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 and a
Buddhist monk. On that day I achieved initial liberation/enlightenment (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 to 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 (albeit
virtual) liberation (or moksha) as
a teenager, i.e. as a naïve and incomplete re-take on the Upanishads, led
into a pleasing 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.
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 with, i.e. identity with) the Way,
i.e. of the software od creation, 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 enforcing local superstitions and laws, i.e.
safe and comforting holding pens, for the alleged welfare of all. By ‘penning
in’ their charges 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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