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(Non) participatory Awe, Trans-immanence, Perfection

5/4/2022

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In the first phase of my spiritual path, when I was very immersed in Neo-Advaitic spirituality which placed a great emphasis on things like detached impersonal "witnessing," the non-existence of self and separation, simply being rather doing, as precursors to a radical sense of perfection, the states of awe and perfection I experienced were often what could be described as "non-participatory" - a term I got from Jason Shulman when he described a kind of awe in which the experiencer stands back, apart from, and  dis-engages with what's now perceived as just what Ram Dass called "the passing show." Moments in this detached, transcendent kind of awe-infused perception which I then would have thought of as non-dual, were precious to me, and while I still have them sometimes, I am drawn towards a different kind of awe-infused perception that calls me not just to be, but also to do, to engage inter-personally in the goings-on of life in a profoundly new way, instead of only being non-participatory,  disengaged reverie.

This perception involves a deeply engaged participatory awe that doesn't require a sense of self, of separation, or anything else that Neo-Advaitic spirituality presented as merely a mirage or in the way of Reality with a capital R, be transcended and invalidated, excluded, it doesn't require abstaining from anything, because now the awe comes from the perception that whatever I thought of as transcendent, is not separate from anything I ever thought needed to be transcended. This non-duality is not the non-existence of separateness, of reducing materiality to immateriality, but non-duality of the material and the immaterial, of beyond and within! This is the non-duality of trans-immanence, and from this perception, the divine is incarnate, it has materialized, and is participating in every moment as the un-manifest made manifest.

The participatory awe of transimmanence that I experience doesn't require me to stand back, to dis-engage, detach, rise above, or transcend anything except for the conviction that oneness, the transcendent, formless divine, stands apart from or can be separated from form and separateness, etc. It doesn't require a sweeping view only, a still or silent mind or body, it doesn't request purity - a busy mind, impurity, and even the most painful emotions are precious,  they are god (choose your favorite word) as busy thoughts, impurity, and painful emotions. Now I'm called, as one of these precious expressions of the absolute, of god, to open my heart to it all, to myself, as an act of opening my heart to all of god, and to act , interact , be deeply involved,  not just witness it and say that it's all okay and perfect so there's nothing to do...now perfection(ism) is one of the furthest things from a spiritual ideal, along with any notions of "enlightenment" that involve qualities like perfection or ease that are supposedly attained by pushing away anything that causes dissatisfaction and dis-ease, and seeking a perpetual nirvana that is not also known by its other name, samsara, is itself a hindrance to be overcome by being embraced too as an expression of the absolute, of god, in this case, struggling to accept the bittersweet imperfection of it's own humanity. Only in its human condition does god struggle with perfectionism, and when man realizes that imperfection is a quality of the divine, that struggle loosens, and we perceive the divine preciousness of imperfection and feel compassion for the all too common crushing disappointment that the spiritual or material pursuit of perfection tends to lead to.



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  • Home
  • Conversations
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  • Topics
    • Neo-Advaita/Modern Non-duality
    • Uniduality >
      • What is it?
      • Embracing Paradox
    • Spiritual Emergency >
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    • Spiritual Bypassing
    • in defense of the ego
  • Uniduality
    • What is it?
    • Embracing Paradox
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  • Contact & Newsletter