Thursday, October 28, 2004
Sudden Glory, Spiritual Bypass, Finding Wisdom
Recently, when I was describing my earlier experience of spontaneous awakening to a friend, she suggested that I had undergone "spiritual bypass." As I understand this term, it means that you leap over your chronic psychological or emotional issues to reach a sudden point of illumination or transcendence. Ultimately, one is pulled back to the mundane world where all the unresolved problems are waiting patiently for your return.
The image I have often used for this process is: at first, you are lifted on eagle's wings to the top of the mountain, where you gaze in awe at the landscape unfolding below, and the celestial beings circling above. In this state, you experience intense rapture of sprit and body. You feel, "Ah, yes, this is where I belong, where I have always lived, though I didn't know it. At last, I have come home."
Then one morning you wake up and find yourself at the bottom of the mountain. You struggle to climb up again, only this time you go on hands and knees.
Now, my question is this: have you truly undergone "spiritual bypass" in order to attain what is (seemingly) a false awakening? Is there something wrong with you because you cannot maintain your exalted state on a permanent basis? Did you fail to do your inner work prior to illumination, and hence were not really prepared for the experience?
If any one of us waited until we were perfect--intellectually, spiritually, psychologically--for the transcendent moment, none of us would ever glimpse the luminous realms, even for an instant. We would wait forever, striving, struggling, wondering if the rumors of the ultimate were true or not.
Some point to the presumed masters or gurus who apparently live in perpetual bliss states as the ideal, and dismiss our more transitory experiences as unimportant.
But the fact is--we have been to the top of the mountain. We carry within us the knowledge that bliss is attainable, that the Other is also the Within, that we may never fully comprehend out experience, but nothing can erase it from memory or invalidate its significance.
And so we, like everyone around us, continue to labor on the old issues, the familiar challenges. Nonetheless, we are transformed, and through it all we gradually find our way to the path of wisdom.
And, from time to time, we relive in momentary flashes, in sudden inner opening to rapture, the original experience. Once again, we find ourselves in bliss, and remember who we are.
The image I have often used for this process is: at first, you are lifted on eagle's wings to the top of the mountain, where you gaze in awe at the landscape unfolding below, and the celestial beings circling above. In this state, you experience intense rapture of sprit and body. You feel, "Ah, yes, this is where I belong, where I have always lived, though I didn't know it. At last, I have come home."
Then one morning you wake up and find yourself at the bottom of the mountain. You struggle to climb up again, only this time you go on hands and knees.
Now, my question is this: have you truly undergone "spiritual bypass" in order to attain what is (seemingly) a false awakening? Is there something wrong with you because you cannot maintain your exalted state on a permanent basis? Did you fail to do your inner work prior to illumination, and hence were not really prepared for the experience?
If any one of us waited until we were perfect--intellectually, spiritually, psychologically--for the transcendent moment, none of us would ever glimpse the luminous realms, even for an instant. We would wait forever, striving, struggling, wondering if the rumors of the ultimate were true or not.
Some point to the presumed masters or gurus who apparently live in perpetual bliss states as the ideal, and dismiss our more transitory experiences as unimportant.
But the fact is--we have been to the top of the mountain. We carry within us the knowledge that bliss is attainable, that the Other is also the Within, that we may never fully comprehend out experience, but nothing can erase it from memory or invalidate its significance.
And so we, like everyone around us, continue to labor on the old issues, the familiar challenges. Nonetheless, we are transformed, and through it all we gradually find our way to the path of wisdom.
And, from time to time, we relive in momentary flashes, in sudden inner opening to rapture, the original experience. Once again, we find ourselves in bliss, and remember who we are.
