our deepest desire

Q: Perhaps this is all too intellectual and irrelevant, but given that the sense of being a separate independent long-lasting entity is produced by the brain, what are the factors which facilitate its dissolution?

 You said in an earlier post that you wouldn’t bet on me making the leap. That assumes, in my head anyway, that there is someone to make such a leap. And your challenge, or goad, simply leads to a reinforcement of my position: “Who does he think he’s talking to? I’ll show him,” etcetera. Well, actually it doesn’t make any difference either way. So is there anything one can do to bring the shift about, or accelerate it, other than to simply entertain the possibility, and wait?

A: Good question.

 When I said that I wouldn’t bet on your making the leap, I was not referring to you in particular. I don’t know you well enough to speculate on that. I meant that relatively few people actually see through the illusion that there is a “leap” to be made.

 There is not, in my experience, any such leap. How can you leap from here to here? The “leap” is based upon the false idea that one can become something that one now is not. There is no leap other than to see that what you are, you already are.

 No matter how often I have said this, or how many ways I have tried to express it, only a very few times have I seen it understood. I don’t mean understood intellectually or logically, but pragmatically, empirically, matter-of-factually. When I say that nothing can be gained because you already are that which you seek, that is not intended as a clever remark, a riddle, or a koan, but the plain, downto-earth essence of the matter.

 And even in those few times when someone did seem to have grasped it observationally and operationally, so that the pious hope of a “self-realization” that occurs in some hypothetical future truly ended, I could never be sure of that. On the deepest levels, we are all entirely alone, and no one will ever know where someone else really is.

Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far. Shine on, you crazy diamond…

Come on you miner for truth and delusion, You stranger, you legend and shine.

—Pink Floyd

That is why, after a rather brief go at it, I stopped teaching. I could no longer believe in it. What I share here might look like teaching, but it is only self-expression, like my photography or your painting. It’s just what I do because I find myself doing it. I have neither an intention to awaken anyone nor, it seems to me, the means to do so. I feel compassion for the suffering I see, and sometimes I am moved to intervene on an ordinary level, but I don’t know how much I can mitigate that suffering with words.

 I had a mentor, and the tenor of our friendship helped to move me off a kind of stuck place. He showed me the ego-trip I had been on since childhood. Being around him could seem a serious challenge on many levels. Since my rapid awakening occurred in the midst of that period of challenge, at the time I attributed it to a kind of work he seemed to be doing with me—but in retrospect, I am not so sure.

 In those days, I sometimes thought of him as my teacher, but perhaps he was just being himself and not ever “teaching”: simply be-ing and expressing that be-ing, as I am now.

Just as you, a skilled and talented draftsman, understand that most people do not see faces as they really appear, most of us do not see other humans as they really are, but project our own material onto them constantly. So very likely I never saw my mentor as he really was, despite the intimacy and openness of our time together.

 Ever since those days, I have had a high sensitivity to the thick layer of defensive sophistries and untruths behind which so many humans are hiding out—often without even knowing it. People lie to themselves and to others constantly, and this has become so habitual that, if you call them on it, they will feel righteously offended. So-called “spirituality” is rife with such lies.

 Even if one particular teacher actually does manage to ignore the traditional spiritual commonplaces and see things afresh—and even if such a person can speak honestly and intelligently about what she or he sees, most of the students, in my observation—including the ones who go on to become teachers themselves—do not ever see things afresh for themselves. They turn out to be clones of the teacher, even parroting the teacher’s very words, and claiming to be sure of whatever the teacher claimed to be sure of. That is not finding one’s own mind.

 Anyway, just getting off the well-defended ego-trip—which, with help from my mentor, certainly did occur—is only an ordinary realization. What you are asking about is extra-ordinary, and yet is the most ordinary way of being imaginable.

 You ask if there is anything one can do to bring the shift in perspective about, or accelerate it, other than to simply entertain the possibility, and wait. Entertaining the possibility seems a good idea. So without becoming a starry-eyed believer, do try to notice that countless humans throughout time seem to have come to terms with living in a way that liberated them—if I can use that word without setting off a chain of grandiose associations—from the normal lives of quiet desperation that ails many humans psychologically. And notice, crucially, that their emancipation from disheartenment is not based upon belief of any kind—neither belief in so-called “God,” nor scripture, nor traditional practices, nor hope of an improved, possibly permanent future, etcetera—none of that pie in the sky.

