Many spiritual perspectives I am reading about recently focus on the notion of mystery and initiation. Rather than seeing suffering and hardship as an isolated event which begins and ends with this body, these spiritual thinkers have a way of contextualizing suffering in terms of a never-ending process of learning and growth. Here, there is no way to 'contain' learning into a single life experience or even a single memory. This process of learning is not about trying to gain a vital piece of knowledge for one's own profit but about yielding to something that is mysterious and can never be completely known or captured. Mircea Eliade relates:
Death signifies the surpassing of the profane non-sanctified condition, the condition of the 'natural man', ignorant of religion and blind to the spiritual. The mystery of initiation discloses to the neophyte, little by little, the true dimensions of existence; by introducing him to the sacred, the mystery obliges him to assume the responsibilities of a man (quoted in Moore, 1994, p. 196)
This view is interesting to me because it doesn't see death as a total ending, but as some introduction to a deeper way of existence and thinking. In a sense, Eliade is confirming to me that there is no such thing as a 'real' death. For instance, when I meditate, thoughts might seem to arise and disappear, but something still remains that cannot be thought. It is a kind of nameless and colorless basis for every other phenomena. Loss of any kind can educate a person in not relying on the phenomena or taking it to be so real. In fact, there is simply no essence to things that is so fixed and permanent that we can say it is truly 'me'. So what we lose is only the illusion that identifies us with the things we own or love. But in the midst of losing and gaining, there is an alternate way of being: to yield to the mystery of impermanence and the comings and goings of form.
In his book Denial of Death, Ernest Becker roots most human activity to the wish to fulfill a heroic struggle or opportunity. In fact, Becker goes so far as to trace all symbolic activity (including language) to a conscious effort to immortalize the self. He remarks, "to become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feelings of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life." (p.6) But if all heroic efforts are bound to end in some kind of dissolution or 'failure', what's the alternative way of living?
Thomas Moore talks about honoring the mystery of soul as a way of dealing with loss and failures, including the failures to fulfill personal expectations. He also sees loss as an initiation into a more soulful way of living which goes beyond individual existence, and he compares this realization to the 'dialogue between humans and the divine'. All this is wonderful, but it makes me wonder, how do I take this kind of soul learning into practice, or into daily life?
I think Eliade, Moore and Becker remind me that life's journey is not building an edifice around the self. Even when I learn something, the learning is incomplete and is bound to change over time. From the Buddhist perspective, consciousness continues into different lifetimes. To think that one life will ever 'complete' the learning cycle is illusory and somehow carries with it a feeling of having to do everything in one life cycle. But if you walk into any bookstore or library, you begin to realize that learning is limitless. There is no way for a single person to learn everything there is to know of all people's thoughts or insights. It would be like trying to pour all the oceans of the world into a thimble. There is simply not enough time or space to know or appreciate everything, or to taste all the different wines in all cups. So why not simply take a more playful approach to these philosophies and 'entertain' their possibilities, rather than thinking they are pieces of a puzzle that need 'completion' in a single lifetime? This way of looking might ease the need to perfect one's learning or one's self.
The scary thing about all this for me is realizing that knowledge is a kind of desire that can never be satiated. And the yielding to mystery that these authors describe is about renouncing the desire to satisfy one's craving to know, to experience everything in the mind, or to 'contain' it in a single self.
Becker, Ernest (1973), The Denial of Death. New York: Simon and Shuster
Moore, Thomas (1994), Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship. New York: Harper Perennial
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