SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS No.2
MORE SPIRITUAL THEMES AND DISCUSSIONS BY
PILGRIM SIMON
CONTENTS
The nature of the universe: Manifestations, illusions and ignorance: Duality or non-duality?
What happens after death?
Mind
Spirituality, sex and sexuality
Material and spirit
The nature of the universe: Manifestations, illusions and ignorance: Duality or non-duality?
Some spiritual teachers talk about the world and the universe as an illusion or appearance, even as imaginary. They may put forward arguments and suggestions to the effect that the world does not exist, that no-one is born or dies and so on. Personally I am not happy with these terms or this position. In part this view arises from a certain level or stage of perception. I have already suggested in other studies (Spiritual Questions vol.1) that perception changes according to our level of identification and enlightenment. The perspective as one approaches the Divine or Absolute Essence is different from the perspective of Ignorance, where only the material is seen as real. The perspective or view that is seen is ‘true’ from its own relative viewpoint: it is true for me, from here. Thus it may be that in not being happy with the views expressed above I have not been enlightened, or not reached a position close enough to Essence as Essence to see the ‘truth’ of these statements. Either way I can only describe things as I see them from my viewpoint. In doing so I may use similar words, but, I may well use them in different ways.
We are asking ‘Is the world real?’. Again, we have seen in earlier articles, (Spiritual Questions Vol. 1) that for those who have reached some degree of spiritual insight, there is the dimension Real/real. Sometimes this is described as Real/not real, but I prefer the first term and we will see why as we go on. Ultimate, Final Reality is Essence – the Divine as Formless, Timeless, Spaceless Absolute. We have also seen that this Formless Essence contracted to delimited form, such that all that exists is a delimited expression of Divine. Now let’s just stay with this for a moment. This means that everything – EVERYTHING – is a delimited expression of Formless Essence: the beautiful and the ugly, the light and the dark, the compassionate and the cruel, the trees, the stars, the universe, you and me – all that exists is an expression of One Formless Essence in to many delimited forms. This occurs with no diluting or fragmenting the Divine Essence in any way. The Divine is in all things fully and not fragmented or split up, not divided and not measured out. This is a paradox of the Divine. At the same time as this, the Divine is fully transcendent – Formless, spaceless, timeless, unknowable – and when we take these two ideas together, we have a theological position and a doctrine called panentheism. The Divine is both Immanent and Transcendent.
It is in the context of this idea that we are asking, ‘What is the world? What is the universe? In what sense does it exist?’ Firstly, the universe and everything in it, all existents, are a manifestation of Essence. What do we mean by this word ‘manifestation? The word means ‘to appear, be revealed, come into form; to make evident to the senses’. It has two distinct aspects:
i) to refer to all things, the Universe, for all things are a manifestation of God-as-Spirit or Energy – the Absolute, or Essence.
ii) to refer to the many forms or manifestations of aspects of God in the imagination. Thus the metaphorical form of the Queen of Darkness may arise in the imagination of the Pilgrim as a manifestation of God – the Absolute and Formless contracted and revealed in a form that declares aspects of the Formless. These many and varied forms are appropriate to the individuals they are revealed to, and sensitive to their culture, location and time. Such forms may be mistakenly reified into Deities, Gods and Goddesses, Spirits and Devils that exist ‘out there’ and independently act on us.
It is the first sense that we are concerned with here – the manifestation and revealing of the Formless Essence in contraction to the many and varied existents that make up the universe.
I want to distinguish ‘manifestation’ from similar words that might be used to describe the nature of the universe and existents. I dislike the word ‘appearance’. It is a word that has a similar connotation to ‘materialisation’ and ‘apparition’. It means to emerge, to come into existence, as in the appearance of the first daffodils of spring. Thus this word tends to refer to some outward or external phenomena. So far, so good, but may also have the connotation of something appearing out of nothing, out of emptiness or a vacuum and this is not what the Universe is. It is correct to say that we may describe Formless Essence as Emptiness and Nothingness, but we do not mean that Essence is a vacuum. Neither is the universe and it’s existents an ‘apparition’. This word usually refers to a ghostly appearance, or the appearance of something strange and unexpected. Inherent in the idea of apparition is the idea of something actually, objectively appearing ‘out there’ such that people gathered together would all see the phenomenon, yet it also contains the idea that the appearance has no real, material substance. ‘Manifestation’ does not necessarily contain the same inherent idea. ‘Incarnation’ is another similar word. There is a sense in which all that exists is an incarnation of the Absolute, since all that exists is an expression of contracted-God. The Limitless is bounded, the Formless formed, the One expressed in many. In dualistic Christianity, the Incarnation is reserved for Jesus Christ, where God becomes man and two natures, human and divine co-exist yet remain distinct in the Person and body of Christ. God and humankind otherwise remain separate, and it is considered blasphemy to declare that one’s True Nature is Divine. In other religions, incarnation means one of a series of lives spent in the bodies of animals and humans, an idea often linked to Karma, though this is an idea that I reject. At death, God returns or expands back to God-as-Spirit, or Essence. Incarnation may also have a similar meaning to ‘materialisation’, in the sense of divine visitations. ‘Materialisation’ means to assume physical or material form. In materialisation, a non-material spirit-being becomes physical material. I agree that all the material that exists is God or Absolute Formless Spirit contracted to material form such that there is nothing that exists that is not contracted God and there is nowhere in time and space where God is not. Contracted or physical form follows the laws of physics as discovered by empirical science and is in a process of evolution back to spirit, though at some point, in a moment of time, all material will expand back to Absolute Spirit again. Both Absolute Spirit and contracted spirit co-exist in parallel as Essence and expression. In contracting to form, the Absolute Spirit or Essence does not cease to exist, but lies beneath all that is as the Ground of all existence. Beyond this I do not allow for materialisations. I deny the existence of spirit beings as understood for example in Christian terms. I argue that angels, demons and ghosts do not exist…only Absolute Spirit co-exists with Spirit contracted to form. Thus I do not support materialisation in the usual sense of a spirit-being such as an angel or demon or soul taking on material form.
