Filthy Enlightenment
On being a metaphysically kinky Angel-Demon in a Hell-Heaven made of Changeless Mystery
Men: Brothers of the Ever Innocent Heart begins soon. Apply here before the end of July if you feel called to experience the medicine of Radical Honesty with a band of mystical brothers.
The realization of Changelessness hit me on a new level a few days ago, during a satsang with Peter Brown…
Through all my pain and sorrow and fear and struggle these past few months…
The *ACTUAL NATURE* of my *BEING* did not change.
Not one iota.
*WHAT THIS MOMENT IS ACTUALLY MADE OF*, never changes.
We’re so used to looking at the content of experience, that we ironically overlook the most miraculous thing of all:
The context.
And what is the context?
It is far more astounding than anything that can be compressed into human language.
The ancients called it “God,” “Tao,” “Brahman,” “Allah,” “Buddha-nature,” “Great Spirit,” and a thousand other names…
It is the Changeless Mystery that all of this is made of.
It is the Absolute Stillness that holds and enfolds infinite universes.
The Grand Joke
The Grand Joke is that it is so utterly close to us, and so utterly simple…
That we can easily go our entire lives without consciously noticing it.
Yet it is the source of true fulfillment.
Nothing in my life is more precious to me, than my relationship with the Changeless.
You might be thinking, “But wait, if this Changeless Essence is so great, why have you been suffering so much recently, Jordan?”
Good question. That’s certainly a gnarly riddle I’ve been puzzling over for months. Here’s my take:
We like to romanticize “enlightenment” as some kind of destination that ends all suffering, inducing a state of perma-bliss.
But the truth, near as I have gathered, is far different.
There is no future destination of “enlightenment.”
“Enlightenment” is simply another word for Reality, for Nature, for what we always, already *are*.
This is why the sages say, “Consciousness is already enlightened.”
“Consciousness,” too, is just another word for Reality, Nature, Being, Mystery.
“Conscious-ness” — think about it. A funny word that basically indicates, “Some kind of mysterious ‘substance’ that is somehow aware of itself.”
That’s what reality is.
A mysterious, indivisible ‘substance’ that is somehow aware of itself.
It is not only aware of itself, though.
It is also infinitely powerful, infinitely intelligent, and infinitely loving…
(Though not in any way we can mentally comprehend.)
I mean, look around:
In each nanosecond, an infinite multiverse is springing forth out of *absolute nothingness*, rendering in perfect HD clarity… (Power)
Numberless factors, threads, details, and features are constantly being seamlessly synchronized and orchestrated to present to you the bottomless richness of the Now moment… (Intelligence)
And it is all *absolutely allowed* to be exactly what it *is*. (Love)
We typically overlook 99.99% of the vibrant texture and detail that constantly surrounds us, but when you really stop and stare for a while at *anything* — tree, toilet, squirrel, wallpaper…
And *really* ask yourself:
“What actually *is* this phenomenon?
*Where* is it?
*How* did it get here?
*What* is it made of?
What does *not* *ever* change, even as this scene I’m looking at seems to (subtly) shift?
What actually *is* experience itself?”
You rapidly come into direct contact with the Mystery of Being.
To Bake An Apple Pie
To explain what *anything* *actually* *is*…
You would have to explain what *everything* is.
“In order to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe,” as Carl Sagan put it.
Except it’s not just the universe that you’d have to invent…
You’d have to first invent the All:
All of Creation, with its infinite universes and dimensions, as well as the Primordial Emptiness that gave rise to Creation.
To explain what *anything* *actually* *is*…
You would have to explain what *everything* is.
And no one can do that.
Not even the Mystery itself.
Even *IT* seems not to know its own deepest secret.
And yet…
It does know itself.
With unbelievable, unspeakable intimacy.
It knows itself as these hieroglyphs your mind is decoding now.
It knows itself as Changeless Infinity.
As Pure Loving Intelligence.
“The Great Completion,” as it’s called in Dzogchen.
It knows itself…
And yet it *loves* to forget itself…
It loves to pretend *not* to know what it is…
It loves to pretend to be silly humans and all other types of creatures…
Roaming around aimlessly in the darkness, looking for a light switch…
It loves the excitement and drama and ecstasy and agony of this game…
This game of exploration, of forgetting and remembering, of endlessly closing and opening to itself…
Like Jed McKenna says, it’s like a giant puppy galavanting around enthusiastically, adventuring within its own Self…
Deep down, it never *entirely* forgets its True Changeless Nature.
There is always a seed of remembrance, planted somewhere deep in the soil of every being, so that IT can find its way back…
“Return is the motion of Tao.”
As sure as the sun rises, it always finds its way back.
You Know This
Deep down, you know what I’m talking about.
You know what I’m pointing at.
It can’t be said in words or grasped by the mind, but on some level…
*You feel it*.
Because you *are* it.
You *are* the Changeless Mystery of Being.
In essence, you are nothing else whatsoever.
None of us are.
“Tat Tvam Asi”:
Thou Art *THAT*.
You *are* that Great Completion.
You have *absolutely no hope* of being anything else.
And this is the best news I could give you — the greatest gift I ever received.
It’s a done deal.
*THIS* *IS*.
And YOU are IT.
