Enlightenment

I began taking some fascinating courses from a place called WEA in late 1985. After the first course, "The Forum", I took seminars, inexpensive 10-session courses over about 3 months where one could study ones life in the context of the seminar, discover limits and break through them.

I first experienced the unity of the universe in a course called the 6-day in, I think, 1986. It was during a lesson about Sysiphus and the seeming futility of life.

I experienced it several times over the six days, and then a couple of times after the course ended. All of the things in the world and all of the meanings that I experienced, even my own personality and those of all the people I knew became changing data points among limitless axes. It was wonderful, seeing everything collapse into a vibration in the infinite dimensions of the universe. The vibrations of everything meant nothing, yet all meaning sprang from it. I experienced the entire universe oscillating between the rich world we know and infinite vibration. From the formed to the formless, and back again, the universe pulsed, winking into and out of existence. The experience was a profound and deep connectedness. Love.

Soon after, I began dating a woman who was into Siddha Yoga. Siddha Yoga is a spiritual yoga led by a teacher who is of a chosen lineage that goes back a couple of hundred years. ("Siddha" means something like "Saint", so it's about learning from a teacher who has reached a kind of perfection.) The last guru, Baba Muktananda, wrote the story of his spiritual journey in a book, The Play of Consciousness, and brought their teachings to the west. I wasn't a believer, but enjoyed the talks by his recent successor, Gurumayi Chitvilisananda.

I joined my girlfriend at some meditation and chanting evenings. I was a bit uncomfortable with the chanting, but participated. And I meditated some. Twice I visited the ashram in Oakland. The second time, I was given shaktipat - the awakening of the kundalini, the "god-energy" within, by Gurumayi.

Then I took my friend's advice and signed up for their nearly free 4-year correspondence course- I think I payed a few dollars for postage. It was created by Ram Butler, via the inspiration of Baba Muktananda. Ram later left Siddha Yoga and continues to offer the course independent of Siddha Yoga, It's now called, The Truth of the Present Moment.

Baba wrote several books, as well. In them, and the course, he described how form arose from the formless. From nothing, something. Then dark and light arose. Then matter and space, heat and cold, more and more distinctions bifurcating the universe into the richness that it is today. It dovetailed perfectly with my experiences of unity, appreciating more and more dimensions till the universe is a uniform, infinite pattern.

I was supposed to read one 10-page chapter of the correspondence course every day for half of a month, then the next chapter. Often I'd read a paragraph or a page or a few pages, and then drift off into an incredible reverie... I asked my girlfriend about it- she said if I stuck with it, whatever happened was perfect. Over the years, I saw the play of my ego, my personality, my wants and needs, the workings of my brain and thoughts as distinct from my consciousness. I achieved enlightenment.

Yes, that's weird to say. It doesn't give me knowledge of the stock market and it didn't deepen my mathematics abilities. But it does let me accept what is. Being some-kind-of-brilliant, I already knew I was full of shit, as are we all- human, limited and with a view from a tiny corner of the universe. But it made me more able, I think, to accept a wide range of truths.

The truth is that the universe is real, but its true nature is beyond us. After all, if you made a trillion boxes and put a trillion atoms into every box, you'd have about a pound of matter. Where we see a person or the sky or a rock is really just countless particles vibrating. Yet our illusions give us power. The world we experience emerges from our interpretations of our perceptions, rather than being "real" in some absolute sense. But our interpretations are vast simplifications of the complexity of the world.

I am beyond ego. (Sorry, I just wanted to see what that looked like in print :?) The truth is that I can be beyond ego at will. But it requires will to see how powerfully ego is operating within me.

It's a bit like breathing. To center yourself for a performance, it's good to focus on the breath. But to perform, one must give oneself to the performance.

Do you know the old prank about psyching out a batter by asking, "Do you breathe in or out when you hit the ball?" What works is not to be with your breath when you're batting, but with the ball and bat. The power of focusing on your breath to center yourself is not to focus on your breath when you're batting, but to take your attention off of yourself, so that you can attend to the ball and be with the bat.

A common exercise when meditating is to focus on your breath. Partly, this is to focus the mind and let go of being your ego. But also, it's to have a sharp contrast between what you intend to be doing and where you go when your thoughts take you away. For a weeks, months, or even years, meditation seems like an endless lack of true meditating. Over time, one gets better at letting the thoughts drift past, and finally, training the brain to let them cease entirely. Note that I've experienced these phases, but am not proficient at meditating.

People often think I'm "spiritual." My ego likes that. Most people think of it as a compliment, which ego loves. I like it, too, when I'm my character.

But I'm not spiritual. To me, "spirit" doesn't exist in the world of things. Enlightenment and being with the unity of everything, while awesome, is neither mystical nor spiritual. To me, it's profoundly rational. (And, it's fine if you experience them as both.)

At every level of existance, tens or thousands or millions, billions or even trillions of things arrange themselves according to their "forces". Some like to say, "according to their nature." They form patterns. The patterns that are stable persist. The patterns that reproduce multiply. It's just their nature.

And the world of those multiplied patterns is a different world from the world of their parts. Each is a pattern more complex than its parts. They're connected more complexly and influence each other differently. If you look at our sciences, at each level we have a completely different science devoted to studying it. Particle physics for particles, then atomic physics, then molecular and then chemistry, material science, and various forms of engineering. The sciences of life, biochemistry, biology, anatomy and medicine have a similar hierarchy. So do the brain sciences all the way to psychology and then interpersonal and societal...