The polar opposite of ‘manifest’ is ‘unmanifest’. This refers to something that exists but does not appear to the senses or is not revealed, rather remaining hidden and/or Formless. When used solely in conjunction with the material world for example, it is not yet manifest whether life has ever existed on the moons of Jupiter, even though it may once have done so. Essence per se is unmanifest whilst Essence remains as Expansive, Formless Emptiness. Essence cannot be known in this unmanifest condition. Essence is revealed, made manifest, expressed, in contraction to delimited form.
Those who have been enlightened or self-realised encourage us to stand as it were at One with the Absolute. They argue that there is no duality at this level, only Being or isness. This Isness is the Undifferentiated Formless Divine Principle. Principial knowledge then, is taking as it were, a perspective from the standpoint of the Absolute; as it were within the Absolute. This is a standpoint that offers a perspective that is quite different from the standpoint of ourselves as an individual material existent. From an individual bounded-self perspective, we see the cruelty, suffering and pain of a fellow human being. The more we identify solely with this bounded physical self, as though this is all a person is – a finite body-self – then self survival, justice and punishment become more important also. In such a perspective, what else is there but the physical life, health and it’s comforts? To live long, be healthy, have riches or at least comfort and to be happy: these become the dominant values of the individual. Thus, to take someone’s life, to injure them, cause them ill health, or to rob them of their possessions and happiness; these become the major crimes and as such a society or group of individuals may decide to punish such transgressors, setting up laws to codify correct behaviour. But the Absolute-as-such, Isness, stands above morals because all morals are a dichotomy – Good vs. Evil, Right vs. Wrong, Honourable vs. Dishonourable, Fair vs. Unfair. God is above all such polarity because God is Unity: there is no movement, no action, no condemnation, no stagnation, just the blissful state of being.
As individual existents, we are used to perceiving ourselves as being in a particular place, in a particular time, with our ego/mind as a central point of perception/action. However, on perceiving the Absolute as Light and becoming one with that Light, a different perspective emerges: ‘I wanted to enter this Light, to get behind the Light. I put one foot in [the Light] and seemed at times to become part of the Light itself. This perception happened only momentarily, for fractions of a second. When it did, I lost for a moment my sense of being in a particular place, the sense of being an object in a particular location. I seemed to fill the space in the room, indeed, to fill the space beyond it, and instead of being a central entity, I seemed to be distributed across all dimensions, to be in all places, both there and here…I felt momentarily expansive. I became the energy and expanded out being the specks of light that infused the whole Cosmos. I began to lose my centre of being and feel that I was in all places at once.’.
Now this expansion leaves the Pilgrim in a dilemma because they are concerned about how to be in the material world. The dilemma is that in being enlightened by this teaching/perception/experience they find themselves in two worlds: They have seen and tasted that they are God – the True Self or Essence is Divine. They have experienced the Immediacy of God and their perspective and vision has been correspondingly widened. They are drawn to God-As-Spirit and long to taste the Immediate Bliss again. But they are also in the material world, as contracted-God, in a world that is largely ignorant of this expansive view and which organises itself along materialistic lines. The Pilgrim is so surrounded by this contracted perspective that they too soon become embroiled in the perspective and values of the contracted world again. Nevertheless, because of this tasting of Oneness, the Divine Absolute appears Real, whereas the world no appears to be an illusion, unreal or less real.
