Not Spiritual, Existential
I tend not to use the word ´spiritual´ to describe people who are experientially engaged in an enquiry into the nature and meaning of existence, because (a) it immediately sets up a dichotomy with ´material´, implying that people who are living an investigation into the nature and meaning of existence are not interested in, or even opposed to, that which is material, and (b) because, for me, it has become overlain with associations of holiness, piousness and holier-than-thou-ness - and self-denial, self-deception and the twisted emergence of repressed desires.
So I choose to speak of an existential enquiry, rather than a spiritual enquiry. And by ´existential´, I don´t only not mean always- nice, always-clean, and transcendent - I mean honest, open and courageous. For me ´an existentially engaged person´ is one who dares to come face-to-face with The Great Mystery, the Great Unknown in which we all find ourselves – who doesn´t hide behind preconceived ideas, prejudices or dogmas, and who is willing to recognise their desires, to keep opening-through their fears, and to see the moment anew - again and again and again.
Facing It All
The word ´spiritual´ is often associated with witnessing. In this sense, rather than participating in life - ´the spiritual person´ witnesses it. He or she observes the passing of mundane events, much as they would practice observing the passing of thoughts, emotions and sensations while meditating. Just as they endeavout to not become entangled – neither grasping nor opposing – their passing thoughts as they sit, Buddha-like, while meditating - they endeavour to not become entangled in the ups and downs of everyday life. The ´spiritual person´s mind is fixed on something ´ higher´, they believe – God or The Goddess or The Oneness – something unchanging - and they are therefore disinterested in the ever-changing nature of the phenomenal world.
I would like to contrast this with an ´existential approach´, a fully honest approach – the attempt to deny nothing, to face everything, to include everything – although it is more of a modus operandi, a way of travelling, than a fixed and final cosmology or theology...
Is there a fixed, unchanging ´observer´ present – not only when we meditate, but also throughout our everyday lives. I perceive one, yes. But is there also an endless stream of thoughts, emotions intuitions, imaginations, desires and sensations? Yes, I perceive that too. Is there a stillness and spaciousness that seems to hold all things in its embrace? For me, yes, there seems to be. But is there also a never-ending cycle of seasons, of seeds becoming flowers becoming fruits, of births and deaths? Is there also an endless procession of events? Are there also pains and joys, unions and separations, settled times and times of adventure? Yes, for me – there´s all of that too. So why hold only to the unchanging? Why preference stillness over movement? Why not open to it all?
Yes, I agree that we need to learn HOW to stay open to it all – but in my opinion, we cannot only value the invisible, the numinous, and our oneness. We have to include our limitations, our fears and shames, our ambitions and purposes – the days and nights and seasons of our humanity – otherwise we´re ony facing reality selectively, we´re not truly facing the full Mystery of Existence, with all of its padadoxes and indefinability.
Yes, learning HOW can take a lifetime! We become too fixated on The Unchanging (denying our conditioning and desies), and The Changing jumps up and kicks us in the face. We see this, for exampe, in the sexual scandals that abound among the super-spiritual. We become too fixated on The Changing (becoming oblivious to our oneness, losing touch with awe and reverence), and we feel empty and numb and need to relieve our suffering in self-destructive addictions of all sorts. Yes, the art of staying open to both The Changing and The Unchanging - of truly facing ALL of this multi-faceted, miraculous experience of exisiting - is a prolonged, subtle and sophisticated learning journey. But I believe it is one we must undetake if we want to truly face this reality within which we find ourselves - if we truly want to travel the existential path.
No Way Out
If we do accept the challenge of The Existential Path, if we do decide to face it all – and not be exclusively ´spiritual´, nor exclusively ´material´ - then we admit we´re here, in the world... We accept we are participants in the human drama - that we´re in it, that we´re part of it. And whether spellbound by our egos (and irresistably pushed into participation), or endowed with presence-to our egos (and capable of discerning choice as to how we participate) we see we cannot NOT take part.
To say nothing is still a statement. To stay out of it - is still an intervention. Even to say we don´t care is an emotional contribution to the constellation of collective human emotion. There´s no way out! So the question becomes HOW we take part - and whether there´s a specific way in which ´existential people´ participate in the human drama. I would say there is a way. Not a way in terms of content, of what we do, of choice of action – but a way in terms of level of consciousness and intention.
Because ´existential individuals´ are honest they accept that had they been born in another era, or in another culture, they would no doubt be attached to very beliefs – they are therefore not only non-fanatical about their own beliefs, they´re also interested in the beliefs of others. Because they´re honest they don´t deny that they believe what they believe - but they hold their beliefs lightly. And they therefore favour, and tend to co-create, a cultural atmosphere of open, shared enquiry.
This is what I mean when I say that ´existential individuals´ will all act in the same way “in terms of level of consciousness and intention”. They will act (they won´t negate that they are partipants in the dramas of the generations) - and although the content of their action might differ (one might be a teacher, another a cleaner, another a poet, another a politician) – because of their existential honesty, they will all tend to create a society of openness, kindness and mutual respect.
Turned Towards Everything
In my own experience, and in my opinion - the more deeply a person faces the reality of existence, the more they realise it is beyond defintion. Science can help us work out how to make things work. But it cannot tell us WHY we exist. However clever we might consider ourselves to be, or however superior to the other species with whom we share this planet, or however expert at the manipulation of matter – we remain like the parent who cannot answer the child´s question “why is the sky blue?” We can, perhaps, explain its chemical constituents and what, therefore, makes it blue – but not why it is blue. Nor why we ask questions. Nor why existence exists.
