LIBERATION FROM OR OF THE BODY
This chapter expands on the ideas presented in the previous
chapter,
Eastern versus Western
Consciousness. I recommend reading that chapter
first for better context.
What is freedom?
There are many concepts of what freedom is and how to realise it.
However, in spiritual matters, two radically different types of
freedom seems to be at play: the freedom
of the body and its experiences, or freedom
from the body, expressed as a liberation from the 'I'
and ego.
Embedded in the historical DNA of spiritual traditions in both
the East and West is the belief that the body and physical life
are obstacles to true freedom. As a result, these traditions
have predominantly sought liberation from the body,
understood as dis-identification from physical existence.
The duality between 'spirit' and 'flesh' has, at times, been
approached through more nuanced perspectives, where body and
soul could harmoniously coexist. The Greek ideal of a beautiful
soul in a beautiful body represents one such synthesis. To some
extent, Buddha’s realization of the Middle Way—where he rejected
extreme ascetic practices like near-starvation—can also be seen
as a softened stance toward the body. Similarly, the Chinese
portrayal of the joyful Bodai, with his rice bowl, embodies a
balance of physical contentment and spiritual peace.
Later Christian thought, particularly during the Renaissance and
post-Reformation periods, began to embrace a more positive view
of the body, partly due to the revival of classical Greek
ideals. Catholic thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, for example,
argued that body and soul are united in human beings, and that
the resurrection of the body is central to Christian
eschatology—suggesting that the body is not inherently in
opposition to the soul’s spiritual journey toward God.
LIBERATION FROM THE BODY
One fine morning in his humble Lucknow home in 1995,
Papaji read a local
Indian newspaper story about a newborn baby in a New York
hospital who supposedly cried out at birth, "Oh no!... not
again!" With tears of laughter, Papaji recounted the tale to
the visitors already packed into his small living room.
In comparing Eastern and Western spirituality, India stands out
for its traditions that most emphatically negate the body.
Papaji's teacher, Ramana Maharshi famously went so far as to
call the body a “disease within a disease.” It’s
intriguing that, despite Papaji’s humor and Ramana’s more solemn
outlook, both shared an alignment with the philosophy of maya,
which views the material world as an illusion. Their contrasting
responses reveal the varied ways enlightenment can embody this
perspective. It also remind us that true spiritual insight
cannot be attained by merely copying a master on a personal
level.
Both the baby’s cry and Ramana Maharshi’s teachings
encapsulate the essence of Eastern belief, where human life is
fundamentally viewed as suffering, creating a deep yearning for
escape. We are caught in an endless cycle of birth and death,
and the ultimate goal is to break free from it. In Hinduism,
this liberation is called Moksha, while in Buddhism,
it is known as Nirvana. From this elevated
perspective, the difficult and often painful existence of the
body is seen as an illusion—much like a dreamer waking from a
nightmare, realizing with relief that all the fear and torment
were nothing but a figment of the mind.
India has fostered countless stories that illustrate this theme,
such as the following: A man enters a dimly lit room and sees a
snake. Terrified, he scrambles to find safety. But when the
light is turned on, he realizes the snake was merely a rope
hanging on the wall.
The grand escape from this miserable and yet illusive material wold is achieved by meditating oneself out of
earthly existence. Through a process of spiritual purification,
where the body's thirst for life is neutralized, the vicious
cycle of rebirths is transcended. The spirit is then liberated
from the confines of bodily existence.
Thus, the highest human ideal in these traditions is freedom
from desires. A person free of desires can even surpass the
gods. As stated in the Puranas:
"There is nothing the gods
fear more than a person who desires nothing."
The paradox, however, is that the spirit can only become free
from the body after it has first disciplined the body to cease
following its natural instincts.
UNTIMELY FRACTURES BETWEEN BODY AND SPIRIT
How is it that India fostered such a deep disregard for the
body and its life, while in China, Taoist sages were busy
developing spiritual techniques and concocting potions aimed at
prolonging life? Early European Christianity, too, was closely
aligned with the Eastern view, emphasizing the need to transcend
the physical. Yet, Christ was resurrected in bodily form,
suggesting a different perspective on the body’s role in the
divine order. These contrasting views on whether the body could
have a place among the gods highlight the role of civilization
itself as a key force shaping spiritual beliefs and practices.