 A friend who knew U.G. Krishnamurti intimately, and who says I remind him of U.G., sent me a link which includes these words from U.G.:

The search must come to an end before anything can happen.

That is precisely what I am trying to express: you will never, never, never find anything “out there”—not in scripture, not in gurus, not in practices, not in prayer, none of that stuff. As long as one is looking elsewhere, here and now remains invisible, overlooked, or undervalued.

 Although some traditions do at times seem to address these matters, the actual marrow is far simpler than the countless traditional words about it, so making a lodestar or method of tradition immediately steals attention from that marrow and converts it into pre-digested sanctimony. I see this occurring right here on my page among the best-intentioned people, who love to quote Vedic aphorisms as if they were unquestionable, totally authoritative “Truth,” thereby missing the only “truth” there really is for anyone: what you yourself see here and now.

 A useful step, perhaps, is to stop looking for proof. This is not about “finding certainty” as some people imagine. Doubt is not the enemy. No one could possibly prove to you that you are already in the desired condition and always have been. In seeking something “else,” something “more”—which, being a glorified fantasy, does not exist and never will—one misses this, the here and the now; or one sees it but rejects it as insufficient.

As my mentor, Walter Chappell, once said to me: “You are swimming in Lake Superior, dying of thirst.”

 And, as thirsty as you seem to be, you won’t, I will add, actually drink that delicious water, because you fantasize that champagne would be more satisfactory, perhaps imbibed, in your case, from the navel of a supermodel, or somewhere close to the navel. So maybe all you need is to become even thirstier—I really can’t say.

 You might be able to bring your fantasies into being—many have; but even if you were able to do that, you would find in those realized fantasies not one shred of the liberation about which you are asking me. (I’ve not tried the champagne and supermodel bit myself, so I am generalizing here.)

 You have a kind of honesty which is a good foundation—again, judging only from a distance—so I wish you well.

Q: Thank you once again. I re-read my questions and saw I already knew the answers, which I can’t articulate. I then read your reply and burst into tears, because I know I am alone. I feel like Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And, just as you say, I have seen my fulfilled fantasies leave me empty time and time again. And at the back of it all, I still want you to be my father, and to love me. And that is so, so sad and so painful.

A: Yes. Yearning to be loved may be painful, but it is human as hell. Many boys had fathers who could not even see their essential goodness, much less properly love them. That does leave lacunae. It’s best not even to try filling those in, I say. Let the spaces remain. Let the wind blow through them. The patience and wisdom you perceive in me have deep roots in the intuition of emptiness, non-fulfillment, and disillusion. That is why I often say it’s not for everyone. Only a burning desire for freedom from the known could ever countenance this intentional suffering.

 Although it may feel that our deepest desire is to be loved, I say that there is a desire deeper by far—which is not to be loved, but to love. By the light of love, the entire world is transformed right before one’s eyes.

 Coming to terms with being fully human seems always to be a hard slog—a long walk on the razor’s edge: nihilism on one side, and the stupidity of idealism and eternalism on the other. It’s never easy if it’s real. As I wrote earlier, honesty is a good foundation, and you seem to possess that virtue. So have at it, amigo—I’m rooting for you.

Q2: You have mentioned your mentor several times, Robert, and said that he helped you to get off the “ego-trip” that you had been on since childhood. Could you say more about that, please?

A: The man who mentored me was not a spiritual teacher but a photographer with whom I was fortunate enough to study, the late Walter Chappell. Walter’s mentor, Willem Nyland, was a close friend and associate of George Gurdjieff, who taught the idea of what he called “conscious labors through intentional suffering.” Conscious labors, according to Gurdjieff, involved three items:

1.     In each moment, to recognize what is needed.

2.     To do what is needed without regard to any possible reward, including to become better, to become stronger, to be free of this or that trouble, to attain higher levels of being.

3.     To be entirely content to have sown the seeds for a harvest that others will reap.

Walter told me that “intentional suffering” meant two things. First, to bear, without avoidance or complaint, the physical, emotional, and psychological suffering that is part of ordinary life; and, second, to accept and tolerate the mechanical behavior of others without resentment, and without calling their attention to it. This second part becomes, according to Walter, part of one’s “obligatoire” as soon as one becomes aware of one’s own mechanical behavior.

 This “obligatoire” is necessary to “the work,” because in the course of self-study one undergoes the profound shock of seeing that one’s own behaviors are not chosen at all, but entirely mechanical. Naturally, at the same time, one sees that the behaviors of others are equally mechanical.

