So, I had this thought recently. Just sharing….every interaction we have is our life…it’s not some future or past, it’s right now. (If that makes sense 😌) The day to day small talk with strangers, the mundane…taking care of our bodies and spaces is all our life. It’s not something to get through for something better. Thanks, Shiv for sharing your ideas and experiences. It helps me to realize we are sharing this experience on the planet, spinning around, hurtling through space TOGETHER no matter what axis horizontal, vertical, diagonal or spiral.💚
🤔 I'm reminded of Goswami's "DO-BE-DO-BE-DO-BE-DO"
I would have said just the inhale-exhale of Life Living Itself in form - except what the hell kind of "form" is this anyway?!*
Hypercapitalist unfree freefall/free-for-all market so-called contemporary "society" (& I use the term lightly!).
I hope at least you're publishing all these descriptions in serial Advaitaholics Anonymous volumes, (beats playing the GUI-tar on the MTV).
*Welcome to our world! With people born as female &/or living as women attempting to "have it all" since the '80's, what do we have to show for it?
Higher rates of cardiac disease & lung cancer while still earning 81¢ on the dollar compared with people born as male or/& living as men! A true race to the bottom, unfortunately.
Ironically, traditions seem to have forgotten this diagonal path. And yet, it's right there in the ancient scriptures. The Isha Upanishad reminds us:
"In dark night live those for whom The world without alone is real; in night Darker still, for whom the world within Alone is real. The first leads to a life Of action, the second to a life of meditation. But those who combine action with meditation Cross the sea of death through action And enter into immortality Through the practice of meditation. So have we heard from the wise."
It even uses the same metaphor you did - crossing the sea. Notice that is says in a night "darker still" for those who retreat into only the inner world of meditation. The diagonal path IS the path.
This why I gravitated to Tantra, the path of the householder, after having stumbled first upon Advaita Vedanta to explain the revelations that I was graced with. I wasn't wanting to renounce the world as illusory and then stopping giving a shit about what happened in it, after all my two sons are a part of it.
They are very real to me and I would like them to have a good future. The only way I see forward is to use the wisdom attained through deeds to better the world rather than to renounce it as unreal.
This was relatable and honest on every level. I love the analogy of swimming and the third “diagonal” movement. It is certainly not an easy path as you mentioned because one can easily get caught up in feelings of contradiction, hypocrisy, doubt, and even self-criticism as they try to move “diagonally.” As you brilliantly pointed out, there’s no guide. Only trial and error. And learning that the horizontal and vertical can become something entirely new when insight and relationship come together. I find that the difficulty exists from how the awakening arises from its beginning. Because for most modern seekers the insights were borrowed and not self-discovered in the midst of living. This is something I’ve written about in a recent piece, that I think people would find useful.
Yes and most spiritual rhetoric tends to elevate the absolute over the relative considering the latter a foregone conclusion rather than providing a map for integrating the two movements and intelligently navigating them. At best they provide some generic pointers like “living a life of service” and being “compassionate to all beings”. But these are as useless as the commandments because they lack nuance and applicability in real world scenarios. And most people who try to apply them as general truths tend to succumb to a tepid kind of passivity that they try and pass off as “inner peace”.
I'd say you are a modern mystic Shiv. I can relate to this diagonal path you speak of, one the one hand, I am tired of this capitalist world I live in, the accumulation of things, for what exactly? On the other hand, I am tired of all this spirituality, non duality etc, I feel like I am in no mans land, neither here nor there, yet here I am, moving forward (albeit diagonally).
So, I had this thought recently. Just sharing….every interaction we have is our life…it’s not some future or past, it’s right now. (If that makes sense 😌) The day to day small talk with strangers, the mundane…taking care of our bodies and spaces is all our life. It’s not something to get through for something better. Thanks, Shiv for sharing your ideas and experiences. It helps me to realize we are sharing this experience on the planet, spinning around, hurtling through space TOGETHER no matter what axis horizontal, vertical, diagonal or spiral.💚
🤔 I'm reminded of Goswami's "DO-BE-DO-BE-DO-BE-DO"
I would have said just the inhale-exhale of Life Living Itself in form - except what the hell kind of "form" is this anyway?!*
Hypercapitalist unfree freefall/free-for-all market so-called contemporary "society" (& I use the term lightly!).
I hope at least you're publishing all these descriptions in serial Advaitaholics Anonymous volumes, (beats playing the GUI-tar on the MTV).
*Welcome to our world! With people born as female &/or living as women attempting to "have it all" since the '80's, what do we have to show for it?
Higher rates of cardiac disease & lung cancer while still earning 81¢ on the dollar compared with people born as male or/& living as men! A true race to the bottom, unfortunately.
I think that ‘DO-BE-DO-BE’ is the essence of the Shiv’s diagonal path :).
Thanks!
Ironically, traditions seem to have forgotten this diagonal path. And yet, it's right there in the ancient scriptures. The Isha Upanishad reminds us:
"In dark night live those for whom The world without alone is real; in night Darker still, for whom the world within Alone is real. The first leads to a life Of action, the second to a life of meditation. But those who combine action with meditation Cross the sea of death through action And enter into immortality Through the practice of meditation. So have we heard from the wise."
It even uses the same metaphor you did - crossing the sea. Notice that is says in a night "darker still" for those who retreat into only the inner world of meditation. The diagonal path IS the path.
Yes the coincidence is remarkable yet unsurprising. Those of us who are “plugged in” are all pulling from the same fundamental substrate
This why I gravitated to Tantra, the path of the householder, after having stumbled first upon Advaita Vedanta to explain the revelations that I was graced with. I wasn't wanting to renounce the world as illusory and then stopping giving a shit about what happened in it, after all my two sons are a part of it.
They are very real to me and I would like them to have a good future. The only way I see forward is to use the wisdom attained through deeds to better the world rather than to renounce it as unreal.
Amen, brother. It’s an odd time to be a mystic, but a beautiful one too.
Confucius say : “May you live in interesting times.”
Interesting is an understatement.
This was relatable and honest on every level. I love the analogy of swimming and the third “diagonal” movement. It is certainly not an easy path as you mentioned because one can easily get caught up in feelings of contradiction, hypocrisy, doubt, and even self-criticism as they try to move “diagonally.” As you brilliantly pointed out, there’s no guide. Only trial and error. And learning that the horizontal and vertical can become something entirely new when insight and relationship come together. I find that the difficulty exists from how the awakening arises from its beginning. Because for most modern seekers the insights were borrowed and not self-discovered in the midst of living. This is something I’ve written about in a recent piece, that I think people would find useful.
Yes and most spiritual rhetoric tends to elevate the absolute over the relative considering the latter a foregone conclusion rather than providing a map for integrating the two movements and intelligently navigating them. At best they provide some generic pointers like “living a life of service” and being “compassionate to all beings”. But these are as useless as the commandments because they lack nuance and applicability in real world scenarios. And most people who try to apply them as general truths tend to succumb to a tepid kind of passivity that they try and pass off as “inner peace”.
I'd say you are a modern mystic Shiv. I can relate to this diagonal path you speak of, one the one hand, I am tired of this capitalist world I live in, the accumulation of things, for what exactly? On the other hand, I am tired of all this spirituality, non duality etc, I feel like I am in no mans land, neither here nor there, yet here I am, moving forward (albeit diagonally).