On the Way

Here’s yet another set of pages from my Morning Pages. I started the practice just under 3 months ago, and I have almost filled the journal I bought. Amazingly, I’ve flipped through it recently and have found some very profound stuff. I don’t want to share much of it, but I’ll continue to share here when I think there’s something that fits well in this space.

I just floated away in thought. I was thinking about a video a friend sent me yesterday. It was a graduation speech by a famous comedian. My friend seemed inspired by it and wanted to know what I thought. It was… Well, I summed up his stance with what I have been thinking of as “spiritual libertarianism”. It’s kind of the norm in the New Age types with whom I used to spend time. Basically, it’s one that holds that the universe is here to provide whatever I ask of it, and if I just ask hard enough, dream strongly enough, and believe, my wishes will be granted. The emphasis here is on myself above all else. The second but equally pronounced emphasis is on my desire.

Spiritual materialism in this instance has a brutally physical aspect. If I’m virtuous in the manner of asking right and showing up right, the universe will give me what I want. I suppose that there is a psychological materialism involved as well. “I’m successful because I dreamed big and have faith in the universe.”

Ironically, the comedian warns of the ego, when this entire line of reasoning is completely ego-driven. It’s all about how “I” can realize “my” dreams.

From such a stance, lip service is paid to others, but it seems to be passed over in a breath. I can do well by them by thriving, or I can thrive by giving them what they want. Either way, the emphasis is on I, and neither version is even close to the utter openness and connection of true giving. Separation is the modus operandi of spiritual libertarianism. Even in a community of such types, the emphasis is on how each person is an autonomous individual, and the group is a hodgepodge of these self-interested egos. A sangha, this is not.

Finally, he also spoke on love and fear as opposites. Hope and fear are opposites. You could broaden it and say desire and aversion are opposites, but those are both tied with the suffering of samsara. Choosing one over the other does not change that dynamic. Also, what is love here? Is it just a call to choose what I want rather than run away because I’m afraid of something? If that’s all, it’s not as profound as it first sounds. If it’s meant as choosing to do things for those I love or for the things I love, then it remains exclusive or self-interested. If that’s the case, it retains a dynamic of separation and seclusion and is not dramatically different than the dynamic at hand.

I actually just added the last couple sentences. Here’s what I would like to add further:

A spiritual belief system in which everyone is out for themselves, ultimately, is a pretty consumerist, materialistic, and empty cosmology. If the universe and my existence in it are all about me, then why are there billions of other people and countless other lifeforms, planets, and atoms out there that I have to live with? Is my good really the greatest good, and is a stance that promotes a certain “every man for himself” really a deep view of how everything is intertwined? There’s no intertwining evident here at all.

Indra’s Net: All is intertwined interdependence

Ultimately there are many questions that aren’t even asked at all here. For instance, let’s start with: what is the self? Perhaps, that presumes too much. Asking the question in that way already presumes a certain form to the answer. Let’s go even more basic: is there a self? We have to ascertain some sort of answers to these two questions at the very least before we can say that the self’s gratification in desire, no matter how great the goals or dreams, is the path through life. Otherwise, such a stance is empty assertion, nothing more. As those questions were not even addressed, I find such a stance precisely that: empty, unanalysed assertion.