How is this dilemma resolved? Some Pilgrims perceive their individual existent body/mind is merely an appearance, an illusion. Indeed, more than this, from the standpoint of Principial Knowledge, the whole of the cosmos is merely an appearance or illusion. Modern Advaita or non-dualist author Tony Parsons presents an example of Principial thinking in his writings, where only the Absolute exists and outside the Absolute there is nothing. He uses the image of a wave to illustrate his point: all that is manifest, all that appears- the entire cosmos, is like waves on the surface of a lake. The various manifestations and appearances are the Absolute waving: they are aspects, movements, risings and fallings of the Divine. From the standpoint of these waves or existents, there appears to be separation and individuality, but this is an illusion because all that exists is the Absolute and the Absolute is One. There may also appear to be choice and action performed by an individual existent, but all there is in Reality is the Divine waving. There is no choice, no action, no individual – only the movement of God manifesting moment to moment. There is no ‘me’ to perform actions, Pilgrim Simon does not exist; there is nothing to perform actions on – the universe does not exist. These apparent existents are the product of the mind in Ignorance.
One advantage of this position is immediate freedom from guilt and responsibility – the appearance just ‘is’. ‘I’ do nothing; ‘Pilgrim Simon’ does nothing; does not even exist to be able to do anything. Only the Divine exists, manifesting through this body/mind called ‘Pilgrim Simon’. ‘I’ am a manifestation of a wave of the Divine and as such, events just arise: hunger arises, the desire to eat to satisfy hunger arises. In this view, there is no conflict between human responsibility or choice of action on the one hand and the ordering of all things by the Divine on the other, between predestination and accountability. All there is is the Divine manifesting. The idea of a separate individual existing, along with lots of other separate individual existents, or the idea of a person having independent freedom of choice is seen as just an illusion.
It is useful to take this to an extreme. Lets consider someone like Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Stalin. In common parlance, these individuals are responsible for sending thousands to their deaths and for causing human suffering on a grand scale. Even allowing for those psychology theories and experiments which show how ‘ordinary’ people may, under certain circumstances, send people to gas chambers or electrocute them, we still tend to think of these people as being responsible and therefore accountable for their actions. But the non-dualistic position that we have just been looking at merely glosses over the situation in a detached manner: the body/mind organism called Hitler, or Stalin, or Pol Pot is merely an appearance: an arising of a Divine manifestation and all is as it should be. When the whole is looked at, the suffering and pain caused by a Hitler is balanced out somewhere else in the universe. I notice a number of humourous asides in Tony Parson’s writings concerning people paying their fees for his meetings and residential weekends. I wonder how detached the body/mind organism called Tony Parsons would be if no one decided to pay, after all, money, wages and fees are only an illusion, like Tony Parsons himself. I am being a bit naughty to make a point – there is much of interest in Parson’s writings. But the point is not flippant – it is an important one. Parsons is not alone in taking this view – even the sage Shankara took this view.
The issue at stake here is where the Illusion arises. In the position that we have been looking at, the Illusion seems to be inherent in the manifestation or existent itself. It is suggested for example that the earth does not exist – it is an illusion in and of itself, an Illusion compounded by the mind of the subject that observes it.
But this is not the position that I take. Rather, I take the following view outlined in the points below:
a) The Absolute is all that exists and outside the Absolute, nothing exists.
b) The Absolute contracts or delimits to manifest as form, yet this is done without division, fragmentation or dilution of the Absolute.
c) In this way, the One becomes many.
d) I agree with Parsons et al. – Hitler is a manifestation of the Divine – as are all things.
e) These forms of the delimited or contracted Divine – all that exists – are real. They are not in themselves an illusion and they are not an appearance in the sense of being a trick, vapourous or dream-like. They have real existence.
f) To illustrate their view, those who hold to the view that appearance is an illusion recount the story of the rope and the snake: A man walks into a darkened room and is startled to see a snake on the floor. He turns on the light and finds that what is on the floor is a rope. Those who hold to the position we have been considering then argue that material reality is like the ‘snake’ – an illusion. All that exists is the Formless Divine Emptiness and when we become one with That, the Illusion disappears, the ‘snake’ vanishes and we see what is Real – the rope. I on the other hand argue that what exists is the rope – a contracted form of the Divine – which is mistaken for something other than it is – in this case a snake. The ‘snake’ is a misperception arising in our mind, it does not exist: it is an illusion or trick created by not seeing properly. The rope on the other hand, is real. It is not Finally or Eternally Real, nor is it Formless or Empty – it has a finite, temporal, spatial existence. The form of the rope exists, but when we think of it as a snake, it is not what we think it is or what we project onto it. The Essence of the rope, its Ground of being, is the Formless Divine Absolute.
g) Illusions then may have a double aspect: Firstly, a real existent is mistaken for something other than it is – a rope becomes a snake. The snake is Illusory, a trick, a misperception and has no existence save in the mind. Secondly the real existent, the rope, is not Finally Real, Eternal or the Ground of existence. It is a form of contracted Absolute – it is the Formless both revealed/manifest and veiled in form. All form, all existents simultaneously manifest and hide the Absolute from which it emerges. Thus the rope really exists, revealing aspects of the Divine, yet also obscuring it. The rope is not Divine but an expression of the Divine. The Essence of the rope, its Ground of being, is the Formless Absolute, because outside of the Absolute, nothing exists.