In India, the harshness of existence—marked by cycles of
drought, famine, and disease—may have reinforced a desire to
escape the physical realm, leading to a spiritual focus on
moksha, or liberation from the body’s limitations. I have in
detail described this aspect of meditation as a
survival response to famine and catastrophy here.
Yet, there
seems also to be other civilisatoric modulators in the game.
Both in the East and the West, there have long been ongoing
conflicts between our biological "animal" nature and the
remarkable ability of the mind to imagine new possibilities. The
fluid mind, capable of instantly grasping and creating utopian
visions of how we might interact and understand ourselves, often
moves far faster than the body. The body, like an old elf in
wooden clogs, struggles to keep pace, weighed down by ancient
instinctual hardware and outdated cultural software. It resists
the disruptive changes brought about by the soaring, ambitious
Icarus-mind.
From my historical perspective,
these conflict seem to follow a distinct pattern. We become
"civilized" in waves. The transition from a hunter-gatherer
existence to an agricultural life demanded a radical
intensification of self-control. Similarly, the shift from
agrarian life to imperial living in larger cities required
further retraining of our behavior. This pattern
continues through
history, marked by various transformative examples.
These tensions are especially pronounced at the fractures
between old and new social orders, especially when the new order
manifest in a disruptive way what it often seems to do.
As civilization
advances—becoming more complex and affluent—the primitive and
instinctual body is often left behind, reprimanded by the new
demands of society. The more sophisticated the social order
becomes, the more the body, with its ancient impulses, struggles
to keep up.
To keep it simple, we all know how easy it is to adapt new ideas
on a mental level and how difficult it is at the same time
really to change behaviour according to our new ideals.
The older our biological "operating systems," the harder they
are to adapt during times of change. These older systems are
largely unconscious, and without consciousness, change becomes
even more difficult. Moreover, the archaic parts of our biology
were shaped over vast aeons, far removed from the rapid cultural
changes of the last 2,000 years.
In disruptive transitional phases, the willing and visionary spirit
and the instinct-ridden, lustful, fearful, aggressive and first
of all habit-driven body
have stood against each other like dog and cat. Only with the
application of large doses of both carrot and stick have the
archaic instinct-programmed systems within us "understood" and
sluggishly learned the new behavioral demands dictated by
societal consciousness. After a few generations, it seems that
the new cultural behavior becomes habitually embedded as a norm,
resulting in a temporary truce between spirit and body.
THE WESTERN ADAPTION OF 'MAYA'
The Contemporary War between Body and Spirit
I think we can all agree that we once again are living in
disruptive times of such magnitude that our old world order is
shaking from top to bottom. At first glance, we may not see
body-renouncing ascetics walking the streets with beggar bowls,
but the dualism between reality and ideality has grown far more
pronounced over the last 20 years. This dualism has assumed new
forms, which, while they don’t resemble the old manifestations,
still produce soldiers in the ongoing war between body and
spirit. This conflict creates suffering, which in turn
reinforces the polarization that the spirit attempts to overcome
through its own imaginative realms.
Let me give some examples of this conflict zone. A growing
number of young people are increasingly dissatisfied with the
body they received in the genetic lottery. For some, it takes
the form of young men striving obsessively to develop
Adonis-like bodies. For women, this dissatisfaction
might be surgically compensated with new noses, lips, or
breasts. And in a more extreme
manifestation, with the aid of new technologies, the spirit now
claims that gender itself is merely a matter of choice.
I can’t help but see this as a recurrence of the age-old war
against the body, with the same catch-22 that religious
renunciates of the past faced: the spirit can only become free
from its hatred of the body after it has first disciplined the
body to cease following its natural biology.
We are now in high-tech times where the cultural and technological shifts
enable people to "reinvent" their physical selves in ways
previously unimaginable. Here I see the rise of body
modification, extreme fitness culture, and debates around gender
identity as manifestations of this ongoing conflict.
When did this resent body-negation start?
