By Michael Murphy, Ed.D.
THE CHALLENGE TO BE – A NOVEL IDEA
A person is embarked on a mythic journey to resolve the fundamental imbalance in the universe, to render that specific energetic manifestation which will resolve the final remaining universal tensions and allow the ultimate universal OM to be established.
This journey involves first clarifying “Who am I?” and “What do I want?” These inquiries capture within them the underlying questions, “What am I?” and, ultimately, “What is?”
Understanding what is reveals that “I” am a manifestation within the context of all that is, and as such connected, however indirectly, to all that is. Understanding “what do I want,” reveals the fundamental impulse or drive toward integration with all else. What I want is to return to the implicit All-One that in principle must exist, or at least at some time have existed. With this background I long to “go home.” Thus, the energetic manifestation known as “I” is fundamentally motivated to dissolve itself into a coherent immersion into all that is.
Pure focus on this process of integration – or, perhaps, reintegration – is the highest form of meditation; meditation is the focused process of deconstructing all barriers to complete energetic immersion in all that is. When I sit, or stand, or walk in meditation I remove all impediments to immersion in all that is, and in so doing relinquish all impulses to differentiate from the all-one.
Failure to achieve the highest state of meditative integrative focus is, again of necessity, by definition to “fall” short of this complete immersion and, however momentarily, through attachment to unify with some form of differentiation from the inherent oneness of all that is.
Thus the meditative journey is the effort to contribute all one can to the undifferentiated unification of all that is. This is the sacred journey, the persistent attempt to direct one’s energy to the process of reunification, and in the course of this attempt to confront all obstacles, all contributions to distraction and fragmentation, and to vanquish all such obstacles from consciousness, thus leaving only that which remains when all is relinquished, and that is pure, unmitigated Being.
Many struggles remain between our current state and the achievement of the goal of reunification. Indeed, these obstacles, and thus these struggles, can take a virtually infinite variety of forms, and the variety of these forms constitute the complex and conflicted history of human manifestation. Though many have said that to fail to learn from history is to be condemned to repeat it, it deems clear that even if one learns the lessons of history, even if one understands the dynamics of distraction and fragmentation, one is nonetheless likely to repeatedly facilitate the manifestation of these struggles, due to the seductiveness of familiarity, and the high degree of resolve and dedication that is required in every moment to maintain an unmitigated state of unification with all that is. It is such with existence that it is always easier to fail than to succeed. To attach to the transitory is always easier than to maintain an inviolate commitment to that which is not – the characterless, undefined essence of pure Being.
Yes, to commit with prefect resolve to that which is not is the highest form courage, though it is something that every dog or frog or bug completes flawlessly in every moment. But for us humans, with our highly developed capacity to see that which is other than ourselves, and to believe, however mistakenly, that it is other than ourselves, to fully identify with that which is characterized as absence requires a perfect willingness to relinquish that which is own-most to us, very sense of discrete existence. That act, that surrender of differentiation, is the highest form of heroism, and we will suffer again and again our loss on every level until we achieve it.
A NOVEL IDEA – THE COURAGE TO BE
THE CHALLENGE TO BE – A NOVEL IDEA
A person is embarked on a mythic journey to resolve the fundamental imbalance in the universe, to render that specific energetic manifestation which will resolve the final remaining universal tensions and allow the ultimate universal OM to be established.
This journey involves first clarifying “Who am I?” and “What do I want?” These inquiries capture within them the underlying questions, “What am I?” and, ultimately, “What is?”
Understanding what is reveals that “I” am a manifestation within the context of all that is, and as such connected, however indirectly, to all that is. Understanding “what do I want,” reveals the fundamental impulse or drive toward integration with all else. What I want is to return to the implicit All-One that in principle must exist, or at least at some time have existed. With this background I long to “go home.” Thus, the energetic manifestation known as “I” is fundamentally motivated to dissolve itself into a coherent immersion into all that is.
Pure focus on this process of integration – or, perhaps, reintegration – is the highest form of meditation; meditation is the focused process of deconstructing all barriers to complete energetic immersion in all that is. When I sit, or stand, or walk in meditation I remove all impediments to immersion in all that is, and in so doing relinquish all impulses to differentiate from the all-one.
Failure to achieve the highest state of meditative integrative focus is, again of necessity, by definition to “fall” short of this complete immersion and, however momentarily, through attachment to unify with some form of differentiation from the inherent oneness of all that is.
Thus the meditative journey is the effort to contribute all one can to the undifferentiated unification of all that is. This is the sacred journey, the persistent attempt to direct one’s energy to the process of reunification, and in the course of this attempt to confront all obstacles, all contributions to distraction and fragmentation, and to vanquish all such obstacles from consciousness, thus leaving only that which remains when all is relinquished, and that is pure, unmitigated Being.
Many struggles remain between our current state and the achievement of the goal of reunification. Indeed, these obstacles, and thus these struggles, can take a virtually infinite variety of forms, and the variety of these forms constitute the complex and conflicted history of human manifestation. Though many have said that to fail to learn from history is to be condemned to repeat it, it deems clear that even if one learns the lessons of history, even if one understands the dynamics of distraction and fragmentation, one is nonetheless likely to repeatedly facilitate the manifestation of these struggles, due to the seductiveness of familiarity, and the high degree of resolve and dedication that is required in every moment to maintain an unmitigated state of unification with all that is. It is such with existence that it is always easier to fail than to succeed. To attach to the transitory is always easier than to maintain an inviolate commitment to that which is not – the characterless, undefined essence of pure Being.
Yes, to commit with prefect resolve to that which is not is the highest form courage, though it is something that every dog or frog or bug completes flawlessly in every moment. But for us humans, with our highly developed capacity to see that which is other than ourselves, and to believe, however mistakenly, that it is other than ourselves, to fully identify with that which is characterized as absence requires a perfect willingness to relinquish that which is own-most to us, very sense of discrete existence. That act, that surrender of differentiation, is the highest form of heroism, and we will suffer again and again our loss on every level until we achieve it.