h) Illusions then may be projections and superimpositions that have no existence in themselves, or the mistaking of real, finite, temporal/spatial forms, for Final Reality, whereas in fact, their existence is temporary, transient and dependent or contingent upon the Divine Absolute. Without the Absolute they cannot exist because there is nothing outside of the Absolute. These forms are an expression or manifestation of the delimited or contracted Divine Essence.
i) These Illusions arise both out of Ignorance, which itself arises out of the process of contraction or delimitation of the Divine to form, and the nature of form itself to simultaneously reveal as well as veil or hide.
j) Thus existents such as the rope can be described as real/not real. They really exist, but they are not Finally Real in that they are delimited, temporal, spatial forms of expansive Essence.
I use the illustration of a wave to illustrate the nature of existence as well: God is in all things because all things are manifestations of God. Considering the waves of the sea as an illustration, the surface of the sea rises and turns over itself, forming droplets and spray as it does so, but these droplets remain as the sea. They do not cease to be water, but remain seamlessly part of the ocean and return back again.
The subtle but important difference in the two examples of existents as waves is that in the first example, we are looking at waves on a lake: ripples and undulations on the surface of the water. In the second, we are looking at a more dynamic and active picture: that of the sea as opposed to a lake. Here, the waves are bigger: they turn over themselves and droplets of spray are formed. In this illustration, the whole of the cosmos is more dynamic, active and vibrant, but more importantly, separate droplets of ocean spray emerge. The droplet, or existent has the same Nature or Essence as the Ocean itself, but, as Meister Eckhart observes: As the drop poured into the ocean is the ocean, not the ocean the drop, so we as existents poured into God [at death] are God, not God the existent. As I said earlier, the rope is an expression of the contracted Divine Absolute. The rope is not Divine because it is an expression or manifestation of the contracted Divine, the Formless expressed as form.
In other words, though our True Self or Essence may be God, or Divine, there is a sense in which we are not Divine also – it is more accurate to say that we are contracted or delimited Divine Absolute; expressions of Essence, forms of the Formless. When I as a droplet of existence cease to exist at the end of all things, I become a droplet poured into the Ocean: I become the Ocean. I do not continue to exist as a separate droplet of water within the Ocean. My ego, my mind, my personality is lost and diffused in Union with Oneness. But while I do [really] exist, though I am in Essence Divine, there is a sense in which I am not Divine because I am contracted or delimited Divine, the Formless expressed as form. This is expressed elsewhere: ‘A woman bowed to the ground, praising and worshipping a small tree sapling, whilst others clapped as the moon waxed and waned overhead. “These people worship the sun, moon, stars and earth”, said [the Wise Guide], “But God is not a tree, or a sun, or moon. God is in all these things but is not any of them.”. In other words, God cannot be reduced to a manifestation of the Divine, because a manifestation is a contracted, delimited expression of the Divine, even though the Divine is not fragmented, diluted or divided in the process of contraction. The mistake in this illusion is that God is confined to an aspect of the universe: it is claimed that God IS a tree or a planet, a sun or a force of nature. The Wise Guide says no, God is in all these things but cannot be reduced to any of them. Therefore to worship nature, or aspects of the universe as concrete embodiments or personifications of God or aspects of God is a mistake. But neither are these elements of the universe empty, or merely material or physical objects, they have a spiritual dimension because God is in them all. Indeed, they are contracted manifestations of the Absolute.
Essence, the Divine Ground of being, must not be confused with any substance or integral structure within or without the individual existent. It is only that wherein Essence manifests the existent as being one integral self. This self is capable of indefinite extension in its own sphere which occupies but one degree of existence. The material aspect, comprising a composition of physical, chemical and sensory elements which constitutes only a very small portion of this self. The Ground of the self then is not only the proximate source of life, but also, in a far higher sense, the direct and immediate seat of Essence, wherein the Unity is actual.
This latter position leaves us in two worlds: We are in Essence Divine, but in expression we are a contracted real form of the Divine in time and space. This form, though real with a small ‘r’, is temporary and finite, and it is prone to misperception, to believing that in illusion is real/Real. However it is the Essence that is Finally Real.
Where does this second model leave us in relation to accountability for our actions? Does the droplet of Ocean spray determine its own existence, or its own movement through space? Does it determine its own size and shape, its speed and direction of movement? No this is determined by the wave turning over itself. Even if we were to allow for the wind having an effect, this would be analogous to Spirit. So despite the subtle difference in these two models of existence considered either as a wave on a lake, or the more dynamic Ocean wave, the result in terms of accountability, choice and self determinism of the individual existent or person remains the same. We may feel free and able to determine our actions through self-choice and determination yet it would appear that all is determined by the Absolute. I think that Ibn al-Arabi summed it up the best when he gave the following illustration of God speaking about a person throwing a ball: ‘You did not throw the ball when you threw the ball, I threw the ball.’. Here there is simultaneous negation (you did not throw the ball) and affirmation (when you threw the ball) of the individual’s action together with an affirmation of God’s authorship of the event (I threw the ball).