Hippie Freedom and Self-restraint
My guess is that
the youth rebellion and the hippie movement in the 60'ties
initiated this new wave. It birthed a mind who would throw the
same culture from its sensual and spiritual hedonism into a
disciplinary anti-thesis. In my view, it is no coincidence that
Steve Jobs was both a free wheeling Indian loving psychedelic hippie and a control freak. Only such
an anachronism was able to create the abyss we all gaze into
today: the smartphone.
Steve Jobs' favorite spiritual book was
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. He was
deeply inspired by it and reportedly re-read it many times
throughout his life. Autobiography of a Yogi also made a
significant impression on Mark Zuckerberg. In 2015, during a
trip to India, he shared that Steve Jobs recommended the book to
him when he was going through a challenging period at Facebook.
Jobs suggested it would help him reconnect with a sense of
purpose and the "bigger picture" of his work and life.
In this context, it is interesting that several influential
people, including Elon Musk, with scientific evidence behind
them, are convinced that the reality we live in is a simulation.
It is, in fact, not real.
Musk’s philosophical influences tend to focus on existential
questions around technology, humanity’s future, and survival,
rather than spiritual or mystical perspectives. However, Musk
does share a similar drive for purpose and impact, a theme that
resonates with the spiritual journeys described in works like
Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi.
One of the central themes of this chapter is that the
technology-derived digital realm itself embodies a more
spiritual than material existence, one where we are free to
invent avatars as replacements for the identities once shaped by
biology and society. This shift draws us into a fundamentally
body-negating universe.
Identity and body are
deeply interlinked. In a universe with fewer ties to a physical
body, we can be whatever entity we choose—or that chooses us.
This detachment from traditional identities creates a parallel
rise in anxiety, which paradoxically drives us to cling more
fiercely to “identities.” Whether these identities relate to
gender, race, or politics, they often become, in the absence of
a grounded connection to physical reality, abstract and
disembodied constructs seeking tangible form. Identity, once
shaped by body, family, and culture, is increasingly an active
choice, much like selecting characters in a video game.
Much like in The Matrix, physical embodiment is no longer
essential for engaging in digital reality.
In this way, the mind-dominated digital world echoes ancient
Indian philosophies suggesting the physical world may be an
illusion. Today, however, “simulation” and “hologram” have
become the preferred terms. This insight places us within a
polarized space, balancing between hedonism and extreme
self-control, as we navigate digital experiences that liberate
yet distance us from the physical self.
Consider social media personas as an example of this tension. On
platforms like Instagram or TikTok, people curate idealized
versions of themselves, choosing avatars, filters, and content
that align with aspirational identities rather than their
everyday realities. This can offer liberation from physical and
social limitations, enabling individuals to embody new
aesthetics, values, or personas.
Yet, the pursuit of digital approval often fosters obsessive
self-monitoring and an endless need to uphold an “ideal” online
presence, introducing a hyper-discipline that results in real
physical consequences—such as feelings of inadequacy, body
dissatisfaction, or anxiety. Much like traditional hedonistic
pursuits that promise pleasure but foster self-doubt, there is
also a tendency to shape and discipline the body to resemble its
digital avatar.
Ancient people had every reason to flee from the body. Freedom from the
self, from bodily existence, made perfect sense, for only a few lived beyond
the age of 40, and no one could be sure what tomorrow would bring in terms
of war, catastrophe, hunger, or disease. The risk of a violent death was
extremely high. Viewing the world as an illusion was, therefore, an
appropriate survival strategy, especially in India, which, due to frequent
monsoon failures and an overly caste-divided society, could never figure out
how to face challenges collectively. Indians thus developed meditation as an
anti-body survival solution in an inherently over-fragmented, dysfunctional
society. The logic of "What is lost externally must be gained internally"
drove this Indian meditation practice, leading to a form of spiritual
liberation through alienation from the life of the body. Now the question is
how we in the contemporary West can harwest from these
experiences.
HOW DID I DIGEST THE ILLUSIVE ILLUSION?
It was—and still is—quite common in my spiritual circles to
hear people claim that the world is an illusion. Statements
like, "Nothing truly exists," are often repeated, especially in
New Age communities influenced by Vedantic and Buddhist philosophy. In these
circles, the philosophy of illusion goes beyond a mere critique
of our superficial, influencer-driven, reality-TV-saturated
world. Here, the concept of illusion expands to include all the
moving parts of time and space.
