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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 26 2013 : 2:22:46 PM
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After letting this thread/post (http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....age=2#111448) percolate in silence for a while, I now feel ready to open a thread with the intention of discussing different perspectives on the "roles" we each play as individuals here on Earth and how they relate to "The Whole."
From here it appears that (at least on the more 'subjective' levels) we each have a unique role to fill in this "play of life." However, despite each role being unique in how it is manifested on Earth, it appears to me as if all roles can be boiled down to one side of a single dichotomy... the same dichotomy highlighted in the fictional literary series "Ishmael" (Ishmael, My Ishmael, and The Story of B) by Daniel Quinn. You are either a "giver" or a "taker."
Keep in mind that these roles are not static, but are instead ever changing, and you may be in the role of "giver" one moment (ie. playing a 'teacher' or 'healer') and in the role of "taker" the next (ie. playing the 'student' or 'patient').
That said, I hope (at least in this thread) that we can try not to fall into the trap of judging which category is more "virtuous." It could be easy to see the role of "giver" as more desirable than the role of "taker" but when perceived from a less subjective or identified perspective it can be seen that the "taker" roles are as entirely necessary as the "giver" roles... without darkness there is no contrast; no light.
With all this in mind, when we investigate our personal roles it quickly brings us to questions regarding the concepts of "free will." For me, when I investigate "my role" and end up in the face of the "free will" question, everything melts into the undifferentiated whole... it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that I am not in control of anything, especially not the "role" I am playing. But in the midst of the drama of life, it can be easy to forget this and fall back into identification with whatever role I am in in the moment, at least for a time.
The above is all stated more or less from my subjective perspective. It is much more challenging for me to speak about how things appear to me from a wider, more objective perspective... but I'll try anyway.  From further out, the question of "roles" seems to melt away into one single purpose... to bring the light of non-dual awareness into physical manifestation on Earth. We all seem to have this role in common although how it manifests seems entirely individual.
Has anyone else investigated into their "role" and come up with any conclusions?
Love,
Carson  |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Jun 26 2013 : 3:23:25 PM
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Interesting question.
Some non-dual teachings extend the logic and take a position that there are no individual souls, because it's all non-dual etc - you know the drill. It's wrong, in my view, because non-duality doesn't preclude the appearance of duality, it includes it.
I intuitively sense that much like there are appearances of separate human bodies, but they owe their fundamental reality to non-dual pure consciousness, there is also a soul that goes through multiple incarnations, but again also owes its fundamental reality to the non-dual. So I definitely don't take the nihilistic and exclusionary view that mainly gets popped around in neo-advaita.
It seems to me like while we all have similar human bodies, there are vastly different levels of spiritual evolution being expressed in the human family.
I was born in a state of considerable dispassion/vairagya. I was already tired of the world when I was a child, and as I reached 12/13 years old and drugs and alcohol became readily available, the only way I knew to seek solace from the unpleasant earthly state of affairs was to numb it out with intoxicants as much as possible.
I saw the paths commonly available to human beings as they grow up: success at school or academics, generating wealth, romantic interests & building a family, organized religion, and so on, and none of them interested me whatsoever. So I sank into nihilism and hedonism.
It wasn't until I found the spiritual path (in fact until I found AYP) that finally I knew what I was here to do. I felt this deep resonating sense and joy in my heart of ahh...! Now I know the reason for my own unwanted birth!
It seems to me that many of the people on the planet are deeply, almost inextricably identified with their roles, and my sense is that this isn't a bad thing, there's no need for them to wake up till they are ready, their souls are just in a stage of evolution where they are learning lessons related to identification with the material plane.
In many cases, and certainly mine, it's the angel of suffering who brings a fire of anguish to wake us from identification with our roles. I believe that as the soul evolves it actually gets a deeper and deeper capacity for suffering, and increased sensitivity, and this manifests in the human incarnation as a heightened sensitivity to the hellishness and pain of this world.
While this can cause madness, suicide, agony and massively deranged and exacerbated forms of egotism, it's also the fuel required to drive us toward spiritual awakening.
My role is a giving and taking, but as you evolve spiritually you can't avoid giving, it's a natural consequence of your state. I don't have any great claims to make about what I've done for the world, but as a result of my own state I'm extremely calm and peaceful, it's very rare for me to harbor any anger or resentments, I'm often in a state of joy and love, I'm not emotionally reactive & non-judgemental, I'm guided by my intuition of what's right rather than by what my ego wants... and so on.