Thus to return to the examples of Hitler, Pol pot and Stalin: there is this dual accountability – Hitler did not put Jews in gas chambers when he put people in gas chambers, God put people in gas chambers. We come to the objection made by someone following the Apostle Paul: ‘How then can God find fault if God is in effect the Master Potter, the Determiner of all action?’. Paul answers the question in terms of it being out of place and disrespectful of God – ‘Who are you O man to talk to God in this way?’. But it is a reasonable question, because without freedom of choice and action, there is no accountability.
Our thoughts are turning to justice and fairness. Grass is not concerned with morals, but as expressions move to agency, then morals become an issue. Any action carried out in relation to another is a moral action. But not just in relation to another person. Kicking the head off a dandelion is a moral act because you have a relationship, and therefore obligations, to all that is around you. Finally you have a moral relationship with yourself, because your True Self and Essence is God, but you may choose to act contrary to yourself. But all your life as a human being consists in living in relationship to your Self. We are also thinking of the victims of cruelty in war and crime, of their pain and suffering and considering that any right-thinking person would seek to punish those who carry out such acts to recompense the victims for the suffering that they have endured. We may also consider how many people escape being brought to account. This is indeed tragic when viewed from our bounded self-sense. But since all around us is contracted-God, ultimately it is God who is set against God in these matters, and at the end of time, the Balance and Unity of God-As-Spirit will be restored. If God chooses to be partially divided against God for a while in the adventure of contraction, then so be it, for God-As-Spirit is only accountable to God-As-Spirit.
There is indeed a sense in which, through the process of contraction, God is divided against God. This does not mean that God is diluted, or fragmented or divided in the sense of being split into two halves. The Divine Principal and Potential is fully in each existent, be it a person or a stone. God is in all things, undivided, un-fragmented, without measure. In other words, all things are contracted-God. Humans are no different – they are contracted-God. Jesus said “Even these stones will cry out to the glory of God” and this is because they too are contracted-God. Yet there is a sense in which God is divided – God is set against God because God is expressed in many through contraction. I can add no more to this, for this is as it were the pleasure of God, it it is the choice of the Divine, and the Divine is accountable only to the Divine, not to the manifest existent. We are simply assured that Balance and Unity will ultimately be restored, and the apparent moral imbalance and discrepancy that we see from our contracted viewpoint, will ultimately be satisfactorily resolved in the Absolute.
But in contraction, God is divided against God. God is in all things, even the murderer, the rapist the torturer. God in the murderer exerts violence against God in the victim, God against God, divided. God is indeed the Author of suffering. Without God nothing can exist. In contracting to distinct and separate expressions, with the ignorance that arises from such contraction, God is indeed the Author of suffering and division. Moral effort is part of the return of God to the Absolute by overcoming the intrinsic division and separateness of this present level of God’s expression and unfolding. But intrinsic morality, as opposed to external codes and laws, emulates the Absolute, and the Absolute is Unity and Bliss, Transcendent of all. It is sensitive to the Transcendent. It does not seek division, but rather to transcend it. It recognises God in all things, creating a respect for the material universe. It recognises the Ultimate Unity of all things and the artificiality of separateness and division. It aspires to unite with God as Spirit, and thus oneness with the Inner Self. Hatred, war, contempt and lies, though God is in them, descend in the opposite direction towards division and separateness.
Our present state then is one of duality: our Essence is the Divine Principle, the Ground of all that is, the ‘I am’, isness, Formless and Transcendent. Yet we are also contracted Divine, the Formless become form, the Timeless and Spaceless existing in time and space. The Essence is Real and we as individual existent are real. Therefore to continually function in terms of Principial thinking is a mistake, because we are not Pure Divine Principle in expression. As we have seen, the droplet falling into the Ocean becomes the Ocean, but the Ocean is not the drop even though they share the same essential nature.