Liberation Through Alienation
For many years of my younger
life, I fled inward every time I faced problems in my outer life. When I had
trouble with a girlfriend, I fled into the "I am not the body" meditation.
Was it a good idea? Hardly... The problems didn’t disappear because I
practiced ostrich meditation. On the contrary, many precious years passed,
during which I could have learned to navigate life’s tricky whirlpools as a
human being. Instead, I chose, during difficult periods, to depersonalize
myself into pure spirit.
Throughout my life, I’ve seen this survival strategy used countless times by
modern, Western-conditioned people. For people with mental anguish and
struggles in daily life, it is all too tempting to reuse or perhaps misuse
ancient Eastern spiritual DNA to liberate themselves through alienation.
The 'Spiritual Bypass'
A Japanese Zen monk once gave a lecture on meditation on the top floor of a
skyscraper in Tokyo. Suddenly, a small earthquake caused the building to
sway dangerously. People panicked and rushed out of the building. Only the
Zen master remained seated. When the earthquake was over, the audience
returned to the lecture hall, where the Zen master sat, unmoving, in serene
calm, eyes closed. When people asked why he didn’t flee, he replied:
“While you fled out, I fled in.”
In meditation, you let the world be the world and adapt yourself instead.
The colossal freedom potential in this 'flight' is dizzying and
awe-inspiring and yet at the same time problematic.
I came
to understand the dangers of spiritual intro-escapism through
personal experience and later through my encounter with a new
wave of spirituality led by Bhagwan Rajneesh. Unlike many
spiritual leaders, Rajneesh took the traumas and struggles of
ordinary life seriously, blending modern therapy with
meditation. At the time, this felt like a fresh breeze, a
revitalizing shift in spiritual practice.
Later, I realized Rajneesh wasn’t alone in the insight that
meditation, unless purposefully directed to support personal
growth, could easily become a survival technique akin to an
ostrich burying its head in the sand—an escape from reality.
Psychologist John Welwood had already coined the insightful term
"spiritual bypass" in the early 1980s to describe this
phenomenon, referring to the tendency to use spiritual practices
as a way to avoid confronting unresolved emotional issues,
psychological wounds, or unfinished personal development.
Welwood observed that spiritual bypassing happens when
spirituality is used as a means to evade painful feelings,
unresolved traumas, or relational challenges, rather than
engaging with them in a healthy and grounded way. Interestingly,
Rajneesh and Welwood were aligned in their thinking,
demonstrating how related insights often emerge concurrently.
Even Transcendental Meditation, popularized by Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi in the 1970s, showed a shift toward valuing the material
world alongside the spiritual. Maharishi promised a "200 percent
life," with both 100% material fulfillment and 100% spiritual
life, suggesting a newfound respect for the body's role in
personal growth.
What strikes me now as particularly strange is how, like many
around me, I found myself navigating two parallel paths that
rarely intersected. On one hand, I practiced radical body
negation; on the other, I pursued therapeutic practices focused
on healing bodily traumas and improving my material
circumstances. This dichotomy recalls Gurdjieff’s observation
that each of us harbors more than a hundred different
personalities, many of which remain unaware of each other.
Fascinatingly, this split mirrors the recurring paradox of body
negation versus body discipline—a theme that weaves through
historical and cultural conflicts between body and spirit.
Ultimately, everything comes down to ensuring that one hand
knows what the other is doing. Today, I view this dual approach
as emblematic of my generation of spiritual seekers,
encapsulating both our drive to transcend and our need to heal.
New Age – Illusion or Ferrari?
New Age organizations today continue to grow, drawing on the religious DNA
of the East in the sense that most modern meditation traditions still carry
within them Buddhism’s or Hinduism’s ancient longing to escape the
troublesome existence of being human. At the same time, the dreams of bodily
happiness are marketed in such a way that it’s hard to tell whether the
project is about wellness or the negation of earthly life. A variety of
reinterpretations are trying to find their way in a landscape where, at one
moment, you are supposed to rise above the illusory body and not take the
ego seriously, and in the next, you are doing everything possible to make
the body feel extra comfortable with therapy, massage, personal development,
tantra, mindfulness, and fine dining. Add to that the American dream, which
promotes the idea that mindfulness and positive thinking are the way to the
Ferrari you’ve always dreamed of.
