Interviewer: “Christof, let me ask you. Why do you think that Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of his world, until now?”
Christof: “We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. It’s as simple as that.”
Interview scene in the Truman Show – perhaps the scariest line in move history!
Brian: “You’ve all got to work it out for yourself!”
Crowd in unison: “Yes, we’ve got to work it out for ourselves.”
Monty Python: The Life of Brian, Chapter 20
The research in The Finders indicates there’s no one way in awakening that works for everyone, so each of us does indeed have ‘to work it out for ourself’. Not so much in terms of coming to ‘my truth for me, your truth for you’, but in the combination of ‘gold-standard’ practices, the order in which we do them, the different experiential states that result, and how we understand what’s happening.
As said before: Everything starts with determining the nature of the self, esp. as perceiver of the world and reality. There’s simply no way of talking about or investigating the world without first checking out who or what is perceiving and investigating.
When we appreciate there is no ‘self-as-thing’, an obvious difficulty presents. To talk about ‘enlightenment’ presupposes a ‘self’ that can achieve it, or for whom it can happen.
It’s hugely ironic, or course, that right when we become aware of ‘no-self-as thing’, guess what: “You’ve got to work it out for yourself.”
On the other hand, belief in a permanent self, especially one that can evolve across multiple lifetimes, leads to forming elaborate views and beliefs about how that might work, vast metaphysical structures. Any formulation is only a construct, or model of reality. If you’re using words, it’s a construct.
Any spiritual or metaphysical system or teaching is only a construct, no matter how valuable it may be in practical terms for health, well-being or energy development. Something that may be important as a method, is more questionable when the underlying paradigm or philosophy is elevated to “truth”. (Very often, especially in healing and meditation, we find that what worked for the founder of a particular system doesn’t work so well for anyone else.)
A group or organization, including healing schools, formed around such a system gets caught up in its own presuppositions, assumptions and belief systems (even while denying it has any). Edward de Bono’s definition: “A belief system is a framework within which it cannot be challenged”.
A group can be important for cultural / social reasons, and community support, regardless of the prevailing creed.
There’s usually an appeal to unquestionable, especially patriarchal, authority as the basis for the teachings.
All too often, there’s inaccurate appropriation of ideas from science, esp. quantum physics, without establishing relevance. Or when a teacher draws an equivalence or causal connection between two items, but you can’t ask “Really? How do you figure that?”
There’s most likely a hierarchy, of teacher — senior students — regular practitioners — newbies. Or an appeal to authority such as “research at the [Famous Scientist Name] Institute shows that……”.
So wherever there’s a system claiming to be based on ‘truth’, there are two crucial questions: “What is the basis on which you say you ‘know’ that to be true?” and “What practices can other people do to verify that for themselves?”
In healing and healthcare, there’s a similar issue. To paraphrase Dr Bernard Lown (The Lost Art of Healing) slightly, “the first, or the last, rule of healthcare, depending on your point of view, is: When all else fails, listen to the patient.” In healthcare, education and expertise are obviously important. However, there are glaring problems in for-profit medical systems, and we are realizing the endemic problems in drug research. What the patient / client says about their symptoms, their life and ability to cope, is so often crucial to a correct understanding and treatment.
The great Australian psychologist Dorothy Rowe once said in an interview that you can’t interact with reality directly, outside of your model of it. I was forced to concede that, very slowly and very reluctantly. But we can be aware of having such a model, all the elements we presuppose and take for granted, and its limitations. We can also experience our innate nature, Awake Awareness, as and through what arises in our perception and our model. That adds to the fluidity and immersive quality of our life experience.
“Buddha became Buddha because he recognized that everything is a dream, including himself.” ~ Yongey Mingur Rinpoche: In Love With The World
In trying to see reality outside of our model, we can recognize how much we shape our reality with our illusions. There are lots of examples, some funny, about how people take a movie or TV show for real. Like the lady who went into the National Geographic offices, wanting to see the photographs of the bridges of Madison County taken by Robert Kincaid. When the receptionist gently explained this was a character played by Clint Eastwood in a fictional movie, the lady replied wistfully, “Yes, I know, but I’d still like to see his photos.”
Yes, it’s amusing, yes, it’s a commentary on the illusory and addictive nature of our society. And we all do it. It’s a subtle process when we watch the relationships between characters on screen or in books, and used by media companies in focus groups. In the imaginary rules by which we organize our days – “I really ought to….”. When we identify with sports teams, musicians, bands, orchestras, our local community, any work, recreational, social, religious or spiritual groups. By the ebooks and courses we buy online (and the subsequent flood of marketing emails). By our Facebook groups. By our responses to adverts, even without buying anything. It all feels familiar, comfortable, reassuring: The very nature of ‘self’, given our habitual behaviors and preferences and emotional attachments.
Working with all this is part of the deconditioning process. Even after some degree of awakening, it requires persistent work.
© Malcolm Fraser 2022. All rights reserved.