We've done a pretty wonderful job of studying the worlds of the parts that make up our world, and their parts, and down and down, even below the world of quarks to string theory where there's no real "stuff", just concepts. But we've barely scratched the surface going the other way, upwards, looking at the patterns we form with others. What's fascinating to me is not so much the patterns we form, but the patterns we're capable of forming. Using our wills, together, we can cooperate in ways we barely dream of, creating patterns and effects that we design.

In the world of Judism, Christianity and Islam, God created the world. Then goodness was created by humans cooperating according to God's laws. In Siddha Yoga, the world emerges out of consciously formed distinctions. In the world of science, the world emerges out of layers creating the next layer. Could it be that Creativity is the theme of our universe?

I'm not saying God is Creativity, but if there was a creator, could it be that His/Her purpose for us is to purposely design the patterns that we, together, create? And, much more is possible.

My point is merely that the world is complex. Not only can it be understood on many levels, but it can be felt, and related to on many levels and through many dimensions.

Back to my story. After attaining some mastery of enlightenment, I returned to WEA courses. Exploring more of my ego and personality, I discovered I couldn't get married, due to various ideas I had acquired as a child. Discovering that, I could see they were the ideas of a young, upset and easily mistaken child. I let that go, found a good woman and, after she did the basic WEA course, proceeded to the next stage of existance- marriage in 1990, and fatherhood soon after.

Enlightened people tell a story: A man achieved enlightenment in a Zen monastery and then went back to the city to resume his life. Two years later he returned to his master and begged, "Master! I had such eternal peace and happiness here, but life in the city is a constant challenge, full of upsets and problems, even misery and suffering. How can I live in the city with peace?"

His master was very wise. She replied, "How should I know? I live here, in the monastery."

My enlightenment was always available as a refuge, but the world was challenging, especially my wife and kids. One year I even had depression! I didn't take it seriously, but I was effected (it's sort of like a zen master still has to recover after breaking a leg.) After six months, I discovered the root of my depression, and it disappeared.

In late 2007 I returned to the courses. Shortly after I was married, in 1991, the business had been given to the course leaders and was renamed to Landmark Education. They had done wonderful things with the courses. This time, I saw that most of the teachings of Siddha Yoga were there, just rewritten for the west. And they had more- they had applied the lessons to the challenges of life. In those courses, I integrated my enlightenment into life.

Life was often still vexing and challenging, but less so. It's like a child learning to walk, and then run. The more able you are, the faster you can go and on rougher terrain. Yet even on skates and skiis, there's no end to the challenges.

I took courses for four years, including re-taking The Forum and the Advanced Course, and more. And then took the Wisdom course, which is five 3-day weekends over the course of 10 months, plus homework and meetings with small groups between weekends.

As Jews say, "If not me, who? If not now, when?" I've seen a future of much more than salvation. Am I not responsible for building it?

The answer, of course, is "no". Life is meaningless. It's all created by us in every moment. Often, we're lulled into creating the same old life over and over again. It often seems like we need to survive. We need more money for travel and a new car. Kids need to attend college and the dog needs to go to the expensive veterinarian who comforts us so well.

And, the answer in our culture is "no." You're supposed to think globally, but only act locally. Doing otherwise is ludicrous, unless you're in politics. And while we decry politicians even more than lawyers, we insist that they are the best suited for leadership.

I love people. Being enlightened, I know that all the barriers to love are of my own creation. In a moment I can drop them all and love everyone fully. Suffering is a choice. (I once slammed a finger in a garage door. I was racked with pain, and my knees buckled, but I took control of who I was and barely suffered at all.)

But most people have no choice but to suffer. Choice is one of those things that's completely invented. So if you don't know you have it, you don't. People can learn, but that's a time-consuming process and is possible almost exclusively with time and effort. And time is money- most people can't afford the search, curiosity, and to find the teacher that works for them. Lots of people don't seem to learn very well.

So I looked at my love and compassion. I looked at my finances and my lack of support among family, friends and even the people in my seminars. And then I set them aside and made a choice.

I chose that my purpose is to transform politics and government so humans could self-govern themselves well, that is, democratically, responsibly, carefully and effectively.

One of the fundamental parts of wisdom is not-knowing. Following the Wisdom course is another course called Partnership where one studies knowing, and much more. It's six 2-day weekends over 10 months.

It was like, having mastered walking, running, skiing and numerous other kinds of physical adventures, entering on a boat and sailing into the sea- exploring partly a new universe and partly a new view of what I knew as the edge of the "known" universe.

After all that, PeopleCount has been a whole new level of adventure. I've needed to work hard in areas where my poor ego (my character) was completely unprepared and unable. And I've failed- in more ways than I could have imagined.

Still the solution is sound. While it's approachable only by the most open 1% of people I've met, it will work. Currently, government is mediocre and politics is horrid. PeopleCount will provide a new foundation by which they can work well. God, though unknown and unknowable, is on my side. But the devilish status quo has inculcated many minds. The path is fraught with danger, but I continue.

I am committed to create this future. Though it's in many ways a perilous adventure, and far from certain, it's worthwhile.

And after all, so far, only I have been chosen. If not me, who?

And coincidentally, this is a method by which all of us can create the future together. How many of us appreciate that this may, indeed, be humanity's ultimate purpose?

Also coincidentally, our environment is near to collapse and our political structures are failing in new and extreme ways. This is no time to listen to my ego argue about reasonableness and staying small...

Rand Strauss, Jan 23, 2017