same old same old

I made a goal of not looking at porn for a month, specifically this month. I failed after ten days. I found I was becoming more and more shallow, voyeuristic in my real life, agitated by silly situations, and opportunistic of certain kinds of moments.

Years ago, when I was a teenager I found that I could justify my porn use by acknowledging that it allowed me to treat my friends with more dignity and respect. I think I am still using that excuse, whether it is real or not… it certainly feels real.

This confession is not what I wanted to talk about. Of course all of it is related, and in this case, I find concrete examples are sometimes necessary when dealing with larger issues of life and spirit. Concretely I set a goal, a values-based goal, a spiritual goal, a test of will and failed… perhaps one could argue that I didn’t find the test was meeting my desired goal… but perhaps it’s just a failure of will.

So let’s move on. Lately I have been reading a lot of Sufi writings. I find Sufism to be extremely relational, touching to the spirit and inspiring. Unlike much of the legal doctrines of Islam, the Spiritual traditions really grab a person on a soul level. Legalistic Islam, can be a wonderful intellectual pursuit, to understand why a doctrine is the way it is, to understand the benefit to the individual and the community. These things are great, and ought to be acknowledged, but Sufism is like a wizard’s spell when all you knew is science, and the nice thing is that so many of these wizards believe in explaining their craft.

I also find, that Sufism, relates to other forms of spirituality better. Islam comes very distinctly from Arabian culture/mixed later with the Hellenistic, Persian and Indian classics. It is dynamic, but institutionalized, Sufism flips that and keeps the dynamism while trying to defend itself -sometimes unsuccessfully from the dogma. The treatises explain the poetics, but the Sufi continues the spiritual pursuit regardless…

and what is the spiritual pursuit?
To recognize what submission to the Divine Unity truly means… to become the perfect human –bridge back to the Divine, to be the mirror in which the Divine sees itself… And the ecstatic acknowledges that in true Oneness, there is no other… thus God is all and all is God. This differs so much from the legalistic Abrahamic “God the father” traditions… it looks a lot more like Hinduism or various forms of animism. To spend your time trying to recognize God in all… well that seems like a good pursuit.

Different Sufi’s have ideas of how to do that:
Some deny the reality of this world, believing that it is an illusion (like Buddhism) and that attachment to the illusion causes distraction from God.

Some believe to acknowledge distraction itself would be a form of denying the divine unity, so they move from place to place seeking out the thin points in the veil, but knowing that every opportunity is the time to recognize God.

Some pursue humanitarian good, trying to reform systems of oppression, healing the sick, teaching at universities, or taking on students (as Buddha and Confucius did).

 But most are treated (though they may have home bases) as being wanderers who pursued God above all status positions, above all relationships and above all worldly wants.

Each person of course has a slightly different idea of what is right and wrong, of what is desirable, obtainable, etc. The path isn’t for all, and many of the stories of the Sufi’s are stories of turning down students, of being turned away themselves. Of staying humble to be on the path, and of being righteous to recognize what is not the path. To wake up every day with the desire to be used by God (to have a relationship with God) but then to also simultaneously believe that in the end, there is nothing but God… so who is asking? And to whom?

I find this focus to be especially warming to my heart in many cases… not that ego-centered “I am God” piece, but the idea that one cannot help but be connected with God, because we are made up of God, because we are energized by God, because God creates/renews, sustains and destroys us in each moment. Because the separation is in our heads…

And yet I am troubled, because the separation is so strong in my head… that lately I have been reading books and singing mantras, and listening to spiritual teachers and occasionally having good conversations… but in all other times I feel disconnected and lost. I feel lost in myself, my shallow ambitions, shallow projections, shallow thoughts and beliefs, my shallow actions keep me apart and because I am so shallow I feel like I have nothing to offer, or nothing left to offer… so I disconnect further. And maybe it is a lack of will, I see nothing in myself and nothing in the other, save when I see God… so when I do not see God, there is no desire except the shallow. A cycle of deep connection that cannot be sustained (or rather isn’t being) and a pit of muck, separation.