An arsenal of pop-smart livelihood gurus preach and talk, but it makes
little difference. The foundation, which is rarely questioned, is old and
shaky, especially if it is meant to support a dream of material success. Let
me emphasize that there’s nothing inherently wrong with desiring a Ferrari.
The issue is the inconsistency in the cultural software of meditation.
In this Western interpretation of Vedanta, life itself is viewed
as illusory.
I, too, have made similar statements and 'believed' the world to
be an illusion. But now, I find myself asking:
Why did I say that in the first place?
In my 45 years of meditating, I've observed how the invisible
aspects of the ideology that accompanies meditation subtly shape
our perception of reality. The small, almost imperceptible
things we repeat over the years contribute to creating the map
that guides us through life and defines where we belong. From
the micro to the macro, everything flows as information that
shapes us—whether we are conscious of it or not.
However, even the slightest misalignment between this
ideological map and our
'core personality' will eventually
create obstacles on our spiritual path. Without harmony between
the smallest and largest aspects of ourselves and what we
absorb, we will gradually experience stagnation.
Life in the New Age scene has taught me that I often built my
life on 'truths' from external sources, which slipped into my
system without proper scrutiny. In my blind rebellion against
the authority of my own culture, I plunged into reverence for
exotic authority. Uncritically, I adopted foreign religious and
cultural beliefs, only to later realize that I was filled with
undigested ideas that were neither truly my own nor beneficial
to me.
Let me offer a small example: I rejected Christianity as pure
hypocrisy, only to find myself singing devotional bhajans to the
elephant god Ganesh or the monkey god Hanuman. I didn’t grow up
around elephants or monkeys, yet here I was, praising them.
Worse still, my rejection of Western authority led to an
uncritical submission to father-figure substitutes in the form
of misguided gurus.
My goal now is to bring these external ideas into the light for
closer inspection. Like using tweezers, I must dissect my
meditation practice down to its smallest details. Only those
pieces of information that pass the critical test of both the
intellect and intitution in honesty will be allowed to integrate into my new spiritual
DNA.
So I repeat the question:
What does it really mean to say that the world is an illusion?
Is it even appropriate to view what’s right in front of our noses as
illusory?
Based on my own inner experiences, I can confirm that there is a galactic
perspective where 'one' is, so to speak, led out of the protective walls of
the ego and the body, rising above roofs, cities, countries, and further
inside-out, so far that the planet we call Earth, then the solar system, and
finally the galaxies seem no larger than a molecule in a speck of dust. I
could also call it a location-less location of consciousness,
devoid of anything other that the swirling of that into
that.
From in-out here-there, our little, ever-changing lives seem utterly insignificant
and, in that sense, an illusion.
However, less will also suffice. Many will surely recognize moments in
meditation, so still and deep, where many desires, tasks, or problems that
once seemed significant now seem non-existent.
However, it should be clear by now that I am no longer certain about the
absolute truth of seeing and especially living the world as an illusion.
Have we really been given a body and a world just to abandon them in favor
of a depersonalized spiritual perspective?
As far as I can see, a self-reinforcing loop of conclusions forms in the
relationship between illusion and detachment: We leave the world because it
is an illusion. When we leave the world, it becomes an illusion.
The spiritual eagerness to label our bodily life as an illusion, therefore,
makes me suspicious. What is the motive behind this devaluation of body-time
in space?
The Indian philosophical argument is that everything that changes is illusory.
Today you are healthy. Tomorrow you are seriously ill. Today your wife loves
you. Tomorrow she has left you.
Don’t attach yourself to life, for it is samsara, ever-changing, and change
creates suffering. Therefore, attach yourself to the unchanging in the form
of eternity, God, the Self, Spirit, Nirvana, the Ground of Being, or
Consciousness. For only the unchanging can be considered real.
Now my question is: Does the Indian conclusion hold, that 'something' does
not exist because 'it' changes?
