The Intellect and the Spirit

      I have long been intrigued with the struggles of intellectuals and artists to come to terms with what seems to be the chaotic destructive madness of the world as they experience it.  Poets, novelists, philosophers, administrators, legislators and the like, all look to be permanently on the edge of hopeless gloominess about humanity’s performance and potential.  They feel we are constantly beset by greed, deception, craven ignorance and cruelty.  But when confined to their modes of artful expression they can be inspiring and intoxicating, veritable oases of style, wit and understanding.  We feel beautified and blessed in their presence.

      Their overall negativity about the human condition often drives them into an embrace of either traditional religion or its mirror images, atheism and humanism, with communism and science as the regular go-to ports of call.  But as they plumb the depths of their minds, hearts and educations, they stop short of reaching and embracing their own spiritual understanding.  Whether they lack the know-how or the courage, or perhaps both, they usually settle for some ancient sacred text or the current foundational prophets of their discipline, the Freud’s, Marx’s, Darwin’s, Einstein’s and the like.  Praying and making formulas and analyses takes precedence over the meditational practises of the inner journey.

     Are they afraid of discovering their very own spiritual understanding that might leave them standing on their own pinnacle with breathtaking views but few or no friends?  Yes.  Are they playing the game by the rules for the benefit of family, career and professional credibility?  Sure they are.  And given the plethora of charismatic cultists and true believers cluttering the cultural landscape with their dogmas and fanaticism, who can blame them?  The inner journey is awash with imposters, plunderers and general no-name dementia.

    I came across an example recently in Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night, as fine a study on the institutional and cultural history of these knowledge repositories as I have come across.  Let me quote from page one:

     “Outside theology and fantastic literature, few can doubt that the main features of our universe are its dearth of meaning and lack of discernible purpose.  And yet, with bewildering optimism, we continue to assemble whatever scraps of information we can gather in scrolls and books and computer chips, on shelf after library shelf, whatever material, virtual or otherwise, pathetically intent on lending the world a semblance of sense and order, while knowing perfectly well that, however much we’d like to believe the contrary, our pursuits are sadly doomed to failure.”

     So, does it fall to those on the mystic path to know purpose and meaning, those who abjure the benefits of  accumulating knowledge for comparison and analysis for the risky submission to vision, a vision free of categories and definitions, an embrace of the all including that you would rather not encounter?  Despite the strivings of social and political activists, it would indeed seem to fall to us, the meditator, the psychedelicised, the projectors to grasp the purpose behind the chaos.  And once you submit to the rigours of the journey, it is really not that difficult to see.

     We are here to spiritualise matter with our own ever increasing vibration, to raise it, after centuries of countermeasures facilitated by the masters of the left hand path feeding the appetites of the fearful and selfish to keep them in the separations of ego, tribalism and nationalism and as far away from the embrace of internationalism, brotherhood and the love and mercy for all.  Our slowly increasing appetite for unconditional love for all sentient beings does indeed up that vibration, but so imperceptibly as to be the endless victim of shifty doubts.

     As we marry outside the tribe, producing grandchildren of indeterminate ethnicity, light the planet with electricity, obscuring both the stars and the our shadow, own up to our interactions with the alien visitors, remember our ancient bond with the devas and elemental spirits of nature, see our past lives as  not only personal projects of a developmental nature but as contributions to the rise and fall of empires and civilisations, each with its manifestations often lost to the physical plane but ever present on the astral, and know our prized cultures as gifts brought to the planetary party to be served at the banquet, before, during and after the entertainment, we slowly come to see the meaning of our travails, that what was lost in one life or culture will be regained in another and taken for granted in a third, and that in all this crazy gift of time, given to us by ourselves, we are rising from ignorance to knowing.

   Can all this be argued, footnoted and proven, ask the sceptics and intellectuals?  No, it cannot be proven, it can only be experienced.  Observing the dance is but the first step to joining it.