As God is divided in contraction, so are we. We are not fragmented – we do not have a split personality, but we are concerned about how to be in the material world. In being enlightened by this teaching we find ourselves in two worlds. We have seen and tasted that we are God. We have experienced the Immediacy of God and our perspective and vision has been correspondingly widened. We are drawn to God-As-Spirit and long to taste the Immediate Bliss again. But we are also in the material world, as contracted-God, a world that is largely ignorant of the expansive view, and which organises itself along materialistic lines. We are so surrounded by this that we become embroiled in the perspective and values of the contracted world. There are those who seek to come out of the world: they retreat to monasteries and sanctuaries, to minimise these contracted ideas and values of the world and to fellowship with like-minded pilgrims. But we are nevertheless of the world, in that we are a physical, emotional, thinking being, and we may choose to remain in worldly society. It is quite legitimate to be in the world, to work, play, marry e.t.c.. But on this path, the differences between the two paths are always more acute and immediate, and such a Pilgrim will always be drawn into contracted ways of being. Pilgrims walk in two worlds and have to balance an expansive and contracted way of being. Thus, Pilgrims may take time away from daily duties to meditate or study. Sometimes, the calling of the expansive path may hinder their worldly work. Sometimes the expansive path is frustrated by the demands of the material world. The general principle is to follow the Virtuous Way and to use societies laws against those who trespass its codes. The Virtuous Way is the superior way, but those who do not follow it are bound by the codes of society. It is quite proper therefore for a Pilgrim to be involved in the legal profession, and to use the law as a member of society, since this is an appropriate discipline at this level of contraction. Dogs and sheep do not codify laws, but humans are higher than they are. The fact that the Pilgrim walks in two worlds means that they may avail themselves of the approaches of both, for they have been enriched by the enlightenment gained. Those not so enriched may only use the more contracted approach.
This latter approach, unlike the first, recognises our current dualism, the real expression in form of the Real Essence, and also recognises that Ultimately, all will return to Unity, to One, to a non-duality of isness, in which seeming moral discrepancies and imbalances will be addressed and transcended. In this current, real dualism, we are not indifferent to the injustices of a murderer, rapist or despot. They are not a mere illusion that is arising or manifesting but they have real existence. As individual existents we also appear to have agency|: the faculty of choice, will and decision-making with regard to action. In some mysterious way, this completely harmonises with the purpose of the Divine. The exact balance of Divine Will and Purpose with regard to human agency and choice is a paradox and a mystery beyond the grasp of our minds, yet Ultimately, all will be balanced in Unity and Bliss.
What happens after Death?
We can notice how afraid of death many people are. Many enter into the City of God clothed with death after but a short preparation and there are few who see the City and do not die, because most people do not even consider the City of God until they near death. Many people hesitate – they see people shrouded in death and they fear in their heart, they fear death, protesting that they love life, but to love life is to fear death. Many people cling tenaciously to life, because to die is a fearful thing for them. Yet our true Self is God and death is the end of a particular contraction of Essence in time and space. It is true that the time near the end of the contraction may be painful and people may go through a hard journey.
Death is not what you think! Many think that when someone dies, they continue to exist in some spiritual form after death, caught up into some sort of spiritual society, mingling with the spirits of other people who they met on earth, as though this is some kind of extension of the material world. This is not what death is like. In death all things are become new. You may have heard it said that in heaven there is no giving of people in marriage, and this is true. All these earthly ways cease. Heaven is not a spiritual earth, with its law courts and judgements and other institutions. It is not an extension of earth but a completely different realm. But it is true that the Spirit returns to God because the Spirit is God. We are an expression of God and God is Imperishable, Indestructible and cannot die. Therefore, when a person dies, God returns to God.
Though God returns to God at death, consider what remains: the body. Though God returns to God, yet God is still in the remaining body, as God is in a stone or a tree or in the air and clouds. But consider this. The body that remains is not like the body that was alive, something has gone, and that ‘something’ is God. God has returned to God and yet God remains and is in all things fully. God is not fragmented or split up. Here we begin to enter the Paradox of God, because God is transcendent and cannot be grasped by the mind. Can a stone understand a human being? No more can a person grasp God by inquiry, logic or human concepts. God transcends concepts and language, though the only way we can communicate God to each other is through such language and concepts. Thus at death, God returns to God and yet remains. This is a Paradox of God worthy of meditation, for through consideration of such Paradoxes, we may find a path to God. All things are manifestations of God, so at death, the energy of God returns to God-as-Spirit, and also, in the body’s decay and in the eventual cessation of the material universe, God returns to God in Unity and Bliss. Therefore we should avoid all such ideas of penalties in an afterlife, or cycles of birth and rebirth. The whole Earth is an expression of contracted-God, which is part of a continuum towards God-as-Spirit. At death, God expands to God-as-Spirit: and in due course all that is, the entire universe, will become Ultimate God, or Essence. Therefore death is not a calamity: it is expansion of contracted-God to Ultimate Oneness. In that union there is nothing: no sound, no light, no heat or cold, no sensation at all. There is no centre of consciousness, or thought or sensation, there is the nothingness like that which the ‘I’ experiences when the body is in full anaesthesia.
And I thought, ‘Is this it? Is there nothing after death? Is there just a void of nothingness?’ And a Voice said: ‘Eye has not seen or ear heard what is prepared’.
Individual existents, like you and me, are sometimes compared to droplets of spray from the Ocean. In contracted expression we are like one of those droplets of spray – we have a separate existence and identity for a moment, yet our True Nature is Ocean, and to the Ocean we return. And what then? Does that droplet continue to exist as a discrete item in the ocean? Does it retain its separate identity? No, its separateness is lost in merging in complete Union with the Ocean, merging with That which is of the same Nature as its own Essence. So it is with us. Our mind does not continue as a separate, discrete entity within Essence. Our ego, or some sort of soul does not remain as a separate entity within Entity. Body, emotions, thoughts, mind, ego and breath all dissolve and merge into Totality of Essence in the Perfect Stillness and Bliss of the Eternal Now.
