part0018

Many of these ideas seem totally crazy to me when I view them from the perspective of the chronically herdbound – no belief is true, reality’s not real, no-self is true self, Rocky and Bullwinkle were lovers – but they’re not meant to be accepted or believed, they’re simply breadcrumbs and coming attraction reels; postcards from beyond the edge. Until you see it for yourself, it all sounds totally crazy. I used to see everything the way everyone does, of course, but now it’s as if I’m looking at people from a distance and instead of countless individuals, I see one person with an endless variety of masks. This person is both masculine and feminine, victim and villain, creator and destroyer. From this elevation I see love in its negative aspect of fearful grasping and in its positive aspect of joyous release. I can zoom out and lose sight of humanity entirely, or I can zoom in and see your face.

Awakening is a paradigm-level event, meaning that it’s all-inclusive. It’s not like taking up cribbage or learning to weave, it’s like dying from one kind of being and being reborn as a completely different kind of being. There’s no way I can amp up my transmission to reach someone who resists it and there’s no reason to try. Apple trees don’t force their fruit on anyone or promote the nutritional merits of the apple or set up roadside fruit stands. They make their fruit and let it fall where it may. They act, but don’t reflect on the fruit of the act .

I never lose sight of the fact that nothing is wrong and that nothing needs to be fixed. Suffering is just a single melodic theme in the tragicomic symphony of any given life; an air on the string of I. If delusion feels like a dungeon to you, then you have two choices; make yourself more comfortable in the dungeon or get out of it. I awoke in and from the dreamstate in response to a terrible psycho-spiritual pain; not by fleeing from it but by going into it, and whatever else that pain may have been, it was honest.

“Some spiritual teachings advocate meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes once or twice a day,” I tell the assembled group of thirty and growing. “Just a little something you can squeeze in before breakfast or after dinner like a power-walk or a plankton-enriched bitterroot smoothie; a little squirt of lubricant to scratch a spiritual itch without making it bleed. If all you want is an increase in mental clarity, meditation is great – I do something similar myself – but it certainly has nothing to do with awakening in or from the dreamstate. Just the opposite, in fact. The real point of silencing the mind is silencing the mind. No one who finds a few minutes for meditation in their busy schedule could ever be more than a spiritual dilettante with less hope of waking in or from the dreamstate than if they did nothing at all. The real issue they’re addressing is not that they’re asleep, but that they’re not asleep enough.

“A serious approach to meditation would be more like the inverse, where you get a fifteen-minute break from meditation twice a day to grab a bite and hit the head. No job, no family, no holidays, no other agenda or priority; all day, every day, do-or-die. Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids, or give them away, or just abandon them, who cares? You watch your sanity go, your health go, anything you ever called a life go. Of course, you’ll probably die in the process – those are the stakes at this level of gameplay – but if you think meditation is the path to something you want, then stop dabbling and commit yourself. Go to your mountain retreat, live on power bars and water, and meditate your ass off. Will it work? On the face of it I can’t see why it would, but when mind and heart are focused, what’s not possible? What can’t you dream? Of course, no one is really going to meditate for twenty-three and a half hours every day, and there’s no reason they should. I’ve presented a technique that can’t fail to result in awakening, so why seek on a remote mountaintop what you can find at your kitchen table?

“The cocreative process is active in all of us and works whether we’re aware of it or not. If you tell the universe in the way the universe understands that you would rather die than continue living a lie, then the universe will understand and your desire will unfold, not through magic but through energetic alignment. If, on the other hand, your desire to awaken is about as powerful as your desire to watch a ballgame or eat a sandwich, then you’ll get what you play for. The dreamstate universe is mind and Brahman is mind and you are mind – there’s no true distinction – so processes like manifestation and cocreation are no different from convection or condensation; when the cause is right, the effect occurs.

“Some people are more attuned to this cocreative dynamic and most are less, but it works for everyone to whatever degree they’re able to eliminate ego from the equation and allow the process to unfold. This is the functional reality of the dreamstate; finite and infinite mind are reunited when the segregating barrier of ego is removed and integration is thus restored. Integration of self and environment is not based on belief or faith or merit, it’s based on the simple mechanics of adulthood. If the pieces are in place, the machine works. You are not in the universe, you are the universe. Not someone else’s universe in which you’re just a background element, but your own universe in which you are Player One. As you become more lucid, the distinction between player and program dissolves and you become a participant in the creation and shaping of your gamespace reality.

“Is meditation a way to awakening? Not a direct one, but I guess it could be. So could removing your flesh one ounce per day or applying hot rocks to your chakras or smoking a shitload of dope. The main thing is not the act itself, but the intent and desire that inform the act. Meditate for half an hour a day and you’ll get some trivial benefits unrelated to spiritual advancement. Meditate for all but half an hour a day and you can’t fail to awaken, not because meditation leads to awakening but because it’s your dreamstate and it’s responsive to your authentic desires. You tell it what you want through action and focused intent, and your reality reshapes itself to your will and desire. Your wish is your dreamstate’s command.”