Could this argument actually be hiding an unwillingness to face life’s
hardships?
Why is suffering considered so terrible? Why not see it instead as an
integral part of a changing but wonderful life of sunshine and storms?
I, therefore, allow myself to view the illusionary perspective as a
potential expression of escapism.
Why have we been given a body if the whole point of the game is simply to
leave it?
Seeing the world as an illusion makes it easier to escape existential
responsibility for what is… here and now… right in front of us. Calling
something illusory is the same as downgrading its value.
Suffering is easier to 'survive' when it’s just an illusion anyway.
I call it liberation through alienation.
Depersonalization as a Survival Strategy
The very idea that the world is an illusion, in the sense that it is not
always what it appears to be, is in itself a wonderful philosophical and
cognitive discovery.
The new scientifically grounded thoughts that the world is actually a
simulation are groundbreaking. I don’t see it as a coincidence that the
elite of the Western world are now rediscovering the concept of illusion in
the form of simulation theory. For, as mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, the body and the spirit are once again at odds.
The philosophy of illusion can, as long as it merely poses critical,
skeptical questions about the beer-drinking existence we automatically take
for granted, have the potential to develop into a theology of freedom.
The problem only arises when this philosophy becomes a norm, a dogma, an
unchallenged and unexamined foundational assumption upon which the rest of
the narrative of existence is constructed—a narrative that often practices
what Buddha would call a thirst for life.
Why?
My gadget-guru Steve Jobs kept asking people who worked in different
business organizations: Why do you do what you do? No one could really
answer. The only response was: We do what we’ve always done, what we’ve been
told to do. Steve Jobs had enough awareness to see through the routine
sleepiness in these answers, and with this insight, he was able to change
work procedures so they became meaningful.
We are hopelessly stuck in habits and sleep. It doesn’t matter
whether we’re talking about a business empire, an academic
institution, or a meditation
organization. For that reason alone, all tradition-based meditation
organizations should subject themselves to a thorough revision a la Jobs.
The dilemma in meditative circles—whether the body is worth investing in or
whether it is an illusion to be transcended—is a very real one. The
liberation of the self can often be uncomfortable. The pain, which is a
fundamental condition of living in a body and interacting with other bodies
and the world, is still there, even if you flee from it into the world of
the spirit. It makes sense for sensitive people in a modern big-data world
to reuse the old Indian depersonalization techniques, where one liberates
oneself from oneself. It’s almost too easy to use meditation as a spiritual
bypass of the body and everyday life. A depersonalized life without integral
bodily existence, however, offers no spiritual fullness or depth. I would go
so far as to call it a waste of life.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Liberation from the Self, the body and
spirit, after a long period from the 60s to the turn of the millennium, are
once again on a collision course. The only thing I am critically concerned
with here is the lack of meta-awareness in this conflict. The sleepy
meditative environments need more restless Steve Jobs archetypes to ask
questions about everything between heaven and earth.
In a time like ours, with dizzying speeds of change in our self-perception
and the interfaces through which our metamorphosing identities navigate, the
body is left behind like a fossilized turtle while the hare’s soul in us
hurries to put on new virtual bodies.
This separation already happens on a micro level the second you forget that
your body feels sad because you got a like on a photo of a dessert on
Facebook.
In this context, it is no coincidence that Steve Jobs took a meditative
pilgrimage to India in his youth and remained friends with the book
Autobiography of a Yogi for the rest of his life. Silicon Valley is, if
anything, a postmodern Buddhist/Hindu melting pot, spiced with microdoses of
LSD. Nor is it a coincidence that Indians are so good at programming. They
are used to handling "nothing."
LIBERATION OF THE BODY
"God enjoys himself in all things."
– Meister Eckhart
"Real knowledge, even in this body,
is intrinsically so delightful
that the sum total of created things
is nothing to the joys of pure perception."
– Meister Eckhart
"God delights so in this likeness that
he pours out his whole nature,
his whole substance into it, in his own self.
The joy and satisfaction of it are ineffable.
It is like a horse turned loose
in a lush meadow, giving vent to his
horse-nature by galloping full-tilt about the field:
he enjoys it, and it is his nature."