Mind
“You have come already with a picture in your mind that has caused you to begin this journey, and you must take it to the Field of Illusions, for your journey starts there.”.
The mind is an abstract concept that we use to describe our ordering and systematising of thoughts and concepts. It is abstract because we cannot open the skull and point to the mind – we can point to the brain, but not the mind. This is why there is no such thing as mental illness – the mind (abstract) cannot be ill (concrete).
God is transcendent and cannot be grasped by the mind. Can a stone understand a human being? No more can a person grasp God by inquiry, logic or human concepts. God transcends concepts and language, though the only way we can communicate God to each other is through language and concepts. Nevertheless if we rest satisfied in our emotions or feelings, in our relationships, or in our mind and intellect, then we are blind and cannot find God.
The blind rest on material possessions or on their mind, insight and intellect. The journey to the Divine has to take us out of mind-satisfaction, because we can only see God by transcending the mind. To see God we must let go of our mind, surrender all that logical thought and organised structure in our mind by which we understand the world. It may serve us well in orientating ourselves and our behaviour, but there has to be a point when we let go of it and surrender to the transcendence of God. All our logic and ordering of concepts cannot encompass God’s Immediacy. Our True Self is God, and we must identify with God in all things. We must begin to stand above our physical body, to detach our identity from our physical body, because we are not our body, we are not our mind, we are not our thoughts. We are God expressed and contracted into these things, therefore, to realise God, we must expand beyond these limitations and identify with God-as-Spirit, not with us-as-body.
The mind deals with form and concept, but the Essence is transcendent of form and concept, the Essence is Boundless, Formless, Emptiness and Infinite. Thus when Pilgrim Simon encounters a manifestation of the Essence in the form of an Eye: ‘I wondered if this Eye had a Mind that processed what it saw, and found that I could walk through the pupil into the Eye itself. But there was nothing but a large screen onto which what the eye saw was impassively focussed.’
Spirituality, sex and sexuality.
Every person comes along their own spiritual Path and nowhere is this more true than in the different paths of men and women. It is not that one path is right and the other is wrong: it is just that they are different, yet ultimately, they are without distinction, because the Paths culminate in God returning to God, since each person, male or female, is a manifestation or expression of the Divine.
With Essence there is neither feminine nor masculine. Masculinity contains the feminine, and femininity the masculine and the Essence of all is God. It is true that in physical terms, in expression, there is masculine and feminine, but with God this is a false distinction. Essence, transcends gender, but manifests as both male and female. Firstly, this happens in the process of contraction, where the One Divine manifests as many material existents. Thus we have male and female in the human species, as well as in the various other creatures and life forms. The One Divine may also manifest as male or female in the imagination of the Pilgrim, such that the Divine may be perceived of as a caring Father-God, or nurturing Mother Goddess. Thus the Divine may be represented or conceptualised in human feminine terms. In my own experiences, as recorded in the Song of Simon, Ashtar is a feminine manifestation of the Divine, and her domain is Passion, Emotion, Sensuality and Sexuality and her sign is the Moon. She taught me about seasons and rhythms and showed me how the waxing and waning of the moon affected my energy. I was taught to remember that when my passions were high, when I was aware of seasons and phases, then I was aware of the feminine side of God in me, because such seasons are God–ordained. The figure of Ashtar is a metaphorical concept and image in the imagination, a manifestation of the Formless Divine in form in order to reveal aspects of the Absolute.
God, on contracting to expression in material form, chose to continue this contraction for human beings in terms of male and female. Obviously, if all humans were male or if they were all female, then continuation of contraction would have to be achieved by other means. All living things have their ancestors and progeny: plants, insects, animals; they all continue by one means or another and in all of them, God is. God chose then to procreate successive generations of humans by the unity of man and woman and in their uniting, there is True Fellowship of God with God.….it is a fellowship of God with God at the material level. Indeed, there are those men who prefer to be with another man and those women who choose to be with another woman, but this is not the order that God ordained, because by such unions there is no natural continuation of progeny. Whilst there is some contact of God with God in such a relationship, it is always inferior, because true union of God with God does not take place. But it is important for us all to remember that Pilgrim Simon’s journey is the journey of a man. This is his Path, but every person comes along their own Path and nowhere is this more true than in the different paths of men and women.
For some religions and spiritual practices, passion and sensuality are seen as almost or definitely demonic because they consider that passion and sensuality take the Pilgrim’s eyes away from God. But others know that sensuality and passion can be the very Pathway to God. On my own spiritual journey, following a failure of personal courage, Ashtar reminded me that it did me good to rest and to enjoy the sensuousness of her body, to have a respite in my spiritual quest and to forget my anxieties. For a moment, these were laid on one side and I discovered other aspects of God. On the spiritual path, we have to transcend our emotions, senses, logic, concepts, understanding and theories; yet in finding God all these are included. Our passions are aroused for example as we approach the Immediacy of God; our concepts and understanding are also deepened; yet they are all transcended.