This Will and Won’t Solve Your Problems
On one level, to directly *see* this reality for yourself, solves all your “problems”…
Because you realize that “problems” do not *fundamentally* exist…
*Changeless Perfection Is.* End of story.
On another level, this direct seeing is absolutely *NOT* a magical solution to all your problems.
You still have to go through the shit.
You still have to “chop wood and carry water.”
It’s still going to hurt a lot sometimes — likely even more so, because you become more sensitive, more open to it, more intimate with it.
Your heart gradually becomes unguarded, so you increasingly feel it ALL…
Though your knowing and trust in IT grants you a certain level of serenity…
You stop resisting so much, allow energies to flow through, making the pain more tolerable, even beautiful.
“Hurts more, bothers you less,” as Ken Wilber puts it.
Just When…
Yet just when you feel like you’re getting the hang of it…
You just might *forget* IT to a great extent, all over again…
Life always finds a way to trigger and clean out your oldest, deepest stuff…
And in response to those triggers, the mind may conjure up that same old hellish prison of suffering…
“What’s coming, is going.”
The pain has to come to the surface, into the light of aware-presence, to be accepted, loved, and healed.
Yet in that hellish prison of suffering, you can barely feel the Presence of God anymore.
The Perfection that once seemed so close, becomes more like a precious memory that you cling to for dear life.
It’s easy to feel like the Mystery has abandoned you again, or betrayed you.
I’ve definitely felt this a lot these past few months.
And yet…
It hasn’t.
It never does.
It can’t.
All the while, again, *nothing has fundamentally changed*.
You *are* that Mystery.
You might have felt like you were ricocheting around, high as a golden eagle one moment, then suddenly lower than ayahuasca diarrhea in an old maloca toilet…
Yet all the while…
Your essence remained unmoving.
Your precious worth forever sealed.
Exactly as special and not-special as every other being.
A done deal.
Then…
Then one day, in the midst of the hellish suffering, something cracks open again…
You’re listening to Eckhart Tolle, or attending a Peter Brown satsang, when suddenly…
It freshly hits you.
A direct realization.
Changelessness.
The poignant, gossamer joy of total hopelessness.
The sweet liberation of having absolutely no goddamn chance of being anywhere or anything else.
The freedom of being totally fucked.
Totally nailed by IT, as IT.
“I am what I’ve always been, and ever shall I be.”
At the bottom of hell…
You once again find that dusty old trapdoor…
To heaven.
An Angel-Demon in Hell-Heaven
Yet this time around, you’re a little wiser…
You’re not expecting endless fairies and rainbows…
You’re not expecting to sprout angel wings and sprinkle light-worker charm-dust on everything…
You know that human life is fucking hard.
You know you signed up for an intense “Kali Yuga surf lesson” this time around.
And you know you fucking like it that way.
You know you’re actually kinda freaky that way.
Metaphysically kinky.
An existential sado-masochist.
Creation would be boring if it were all strawberry fields and kumbaya drum-circles.
“In heaven, all the interesting people are missing,” Nietzsche said.
So, no…
This time around…
You’re not expecting God to solve all your problems…
You’re not expecting an eternity of bliss…
This time…
You know you’re an…
Angel-Demon.
You know you’re in…
Hell-Heaven.
And you know…
You fucking like it that way.
——
——
Epilogue
I don’t want to wrap things up too neat-and-tidy here.
Don’t wanna pretend that I attended this recent Peter Brown satsang and BAM!…
Suddenly I’m out of the muck.
Or now perpetually able to fully embrace the Hell-Heaven that is this Creation…
(Or at least “Hell-Heaven” is a good name for this particular dualistic, contrast-based plane of Infinite Creation we’re presently ‘on.’ Some other dimensions may be and likely are far less dualistic.)
Fuck no.
I know there’s going to be more struggle.
I still feel that same old knot of suffering in my chest.
The knot that has been oozing so fucking much these past few months…
In this moment, I can glimpse how the pain has been aging this JCB-vessel like a fine whiskey…
I can feel the new levels of resilience, inner nobility, humility, and grounded compassion that have been dropping in…
But that doesn’t mean it didn’t fucking hurt.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t hurting now.
That doesn’t mean it won’t continue to hurt, again and again and again…
The aching pain akin to the flame and spice that renders the curry a true delicacy…
No…
It’s going to keep hurting.
But perhaps…
I have fewer illusions about that now.
Fewer illusions that once I get “there,” it will be “better” than “here.”
Changelessness.
The *TOTALITY*…
Of what I *ACTUALLY* *AM*…
Is Here Now —
Right
Fucking
*NOW*.
I have absolutely no hope of changing that fact.
So if I cannot be okay exactly NOW…
I’ll never be okay.
No matter what THIS *looks* like…
*Nothing has fundamentally changed.*
This, perhaps, I now see more clearly.
I feel the knowing of it in my body, as a kind of primordial relaxation.
A sacred cellular sigh of relief.
There is absolutely nowhere to get to.
There is *no possibility* of getting anywhere.
It is utterly *futile* to try to be *anything* else.
The situation is *completely hopeless*.
…
…
…
Who knew hopelessness could feel so much like Home?
: )
Love,
J
The Hell part is perhaps woven via karma. Karma itself is perhaps a game that the Heaven part chose because (in the words of Alan Watts) 'going far-out is fun'.