quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
... A heightened awareness state without intellectual apprehensions of Truth and volitional experiences of Love can leave one in a profound state of aridity and emotional flatness. Awareness alone is insufficient to provide one with a sense of meaning in life, and without such, there's little joy to be found.

The major problem in all of this is that the metaphysical dimension of our nature has been severely wounded! ....

Right, even that is fallen, and so is the kundalini process. Contrary to what some k. teachers will assert, it doesn't have some innate divine intelligence motoring it anymore than our hormones perfectly support our maturation.

quote:

Originally posted by Mt:
... I remember what Aldous Huxley said (was it he?), that while the mystic can swim in the waters of unconscious, the madman drowns in them.

This is very sad about ES. I felt heart-sick reading about him here. Can somebody please pray for this man?

About kundalini and madness, mysticism and delusions, I think we'd need to carry on about that on another thread--it seems a weighty and broad topic beyond this thread.

Mt:

Feel free to begin another thread, as the topic may deserve more attention, although it fits here in some obvious ways. As for the subject of deterioration of enlightenment states, I would only have an indirect sense of it, since satoris come and go in my life. I no longer focus on the present moment for its own sake, but this awareness comes through opening to grace and the spirit of others. Phil's story supports the idea that enlightenment as a by-product of sanctification is more stable in the end, perhaps in part for not seeming so important and sought after, but also because the present moment inheres in the Eternal. So just as kundalini is fallen and limited as a power in not being the source of grace, states of awareness, in being largely orgnanized via kundalini, and inherently unstable, are never completed and therefore subject to deterioration. But I think you are asking your question to somebody with a more abiding sense of non-duality than myself. That would be Phil, among others.

Shasha:

Yes, I felt such a strong sadness for this fellow, as you and Phil and MT report. There are a few people who I almost always remember at Mass, taking their memory with me to the altar. They were people who either committed suicide or lived a very painful and/or cruel life. While in prayer one day, on retreat a few years ago, I saw one of them; she appeared very clearly and I was given to know she was in purgatory, and have prayed for her ever since.

quote:

Originally posted by Mt:
. . . Willigis Jaeger wrote that maybe those Zen masters who supported WWII in Japan, like Yasutani and Harada, and even D.T. Suzuki, did that because their satori faded towards the end of their life. But why was that? Why did it not deepen? And Jaeger also adds something which is completely contradictory, namely, that satori per se wouldn't prevent them from supporting the war, because from the pov of emptiness, it doesn't matter who is alive and who dies. Wow... I mean, that sounds terrifying to me. And Jaeger isn't clear about satori - is it love because you feel one with everyone, or is it possibly cruel indifference, since there is "no-one" dying and living anyway?

I've never heard about deteriorating or losing enlightenment in time, so I'm curious
What are your experiences with that, except for "coming and going" of the Present Moment awareness?

w.c. and Shasha have made some good replies. I don't really understand about enlightenment leading to an indifference concerning issues of justice or suffering. That certainly at odds with the strong emphasis on compassion found in Buddhism, isn't it? But, then, I've never really been a fan of Jaeger and don't have a very high regard for his sloppy writings concerning mysticism. He too easily conflates the Christian and Eastern experiences.

If enlightenment is understood as the consciousness of the 6th chakra, deepening into the 7th, then it can indeed intensify and diminish--even in the context of Christian mystical experience. When, for example, one is pondering some kind of problem, or going through grief, one's energy and attention can be directed toward lower chakra concerns. Trying to "tune in" via the 3rd eye might be possible for brief periods, but one will be pulled back into the lower centers until such time as the issues at stake are resolved. If, however, this goes on for too long, one (and I'm not using the term like K, here ) can feel out-of-sorts, especially if third-eye consciousness had become deeply established. It seems to me that the primary purpose of a kundalini awakening is to sustain ongoing embodiment of the consciousness of 6th/7th chakra, and if this is frustrated for too long for any number of reasons, all sorts of discomforts and even pathologies can set in.

In the case of people like K, I get the impression that he was so detached and his life so simplified that lower chakra concerns never bothered him much (e.g., did the man ever fall in love? struggle to pay bills?). For Zen people, who don't necessarily have awakened kundalini, it seems ongoing intense meditation practice is necessary to maintain 3rd eye consciousness. In the context of Christian mysticism, where kundalini has been awakened and guided by the Holy Spirit, the embodiment of 6th chakra consciousness if facilitated through one's ongoing integration in the mystical body of Christ. His risen, ascended Body becomes the foundation for our new life, providing a new Vine into which our wild branches are grafted. Even so, kundalini can be a wild, bucking bronco, at times, and one can experience this along with the peace of Christ as well.

Mt:

Along with Phil's comments, I wonder about the heart chakra among those with a predominately 6th and 7th disposition in their meditation practice. As Phil points out, K may have found some of those deeper devotional intimacies too unlike his non-dual agenda, which I believe you have mentioned as well.

Treating awareness or kundalini as the Source in itself is just a basic mis-step bound for trouble in some form or another.

