I Am That

I've been reading 'I Am That' by Nisargadatta Maharaj. Not cover to cover, of course, but snippets of his conversations. As anyone who has read him will attest, his writings and observations cut through layers of misapprehension like a machete through soft butter. His insights shatter our self-centric world views, and liberate us from our mind-generated ignorance.

In the great mirror of consciousness,
images arise and disappear and
only memory gives them continuity.
And memory is material -
destructible, perishable, transient.
On such flimsy foundations
we build a sense of personal existence -
vague, intermittent, dreamlike.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Splat! There goes the thing I've been stressing and obsessing over for the past month. Completely annihilated, until my mind dredges it up again for further review. I notice that when I read these words and let them sink in, I experience immediate freedom. The grave concerns that have been severely affecting the quality of my life are instantly pulverized. In a miraculous kind of way, I'm able to cut through the conditioning and see how every and each problem is a product of my mind. This realization is followed by an astonishing sense of liberation. And by 'astonishing' I mean unfamiliar, unfathomable, and jarring. It's simply incomprehensible that permanent liberation from pain and complexity can be ours at any moment.

It's all about perception - namely, whether we perceive ourselves as being separated from or identical with Consciousness. One will keep us forever in bondage to "The Way Things Should Be In Order For Me To Be Happy", and the other will allow us the freedom to rise above those desires and emotions that keep us shackled to our false identity. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

I wonder if I was to read 'I Am That' from cover to cover if I'd come to Self-Realization. It's a long shot, but I haven't the stomach for it. Nisargadatta's a tough read, and not one for mincing around. Which further proves that Consciousness isn't necessarily a feel-good thing. It just is, and however you feel about It or anything else is irrelevant. Still, I wouldn't recommend reading him on an empty stomach.

Above: There he is, ol' Smiley. Nisargadatta Maharaj was a guru of the Advaita Vedanta tradition. His teachings on Nondualism placed the emphasis on knowing our true identity as "That", or Consciousness, rather than separate, autonomous beings. He was one of the great Indian Advaita teachers of the 20th century, and made a giant impact on Western spiritual seekers. He died in 1981.

My Heart is a Penis

If you're a woman, and even if you're not, you've heard men refer to their penises in the third person. "Bob" (or Peter, or Xavier) has a mind of his own, and, but for the fact that he's attached at one end, "Bob" (or Ralph, or Rolf) would surely dash off and see to his own amusement. The idea behind the autonomy, apparently, is that Bob the Penis can't be controlled, and there's little to be done about it.

This is a fairly accurate description of my heart. I've never been able to control it. It opens without my consent, and thrusts itself into places it has no business going. Even when it knows it's going to get creamed, it barrels ahead, wide open and defenseless. It's kind of remarkable, my brave little heart. It's not terribly intelligent. In fact, it's pretty stupid. My heart is a penis.

I suspect that normal people have some control over their hearts. When a Normal meets a person of the opposite sex whom they find intriguing, intelligent, and attractive, they gravitate toward that person and sniff around a little. Right? They look for clues that indicate the person is single, solvent, and moderately sane. A female Normal asks the right questions:

"So how did all of your ex-wives die, anyway?"
"How is it that you've been able to collect unemployment for seventeen years?"
"That photo of a beautiful woman that keeps flashing on your iPhone is your sister?"
"Careful there, Hoss! Did you hurt your neck when you were checking out that redhead?"

If the answers to her questions aren't satisfying, the Normal sizes up the situation, zips up her heart, and is on her merry way. Not I. My heart's too dumb to be so smart. It's already open and erect and ready for business. Or, to use a slightly cuter metaphor, it's like a puppy who's ready to play, wagging, panting, and oblivious to the consequences.

I don't want to discourage my heart from being so open. It has to do what it has to do. But I'd like to give it some broad guidelines, and encourage it to be more circumspect about where it chooses to set up camp. It's sort of like having a precious little kid that you love and want to protect, because you know it's just a little too naive to get by in the world without your help. But you don't want to shackle it either, since its innocence is sweet, in a way. And it's your kid, after all. Your job is to protect it. Or, swinging back to the penis metaphor, if you're a guy and you have a penis, it's your job to reel it in from time to time. Yes, it's cute and all that, but you have to be stern and not let it fetch up wherever and whenever it chooses. You're the boss; you call the shots.

