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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 59
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 42): ... why do you say that it is ‘quite a mouthful’ when I point out that compassion perpetuates ‘me’ (‘me’ as ‘being’) as various mystical tracts going back many centuries make it quite clear that when the ‘me’ as ‘ego’ dissolves/ collapses/ dies the ‘me’ as ‘being’ is realised (quite often capitalised as ‘Being’)? The whole point of spiritual enlightenment is an awakening into being who you really are ... as was aptly expressed by another subscriber to this Mailing List only recently:
It is the extinction of this transfigured RESPONDENT: I’m going to use a metaphor hoping that it will make things a bit more intuitive. We all know, I assume, the stages of a butterfly. It starts as a voracious, crawling larva, say the silk-worm. According to a natural, complex alchemy, the larva builds the silk cocoon, a small intimate dwelling within which it insulates and changes itself unknowingly into a chrysalis/ pupa. If the process goes on undisturbed and the conditions are right, one day, the ineffable butterfly breaks out free just to start another cycle of life. So now, from one standpoint, we might say that in every stage there was a different entity, and yet, was it so? If the ‘ugly’ worm wasn’t there in the first place, would have been possible the pupa or later, the gracious butterfly? Is somehow the larva less of a ‘becoming’ butterfly, or the butterfly doesn’t still contain the larva as well as the potential for myriads of butterflies? Then such is the whole of Life, Becoming and Being inseparable, every moment, or from moment-to-moment. Only the mind breaks everything into separate stages, not out of vice but out of necessity, in order to make sense of the uninterrupted flow of life which otherwise seems confusing, chaotic, and thus ‘threatening’. Within such adaptive limits, the (humane) mind/ ego/ culture is a ‘necessary’ stage in the evolution of nature. Or as K puts it, it is the ‘purpose’ of Nature to end into the human species. But Life/ Being/ Universal Consciousness/ The Void ... etc. doesn’t end in/stop with neither Nature nor Nature’s ‘upper’ end, the human mind. It is much larger, it’s without absolute beginning or end. And humans come with this particular ‘attribute’ – self-consciousness – which may be both the hell or the heaven, whichever man CHOOSES! So, summarizing, I’d say, the ‘human larva’ is our nature/ animal aspect; the ‘human chrysalis’ is our ‘cocooned’ psyche/ mind; the ‘butterfly’ is our potential power to transcend both, the animal nature and mind-limited nature, for giving birth to our ‘divine’ nature, that bears a different order that ceases the destructive cycle of ‘Psyche’ against ‘Nature’ to rather bring both in harmony. And at the core of it all is Compassion/Love, the life’s principle that holds it all together. Would we go with life, we’ll transcend. Would we go against life as the ‘man-machine’, we’ll perish, I mean, we as our mind-universe present cycle. RICHARD: Given that you had already observed that even in enlightenment [quote] ‘the ‘me’ and ‘suffering/ sorrow’ won’t be ‘eliminated’, ever!’ [endquote] your intuitive metaphor of the alchemical-like ‘egg – larva – pupa – butterfly’ process serves well to elucidate how, even though there be transcendence of one’s animal nature giving birth to one’s divine nature, the ‘me’ and its feelings of sorrow/compassion (and malice/love) is still extant in the many and various saints, sages and seers throughout human history – albeit in an aggrandised form – which means that it is, at root, the selfsame entity no matter its current guise. Nevertheless your summary contains a curious incongruity not uncommon on Mailing Lists such as this one: seeing that the affective feelings persist why is it that at the core of it all only Compassion/Love is mentioned as being ‘life’s principle that holds it altogether’ ... and not that at the core of it all is Sorrow/ Compassion (and Malice/ Love)? After all, the evidence of history shows that the saints, sages and seers have been unable to extricate or isolate love and compassion out from malice and sorrow ... and mystical literature often mentions how the polar opposites continue to exist (as complimentary poles) in enlightenment. Indeed, one of the appellations used to describe the integration of the divine/diabolical divide upon transcendence, wherein the opposites unite without ceasing to be themselves, is the phrase ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ (coincidence of opposites). Be that as it may ... upon the extinction of ‘me’ in toto these opposites, whether integrated or not, vanish with nary a trace – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – thus it is patently obvious that they were not ‘life’s principle’ after all. They were ‘my’ principle ... ‘I’ was holding it all together.
RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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