Pronoia Is the Antidote to Paranoia

This week I’d like to share with you the following excerpt from Pronoia Is the Antidote to Paranoia, a book by Rob Brezsny. For those of you familiar with his “Free Will Astrology” column in Now Magazine, you know how much magic he can pack into his prose. The following few paragraphs speak to the challenges we all share trying to push the evolution of consciousness forward in these modern times:

Let me remind you who you really are: you’re an immortal freedom fighter in service to divine love. You have temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins, in order to liberate all sentient creatures from suffering and help them claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright. You will accept nothing less than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to earth.

Your task may look impossible. Ignorance and inertia, partially camouflaged as time-honored morality seem to surround you. Pessimism is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.

To grapple against these odds, you have to be both a wrathful insurrectionary and an exuberant lover of life. You’ve got to cultivate cheerful buoyancy even as you resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and seductively packaged by very self-important people who act as if they know what they’re doing. You have to learn how to stay in a good mood as you overthrow the sour, puckered hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality.

What can we do to help each other in this work?

The Role of a Teacher

Q. If you had to describe the role of a teacher of enlightenment in one sentence what would it be?

A. Someone who has "been there," knows the way, and can show you how to get back in touch with your true nature.

What Enlightenment is Like

Q. Is it possible to get a sense of what enlightenment is like using your imagination?

A. Yes. But it is not a substitute for the actual experience itself. So I'll include a few simple transformative practices that can help bring about the enlightened state of being, or what I often refer to as our true nature. First, here's a brief description of one way I’d describe it:

Imagine your body dissolving and all traces of the life you are living disappearing. Then picture that the only thing left is your awareness of being aware, and then even that falls away. You momentarily cease to exist in a way, becoming nothing. But this state of nothingness is not empty. Rather, it is a boundless dimension that has always existed, even before the Big Bang. What's more, the moment you make contact with this eternal dimension, you realize that this primordial realm of creation is filled with the cosmic energy out of which everything in existence is continuously arising, including you: a self-aware being having a human experience. This direct recognition of your true nature, which is who and what you are at the deepest depths of being, is the essence of enlightenment.

There are several ways to get a real sense of our true nature. One of the simplest is to contemplate the vastness of the sky. Find an open field and spend some time looking up. As you do let your consciousness widen. Let it spread out until it has no boundary. It really can be that simple. Or, in the comfort of your own home, you can try imagining you are floating in the ocean, letting yourself become so vast that you feel limitless. I still do this every time I go for a swim and also at the end of a nice warm bath. Lastly, some people may not need to picture anything at all. If you can become aware of your own consciousness in a sustained sort of way, your consciousness will naturally expand until it becomes boundless, which is basically another way of describing meditation.

How to Become Enlightened

Q. Can you give your most concise and comprehensive instructions for becoming enlightened?

A. Let me begin by saying that we are all, in one respect, already completely awake. While this is true, most of us need certain methods or techniques to become aware of our true nature, even though it is always already within us. The following instructions are just one possible way. I hope you find it useful.

1) I'd recommend a good half hour to an hour of meditation every day. Ideally first thing in the morning, though the time of day is not as crucial as consistency (e.g., same time each day), which is the most important thing when developing any new habit.

2) Understand that the point of meditation is to begin to witness or objectify whatever arises without getting overly engaged in any of it. So, observe any sensations, thoughts or feelings that arise. If you end up recreating and inhabiting an entire virtual world in your imagination, catch yourself and come back to your breath, which is the best anchoring point for getting re-centered so you can start witnessing again.

3) Once you are able to witness whatever arises, intentionally shift your attention towards the source of witnessing itself. Eventually, you will recognize that the light of awareness itself is your true nature, which is experienced as a feeling of boundless freedom and the joyful brightness of pure being.

The Big Bad Money Question

Q. Some people say that charging money for spiritual guidance lacks integrity. What do you say?

A. Well, let me first say that it depends on who is asking for money and how they do it. As with any form of business exchange, there are always crooks and charlatans, and the spiritual marketplace is certainly no exception. Barring that fact, however, there is an underlying assumption in this question that is important to look at because it implies that as soon as commerce is involved, the value of spiritual guidance is somehow diminished.

This is simply not true. The fact of the matter is that most spiritual teachers either ask for donations or charge money for classes and/or private sessions. In some rare cases, the teacher is either independently wealthy or draws income from some other form of work, and so the need for money in exchange for guidance is not required. But to suggest that the only integrous way to be a spiritual teacher is to do it for free is illogical. I mean, if businessmen, athletes, or doctors get paid for their work, why shouldn’t spiritual teachers?

For me personally, I used to offer spiritual guidance strictly by donation. But over time I noticed that some people weren’t offering anything in exchange for my counsel even though I knew they were in a financial position to do so. And interestingly, the people who didn’t offer any donations often didn’t make much progress, whereas those who did usually progressed along the path.

I’ve also found that because we live in a highly materialistic and commercialized society, there’s another underlying cultural assumption that if you don’t charge for something, it’s not worth anything. So I’ve tried to find a happy medium, charging enough to increase the perceived value of what I have to offer, while also keeping my rates affordable.

There is an unspoken code among teachers that if a person really can’t afford to pay, then you don’t charge him or her for guidance. I do a lot of pro bono work and always will. But if it were not for the financial generosity of those people who are capable and willing to pay for my services, it would not be possible for me to offer as much as I do for those who can’t.

At the end of the day, the reality is we all need to get paid in order to survive. Spiritual teachers are no exception. If the teacher happens to be a monk or priest, their housing and financial needs are generally taken care of by the institution they work for, and still, they may have a hard time of it. If a teacher is not affiliated with any spiritual tradition or lineage, they should still be financially compensated for sharing their knowledge with others.

Here’s something Buddha had to say about this topic:

“And what is the accomplishment of generosity? Here, a noble disciple dwells at home with a mind free from stinginess, freely generous, open-handed, delighting in relinquishment, one devoted to charity, delighting in giving and sharing.”

I’ll end on a Utopian note:

In my wildest dreams and my most hopeful schemes, I envision a world where money is no longer needed as the medium of exchange, but is replaced by something akin to a “karmic credit” system. Think of a video game where you get points for playing the game, only in this case your efforts are compensated by what you contribute in the real world by helping others. This may even be one of the future uses of implantable microchips once the potential health risks are resolved and the cultural and religious prohibitions relaxed.

Simran, Satsang & Siva

I read the following quote from Deepak Chopra recently:

“There are three important Sanskrit words: SIMRAN, remember who you are; SATSANG, hang out with the right people; and SEVA, let’s start doing things without selfish motivation.”

This was confirming to read because it named each of the three activities I’ve always felt are the most important for us to do as human beings to help create a more enlightened world. The volunteer opportunities through GAIA = Seva, the SAF gatherings = Satsang, and the primary focus of enlightened coaching = Simran.

World Poetry Day

In honour of World Poetry Day. Straight from the Formless.

Sonic Truth

It's so soft we often miss it
although it's always there.

For some it's like a chirping cricket
calling out in the nighttime air.

For others it comes in less quiet ways
like the crashing of the ocean's waves.

For me it's like a chandelier
dangling from my inner ear.

This most pleasing of sounds
comes from a stillness without bounds.

With a message containing the following refrain:
from formless oneness the cosmos came.

To find this sonic truth in you
listen for this subtle cue:

It begins as OM then rises as HU
until everything's one and there's no more you.