The Dao that can be spoken about is not the Dao, said Lao Tsu.
Socrates on a question about what for him was the supreme god he
answered: Pure Knowledge.
His answer corresponded to a much
older tradition, the one that Zoroaster presented, in which the
Ultimate is called Ahura Mazda, which means Enlightening
Knowledge.
René Descartes noticed that the only identification that you can
have as a human being is that you consciously think or know. In
another language, that of science, it is demonstrated that the world
around us is not what it seems.
People however are uneasy with uncertainties and they try to
capture it in stories: in myths. The emerging mythology is a
complex process in which psychological necessities mix with
social cohesion and with the interests of an ‘elite’ of the respective
culture. In this way a mythology becomes distilled as a religion
and ultimately, when the power of the ‘miraculous’ of mythology
wanes, it turns into a secular ideology. A religion is not more an
opium for people than many secular ideologies. When modern wars are fought in the name of peace and freedom, somebody
along the line is hallucinating.
Mythology is very valuable. Representing life, which is essentially
non-material, in images in which it is represented in stories and as
people, is an essential element of human living. However the
moment a myth is considered as a truth, there is a serious
diversion. Then the opium starts to have an effect. When you go to
war to promote your god-image against other god-images you are
certainly drugged. You are also certainly drugged when you go to
war to impose your social ideology on others.
For social and political reasons religions and secular ideologies
are powerful instruments in the hands of the ‘elites’ of the
respective culture. Recently the Dalai Lama said that given the
modern means of manipulation religions have become too
dangerous. Though some people may find psychological support
and relief in religions, in a purely spiritual sense they are a
diversion. They try to name the unnameable. In the Indian
tradition there are images for all the gods of its mythology, but
Brahman, the ultimate has no image. In the same way Allah has no
image, because in contrast to the Christian god, it is clearly stated
that Allah cannot be anthropomorphised nor can it be
conceptualised. An abstract concept is just as inappropriate as a
graven image. This should mean that also ascribing to it human
characteristics, like a will or a desire, is inappropriate.
A diversion is not something wrong or sinful. I prefer to regard it
as a dropping point. A diversion is where you are dropped in life
and it is up to you to find from that dropping point the right
direction.
Some people are dropped in a violent and lawless environment
while others are dropped in a fundamentalist religious environment and others again in a middle class image of decency.
All these environments are variation expressing the same ultimate
source. Obviously the way in the right direction from the
multitude of dropping points is diverse and very individual. There
are many different ways but conformity to others is not one of
them.
Within a whole of living we represent the human niche. We cannot
know this niche because the knowing itself is an aspect of the
niche. We can see the niches for instance of spiders and frogs, but
we see these niches only from a human perspective. Maybe
spiders and frogs have a deep spiritual realisation in a way that is
unimaginable for us. We cannot have the arrogance to exclude
that. Hindus respect animals because they might be a human
reincarnation. That is one way of dealing with it. I respect all
forms of life because all forms represent equally the whole in
which I, together with them, am equally sharing.
The realisation of the Ultimate is fundamental for human living. It
represents the meaning of life. Absence of meaning is the source
of depression and depletion of the life force. It is obvious that true
and lasting meaning can only be found in what is true and lasting.
No human concept; no human product of the imagination can ever
be true and lasting. When we follow the track back into human
history we see that the only aspect that as been lasting is the one
similar to Dao, but not as you can think about it, name it, or
describe it.
It is our human nature to conceptualise. The moment we speak a
word we conceptualise what we mention. When we say “God”, we
have an inner image or idea what we talk about. The person who
says “I do not believe in God” first constructs in his mind the idea
of what a god could be like and next he rejects that construction.
All descriptions about god, or gods, involve a duality. They, He or It is there and I am here. The god becomes a something that you
either agree with or not. Such a god can die. Therefore the gods or
god of religion are always aspects of mythology and never of
truth. They are a matter of opinion. Too insignificant to disagree
about.
What is however essential is what these mythologies represent:
what the source is of these mythologies. This cannot be a concept.
When you realise that all you are as a ‘Sense of I’ in a world, is an
ever changing flow of experience in which there is no separate
experiencer, the Ultimate cannot be something ‘out there’.
Something that is different than the ‘me-here’. When there is no
‘me-here’, there cannot be an ‘out-there’. The ‘Sense of I’ is an
ongoing becoming as experience. Building on our ancestral
wisdom in which Ahura Mazda is Enlightening Knowledge and
Socrates’s ultimate or god is Pure Knowledge. The realisation of
the Ultimate cannot be anything other than a state that is either
happening or not.
Religions are rooted in mythology. Spirituality is rooted in human
psychology. The main and only spiritual question is: how we
relate with our lives to an Ultimate, which is both our very nature
and the nature of everything that surrounds us as a multiverse of
dimension. Various mystics in history, some considered as
teachers others as messengers or prophets, have given suggestions
about how to live. Unfortunately these suggestions are generally
incorporated in a religion by means of which they lose their
transcendental value and become a morality, a law a dogma
serving the interests of society and a specific ‘elite’.
