The search for pleasure is the search for god

[Nikolai1]

The search for pleasure is the search for God, and the taste of pleasure is the taste of God.

 

Some pleasures are brief and related to specific situations – we call these ‘pleasures’. Some pleasures last long and are felt in many different situations – we call this ‘God’

 

Normal life is a long, laborious attempt to gain pleasure in as many specific situations as possible. We go to great lengths in order to experience what we and others around us view as pleasurable. The normal person is therefore stupid and unskilful…but they understand pleasure, therefore they understand God.

 

The spectrum of normality spans between two poles:

 

1) Those who gain shallow pleasures from a wide array of situations. We all know these people. They have fun but no delight. They have many interests but no passions. They are well adjusted to the variety of society. Extremes of this type find nearly everything ‘quite fun’. Their pleasures are of quantity not quality.

 

2) Those who gain deep pleasures from specific situations. These are enthusiasts who are devoted to one abiding passion. Here it is about quality, not quantity and the extreme of this type is the alcoholic or drug-taker.

 

These two poles represent the searching and the finding of God in normal society. All people already know God in their own way.

 

Normal life also encompasses what we normally consider the religious life. The type 1 normal person who happens to belong to a religious community will live a constant round of nice services, cake sales and edifying activities for the youngsters. The type 2 normal will be shut up in his flat, arousing his kundalini and experiencing pure bliss.

 

None of this has anything to do with the life of expertise. The expert is the person who can combine the euphoric depths of the drug-taker with the breadth of the fun-seeker. The expert is the saint. The saint has found God both in his depths, and wherever he happens to look.

 

To become the expert you must become bored and disgusted with all your pleasures. This is very rare – people are normally having too much fun.

 

For the type 1 to become a saint they must ask themselves “is there more to life than this?” But few receive the grace to ask that question.

 

For the type 2 to become saint they must ask themselves: “are there other ways of getting this bliss or must I remain closed off all my life?” But to explore this question means walking away from their bliss and few have the grace to do that.

 

In summary, normal life IS the spiritual life. Cultivation is simply deepening or broadening what we already have and know.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Nikolai1

[C T]

Dependency on external stimulants is a mutated form of desire.

 

Its a perversion, a never-ending round of feeling an imaginary need to compensate for an equally imaginary deep-seated idea that nothing is worth more than the next fix or the next shot of booze.

 

It is not even pleasure-seeking anymore. On the contrary, it is often a guilt-ridden exercise to 'punish' self, a slow jaunt towards the abyss of self-annihilation. It may have begun as pleasure, but due to a delusional premise, it is actually ignorance and a complete denial of the effects of one's actions, abandoning all moral and ethical responsibility in the process to destroy self.

 

To assume that such practices as drug use and excessive alcohol consumption is in some way a search for God does not sound very right. To me, this is like a modern form of self-flagellation, an ancient practice where indulgers of the act believed ignorantly that the act would bring them closer to rapture and God ultimately. Its a perversion, as i said.

[Nikolai1]

Hi CT

 

 

To assume that such practices as drug use and excessive alcohol consumption is in some way a search for God does not sound very right.

 

Drinking alcohol is an authentic and effective spiritual technique alongside many others. It is particularly effective for those who seek to experience the depth of God. It takes a certain genius to be able to extract this from alcohol. There are many people who do not have the capacity for such a deep union, and these are the ones most likely to denigrate alcohol. What they haven't experienced for themselves they are hardly likely to understand.

 

For some, alcohol brings God to the level of consciousness in a particularly effective way. When intoxicated such people feel the grandeur of themselves and their potential in a most direct and lively way. However much they hear alcohol denigrated, the spiritual drinker will not, in the depths of their heart, share this view. They know what they know. And they are not wrong. Through alcohol they gain a true and authentic glimpse of God - a glimpse denied the average drinker.

 

Such people are then placed in privileged but perilous situation. They have discovered a key, but it will leave them unable to return to sobriety.

