable level or
state of consciousness . . . Now this must be emphasized--our
present, everyday state of consciousness, whatever it may be, sad,
happy, depressed, ecstatic, agitate, calm, worried or afraid--just that,
just as it is, is the Level of Mind. Brahman is not a particular
experience, level of consciousness, or state of soul--rather it is
precisely whatever level you happen to have now . . . For in fact the
highest ideal of the mystic is that expressed by the Bodhisattva, who in
Mahayana Buddhism is one who see the Godhead everywhere and
everywhen, in every person, place and thing, and thus does not have to
retire into solitude and trance in order to find his *god.* The
Bodhisattva's mystic vision is identical with whatever he happens to be
doing at the moment . . .* (sounds like Pirsig’s *Quality is experience*
to me).
Wilber continues:
*Perhaps Alan Watts summarized this best when he said, *All that
needs to be experienced for cosmic consciousness is already present,
and anything in excess of this is obstructive and redundant.* Any how,
any way, any path, if it leads anywhere, leads away from the Now . . .
the Masters of every tradition (say) that enlightenment and ignorance,
reality and illusion, heaven and hell, liberation and bondage--all are
non-dual and not to be separated. Thus, you are already where the
path can take you . . . We are convinced that we lack Mind, and so we
are led to pursue spiritual exercises of one form or another until, finally,
we will end up exactly where we started. Right here. Right now. In the
words of Huang Po:
*Even if you go through all the stages of Bodhisattva's progress
towards Buddhahood, one by one; when at last, in a single flash, you
attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature
which has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages
you will have added nothing at all. You will come to look upon those
aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions
performed in a dream.*
I don’t know about you, but before I would drop everything and go off on
a quest to become spiritually enlightened I would contemplate what
Pirsig, Watts and Wilber and some Buddha Masters have to say about
my being there already.
Platt
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