I have a strong interest in the fundamental. I was raised in a very "fundamental" religious household, where doctrine was our touchstone and the filter with which we navigate the world. For those of you who grew up in more progrssive circumstances, this meant we were not encouraged to ask questions about our universe, as all the important ones had already been answered by divine authority. This never sat well with me, as there always seemed to be something fake or deceptive behind every idea or concept we held on to, like something out there wanted me to believe, rather than experience. I wanted to find that fundamental "thing" at the base of all existence that I could finally hold on to and plant my feet because religion just wasn't cutting it.
About 5 or so years ago, after wallowing in alcoholism, drug-addiction, depression, anxiety, and regular dosing of self-pity, I decided to seek therapy and try meditation. Many people have been at this place in their lives. I arrived at this point and thought I must have been the victim of some kind of brain disorder or social wrongdoing. Perhaps a pill or a technique can solve all my problems - and sometimes it does for a lot of people. Meditation fascinated me because I saw results almost immediately. After about a week of regular sitting I felt very different about my place in life and knew that I was on a new path that I could be proud of, not because I was achieving new heights of spiritual progression or depths of contemplative prayer, because I was doing something out of love for myself and a desire to be something and live for the good of this world. The shift in perspective from self to no-self is what makes me who I am today more than any other personal hobby or interest. I feel that this is enough backstory for now - I plan on writing about various aspects of my upbringing and maturation as they relate to the current state of my journey. These days I have little use for the past, as the older I get it has less and less bearing on the present.
I've been reading a very interesting book by Ken Wilber entitled "The Spectrum of Consciousness". The book posits that all spiritual practice, psychological inquiry, and even scientific study are a finger that points to the divine truth. Like Bruce Lee instructing his proteges in Enter the Dragon "do not concentrate on the finger" which points to the moon, rather, allow the finger to be a method to bring you to where you wish to be. I like this book because it jives with my feeling that spirituality is a key part of existence, but much like an old kung-fu movie, should be taken with a grain of salt. I still sit to this day and explore my consciousness as regularly as possible. It has allowed me to set aside the petty mysteries that give me anxiety and explore new ideas and creativity like never before.
Now we come to the reason I decided to reboot this blog. I have had several experiences of samadhi over the course of my life, both through meditation and through experimentation with psychoactives, but this one I had recently was vivid and interesting to me because it was completely unexpected. A couple nights ago, I was reading my book and set it aside to surf the internet. I read tons of neurophysiology forums and websites to satisfy my psychonautical obsessions. I came across an interesting post that said something to the effect of "being an weird person means clinging to your idiosyncrasies and identifying with them". This gave me pause and I meditated on it for nearly an hour because it had such an impact. When I read that sentence I thought about the songs playing in my head all the time, of the seemingly automatic responses that pop in to my consciousness when I experience stressful situations, romance, joy, anger, etc. Everything that I am, in that moment, was an idiosyncrasy of my biological function. WHOA. Could the thing which I call "personality" actually be an unintentional malfunction of my individual person attempting to survive as a social creature? For a moment I thought I was perhaps falling into a waking dream - I felt as though all thoughts I were having, from the damn song going on repeat to the cravings for pizza, were not me.
"Who am I?" I could have asked my empty apartment with genuine confusion. I looked down at my body sitting at my office chair and my next thought was "this guy is in control, not me". The body presented itself to my vision perhaps as a godhead, a vehicle that called all the shots in which my personality was a just a passenger or a mask. A mask, pretending to be who I actually was, stood in front of my form as a sort of social guardian and guide through civilization. The next level of confusion set in when I realized that I was not a mask or a passenger, but an integral "result" (for the lack of a better term) of what I was experiencing. I AM both the question and resulting function all rolled into one weird insufferable hippie.
The result of these experiences has been a great deal of self-inquiry. When exploring who I am I am reminded of J. Krishnamurti's (incidentally, one of Bruce Lee's favorite speakers) answer to an audience member who asked "Who are you?". His response is lucid, yet elusive, and asks the audience to attempt to honestly answer it themselves: "You are the story of mankind." told through an individual aperture of experience. All of who we view ourselves, appears to be a level of social conformity or mimicry, which, if we are discontent with our position, begs the search for something more. My hope is that I can live my life with gusto - to meet experience with neither aversion nor attachment. Writing this blog has been an effective method of release and self-inquiry :)
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