Apart from this religionisation the essence of the Ultimate remains
the same. What was called Dao or Brahman, I prefer to refer to as
Nâm. Any name carries in itself that danger of conceptualisation.
In whatever way it is all-embracing, by the act of calling it Dao or Brahman, it becomes a ‘something’: a name of what is
unnameable. In contrast Nâm is an activity. It is the Affirming.
Nâm is the Affirmation; it is the state of affirming; it is the act of
affirming; the attitude of affirming. Nâm is Saying Yes, without
the need or ability to define what you are affirming or saying yes
to. Nâm is an aspect of transcendental psychology. With Nâm you
create a state of openness. Saying Yes implies being ready or
preparing yourself to be ready. Indeed Ultimate is Pure
Knowledge but are you able to receive Pure Knowledge?
Apart from the intellectual regression that is observable nowadays
with a revival of the mythological religions and distorted
ideologies, human life constitutes a multilayered evolution. For
most people the mythologies of the past lost their psychological
significance, they stop being instruments for orientation and
identification. They stop providing ethical guidance and a
meaning to life. This has led to an ethical vacuum that may, if it
continues, lead to the extinction of the human experiment
altogether.
Quite frankly I do not care about the survival of the human
species. I think that is outside my field of competence. What I do
care about is that as long as we represent the niche of human
living, we are fully representing that human niche. This remains to
be the case also, and maybe even more so, with the emergence of
Artificial Intelligence. It is also not affected by the discovery of
extraterrestrial life. This endeavour is best presented by Nâm.
When you want to travel by train to Paris, the first step of that
endeavour is getting on the train. In the same way; if you want to
realise the fulfilment of human living the first step is Nâm. Once
you are on the train, you only need to become a train passenger,
with the appropriate attitude and behaviour, otherwise you might be evicted and you will not reach Paris. In the same way once you
have activated Nâm, it will take its course, which because it is
transcendental cannot be comprehended by ordinary
consciousness, but which can be supported by appropriate attitude
and behaviour. Or in other words by Attuning to the Affirmation.
Each activity, each word that you pronounce, each thought that
you have, each emotion, each opinion, every idea, each belief,
desire and wish is a resonance that lasts. In this way we
collectively create the world in which we live. Without meaning
this would make no sense. The only possible lasting meaning is
Nâm, because it is not limited by human conceptualisation.
Ignorance of Nâm leads to individual and collective dis-ease.
Attunement to Nâm leads to individual and collective Well-Being.
This is a Well-Being that is not conditional. It should not be
confused with happiness or satisfaction which needs
circumstances to emerge. It is more subtle than that and therefore
more real. It is a Well-Being in living, in dying and in post-living.
In the Awareness that is ignited through Nâm, the stage between
birth and death is realised as a phase of an infinity. In infinity there
is no being born and no death, there is only movement.
You cannot strive for Well-Being. As long as you long for Well-
Being it will escape you. Well-Being emerges on its own when
with Nâm and Attunement you have created the right
circumstances for its emergence.
Nâm is the direction of Attunement. Nâm implies
acknowledgement and acceptance. It is not passive; it is more that
active. We are the active creators of our lives. This can be
beneficial for the niche of human living and generate Well-Being.
It can also be detrimental to this niche and generate dis-ease. Dis-ease opens the door to suffering, disharmony, conflict, war,
exploitation, destruction, illness, stress and anxiety.
With the ability we have acquired in the human evolution to think
virtually, it is easier for us to imagine that behind our eyes we are
a cosmic cloud that we manage with our activities, thoughts,
emotions and desires, opinions and beliefs, than being subjected to
an overlord according to whose wishes and laws we have to
behave in fear of punishment. Such a feudal reflection is
detrimental to Nâm, because it unavoidably invites an
anthropomorphism that restricts its infinity, and the arrogance of
ethnocentrism in we we see ourselves with our god-image as the
centre of the world. This has been a source of much destruction
and killing.
Nâm should be guarded from diversion, which means that in the
light of the continuous human tendency to conceptualise it should
be kept pure. It is the task of the Yoginâm to be the Guardian of
Nâm. This means to guard the purity of Nâm and prevent
conceptual pollution. It is the task of the Carriers of Nâm to
represent the unpolluted Nâm in daily life circumstances. They
nurture Nâm in their attunement to Yoginâm. This attuning is
primarily a matter of resonance in which a creative field is
managed and nurtured. All the niches of living contribute to the
primordial resonance. We contribute to it in the human way. Since
primordial times Nâm has always been the very Pole of living.
The very centre of the human multiverse. LivingNâm
ensures that this treasure is not lost.