“A teacher of awakening who was fully committed to the complete and total success of each and every student would be an unthinkable monster. No one would stay in the same room with such a person for more than two minutes, but anyone who did would end up transitioning into the integrated state and would forever honor and cherish the monster who got them there. When you picture the perfect guru, don’t imagine silken-haired, blue-eyed Jesus carrying a baby lamb or Samuel Graynamore fanning out no-limit credit cards, imagine O’Brien torturing Winston Smith, again and again and again.

“The dreamstate is a tragicomic dramatic production. It’s not all tragedy or all comedy; it’s both. To the degree that it’s a comedy, it’s a dark one because no one lives happily ever after. To the degree that it’s a tragedy, it’s a light one because no one lives un happily ever after. Everyone dies and rots and gets eaten by worms or goes up in smoke. When the game is over, kings and pawns go back in the same box. I’m aware that all of you fell into the traps and snares of the spiritual marketplace and are stuck in them even now, but you are within range of this message and you’re trying to be receptive to it, so the potential is there. Maybe someone among you will let these ideas pierce their chest plate and say yes, they will make a break from herdmind or die trying. Then, whatever you do – whether it’s spiritual autolysis or meditating yourself beyond madness or standing on one leg for the rest of your life – your universe will understand what you want and it will reshape your dreamstate to make it happen because that’s how this whole cocreative thing really works. Ultimately, it’s not really a cocreative process at all because there’s no duality; dreamer and dream are one, Brahman and Maya are one, you and your dreamstate environment are one. As soon as you learn to reshape your reality, you can use it to build cities or lead armies or create great art as many have before you, or you can use it to open your eyes and express your unique spiritual DNA and go where no one has gone before. That doesn’t happen in twenty minutes a day or because you burn incense and wear organic cotton and have a coexist bumper sticker on your car, or because you chant or pray or read the words of great masters, or because your chakras are tuned and your aura is vivid, it happens when you tell the universe in the way the universe understands that there will be no other thought or priority or secondary objective until you wake up or die trying. That’s what spiritual success looks like, and that’s why billions of seekers, far more intelligent and dedicated and courageous than myself, never had a chance.

“You are not a person with an abyss inside, you are the abyss itself, and what you consider self is just the emotional clutter and debris that conceals the truth of your inner black hole. The abyss of infinite, featureless awareness is the truth of no-self, and the clutter and debris is the lie of ego-self. Spiritual progress isn’t the feel-good, sweetness-and-light honeytrap we’re so eager to fall into, it’s mathematical and certain and precise and follows strict and immutable laws. There is not the least bit of wiggle room, no skipping of steps or bending of rules, no deus ex machina or mystical intervention. No one can ever know who and what and where they really are until they become it.”

There’s some indecision but no hands go up.

“Of course not, the universal answer is no. No one’s belief is that strong. How could it be? It’s not a shortcoming in you, it’s not a personal failing, it’s the same for everyone. It was the same for me. In my two-year journey to the volcano it never even occurred to me that I might survive the process. No one really thinks there’s anything beyond the inner abyss, beyond the end of self. No one really thinks they can survive the step into the volcano. No one really believes there’s anything beyond the seen and known of the material world, but some take that step anyway. Why? Because it’s not a leap of faith, it’s a leap of surrender, a trustfall into the void. Nobody takes this step from egoic vanity or spiritual desire or religious longing, you only take it because your eyes are open and you see that an honest death is better than a dishonest life. You see that you have nothing to lose. I can tell you what’s on the other side of the gateless gate and I can describe it in a hundred books, but you’ll never believe it until you pass through and see it for yourself. This is true of everyone, no exceptions. No one truly believes there’s anything beyond. If we really believed we’d become enlightened by jumping into a magic volcano, then we’d all flock in like lemmings, but that’s not how it works. It’s not about strength of belief and it never was. It’s not a leap of faith, it’s a leap of hyper-lucidity and radical sanity. Sorry, I know that’s a drag, but it’s better to know the truth than to go on thinking that your problem is that you don’t have enough faith or belief, or that you’re not genetically or culturally predisposed toward awakening, or that you just haven’t found the right teacher or teaching yet. That’s not the issue. No one jumps out of a burning skyscraper as long as not jumping is still an option. There are no early adopters in that situation. You never take the next step until the ground crumbles beneath your feet. If you’re not on your way to and through that inner black hole, it’s because your hatred for your false-self is not burning bright enough, which means you’re not clearly perceiving the artificial nature of this reality and your character, which means your eyes are closed. If you want to open your eyes, you have to think more honestly and aggressively than you think possible. Use spiritual autolysis to think better, to awaken the Little Bastard within, to open your eyes and see what is instead of keeping them closed and seeing what’s not. Then, slipping into that black hole becomes as easy as slipping into a warm bath. Or maybe you die. Either way, problem solved.”