Riffin' On the White Whale

“Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise in irreligion- at that time I descend Myself. 4.7 Bhagavad Gita Transcendental Knowledge

As odd as it is to say within the context of “spirituality”, God, and, particularly, emanations Of, is pretty anti-social.

No, seriously. Up until a point within my life, as of late, I would’ve been of an inclination/disposition to annotate such a crass statement with some sort of apologetic explanation of the obvious need humans have for the very idea of divinity, as well as stressed the sheer amount of good that religion has done across time to march us pervasively towards an abundance of human dignity by way of a robust appreciation of human rights… but, nonetheless…

And I get it now. In transcendental terms, it’s because the template for civilization itself is an enigmatic/spiritual one. These societies, governed by laws meant to milk justice as if it’s the very cosmic tit upon which our survival is contingent… these things are impressive. They spiritually actualize people and somewhat shape what their cosmic destiny really becomes, the social frameworks and institutions that substantiate this country and its cultural modalities… which, in turn, shapes the face of eternity somewhat.

If you peer deeply into the philosophical subtext of the social ritual of marriage from a religious-spiritual vantage point, if you peer into how it is framed/defined by the very gatekeepers of the ritual, those certified to sanctify the union, you realize that it is a covenant some of the consequences of which shape eternal consequence; there is some notion that some of the ties we have definitely do mean important things to the afterlife…that we are still bound to our partner in a special way…our families in a different kind of special way… our friends yet another… these degrees of individuation don’t simply melt away in the afterlife…they aren’t exclusive with the bliss and utter Oneness we associate with our conceptions of what await.

Which is to say, in so many words, to not honor/allow gay marriage is like… the kind of thing that causes natural disasters and plagues. Disease. And if that seems like the universe being as shitty as a hormonal 13 yr old jacked up on the Eminem cd in his discman, these are the things that bring the cream to the top, as savage as it is to say, and that spontaneously restructure…civilizations/societies. Chaos brings competent problem-solvers to the forefront, and singularly exceptional people tend to exhibit common behavior traits, a sort of “template” for general success not far removed from what Eastern traditions call enlightenment, and the West could regard as “salvation” if it wasn’t somehow entirely taboo/creepy to proclaim that you’ve been saved/achieved salvation… *man how did they mess everything up so bad?*

As in, across time, humans are marching towards progressively progressive behavior…and it’s largely because of how steeply we’ve conquered disease and social issues, at least here in America. Our increased quality of life, coupled with advances in technology, have really amounted to brilliance…the kids are smarter than before. Hilariously, the school system is set up justttt so that the template level of efficacy won’t show up in any of the scholarly conceptions/metrics, will be taken entirely for granted, the kids won’t have the ability to get a firm sense of how the past actually was even 10 years prior until they are legally old enough to go meet those people at a bar somewhere, and everyone is going to continue mostly sucking, or thinking that they are mostly incompetent/suck until they have some sort of self-care revolution in the little free time they have in their 30’s.

If you’ve been rolling with Eastern conceptions long enough, you know that those cats describe each and every moment, positive or negative, as being utterly part of a universal process of determinism that has our best interests in mind. The great teachers nearly create an aversion to this (I’m looking at you Don Juan/Carlos Casteneda) as it truly is the job of the Yogi to use will to allay suffering, not weather storms gracefully…we’re supposed to be cold-blooded assassins, some real Jason Bourne types… not say “well everything always works out, but I don’t really know what you should be doing to lean into that aspect of the flow of phenomena…” but nonetheless, that’s what these crazy “there is only one event horizon, and it’s the one all of my desires have been secretly about achieving, it’s the taste of tastes, the champagne of beers, and I’m f*ckin’ goin’ there now man, f*ckin’ forever…” types do, they define everything as pretty ok in terms of determinism and then hope you’ll be inspired enough to use free-will to somehow break free and do a more efficient job of it by way of your own cunning/red-hot scathing desires.

In such a system, there’s really nothing too exciting happening. You realize that everything boils down to the stories of people…it’s about individuals overcoming some sort of lack that is driving them towards the spontaneous emergence of suffering in their life; they’ve yet to experience some transcendental motif moment that many have framed in different terms, I adore “self-actualization”, that society is supposed to induce with its comprehensive efforts, and then keep inducing, somewhere along the way. In regards to young adulthood…it’s basically keep yourself alive until this moment.

See how quickly we yo-yo’ed there from there is not much happening to…young adulthood is a volatile and very difficult time, and effort/care needs to be taken at the social level on behalf of some sort of compassionate watchdogs simply to assure etc. ?

Still, there’s not much happening, actually. Like… not to belittle the real and horrible issues we have with real terrorists… but there’s like… no terrorists on the cusp of procuring nuclear weaponry…no crazy horrible mutated viral strain that’s going to attack the water supply…every issue facing us will have a solution within reach within the boundlessness of Infinity, and a compassionate, covenant-esque way of working towards said solution, day in and day out.

And that covenant, if you do a lot of looking around and deep analysis of the frameworks, seems to be society itself. And that’s to be enough. And largely, when enlightenment is achieved…it is enough! Society is largely seen as a great source of solace/comfort through the Transcendental lens…

And still, periods of irreligiosity do happen, and have recently happened. I grew up in one, I believe, personally, growing up a Catholic in the 1990’s. Truly, despite trying hard, I never got very far with Western religion. All, literally, all of the magic happened for me only after I turned towards Eastern traditions and their materials. While blissed out to have found what I eventually found, looking back, there is a red-hot malice somewhere that is not my own, palpable within me…I was supposed to have that as a child, in my parish, in the Catholic Church. It was not available.

I did have spiritual experiences in my life. Weird ones. Occult like events, the kind of events we of this day and age are paranoid that used to get people burned at the stake for in more primitive times, before society had made its advances, when we were moreso operating along the lines of the frameworks of western “religion”/dualistic frameworks. God showed for me directly and directed me towards reliable circles of spirituality, largely by way of the Grateful Dead and psychedelics and weird folks who had seen the insides of jail cells. And…it was an anti-social affair. There was great strife in my personal life, madness even, before I had things figured out/dialed-in, even legal repercussions. Financial repercussions. The whole nine yards.

Fortunately, I’m the man who sold the world, and I made off rich on the deal.

Seriously, how many get to brag that they were in the house when the house burned down? Usually they only allow you to scamper out with your tail between your legs…

You truly don’t know what’s going on out there in the world, but it’s usually a whole lot deeper, and a whole lot weirder than it’s supposed to/allowed to be. We know so many people, and yet there are nearly unspeakable and recurring experiences in our lives that only our most intimate circles ever are let in on. We’re all hiding from another, largely, the fact that we know. We know.

It’s the social engagement of it…which is an awkward thing, a thing, which is rare for me, I don’t necessarily yet know how to do off of the cuff/spontaneously…that I think is really going to be the next game changer. Our capacity to be expressive, perceptive, and receptive, even, of universal stimuli has never been higher than in this crazy day and age of media saturation…we know that we have some sort of seed, and it’s become the normative lifestyle in this country, and probably always was, to tend and nurture it, but it’s the effective engagement of it socially, the outing of it in a way that isn’t utterly awkward or simply ineffective/non-productive… the expressing of it/effective integration of it into our social personality, the person we choose to be, that will win the grail and restore the spirit to the rituals within the kingdom.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

For the glory GDF <3