 According to this perspective, the only way to stop being a kind of robotic person is to allow the “heat” of this noticing one’s own mechanical nature to build up until it becomes an “intention.” If one focuses on others and “blows off steam” by complaining about their foolishness or mechanical behavior, the heat needed to constellate a true intention cannot build up sufficiently.

 Intentional suffering is also called voluntary suffering, and the willingness to suffer voluntarily is what distinguishes a conscious human from an unconscious one. Part of voluntary suffering involves giving up all desires to be popular, admired, useful, superior, wealthy, or spiritual.

Q2: “Part of voluntary suffering involves giving up all desires to be popular, admired, useful, superior, wealthy, or spiritual.” Ouch. How does one do this without secretly hoping it makes one useful, superior or spiritual?

A: You don’t do this. All you can do at best is to notice your own robotic nature. For example, I insult you, so you insult me back. The only possibility for non-robotic being, according to this view of human nature, is to undergo the profound shock that I referred to above. If you actually see that your own behaviors are not chosen at all, but entirely mechanical—that you automatically seek gratification and try to avoid suffering—you may begin to understand that whatever it takes to escape from that robotic programming will be better than to live your life as a robot, no matter how gratifying that mechanical life may appear to be.

 Some of the most successful and admired people in this world— including the most “spiritual”—appear, from my vantage, to be entirely slavish to their robotic programming. In my view, the majority of human beings are living largely robotic lives in which fears and desires rule their every thought and behavior.

I’d like to say more about the influence of fear and desire. I am a pretty fair animal trainer partly because I understand that trainable animals will do pretty much anything you want them to do if:

1. You can make them understand what you want of them; and
2. If they see an advantage in it for themselves.

When I say “see an advantage,” I do not mean that a dog, for example, thinks about advantages and disadvantages in the same way you or I do. I mean that both dogs and humans are quite easily motivated if a reward is in the offing.

This drive towards satisfying desires—which humans share with other animals bright enough to have desires and to work towards fulfilling them—influences human thinking profoundly. So beliefs that promise rewards such as freedom from existential angst, or the abatement of the fear of not being at all, are embraced readily, even greedily, while ideas that frustrate such desires are quickly rejected.

If you see this, then it is a small jump to understand that human beliefs are not believed because they are “true”—far from it. They are believed mainly because they satisfy desires, relieve anxiety, and provide so-called “meaning.”

This is why many ideas among the most believed are also among the most farfetched: it takes a farfetched idea to provide that kind of relief. The deeper and more basic the fear, the more voodoo, and woo-woo are needed. This insight changes profoundly both the nature of one’s beliefs and one’s attitude towards them.

In the spirituality milieu, the preoccupation with ordinary human fears—the fear of old age, illness, and death is an example—is replaced by obsessive spiritual fears, such as the fear of not “getting it,” of missing out, of not being “saved,” of failing to find “liberation,” or whatever the purported goal is called. Similarly, the panoply of ordinary desires—such as wanting to be popular, admired, wealthy, sexual, etcetera—is replaced by one unitary desire for “transcendence” of all desire. That way, the eggs of desire are all put in one basket—the desire for so-called transcendence; but that does not make the eggs disappear. Not at all. They are still sitting there whispering to us, waiting to be “transcended.”

Regarding relinquishment of desire—not just ordinary egotistical wants and needs, but the yearning for “spiritual advancement”— years after hearing from Walter about George Gurdjieff, I came upon words of Nisargadatta in the book I Am That, which seem to echo Gurdjieff’s injunction perfectly:

Stay without ambition, without the least desire, exposed, vulnerable, unprotected, uncertain and alone, completely open to and welcoming life as it happens, without the selfish conviction that all must yield you pleasure or profit, material or so-called spiritual.

That’s easy, right? A walkover. Piece of cake.

Back in 1976, I had a girlfriend who was just a knockout—a total peach. That was Catanya, the woman who is now my wife and the love of my life ever since those bygone days. But back then, we were new. My band was playing a gig at a local club, and backstage on a break, the owner, a rich, smooth, good-looking cat with a big rep as a lady killer, approached me with a question:

 “Robert,” he said, “Catanya is so beautiful, and I’ve tried every way to get her attention, but she has eyes only for you. I don’t strike out often. What’s your secret?”

 “Well,” I replied, “I don’t have sex with other women, and if I am going to be late getting home, I always give her a call.”

 There was a long silence. I could almost see the wheels of calculation turning in his mind. Then he said, “Oh. I couldn’t do that.”