In The Same Way

 

Of course, I study consciousness. Of course, that subject is probably better explained and studied by biologists and physicists rather than a high-school-dropout. I get that. However, I think it could be helpful to look at things like consciousness from an old-school, practical, experiential way. In my opinion, the study of consciousness is not unlike the study of marriage; you may arrive at a formula and still end up in divorce.

Physicists and neuroscientists are really coming up with some great ideas about consciousness these days. However, I don’t think they are any closer to conceiving how to put it into a beneficial practice than Paul was, when he went about preaching and writing his many letters, over 2,000 years ago. About 400 years prior to Paul, The Buddha was very clear about how consciousness worked, and his basic ideas still liberate unhappy people to this day.

It would not be easy to take the most basic, eastern ideas and make a religion out of them. When it does become religious, it is because someone attached some personal bills to it and packaged the bills with the concepts. Early, eastern concepts, without any western color, are more like ways one might look at life. And when someone treats it this way and practices them this way, the results are usually very rewarding.

All religions have a way of getting in the way of the truth at their core. I find that most religions stress unity and treating others fairly. Most religions focus on love, acceptance and forgiveness. However, I have gone for such lures, only to be reeled by the nasty hooks of dogma.

Dogma is the problem.

Even here in the south, you could drive around on a Sunday morning, at 11:00 AM, and If you’ll consider the parking lots, there are plenty of spaces in most cases. The reason? Most people will simply walk away from salespeople. We are bombarded with salespeople. They call us on our phones, send us letters, dance on the corners with their signs, send us emails and interrupt the best parts of our favorite shows. And if you happen to go to church, where you were hoping to learn more about practices that might improve your life, and an angry person speaks to you condescendingly about some of the choices you’ve made, it makes you uncomfortable. And then, if the same person goes on to explain how it will then be necessary for you to depart with your money so that the work of speaking condescendingly can go on. You may just turn to your partner and say, “I don’t think I will be back.”

Are churches all wrong? Not at all. Is religion wrong? Not in my opinion. I just think that dogma is wrong and there is more of that than anything else. What is dogma? It is always just one possibility floated as the only truth. It is a flat-earth idea and it works perfectly for the untraveled and the uneducated. It is the literal interpretation of what would otherwise be very helpful myths. What is a myth? It is not a lie. A myth actually points to the truth. A myth is a metaphor, told as a way of telling what really cannot be explained in literal terms.

Donald Hoffman compares reality with virtual reality and he usually discusses his simulation theory and he will talk about a headset or an interface. If you are just tuning in and if you catch Hoffman talking about these ideas, you might think he is bonkers, but he is not really saying that we are wearing a literal headset or that our lives are a video game. He is saying these things as metaphors. It is nearly identical to the allegory of the cave by Plato. Plato never meant for anyone to actually believe there was an actual cave or that we are chained therein; but the metaphors work if we think of them as metaphors. What Hoffman and Plato and a million other teachers are pointing to is terribly difficult to explain without the use of metaphors. Jesus did this all the time. In The Bible, they are called parables. One common clue is when you hear someone trying to explain their ideas by saying what it is “like”.

As in: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field…” ~ Jesus

Or: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls.” ~ Jesus

Or: “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.”

Of course, he explains: “The field is the world.” ~ Jesus

Likewise

Donald Hoffman would say, “Our subjective experience of reality is like wearing a headset…”

Plato would say, “Our subjective view of reality is like being in a cave, looking at shadows…”

In order to make a religion out of Plato’s allegory, we would need to hold Sunday Morning Services and someone should affirm that we are, in fact, in an actual cave, staring at literal shadows. And this is dogma.

God is I Am and dogma is “am god” backwards. One really is God, the other is completely the opposite.

The people of the world are collectively gathering at the event horizon of the invisible truth and the pull of the truth has gotten stronger than the manmade rockets of dogma. Only those far enough away from the hole of truth can still defy the weaker gravity, with what literal fuel they have left.

Churches are still playing checkers and the whole world is moving toward chess.

Do I believe I have the intellectual answers? Of course not. In fact, I think is sometimes best to leave the questions unanswered. Alan Watts was criticized for this. You can listen to Watts for hours and never hear a single dogmatic view. Instead, he uses terms like: “Suppose” “Perhaps” “Maybe” What if?” – and his favorite line seemed to be, “In the same way…”

I have heard Watts speaking about the shape of a whirlpool and how it holds that shape with the water changing all the time. He compares the human condition to the whirlpool:

“Here is a flow of water, and suddenly it does a whirlpool, and it goes on. The whirlpool is a definite form, but no water stays put in it. The whirlpool is something the stream is doing, and exactly the same way, the whole universe is doing each one of us, and I see each one of you today and I recognize you tomorrow, just as I would recognize a whirlpool in a stream. I'd say 'Oh yes, I've seen that whirlpool before, it's just near so-and-so's house on the edge of the river, and it's always there.' So in the same way when I meet you tomorrow, I recognize you, you're the same whirlpool you were yesterday. But you're moving. The whole world is moving through you, all the cosmic rays, all the food you're eating, the stream of steaks and milk and eggs and everything is just flowing right through you. When you're wiggling the same way, the world is wiggling, the stream is wiggling you.”

There was a time, in human history, that if Watts had been around to tell this story, a group of Whirlpoolers would, no doubt, form a religion.

Reformation depends on formation, but He hath no form nor comeliness.