I think one of the reasons that men and women have a fair amount of difficulty understanding each other is this very basic difference. Women have a hard time controlling their emotions, and men have a hard time controlling their penises. It's a nasty combination, and one which has plagued the whole lot of us since some Neanderthal goldsmith hammered the first wedding ring. (A female Neanderthal, no doubt. I suspect she invented the wedding ring immediately after her boyfriend invented the wheel. She shrewdly observed that if she didn't do something fast, he'd be using that wheel to move on down the road and make more baby Neanderthals).

So the heart/penis issue has been around a long time. Granted, most women have more control over their hearts than I, but still - it's an issue that pops up regularly with all my women friends. I've come to accept it as a problem that's not going to go away in my lifetime. Men and women are wired differently; we can't help ourselves. My heart will continue to blunder and fall, but like a bruised puppy it'll roll over, get up, shake itself off, and promptly start wagging its tail again. It's a dumb heart, but it's the only one I got.

PLEASE NOTE: All perceived misandry is offered tongue in cheek. Honestly. I love men. I love women. And I love the wacky differences between us. So please, no male hate mail.

Shivoham

My God of choice is Shiva. It was love at first sight. Since he's the God of destruction, folks tend to give him wide berth, thinking that association with him may bring with it some bad juju. But the wrathful deity shtick is only one aspect of Shiva. I prefer to think of him as the God of tough love. All your nasty habits that are keeping you from awakening to your true nature? That's what Shiva concerns himself with. If you ask him to (and sometimes even if you don't) he'll shatter your egoic delusions so that you may perceive the pervading unity of reality.

But that's not all. This is my favorite part: You are Shiva. Actually, so am I. Shiva is your true nature. Shiva is Consciousness. Shiva is the Jungian 'undifferentiated being'. Shiva is the Hindu equivalent of Jesus. Not in the sense of being your savior, but the outer symbol of who and what you really are: undivided being, pure consciousness, and all those annoying buzz words that grasp for the ungraspable.

But I don't want to get caught up in definitions. I'll just say that Shiva is the symbol of the higher Self and leave it at that. He has many, many names and faces, but his presence is the unity that we find when we peek behind the thin veil of appearances.

Above: Shivoham, holy books on paper, 9" x 6", 2010.

Nithyananda and Monica Lewinsky

I've been getting quite a few emails and posts on this blog regarding the Nithyananda scandal. He was taped having sexual relations with an Indian actress, which is a big no-no, since he claims to be a renunciate. It would be the equivalent of a Catholic priest having sex, I guess, and maybe worse, since Nithya's massive following is based on his presumed purity. And I suppose the reasoning goes, if he's lying about this, what else is he lying about?

Some of the posts and replies were nasty, and I deleted them. Folks, for the record, let me just say that I'm not a follower of Nithya. I went to hear him speak, gleaned some good teachings from him, wrote a bit about it on this here blog, and that's the extent of it. I was and am highly skeptical of his claims to enlightenment, just because he seems to make such a big deal of it. Most enlightened blokes keep quiet about their awakening, or at the very least are reserved in announcing it far and wide, as they claim that it's not that big a deal. But, in the interest in staying open-minded, I've cut Nithya some slack, because in truth I don't much care if he's enlightened or not. It doesn't affect me one way or 'tother.

However, I do find it disturbing if he's been deceiving lots of people who dish out money to him. I also find it somewhat disturbing that people would dish out a lot of money to him. And last, I find it WAY disturbing, like, horrifying, that someone would plant a video camera in Nithya's room, and then (in all likelihood) send in a beautiful woman to have sex with him. An insidious set-up, and pretty rank. Someone had it in for Nithya, that's for sure. It gives me the chills that I have to share a planet with these neanderthals.

So Nithya's been exposed as a fraud - what a shock! Omg! And that lousy Bill Clinton had sex, of all things, with Monica Lewinsky! And that bad boy Obama smokes cigarettes! What a fallen world we live in.

I'm going back into my studio.

Above: Nithyananda himself. Did anyone truly believe that he wasn't having sex? C'mon.