Punctum Saliens

Tim Freke uses the term “lucid living” to describe a state analogous to lucid dreaming but lucid living is the balance point between our mundane life (the “dreaming” state) and a state of higher consciousness. Ram Dass states that the highest mother, student, therapist, lover, &c. is the most conscious one. So, what is conscious living? What are some attributes of a person who is living lucidly or consciously? Here are some initial thoughts.

Conscious living is …

• … not letting my mind, thoughts, or eyes wander when someone is speaking to me.
• … not focusing on what I want to say next to the exclusion of listening to others.
• … not letting my mind wander to work, blog posts, &c. when playing with my daughter.
• … being in the present and not the past or the future. This pretty much sums up the three ideas above. If I’m playing with my daughter, I’m not working or writing so any work or writing that I may think about is either in the past or in the future. If I’m concentrating on what I’m going to say next in a conversation then I’m focusing on the future and not the present in which the other person is speaking.

But with that short list, I’m realizing two things: 1) that I don’t really have much of an idea what conscious living is and 2) that I have more questions than answers.

If I’m at lunch with a friend and he’s talking (as happened a few days ago) and I get a text, do I look at the text? It’s most likely my wife who is wondering where I am since lunch is taking longer than either of us expected. This dilemma seems trivial but I think it represents a much larger class of dilemma that exists because of technology. Cell phones that we carry around with us all the time make it possible for the “present moment” to span physical space. If I did not have a cell phone, my wife could not be “present” with me at lunch because she is not physically there. But a text message from her can bring her into my present moment with my friend. So, I have the dilemma of being conscious with my friend and his conversation versus being conscious with my wife and acknowledging her text. Of course, the same questions arise with email, phone calls, &c.

Is multi-tasking not conscious living? An email just came in for me and I checked it on my phone then came back to this post. Again, this is a representative of a larger class. Say I’m on the clock writing code and a thought pops into my head about a blog post or an idea for a writing project or whatever. If I am living consciously, do I take a few moments to move over to my personal computer and start a draft so that I don’t forget the idea? Should the thought have even come into my head in the first place? Is conscious living synonymous with completely focused, one track thinking?

Not acknowledging another human being seems to be a very unconscious act. So does that mean you have to make eye contact with everyone you pass while walking down the street? But what if you live in NYC? Are you really supposed to make eye contact with everyone?

As I’m working on this post, it’s getting harder and harder to concentrate and to write and I’m feeling a lot of resistence. My initial reaction is to save the draft and come back to it later. But I know that there is a large possibility that I’ll never return to it because it’s difficult. It’s difficult to think about these things and come to realize how unconsciously I am living right now, how much work I have to do on myself. So, I’m going to publish this post as-is, un-finished, mid-stream. Please leave some comments about what you think conscious living is. Perhaps some interaction will lighten my load a bit and help me get back to the self-inspection that this topic needs. I will, hopefully, some back to this topic and write more later.

Some day I’ll get back to my series on Edinger’s The Creation of Consciousness, but until then I’ll just leave you with this thought:

Ram Dass agrees with Jung and Edinger that the creation of consciousness is our goal (or should be, at least). From The Only Dance There Is:

Consciousness does not mean attachment to polarity, at any level. It means freedom from attachment. And once you see that the highest mother is the most conscious mother, the highest student, the highest therapist, the highest lover, the highest anything is the most conscious one, you begin to see that the way you serve another human being is by freeing him from the particular attachment he’s stuck in that turn him off to life.

Non-attachment to polarity is Jung’s “tension of the opposites.” Dealing with polarity, paradox, incongruency and not flip-flopping from one side to the other is the process of creating consciousness. “Freedom from attachment” is the middle way that leads to conscious living and an increase in the sum total of consciousness in the universe.

I’m not big on ritual. I like the idea of ritual but my idea has always been based on the ritual meaning something. A bit vague, I realize, but …

Growing up, once a month or so we would “celebrate” the Lord’s Supper, a.k.a. take communion. We would drink our grape juice and eat our cracker niblets while sitting in our pew. (Yes, the good ol’ Protestant version of the Eucharist sans kneeling, walking, Latin, &c.) This could have been ritual — should have been a ritual what with the “do this in remembrance of me” and all — but it wasn’t because I was always stuck on the part that came before. I was stuck on the “do not partake unworthily” which, to me, meant “have no unconfessed sin in your life” so I spent the whole time sitting there confessing every sin I could think of. So, this mother (or father) of all rituals was not really a ritual; it was a time to focus on saving my ass from the unpardonable sin (I was a bit naive back then).

We always prayed before most meals but that, too, was a chore to say the “right” words and never “came from the heart.” It was just something we did that embarrassed me when we were out in public. I remember our assistant pastor would do the “long” Sunday morning prayer and mention all the prayer requests: the sick, the missionaries, &c. I would often time his prayers and always giggled to myself when he used the word “unction,” which he did quite frequently. So prayer was never a ritual for me.

