Mutuality (3)
It seems to me that, if the relative fact that "everyone experiences things their own way" is generalized in an ungrounded and problematic way, we're getting just one step from the illusion that "everyone is on his own". And that is not a small thing, and it is dangerous.
Who and what is every awakened individual in their own deepest nature - without a deepest and widest communion? Autonomy and communion interweave at every level of spiritual awakening, from confusion to enlightenment. Modalities of this weaving may be and are different. There are many harmful authonomies, as well as many harmful communions; many harmonious autonomies, and many harmonious communions. But in the sphere of enlightenment strong autonomy and deep mutuality as directly cognized as nondual.
Specific teachers point out that before radical awakening in one's own nature it is impossible to realize real mutual harmony, because relationships are unavoidably infected with some egoism (meaning self-centeredness). But this shouldn't be such a problem, since egoic identity and egoic community can be quite healthy and constructive, when based on ethical and altruistic views. The same is true with real autonomy, which - according to the dualistic logic - is necessarily infected with some fixation to the confused self-image and other-image. There are two points to make here. First, relative harmony is indeed possible - and witnessed every day - on every level of unenlightened existence. Second, just as awakening enables true autonomy and true mutuality, so it uncovers their mystical identity, identity which was always in the very nature of every autonomy and every communion. For that reason, the two should go hand in hand in pre-enlightened stages of growth - without one, the other is disfunctional. Along with extreme negation of any self whatsoever, negation of deep universality in human experience is another product of "meditational blindness" or other forms of solipsism.
The development of human beings may be conceptualized in many useful ways. So we can differentiate the development of self from the development of specific inteligencies. The development of self, further on, may be analysed in three lines: personality, deeper psychic and ground-awareness. These three structures may be observed almost independently, so that development may be quite unpredictable. It is mistaken to expect that any of these three developments will necessarily influence the other two. However, self is an organic system, so that certain situations in the surface structure will serve as hindrance to access deeper psyche, just as a powerful realisation in ground-awareness will likely affect the other levels.
We are always in a situation of interiority and environment and relationship. So, wakefullness, wisdom and compassion are actively seeking for the one who will bear, express and share them amongst sentient beings. So, the awakened heart never stops. The West has indeed gone far with individualism and liberties, emancipating a great and new worldview, and in process has inevitably created some extreme variants. What we certainly don't need is to transplant those gone-astray variants into our contemplative efforts, where the Buddhist emphasis on self-effort will be understood as incommensurability of personal experiences, because in that case even the Buddha's own experiences of the basis and path and fruit, as much as the experiences of masters that came after him, mean nothing.
Who and what is every awakened individual in their own deepest nature - without a deepest and widest communion? Autonomy and communion interweave at every level of spiritual awakening, from confusion to enlightenment. Modalities of this weaving may be and are different. There are many harmful authonomies, as well as many harmful communions; many harmonious autonomies, and many harmonious communions. But in the sphere of enlightenment strong autonomy and deep mutuality as directly cognized as nondual.
Specific teachers point out that before radical awakening in one's own nature it is impossible to realize real mutual harmony, because relationships are unavoidably infected with some egoism (meaning self-centeredness). But this shouldn't be such a problem, since egoic identity and egoic community can be quite healthy and constructive, when based on ethical and altruistic views. The same is true with real autonomy, which - according to the dualistic logic - is necessarily infected with some fixation to the confused self-image and other-image. There are two points to make here. First, relative harmony is indeed possible - and witnessed every day - on every level of unenlightened existence. Second, just as awakening enables true autonomy and true mutuality, so it uncovers their mystical identity, identity which was always in the very nature of every autonomy and every communion. For that reason, the two should go hand in hand in pre-enlightened stages of growth - without one, the other is disfunctional. Along with extreme negation of any self whatsoever, negation of deep universality in human experience is another product of "meditational blindness" or other forms of solipsism.
The development of human beings may be conceptualized in many useful ways. So we can differentiate the development of self from the development of specific inteligencies. The development of self, further on, may be analysed in three lines: personality, deeper psychic and ground-awareness. These three structures may be observed almost independently, so that development may be quite unpredictable. It is mistaken to expect that any of these three developments will necessarily influence the other two. However, self is an organic system, so that certain situations in the surface structure will serve as hindrance to access deeper psyche, just as a powerful realisation in ground-awareness will likely affect the other levels.
We are always in a situation of interiority and environment and relationship. So, wakefullness, wisdom and compassion are actively seeking for the one who will bear, express and share them amongst sentient beings. So, the awakened heart never stops. The West has indeed gone far with individualism and liberties, emancipating a great and new worldview, and in process has inevitably created some extreme variants. What we certainly don't need is to transplant those gone-astray variants into our contemplative efforts, where the Buddhist emphasis on self-effort will be understood as incommensurability of personal experiences, because in that case even the Buddha's own experiences of the basis and path and fruit, as much as the experiences of masters that came after him, mean nothing.
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