Religion can provide speculative theories – that God put us here to learn, to grow. Yes – but why? Why did God set it up like this? Why not have created us fully grown, already endowed with an innate knowing of all we are supposedly here to learn? Others claim The Oneness self-divided in order to experience relationship, to self-recognise, to know love, or simply for the fun of endlessly differently textured experiences. Perhaps that´s true. But why? Wasn´t The Oneness satisfied with its own infinite bliss?
I don´t mean to discount any of the above. To do so would be to presume that I have ´the´ answer. But no – I look reality in the face – I commit fully to the existential path – I look at the mountains, the waterfalls, the flowers in the spring, the stars at night... and I feel-into my own feeling... and only appreciation, love, gratitude and awe remain. This is the wonder of the existential journey. And those who share this path will naturally co-create a very specific kind of society. They will naturally co-create communites that approach reality with loving respect, that relate to other species with loving respect, and that relate from human being to human being with loving respect.
´Spiritual people (in the sense I have described the word ´spiritual´) might be able to live a life without social or political consequence. They can turn their back on the abuse of nature, on inequality, on cruelty, on war – because, after all, such matters are all ´material´ affairs. But an ´existential person´ – one who doesn´t presume to ´know the truth´ (whether religious or scientific), one who fully faces The Mystery of the Moment, and therfore experiences its miraculousness, and is humbled, and honouring of others – such a person does not turn their back on anything. They´re turned towards everything. And they see, and feel, and act with not only intellectual honesty, but with the honesty of the heart.
Love The Tyrant, Hate The Tyranny
In what direction is the human drama unfolding? In my opinion, and in general terms: it is moving towards the rule of A.I., Bio-Digital Technology, Genetic Modification, Transhumanism, The Internet of Bodies and Things, Smart Cities, CBDC´s, Social Credit Systems, Technocracy, Eugenics, in short - just as the Judeo-Christian Bible says “God created man in his own image” - humanity´s leadership-and-led, entranced by a vision of a Mechanical Universe, is now, at the outset of the twenty first century, seeking to create a techno-modified Mechanical Earth.
Clearly this is not the kind of global culture that existential people would co-create. This is not a vision of the future inspired by openness, by trust, by Love of Life. This is a vision based on ´the religion of science´ (that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain, that only measurable phenomena truly exist, and so on), that (like all fanaticism) dismisses all disagreement (as ´disinformation´), and that is not driven by reverence of the Great Sacred Mystery of Existence, but rather seeks to ruthlessly dominate and control the entire planet – if not, ultimately, the entire universe.
So what should existential people do? Nothing? There is a popular belief that ´spiritual people´ - those who know the Universal Love beyond our personhood - are always peaceful, balanced, eqanimous, gentle, soft and kind. They most certainly never get angry! But, again, this is a self-image perpetuated by those who deny the beauty and ugliness of this ever-changing world, who dangerously deny their desires, and who seek status through spiritual superiority.
From the existential point of view we can both love the Unchanging Essence of the most terrible tyrant while simultaneously hating their tyranny. We can hate the over-vaccination of babies, we can hate the recklessneess of geoengineering, we can hate pesticides, and processed plastic medicines and foods, and smug industrial smiles. We can feel our oneness with everyone – yet feel how some of our brothers and sisters are inflated with self-importance - arrogantly blatantly manipulating the media, and banally idealising ´the law´. We can see their souls, yet hate their numbness and artificiality and stiff correctness and moral vacuity... We can hate their cynical, soldier-massacring, civilian-massacring, profiteering wars...
After years and years on the existential path some of us can sidestep our egos, and use them, and not be-used-by them – some of us know the peace and bliss of Our Oneness – but that doesn´t mean (a) that we can step out of the human drama, or (b) that our personalities are always set to neutral – as accepting of cruelty as of kindness, of viciousness as of generosity, and so on. I´m sorry, but from the existential point of view - that´s just nonsense! If someone felt the same about their child being harshly beaten, or gently embraced – would that make them a saint? Please!
Existential Activism
We can know the Universal Love that unites all things, that unites us all, that We All Are - and still be disgusted by the superficiality and heartlessness of our elected and unelected leaders and their devout followers – and not be fooled by their speeches on ecology and equality – and refuse to submit to their plans for a Techno Earth.
On the existential path nobody claims the title of ´enlightened´. We walk in honesty and openness and love – and don´t deny our own vanity and self-obsession and illusions. But precisely because we are accessing the deeper, never-changing, more expanded, more all-embracing centre of our being – the qualites of our centre infuse us. And they act through us.
We are not loving because we once read about love in a holy book - and wove ourselves ´a loving ego´ - we are loving because at the heart of our humanity we find – not what we want to be there, but what waits patiently there for us all: a non-romantic, non-sentimental Universal Love.
The more we extricate ourselves from the filters of our conditioning, the clearer we see ourselves – and the clearer we see everything. And that means we see both The Great Mystery that shrouds everything in Blessing - and also the hideous psychopathic madness of our world leaders, and the equally repulsive sychophatic compliance of the led.
The kindness we bring to ourselves, we bring to others. We forgive ourselves, and we forgive everyone. But we also see with radiant clarity what isn´t kindness. We look upon our humanity, and the humanity of others, humanely. And we say “no!” to the inhumane.
We are all familiar with the phrases “the personal is political” and “the political is personal” that emerged from The Struggles of the Heart in the last century. On behalf of the Struggles of the Heart of the century ahead, I would like to add “the existential is political”, and “the political is existential”.
Mark the Mystic Activist
Aragon, Spain.
Spring 2024
CONSCIOUS TRIBES
Seeds of a New Culture
Image by Art Photography,
Carl O, Pinterest
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