Good Evening my fellow wanderers - I hope I find you all in fine fettle. Its taken a little while to decide which song to look at next but, as has often been the case recently, a song from my past came to me and had to be discussed: Bullet with Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins. I was listening to the radio and Today by the band (which I'd also happily write a post about but for various reasons we'll go with Bullet) came on and it reminded me I'd not listened to my favourite song by the Pumpkins for years. One listen was all it needed to decide to write about Bullet.
1. The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game
2. Even though I know
I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold
Like old Job
3. Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say
What is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in a cage
4. Now I'm naked
Nothing but an animal
But can you fake it
For just one more show
And what do you want
I want to change
And what have you got
When you feel the same
5. Tell me I'm the only one
Tell me there's no other one
Jesus was an only son yeah
Tell me I'm the chosen one
Jesus was an only son, for you
6. And I still believe that I can not be saved
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1. The modern world of scientific materialism, rampant consumerism and the all pervasive phenomenon of ego inflation has sucked the spiritual blood from our veins.
"Success" couched in this paradigm uses money or celebrity as the scoreboard for success - but it is precisely these things that burn the "real you" in the flames.
And what is the benefit of this pain? A piece of the game - some small part of the capitalist infrastructure: a house, or a car, a beautiful wife, or a rich husband? But deep down our society knows something isn't right - we start wars, Prozac and other anti-depressants are used indiscriminently, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
2. Deep down - even if we don't even realise it - we all know better than that. We're all philosophers and we all have the ability to understand that you can't take any of this material stuff with you and that ultimately material stuff is shallow, hollow and mostly spiritually vapid. Job (the title and principle character of the Old Testament book, also featuring in the Koran with the same story) was horrifically tested by "God" but never denounced "Him". So shrug off the "failure", "disease" and "unease" and spiritually man-up! Samsara is Nirvana
3. Getting angry or frustrated, blaming others for your discomfort, seeking salvation in money, success or drugs just reinforces the misapprehension that you are your ego. That is not your true self: Atman is Brahman.
Believing in eternal damnation is a truly horrific theology - one unilaterally adopted by the crudest forms of most major religions. And yet - the great irony - getting upset about this just reinforces the misplaced concept that your ego is real. So despite it being completely inconsistent that any God of Love could eternally damn anyone - this genuinely is not something to get upset about. We are all aspects of the Godhead and will be reconciled eventually. Until you realise this you will remain a rat in a cage or as Alan Watts describes it - an ego encased in a bag of skin.
4. So strip everything away. Pursue the road of what Aldous Huxley describes as "self-noughting". The ego will cry and scream that without it you are but a dumb animal but eventually over numerous incarnations the appreciation of who you really are is inevitable. So at some point your Buddhahood, or Christ consciousness is going to become overwhelming. Do you want to fake the importance of the ego, of separation for one more life - or are you ready to go home now? Then the penultimate test - you make the decision to completely surrender and then nothing changes!! Samsara is Nirvana!!
"Before enlightenment chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment chop wood and carry water" Zen Proverb
5. I'm sure Billy Corgan is either being sarcastic here, or the actual lyrics are " Jesus wasn't the only son". Anyway a common misunderstanding is caused by those who have had catastrophic experiences of cosmic consciousness because the language and cultural milieu which they have access to are extremely ill-disposed to an explanation of what they have experienced. They are likely to say things like "I am God" which sounds as egocentric as you can get but it really isn't meant that way! Nonetheless - unless the ego has been completely superceded it can still latch on to that experience of cosmic consciousness. That is the last test of your journey to heaven otherwise known as a complete connection with the Divine.
6. If your starting point on this journey is that there is no spirit, no divinity, then you probably believe that you can never be saved. That theology follows the argument that our consciousness is just a fortuitous but somewhat wretched side-effect of a purely physical universe with no inherent purpose or real inter- connectedness. If heaven, nirvana, moksha and true peace are in the revelation that the ego does not exist - that our true selves is the universal divine then you actually arrive at the same conclusion !!! There is no "you" to be saved!!! Your already it!! Tat Tvam Asi !!
Before closing I should postface my comments with the admission that I've been attending an Alpha Course for the last two months. My genuine reason for undertaking such an endeavour was in a vain attempt to reconcile my love for the divinity of all things (and all the mystic paths that demonstrate this) with orthodox (small "o", not big "O") Christianity. The course has completely failed to do that because Mystic Christianity and orthodox Christianity cannot be reconciled without fundamental changes to the beliefs and doctrines of the latter. Its a shame, if for no other reason than the people running, and participating in, the course are mostly lovely (if confused). However on the plus-side the course has inadvertently encouraged me to re-read a number of books that I would whole-heartedly recommend to you my fellow seekers. These include: Mystic Christianity by Yogi Ramacharaka (that can be found in pdf format for free here, The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley, Return of the Perennial Philosophy by John Holman and Son of Man by Andrew Harvey. I thoroughly recommend all four. Until the next time my friends . . .