I am,too,really,sorry to hear of this poor man's collapse and suicide.I believe Christ holds all the suffering in the world,and redeems it,makes it whole, and that this happened to this poor man, he was restored after death.I find it easier to understand his demise as the result of mental illness.I have found --in some congregations more than others--quite a bit of mental illness in churches,at least paranoid delusions.
I hear you,Phil,about the lack of love,and therefore,usefulness,in enlightenment that did not concern itself with the horror of Japan in WWII.But,both the Western and Eastern sides of the Christian church did not behave well during WWII, especially in Nazi occupied Europe, and in Soviet Communism. I mean, there were amazing acts of faith and courage (I just got back from the Holocaust Museum),but not really from the church.It is so easy to judge,I don't know how I would have behaved if I was a Carmelite nun,and Edith Stein was taken away to her death,or if I saw my neighbor dragged out of her house by soldiers,or just disappearing one day.I hope that I am learning to listen to God's voice in contemplative prayer,so that I will be in His Will and know what the true and loving act is...it seems that this a big issue for the Buddhists right now in Tibet.
One of the most moving parts of the Holocaust museum was at the end.A woman held in a concentration camp for years as a teenager, told about her guard,who "looked like a bulldog,talked like a bulldog",and was one of the few really decent,good people this woman knew (she is of course now around 80),who helped these starving girls to be present at roll call,and to keep their chins up.How did that guard do that in the midst of so much evil?
A good holy Maundy Thursday to you all.Shasha,how wonderful for you and your friend that you were able to be open to God's healing.

I am sorry for my incoherence.I think I am finally getting what you are all talking about. Contemplative Outreach,Thomas Keating's organization,talks a lot about the unloading of the unconscious during contemplative prayer.If the false self stuff, which can come up as a result of contemplative prayer,is "transcended" or continually denied,without being integrated into the psyche by the Holy Spirit then great damage is done.One practice Contemplative Outreach offers is the Welcoming Prayer, which is a prayer of acceptance (and letting go, or surrender) of the first three chankras.So,we let go of our need for security, survival,our need for affirmation,acceptance,esteem and our need for power and control. The false self system is part of the adapted egoic,and so is part and parcel of what it is to be a human being in a fallen,broken world.(I guess:not too clear what the adapted egoic is).This dismantelling (is that a word?) of the FS is a spiral process, and although we can sense the work of the HS in this in awareness ,for example of destructive patterns, or in dreams, our work lies in this work of acceptance and surrender.This isn't always pretty, and I am slowly learning to welcome,surrender and also forgive whatever comes up. Does this resonate with any of you?I am trying to understand.I feel I interrupt threads with my meanderings.

bdb, your responses are fine. Almost every discussion meanders a bit; that's just how it goes.

- - -

Re. Krishnamurti's writings and teachings . . . on the positive side, there's plenty of evidence for the fruit of awareness: a sense of wonder, numinosity, and deep aesthetic mysticism. Sometimes in his descriptions of nature, he notes that the flower, trees, scenery, etc. were so beautiful as to make his heart hurt. There seems to be no special mystical graces at work in those kinds of perceptions; such a world is always open to us if we have eyes to "see."

K also provides a wealth of what I'd call intrapersonal insight -- the nature of thought, its relation to feeling and perception, how attachments work, etc. This is all very valuable, and we can find our own experiences clarified through some of what he writes (though sometimes I haven't a clue where he's going or how he comes to the observations he reports). Intrapersonal insight isn't yet philosophy, but awareness directed to the inner world. So K never enters very deeply into what Lonergan would call the second and third levels of consciousness: to be intelligent, and reasonable, much less the fourth level, on being responsible. K promotes no philosophical paradigm and, indeed, seems to do little reading about this (or anything else, for that matter). Intrapersonal observation suffices; philosophy and theology are more a hindrance than a help to "seeing." While that may well be true, to some extent, it doesn't follow that intrapersonal intelligence is sufficient for "understanding" reality and the duties of a human being toward reality. For all that, one will need to read others. If one has fallen under the spell of K's writings, however, there will be little inclination to do so.

Here's a good site for examining some of the claims of gurus, and their treatment of Krishnamurti is devastating. It's easy to see how an underlying arrogance and grandiosity remains intact, despite an obvious emergence of higher consciousness. E.g.

quote:

Jiddu himself, however, was a guru in everything but name. The authoritarian pronouncements, intolerance for disagreement, and grandiosity could have come from any of the other “enlightened” individuals with whom we shall soon become too familiar. Though Krishnamurti himself was “allergic” to the guru-disciple relationship, “if it looks like a guru, talks like a guru and acts like a guru....”

After so many years surrounded by an inner circle, like a monarch attended by his courtiers who adored him and believed he could do no wrong, he had grown unused to being contradicted (Vernon, 2001).

[E]ven as he was insisting on the vital importance of individual discovery, the transcripts of his conversations with pupils [at his schools] reveal a man who mercilessly bullied his interlocutors into accepting his point of view (Washington, 1995).

Krishnamurti isolated himself from criticism and feedback, “just like everybody he was criticizing,” [Joel] Kramer [co-author of The Guru Papers] said, and had to have “the last word on everything” (Horgan, 1999).

And . . .

quote:

Even as he lay on his deathbed, wasting away from pancreatic cancer, Krishnamurti stated firmly that “while he was alive he was still ‘the World Teacher’” (Vernon, 2001). (That terminal illness occurred in spite of his claimed possession of laying-on-of-hands healing abilities, which proved equally ineffectual in his own prior attempts at healing Bohm of his heart ailments.) Indeed, so enamored was the Krinsh of his own teaching position in the world that he recorded the following statement a mere ten days before his passing:

I don’t think people realize what tremendous energy and intelligence went through this body.... You won’t find another body like this, or that supreme intelligence operating in a body for many hundred years. You won’t see it again (in Lutyens, 1988).

Krishnamurti is supposed to have said that he is even greater than Buddha or the Christ (in Sloss, 2000).

Well, with all due respect, K is dead and his teaching largely ignored. Not so with Buddha, nor with Christ, who didn't stay dead.

We are not "saved" by higher consciousness but by submission of our lives to a Power greater than ourselves. Thus one will find true holiness in a recovering alcoholic working out of lower consciousness who is striving to work the Twelve Steps.