Free as a wild swan
I well understand the urge to see the man not
through his (person-less, selfless) karmic residue but as he seems to appear
as a person. Curiosity is, of course, a divine, therefore necessary for
survival function, which is why priests are dead set against it.* My re-birth was on 1.12.1980, when I was 40. On
that day I achieved initial liberation (to wit, ‘freedom from’) (Sanskrit: moksha, Pali: vimukti) and the cerebral orgasm that
is liberation’s after-effect/payoff. In everyday terms, moksha/liberation
happens as side-effect of problem solving, hence is no big deal. Little did I know then that getting to the top of
my (therefore also the ≈ any) mountain (≈ unresolved problem) was
not the complete journey and not the complete liberation. However, I did
understand that getting to the top of my mountain (i.e.
initially solving my problem as mental simulation) was
not a spiritual but perfectly natural act. And, moreover, that it needed to
be completed as an actual act in the everyday world to achieve ultimate
satisfaction and joy. As the ancients have said, ‘you leave your village in
the valley to climb the highest peak. It’s a great view. But then you have to
return down the mountain to your village (i.e. to
manifest the view as bite of transmittable hardware/residue). Some, of course, stay on top of their mountain and
don’t return. Climbing the mountain is
tough (for the unskilled), getting down is even tougher (for the unskilled).
One false step and it’s over.’ That’s why already round about 800 to 600 BC the
Indians called climbing the mountain, meaning recovering the Way, the Razor’s
Edge Path. Once returned to the village, become a villager again, some (called
saints) attempt raise the village to the mountain
top even if the locals resist because the valley is their comfort zone. It took me another 19 years to grow real, meaning
to return to the village, by sacrificing that initial and virtual liberation (i.e. the emotional orgasm of virtual enlightenment is real
enough), for the final liberation, meaning a new bondage (i.e. ‘freedom to’) which, as the
after-effect of liberation, is blissful; or, restated in the best Dublin
jargon, it took a hell (sic!!) of a long time “to transform from being an
unhappy sucker who wants out into a happy spitter who is happy within.” At
Miyajima/|Japan In
1984 I walked a marathon a day for 67 days to force clarification of my
initial enlightenment in 1980. Even sporting
a Chinese beard failed to provide a better defined glimpse
of my goal. I was still too ‘thick’ (i.e. slow) to
respond …. to ‘the Guru (more precisely stated, in my case my Sat
Guru
in the guise of an apsara) who appears
when the disciple is ready.’ Still undecided in 1986 I had another go at Raman Maharshi’s method (my
1st visit to his ashram in Tiruvanammalai was in 1968). The
Brahmin Maharshi’s method, and which he derived from his initial (albeeit
virtual) liberation (or moksha) as
a teenager, i.e. a naïve and incomplete re-take on the Upanishads, led into a
cul-de-sac from which neither he nor his followers ever emerged. In other
words, both he and his devotees remained on top the mountain (experiencing
merely virtual moksha). Painting a fantasy, as icon, of the experience of the great
liberation enlightenment. The picture was eventually turned into a fibre
model, about 14ft high, to be cast in bronze. It was intended as the
centrepiece of Victor’s
Way (Sanskrit: jinamarga). The model arrived in Roundwood in 2002 but
was destroyed because bronze casting was not feasible. The Nirvana Man, so to speak ‘the morning
after the night before’ icon, took its place. Seeking help from Lord
Shiva, the ancient Indian exemplar of the Split Man, was a true waste of
effort (2001). To achieve (tantric) consummation (and release) one has to go
via (indeed miss by a hairsbreadth) the opposite (i.e.
a differential), in my case a female apsara,
meaning a local representation of the (universal) creation matrix (or
Mother). That happened in 1999 when I was 59 years old and after 19 years of
stubborn, persistent and sometimes sorrowful preparation for default
readiness after the initial and merely virtual ‘birth/liberation’ (i.e. at 40). This, a second initial, virtual consummation
> liberation > nirvana lasted only a few seconds, just like the initial
liberation (and re-birth) at first consummation. *… Avoiding priests as the plague gives the seeker
(of consummation) of the Way, i.e. of the divine =
natural software, a head start. This was the opinion of the ancient Indian Carvakas (or Lokayatas, emerged
about 800BC) and who
stated that priests/brahmins are greedy politicians (or con-artists) who make
a good living by enforce local superstitions and laws, i.e.
safe and comforting holding pens, for the alleged welfare of all. By ‘penning
in’ to local belief systems (or placebos) they block access to the Way because
the latter presents and proceeds prior to all ‘pens.) More about
Tantric Consummation |
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