You won't find some great saint here, and I'm not trying to paint myself as being so wonderful (I have a ton of work to do, and many vasanas and deep flaws) but I think the energy one single human spreads in the world by being just a little more joyful, a little more calm, a little more loving... can start an incomprehensible chain of positive consequences.
The roles I play: lover, son, employee & business-man, and so on, are generally the mirrors which show me myself, warts and all, and therefore help me to evolve.
I feel that we have spiritual contracts of love with those who we spend the most time with, day to day - colleagues, parents, friends, lovers. These are the people who whilst they provide much of the joy in our lives, they also are the clearest mirrors of our issues and problems.
It's like Adyashanti says: "If you think you're so enlightened, spend a week with your parents". I'd add: or husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/boss/sister and so on. |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Jun 26 2013 4:01:20 PM |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Jun 26 2013 : 9:43:09 PM
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The archetypal function of fulfilling a "role" is an expression of the diversity of creation, and to me, there is free will in choosing one's role, and therefore, one's destiny on Earth. I'm currently discovering my professional role in society--as an office worker, a musician, a writer, etc. I have the choice which roles to expand and emphasize.
This post reminds me of something I read from Parahamsa Yogananda. Essentially, he said that a person comes into this life with about 25% flexibility/free will. The other 75% is determined by the karma of past lives. I like that ratio, and it fits my experience.
Also, probably my favorite metaphor for this kind of topic is that of surfing. The surfer has zero control over the wave, but there is some freedom and maneuverability to make small movements on the wave's surface. Similarly, the momentum of the karmic propulsion is probably unstoppable, but we can balance on its flow. We can shuck and jive, shimmy and shake, and make small gyrations on top of this massive, immutable foundation beneath us.
So, to deny the small freedom in altering or choosing one's role (in essence, to deny free will) is very dangerous to me. The danger lies in falling into a robotic conformity in which someone is hypnotized by the current fashion of the masses (including spiritual trends). Also, there is danger in believing that one has completely become "divine will"--the illusion of attainment. The ability to think individually and creatively, and to maintain a personal relationship with divinity on an individual basis, is what makes humans non-robotic, non-mechanical, and unique. The spiritual masters and leaders who paved the way often used their will power to go against the grain of the popular masses. They attuned their personal will with divine will.
Free will does not imply use of control (or, at least not "absolute" control). Free will implies adaptation, cooperation, and collaboration, in which there are elements of "partial" control.
That is why AYP calls it "active" surrender. There are ingredients of choice, effort, and devotion. |
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Jun 26 2013 : 11:17:19 PM
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Hi Carson,
Disclaimer - in my current, constantly shifting experience, any stated perspective can rapidly change. 
When you say "roles", I assume you are talking about the different hats we wear as workers, spouses, parents, spiritual seekers, etc. Yes? If so, you're talking about the actions we perform in all such roles from my perspective. Whether I function as a professional, a wife, a mother, a friend or daughter, actions determine the role; like one of those movies where the same actor plays multiple roles. It is only when the actor starts believing that he is all those different characters that conflict arises ("Am I a good mother?", "I want to be a good husband.", etc). It is about how "heavily" we carry these roles and how deeply we identify with them. That heavy sense of responsibility and ownership is what weighs us down, where we may believe we are entirely indispensable to our family, our spouse, our children, or the whole world.
As you say, there cannot be a giver without there being a receiver. How can we know that it was not simply because the receiver needed something that the giver happened to show up? In my profession, I'm regularly told I saved someone's life, which is entirely ludicrous. Nobody can ever save anybody else! It arises from being thrown together by mysterious forces, where the help needed my body-mind to reach someone else. For me to be there at that place at that time, an infinite chain of events occurred across the universe. If I didn't happen to be there, it would find another body-mind, imperceptibly shifting that entire chain of events. In one way or another, the person needing help will get it. Ram Dass calls it, "The left hand giving to the right." Who is the giver and who the receiver?
