Cheat Your Way To Enlightenment
If I had known there was a wasp hiding in my shirt, I wouldn’t have put it on.
To fix this I took some painkillers, put on some cream and topped it with an antihistamine. The thing is, unknown to me at the time, the medication I take daily for narcolepsy (and definitely I promise not for any other reason), Modafinil is actually a ‘pro-histamine,’ among other things…
Pro Histamine + Anti Histamine = Enlightenment. (Kind Of)
Later on and feeling pretty spaced out, I was reading about Buddhism. There was this kind of recipe for getting rid of attachments. You would begin by (metaphorically) setting fire to everything you love, then everything you want to be and finally, everything that makes you, ‘you.’
No good or evil, no divisibility, just being.
And, in my state, I just got it.
But as soon as I thought I understood what the chapter meant, I started thinking about my capacity for evil.
If there is no good or bad, why should I be good?
Isn’t spirituality all about ‘accepting yourself yo’?
I was completely aware of how judgemental I can be and how I point out my own insecurities as flaws in other people and my capacity to step on others to get what I want and how biased I am about everything. But I didn’t care. I thought I was so “enlightened” that I could do no wrong.
You know exactly what I’m talking about, we’ve all met someone who thought he was ‘God’s gift’. What I was experiencing was a very warped form of “spirituality”. My ‘ego death’ was the biggest ego boost I’ve ever had.
As a rule, I think that trying to attain enlightenment from histamines and a handful of Buddist verses is like trying to understand female sexuality by watching pornography.
Walking The Dog
The day before all of this, I was walking my dog and I felt completely empty. I felt depressed that no matter how rich or successful or charming I could ever be, nothing could make this walk better. It was like nature was saying, ‘That’s your lot, deal with it.’ I wanted drugs, food or maybe sex? A fight? Music? Violence? I didn’t know.
There was a part of me underneath what I was projecting out into the world, an animal that just wanted to be seen. But, I wrote it off and ignored it. I couldn’t afford to be getting all postal.
What I should have done is asked myself, ‘Why am I feeling like this? And what part of myself am I neglecting?’
But you know, the Buddha said,
‘’The root of suffering is attachment’’
-Budda
So, I should just be holy, I shouldn’t let myself get dragged along by my addictions. But to be honest, that wasn’t working. Besides, how peaceful can you get? How practical is it?
Imagine being the Buddha’s wife for a second… The dude comes back after he left you to raise the kids ALONE for YEARS and is spouting that he loves everyone and everything, has no attachments whatsoever. None. He loves you unconditionally sure, but also the neighbour’s teenage daughter, the milkmaid, the cute waitress. You get what I mean.
I think there is a bit of a trend in modern philosophies that claims you can become enlightened without actually working on yourself. Ignore your unconscious impulses rather than digging in and understanding them. I’m not an expert on Buddhism by any stretch of the imagination but I’m pretty confident that’s a huge misinterpretation.
I didn’t know that when I was walking my dog and feeling empty. That evening and right through to the next day I was pretty nihilistic. I could see the meaningless in everything, like all the energy I inverted the day before was seeping out into the rest of me. Then I got stung by the wasp and you know the rest.
I saw raw reality, the way a child or a plant or a dog, (or any animal, to be honest) sees the world. In the present without conceptualisation, worry, fear or excitement. But also Joy, joy in pain & misery. I could see the human capacity for violence in myself.
And that was fine too.
It was like Jekyll meeting Hyde.
The Shadow
Carl Jung would call this ‘The Shadow’ He spoke about integrating the shadow into our lives by opening up our consciousness to different parts of the psyche. Parts of us have been rejected and stored in the unconscious.
The way I see it is, we’ve all got this beast that we’ve trapped inside ourselves, this animal that we’ve tried to suffocate or run from in the hope that it will go away on its own. But that never happens, suppressing it just makes it stronger. When you’re feeling tired or weak, angry or anxious it shows up, it manipulates your behaviour and can make your life hell. You don’t feel that way? Guess you’re just not as crazy as me.
But y’know if only it were as simple as:
‘There are evil people somewhere doing evil things, and ‘we should separate them from us the good guys.’
The reality is that the line separating Batman from the Joker, The Doctor from The Daleks and Luke from Vader cuts through the heart of every human being.
And this messiah thing I had going on is a glowing example of what Jung called spiritual bypassing, just another manifestation of the ‘shadow self.’
Where I went wrong was in a kind of betrayal of myself. Sure I’d reached this capacity for awareness or whatever but what’s the point if I was just going to be a dick?
To get away from this useless narcissistic state I was in I HAD TO REALISE THAT I AM A SINKING PILE OF GARBAGE BUT MANURE HELPS A ROSE TO GROW.
Becoming Whole
Jung said that it’s useful to realize that, life is not about being perfect, but becoming whole.
To me, that’s not about being completely ‘good’ and free from attachments, in the purely enlightened sense, but more aware of my whole self, the good and the bad and integrating that into my life. In that way, the people in my life become more than just objects that exist to soothe my excitement or anxiety.
That doesn’t mean I don’t still want the things I was attached to. Need and want and very different things. But because the monster inside me doesn’t feel desperate for it, the love can be appreciated for the love itself, not because it fills a hole or tapes up a leaky pipe. And isn’t that the only way to really love?
I’m not Budda
When I tried to explain the spiritual bypassing to people they said it sounded like jumping to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And yeah, that’d be a good way of explaining it. You can’t cheat self-actualisation.
Maybe I could ignore my shadow completely if I were truly enlightened but I’m not the Budda I can’t just leave my life behind nor would I want to. If I’m going to be a human I’m gonna be equal parts, Hero and Villain. Besides, someone still needs to walk the dog.