– Meister Eckhart
The organic-chemical cultural mutations between digital technological
expansion and the spiritual traditions of the East are already countless and
unpredictable. Add to this brew the psychedelic information coming from the
shamans of South America.
In this sea of possibilities, I choose—with respect for all the possible and
impossible hybrids that the liberation from the body can take in a world
where spirit will likely shed its old shell and inhabit cybernetic
organisms—a different path.
I call it the liberation of the body as a path to liberation from the body.
On this path I will now give my take on what reality is:
What is real? It is what the heart touches. Whatever the heart
chooses to love becomes real in a psychological sense. What the
heart does not love becomes unreal, an illusion.
Individuation in Super-Awareness
It makes sense to view humans as a tree. The tree’s root system is our
unconscious biology, which carries millions of years of
accumulated
biological operating systems. In the treetop exists what grows in the light
of consciousness.
Most of the body’s inner biological life is hidden, not because it is
repressed, but because it is wordless, and therefore unknown and
incomprehensible. No historical figure, to my knowledge, has pointed more
clearly to the human roots’ diverse depth and importance than the
psychologist C.G. Jung:
"Man's task is to become conscious of the
contents that press upward from the unconscious."
– C.G. Jung
Jung called the process of becoming conscious of oneself "individuation."
For Jung, however, individuation was inseparably connected to the world of
words and understanding. For him, understanding was a central tool for the
spiritual locksmith’s work of unlocking the door to the unconscious.
I, however, see a new ruler, radically different from the king of words,
conquering the continent of the body!
This ruler is born at a balance point created by super-awareness.
The Incomprehensibly Wordless Super-Awareness
Once upon a time, deep in the heart of the Russian Empire, there lived three
monks on an isolated island in the middle of a large lake. They had almost
no contact with the civilized world. They knew very little about Christian
theology. Their only prayer was: "We are three. You are one. Lord, have
mercy on us."
A bishop heard about these three hermits and decided to visit them. He rowed
a long way out on the lake until he finally reached the small island. The
monks greeted him with great love and humility. However, the bishop was
deeply surprised by how little the three knew about Christian theology and
decided to stay on the island for a few days to give them a crash course in
Christianity. The hermits were deeply grateful for the bishop’s teachings
and thanked him many times as they bid him farewell. The bishop rowed back
toward the mainland. Halfway out, he heard the monks calling after him. He
turned and saw the three running across the water. "Lord," they said, "we
have forgotten your teachings. Can you repeat what you said?"
The holy simplicity of the three hermits renders theology, and in a broader
sense, the very phenomenon of ‘understanding’ unnecessary in a form of
incomprehensible super-conscious wisdom. To understand something is to grasp
it. Who wants to grasp it? It is the ego, which eternally desires to
transform things by grasping control. Therefore, the ego desires
understanding. Understanding brings power. In wisdom, however, we let go of
everything we have grasped.
The super-conscious highway is therefore also the flyover that bypasses the
ego’s futile attempts to spiritualize itself through self-development. This
is not to say that one can do without therapy or psychological insight,
which, to continue the highway metaphor, could be compared to the essential
on-ramps. The overwhelming mass of texts on Meditation.dk consists of
on-ramps to the super-conscious highway. This articulation knows its place
as a servant and makes room for what is most important—awareness, which,
when you inhale a perfume whose name you don’t know, makes you aware of the
scent.
The Super-Awareness Colonization of the Body’s Wilderness
Meditation.dk is an artistic life project that, step by step, brings
super-consciousness to the dark, attentive body micro-world without words.
In this sense, meditation is the psychic microscope of super-awareness. It
incarnates in the body as a wordless and understanding-less spatial realm of
abstract clarity. The colonization of the body by super-awareness is
radically different from the otherwise praiseworthy body-consciousness
behind the desire to exercise and eat healthily. It pales in comparison to
the consciousness that suddenly becomes aware of the deafening roar of our
cells’ living wave-rush. The body’s cosmic background radiation is
here—always. However, we only become aware of our foot the moment we sprain
it. When it functions, we ‘forget’ it. We only hear the fridge hum when it
stops. Through change, we become aware that the hum was there all along.
Meditation is about enabling consciousness to become aware of what always
is.
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