"Lightening" the load of identification with these roles doesn't mean we sit still and get paralyzed. We still act, switching hats as we go. But the difference is that we are aware these are hats. And when I swap my professional hat for the mommy hat, the script changes, that's all. I may be aware I'm only acting or the role might be so interesting that I get absorbed in it.. It's all good. When I'm aware, I see that the script is clever and unpredictable, magically appearing in the moment at the able director's cue and determined by known and unknown phenomena of the previous moment. As the actor, I simply play my part, willing to read from the script appearing here and now. When I get absorbed as the role, I want control over it, and think I have choices.. But.. Even that identification, the wanting of control and choices is exactly what the director wants. 
If we operate from the standpoint that God is all there is, there is only Divine Will. In that framework, it is that will that makes us believe we have our own "free" will. In my perspective, "self-effort" on the spiritual path (which is so highly valued and desired) is Grace masquerading as individual effort. Nothing operates or can operate "outside" of Divine Will.
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Edited by - kami on Jun 27 2013 06:56:18 AM |
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jeff
USA
971 Posts |
Posted - Jun 27 2013 : 11:23:12 AM
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Hi Carson,
Thank you for the profound and insightful post. I would agree that your concept directly relates to the four types of energy thread. To me, your description relates to and explains light/energy of the 3rd type in the other thread.
What you call giver/taker, (for people familiar with computing), I would describe more as peer to peer networking, where each person also has a direct connection to the "cloud" (divine). As each of us increase our clarity, our connection to the light (non-dual consciousness) expands. Our "processing power" then expands and then we become a stronger node on the peer to peer network. Additionally, though our interactions with others we can expand (or shrink) the richness of the network (and clarity) for both ourselves and other people. The light and energy flows through the network from person to person. The greater the clarity, the more of the light that flows through to everyone that the person is "connected" to. At the level of human duality we are not "islands" as many believe, but really all in it together, raising (or lowering) the collective whole. As we go even deeper and we find that we truly are "one".
On the topic of "free will", for me it depends on your definition of the concept. I would say that our level of choice is dependent on our relative clarity of mind. At lower levels, it is mostly automated (ego) responses. As we drop issues and fears, our ability to choose and possible options of choice expand. With enough clarity, our options can be pretty flexible, but ultimately they are still in a framework of possible options.
Best wishes, Jeff
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Jun 27 2013 : 3:04:19 PM
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Thank you all for sharing your perspectives! Fantastic food for thought/no thought here in my opinion.
As Life often does, when we put out an intention to know, Life gives us opportunities to investigate. This time is no exception.
Last night as I got into bed my wife turned on the TV. And who do I see sharing himself on a public access station but Amit Goswami (http://www.amitgoswami.org/). And what is he sharing? He's sharing the scientific data that quantum science has compiled proving we are all one consciousness. And what does he decide to elaborate on? Well free will and the role of the individual with regards to the whole of course!
I didn't get much sleep last night. 
Similar to what Bodhi mentions above that Yogananda says, Amit says that there is free will in "the little things" like picking a flavor of ice cream... but when it comes to "the big things" like choosing to take flight unaided, these things are much harder to "choose." He says that what is experienced is a result of a small amount of individual choice but in large part is the result of the decisions/beliefs of 'collective consciousness.'
Too much was said for me to attempt to reiterate here, but it was absorbed in a way that crushed all need to continue to investigate... it's like the answer is known in my heart, but my head doesn't know how to verbalize it (yet?). I'm okay with that.
Much love to you all. 
Carson |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jun 28 2013 : 11:14:35 AM
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I realised I am the instrument and not the music, or the composer.
That the music is simply played through me and I shall be the perfect instrument by ensuring there are no broken strings, wet reeds or sticky valves.
I see my role as only being the servant of that. The music plays even if I cannot hear it or take part in its production. When I add my sound to the whole I become one with it, that is so far from just being bliss, it is total consummation.
I am an instrument, I do not know and will never know the sound I make individually. I only know to make myself the best instrument I can be, to be utterly transparent. The more I do that through cleansing and single pointed focus the quicker I join the orchestra.
There is no need to search for a role, we are the instruments , through us the music is played. That is all that is needed. Seek nothing except to be the perfect vessel, to produce the purest tone. |
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Jun 28 2013 : 11:35:06 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
I realised I am the instrument and not the music, or the composer.
That the music is simply played through me and I shall be the perfect instrument by ensuring there are no broken strings, wet reeds or sticky valves.