Consider the imbalance of repressive Christianity, which subjugates women and denies the feminine in so many ways. Rather, the masculine and the feminine complement and enhance each other, therefore it is a mistake for a man to insult a woman, to put a woman down in ridicule, to treat a woman as inferior. Similarly it is a mistake for a woman to put men down as incompetent or stupid. It is a mistake in other words, for one gender to elevate itself above another, for both are important and both work together and unite together in physical communion. It is the role of the man to beautify the woman, to adorn her with grace and praise, to value her and escort her, to love her. It is the role of the woman to nurture and support the man, thus strengthening him.
The giving of men and women in marriage is a human institution and not given of God as a command. When God returns to God, all is swallowed up in God. But, for the sake of stability and order in society, leaders and communities established marriage. But it is by no means God-given that one man should cleave to one woman, or one woman to one man. Therefore, when some societies established different arrangements, it is quite legal for a man to have more than one wife, for a woman to have a number of husbands. In yet other places it is accepted that though a man be married to one woman, both of them may have intimate relationships with others. If this is accepted by society, then who is to condemn? But if there is deceit, pain, betrayal and secrecy, then these dark Virtues lead to sorrow and destruction. Such a path leads away from God, for a person who lives with such dark Virtues cannot communicate so easily with their True Self, for they are occupied with these things in seeking to maintain the lie.
Some people also find a Pathway to God through sexual union. They refine their coming together and the art of this union heightens their approach to God. This is logical, because the union of two people is God meeting God in the medium of the material.
It is also interesting that during Pilgrim Simon’s journey inside the Moral Temple, there was the large sculpture of a Typhon which was half-female half serpent. Her skin was blue and her face oriental and inscrutable. Her breasts were large and firm and she had six arms. There were necklaces of jewels around her head and waist, but below her waist, her body merged with that of a serpent. There was a sexual energy about her.
Material and spirit
The process of contraction means that the One is expressed as many, that non-duality becomes duality and that there is not only Spirit, but also material. During his journey, Pilgrim Simon comes to see the way in which Spirit and material co-exist: You have seen beneath the material, no longer being ignorant of what lies beneath.
The act of contraction also gives rise to Ignorance such that we tend to think of the material as final reality and the spirit as ephemeral, not real, or even not existing at all. This is the inverse of the True position, where the material is transient and ephemeral, but the Spirit is Finally Real. Thus it is that true riches are not found in material riches or power.
In the material universe there is an evolution and order and thus an order and evolution on Earth and an order and evolution of humans. The direction of that evolution is back to God-as-Spirit. In the course of this process, both hospitable and inhospitable places emerge. Earth is not and never was a paradise for the human species. So, in a general sense, God has provided and created the material and the material is evolving itself back to God, yet God is in all things. In this general sense, then, God provides means of sustenance and areas suitable to inhabit. If God did not provide air to breathe and water to drink and food for bodies, then humans would cease to exist and God would return to God.
This Illusion that we create in Ignorance, which consists of the presumptions of one living in the material universe, is sometimes shattered: some have their world shaken to reveal their lack of foundation – that is, they have trusted material wisdom which no longer supports or satisfies their needs.
To rest satisfied in the purely material is not enough. But that material world cannot be negated or ignored, because the human body is a material body. In the same way, a person cannot ignore all other people, because we live with others in this world. But to believe that to eat, drink and be merry is the end of all things is blindness concerning God. Similarly, if we rest satisfied in our emotions or feelings, in our relationships, or in our mind and intellect, then we are blind and cannot find God. We have to transcend our emotions, senses, logic, concepts, understanding and theories; yet in finding God all these are included. In the Immediacy of God, our concepts and understanding are deepened, yet they are transcended.
God is not distant. You are God and God is in you, in all things and immediately present. All that is lacking is our sense of that Immediacy and it is lacking because we identify with the material. There is the Still Small Voice that is present in everyone, the Voice that is niggling and insistent, always asking questions about Existence, Meaning and Ultimate Things. This is the point where the Spirit meets the material. In material expression, intrinsic morality emulates the Absolute; and the Absolute is Unity and Bliss, Transcendent of all. Intrinsic morality is sensitive to the Transcendent. It does not seek division, but rather to transcend it. It recognises God in all things, creating a respect for the material universe. It recognises the Ultimate Unity of all things and the artificiality of separateness and division. It aspires to unite with God as Spirit, and thus oneness with the Inner Self. Hatred, war, contempt and lies, though God is in them, descend in the opposite direction to division and separateness. Remember, the True Path is in your Self and that one mark of Formless Spirit is Unity and the derivations of Unity: Love and Peace.