Lately, I’ve tried other rituals: journaling in the morning, keeping a paper checkbook, writing my poems and blog posts on paper instead of on the computer. But none of them lasted very long. It was always “easier” to go back to the old habits.

I think my problem has been that I’ve always expected the ritual to mean something and none of these things did. They were meaningless things that I tried to do just for the sake of doing them. But, now I’m starting to think that that’s exactly what a ritual is — a meaningless thing we do just for the hell of it (more or less).

Ram Dass, in The Only Dance There Is, says the ritual, itself, is an offering. The act is an offering. It has nothing to do with my getting something out of it just like an offering is not about receiving but about giving. The ritual is something we give to God. But, he continues, once we realize that I, as the one performing the ritual, and the offering itself and the one to whom the offering is made are all part if “it all,” that it’s like

“[I am] pouring energy into energy for a matter of energy in honoring energy. So big deal, so nothing’s happened. Certainly knocks a hole in orality to start to see the universe that way. What are we doing? Nothing. How could you ever do anything, it’s all here?”

So, I think I need to rethink ritual and try a few new ones on for size — with a new attitude about them.

How about you? What rituals do you regularly do and why?

We now come to some of the most provocative passages dealing with faith: Matthew 17:14-21 in which Jesus casts out a demon his disciples are unable to cast out; Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14, 20-26 in which Jesus curses the fig tree; and Luke 17:5-6 in which the disciples ask for increased faith. In these passages, Jesus describes the sheer power available to those with the smallest amount of faith:

… if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you. (Matthew 17:20)

… if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing,  you shall receive. (Matthew 21:21b,22)

Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you. (Mark 11:22b-24)

If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you. (Luke 17:6)

One of the most interesting aspects of these accounts is the fact that Jesus does not qualify his statements. In two of the accounts all that is necessary is faith like (or as) a mustard seed. In the other two accounts one only need to believe (or have faith) and not doubt. Now, to many, these statements must necessarily be hyperbolic and most will add de facto constraints on Jesus’ statements. For example, the Ryrie Study Bible includes a footnote for the Matthew 17 passage stating, “The will of God, of course, governs all things, including this promise,” and for the Mark 11 passage: “This principle is qualified by Christ in other teaching (Matt. 6:10) and in His own life (Mark 14:36).” In the latter footnote the first reference is the Lord’s Prayer in which we are to pray for God’s will to be done and the second is Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to his crucifixion in which he asks God to “remove this cup” but then defers to God’s will over his own.

But, in fact, Jesus does not qualify his statements to the disciples. If, as Ryrie’s footnote maintains, “the will of God, of course, governs all things,” then we have a few potential problems. The first is, of course, that God is responsible for evil since all things are governed by his will; but that is outside the scope of this article. The second is why tell us to pray that God’s will be done if God’s will governs all things? I shall return to this later. Lastly, Jesus is, to put it mildly, not being very fair. Imagine telling your daughter that she can have whatever she wants to eat but then deny her ice cream, cake, a lollipop, and a chocolate bar because you want her to have Brussels sprouts. If you already have in mind what she is going to eat, why give her the choice? If what happens is subjugated to God’s will then why tell us we can do whatever we want?

One way out of the last dilemma is simply to have your daughter ask for Brussels sprouts when that’s what you want her to have. In other words, have her desires coincide with your desires. It is precisely because there is no qualification that the desires of those having faith align with God’s desires that the desires of those having faith will, by definition, align with God’s desires. What Jesus is really telling us is what it takes to be like God: faith like a mustard seed, belief without doubt. Ram Dass takes this idea even further. In The Only Dance There Is, which is a transcription of two of his lectures, he says:

When Christ says “Had ye but faith, ye could move mountains,” he’s not putting you on. This is not some lovely metaphor saying it’s hard just to lead a good clean life. That isn’t what it’s about at all. He’s just telling you how it is: that were you at a certain level of consciousness you could move a mountain, literally. But the way it happens is very far out. It only happens when you have transcended that in you which is separate from the mountain, so that you are, in fact, the mountain, and then you move. … To the extent that you are the mountain that moves, you are also the being that put the mountain there in the first place. He neglected to say that could you move mountains, you probably wouldn’t because you put it there in the first place. (page 76, 77)

Not only are we like God, we are God. Faith puts us in a state where we realize that we are the one who put the mountain there in the first place. Either way, whether we have the same desires as God or we are God, this is a very powerful statement yet deceptively simple. “Have faith in God” and your desires will be those of God. “If you have faith like a mustard seed” you will realize that you are one with God. What could be more simple? Yet nothing could be harder for us to comprehend or achieve.

[ Parts I, II, III ]