I see my role as only being the servant of that. The music plays even if I cannot hear it or take part in its production. When I add my sound to the whole I become one with it, that is so far from just being bliss, it is total consummation.
I am an instrument, I do not know and will never know the sound I make individually. I only know to make myself the best instrument I can be, to be utterly transparent. The more I do that through cleansing and single pointed focus the quicker I join the orchestra.
There is no need to search for a role, we are the instruments , through us the music is played. That is all that is needed. Seek nothing except to be the perfect vessel, to produce the purest tone.
Beautiful. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Jun 28 2013 : 7:17:54 PM
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Karl's splendid musical metaphor of being a divine instrument reminds me of this passage from the Bible:
1 Corinthians 6:19
"You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own."
Let the music play. |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Jun 29 2013 : 05:16:14 AM
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Roles
I recall the period in my life back in the early '90s leading up to the "ascent of the soul" experience (January '95) that mystically shifted my relationship to all social roles, and upended my sense of doership, and began my conscious journey of conserving sexual energy for spiritual transformation. My wife and I were coming to terms with the prospect of a future without raising children of our own. My wife's career was on the rise, my sense of concern about having a professional career of my own was declining.
As I recall, it was in '94 when, on the recommendation of a dear friend, that I read the novel, Ishmeal. That novel takes a very broad, long view of the relationship between human civilization and our uncivilized hunter/gatherer ancestors who lived closer to the natural ecosystem, like the great apes. The advent of organized agriculture was the beginning of a split between humanity and ecology -- we became "takers" -- all of us together as a human community, except for a few remnants of "primitive" hunter, gatherer culture. I would say that book influenced me to be less identified with such modern constructions as career, even as I tried to be supportive of my wife's career path as a professor of education.
A few weeks ago, just after the Michigan AYP retreat, my wife had a hysterectomy, and in her recovery phase, I spent almost all of my time here in her house with her, taking the role of a nurse, getting ice, and meds, and food. We also watched some movies together, and one of those movies was, by her choice, Instinct ('99, now free on Youtube) with Anthony Hopkins playing a anthropologist named Ishmael who lived harmoniously with the great apes in an African jungle, but who was brought back to the US on murder charges after rogue game wardens attacked his ape friends, and he fought back. In watching the movie, it soon became obvious that it was inspired by the book, Ishmeal, and it renewed my fascination with the author's philosophical perspective of deep ecology which shockingly exposes our civilized illusions of control.
Lately, one of my favorite scripture verses has Jesus saying, "Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." Jesus compares the perfection of God to the sun and the rain, that offer their life energy equally to the good and the bad, the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). To be like the sun and the rain, giving without discrimination: that is deep ecology, and that is the depth of what it means to be "children of God," or in divine union, or dwelling in non-dual awareness. That is finding our identity with the "giver."
When we are in this union, we take our roles lightly. So it is that St Paul writes: "...those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them."
I do not take this to mean that there is a biblical apocalypse coming as literalists might imagine with the sun quitting its job. I do not expect the sun to quit any time soon. No, I experience "the end" everyday as part of being in the world as if not in the world. The end as present experience, here and now.
My yoga practices are part of my having an "as if" relationship with my roles in the world. These role performances are all glaringly imperfect, seen in the light of divine perfection, and that is to be expected and accepted as it is, even as we strive to live by our best guidance. In my meditation and self-inquiry practices, there is a cycle of returning to a sense of being in intimate relationship with the perfection that in AYP we call pure bliss consciousness. It is simple awareness, lovingly, knowingly radiating into/through our lives. Yes, permeating our imperfect role performances, in a world where we all are participants in "taker" civilization.
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jun 29 2013 : 8:22:02 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bodhi Tree
Karl's splendid musical metaphor of being a divine instrument reminds me of this passage from the Bible:
1 Corinthians 6:19
"You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own."
Let the music play.
if I had read that a few months ago I would not have understood its meaning. Its as if there are little footlights along the path. You cannot see them until you reach them. They are not so much guides as confirmation.
Most seem pretty inscrutable. They contain no instruction in themselves so they must be way markers. In other words the path was never supposed to be easy to find, or at least you can't just jump to a point without having walked the rest of the path to that point. No shortcuts. 
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Discussing our Roles