 I wouldn’t say this is hell… I don’t actually feel despair… I feel exhausted from the effort. I go long periods of time longing for comfort and don’t get it because I have such a shallow view of what it should look/feel like. I have been here before… and had to go lower and lower, until I wasn’t myself… until I was sustained only on the smiles of others… but I don’t think that is the answer this time.

Time

Time has also been the big riddle to me lately… A few weeks back I had this experience where suddenly the idea of time didn’t need to exist… and it felt right. It felt like time is the ego. I watched a movie last night where the character actually said “Time is the sin” before he died… and that seems somehow right… and yet I am not sure how far to take this concept. I watched a spiritual teacher on youtube talk about how time is non-existent to God, and should be to us if we want to relate to God, or recognize God in ourselves, or be the mirror to God… because otherwise we depend on the before and after… we make excuses etc… and this gels with a lot of spiritual teachings about “living in the now” but really he was saying more than that. He was saying there is no before and after because Now is all that ever exists… and the idea of time passing doesn’t actually happen on a larger scale… energy is not destroyed, doesn’t age, simply changes form… and if we are energy than we are energy and need to stop believing in the illusory, the attachment to the idol of the material, the meaningless, the non-existent.

According to this teacher, God doesn’t recognize the illusory, and neither should we. And I find this troublesome because I like the idea of time not existing, on a mental level it makes sense, I have even been blessed with a moment or two of feeling it…or recognizing that it a false and changeable concept… but to acknowledge that the material doesn’t exist is so much harder for my soul to understand…
Buddhism teaches us not to get attached to the material because it causes us pain and ultimately doesn’t matter and I can acknowledge this because it is saying there is a material that doesn’t matter…(this is the lay person explanation, thought underneath I think it is just the nice way of saying that the material never existed) but to deny the very illusion of the material seems too hard for me to experience.

 In the moment I lose myself, and find an hour later I am that much more judgmental, shallow and spiteful. I feel detachment but from what? If I am energy (and I can recognize this on an intellectual level), than why can’t I feel it all the time… why do I feel separate?

This is the sin, the only sin, the sin in every religion, Separation. Time is a separation so it is sinful, but so is space, so is the sensory/material… but I love it, I am attached to it, I desire it, and it gives me meaning… makes me feel things etc…
I know that these things are but a fraction of the whole… and therefor I need to redirect my attention to the whole… but I tried to deny porn for 31 days and couldn’t control myself, couldn’t will my way through it to the greater potential… so how do I do it with everything?

Every religion offers an answer; most say a combination of experience and denial, of meditation and slight changes till mastery. I can see this in my every day experiences…

If I don’t have a tv, I don’t often find myself obsessed with it. If I don’t have a certain cd, over time I forget its importance to me, if I don’t see a friend for a while -some of them leave my mind. Sometimes it is in fact the moment of remembrance (the reconnection) that is the most painful (but often the most joyful as well…) Perhaps if I didn’t have a mirror, I wouldn’t judge my physical appearance so much. If I didn’t have an okcupid/tumblr/facebook/youtube/blog/email etc I wouldn’t be so attached to them. If I didn’t have books I wouldn’t want to read them. If I didn’t have computer games I wouldn’t want to play them, if I didn’t have candy I wouldn’t want to eat it (tried and failed many times), but in all maybe it’s just a matter of temperance.

 I often wonder if I became more physically undesirable whether I would stop wanting to pursue that… like if my face was ripped off, would I suddenly give up on the shallow aspects of relationships… or would I just become more of a hermit. If I were in prison would I be more free? If I were “disabled” would I be enabled to pursue higher things?

Anyway… I am drawn to spiritual teachings I can’t always experience, and it is driving me a little bonkers… I think partially because I don’t have anyone to explore them with… but it requires a lot of trust to pursue a spiritual relationship with another person.

And sometimes when I think back on the relationships I have had, I recognize that that was my pursuit despite the other variables… and perhaps that is what I have felt is missing in my life lately.