 

The alcoholic is so often an individual of native spiritual gifts. But they exist in a society which tells them only of alcohol's harm. We do not understand what is truly precious about alcohol, and so we do not recognise that the precious part can be obtained in other, better ways.

 

Alcohol, though an authentic technique is a very bad technique. Very, very bad. It's function is purely to reveal God - to show us what he looks like. Only the chosen few can respond to alcohol this way. And only the chosen of the chosen have the foresight to see that alcohol is a double edged sword and that its benefits need to be swiftly found in other more stable ways.

 

If you want to help an alcoholic, you must recognise the grandeur of the drink and of the drinker. Call him bad names and he will need to contradict you in the way he knows best - in drink.

[xor]

I like your ideas here, Nikolai, if I understand them correctly though the terminology is not something I'd use.

 

The "expert" is someone who plays the deeper level of the game that the "unskilled" is not aware of but still longs for. People are driven to it by same impulse.

[C T]

Hi CT

 

 

 

Drinking alcohol is an authentic and effective spiritual technique alongside many others. It is particularly effective for those who seek to experience the depth of God. It takes a certain genius to be able to extract this from alcohol. There are many people who do not have the capacity for such a deep union, and these are the ones most likely to denigrate alcohol. What they haven't experienced for themselves they are hardly likely to understand.

 

For some, alcohol brings God to the level of consciousness in a particularly effective way. When intoxicated such people feel the grandeur of themselves and their potential in a most direct and lively way. However much they hear alcohol denigrated, the spiritual drinker will not, in the depths of their heart, share this view. They know what they know. And they are not wrong. Through alcohol they gain a true and authentic glimpse of God - a glimpse denied the average drinker.

 

Such people are then placed in privileged but perilous situation. They have discovered a key, but it will leave them unable to return to sobriety.

 

The alcoholic is so often an individual of native spiritual gifts. But they exist in a society which tells them only of alcohol's harm. We do not understand what is truly precious about alcohol, and so we do not recognise that the precious part can be obtained in other, better ways.

 

Alcohol, though an authentic technique is a very bad technique. Very, very bad. It's function is purely to reveal God - to show us what he looks like. Only the chosen few can respond to alcohol this way. And only the chosen of the chosen have the foresight to see that alcohol is a double edged sword and that its benefits need to be swiftly found in other more stable ways.

 

If you want to help an alcoholic, you must recognise the grandeur of the drink and of the drinker. Call him bad names and he will need to contradict you in the way he knows best - in drink.

Hi Nikolai,

 

I completely disagree with the above lines of reasoning.

 

Alcohol as a spiritual tool to 'see' God's glory? Why, can't the marvelous and resplendent beauty of the inner worlds which, through awakening gradually merge with outer perceptions, be accessed without resorting to any stimuli which serves to distort and numb?

 

I do recognize the grand illusion of what it is like to be under the influence. Been there, done that. I used to drink a half bottle of Southern Comfort a night, back in the early 90s. Plus a few pints of beer at the pub before that. And i know of all the side effects from that period too. So i am not without empathy here.

 

I am now living in Ireland. Alcohol is a massive distraction for the majority of Irish folks, sorry to say. It is not my aim to denigrate, but to speak of the realistic potential towards self-destruction (does not matter under whatever guise this potential comes in) when any form of dependency arises, whether as mind-bending substances or not.

 

I think it is not helpful to even suggest that mindful use of these substances can be a boon to spiritual cultivation. It is rather silly to want to become unmindful then (which happens when the mind is altered in any form) so that one can fulfill the goal of wanting to seek union with God, whatever form that that comes in. This can be achieved naturally. It takes work, sometimes lots of it. Its those who seek the non-existent short-cuts that feels the need to resort to justifications and the glorification of such in order to disguise their dependencies.

 

I do not look down on people with dependencies, nor of those who are considering turning to stimulants in the hope of raising their 'spirit' to the next level. I just think its a big issue, and that we should be responsible enough not to suggest 'bad techniques' because God knows how vulnerable some forum users can be. Sometimes all it takes is a little misguided encouragement which will spark a whole deluge of problematic outcomes for the unsteadied practitioner.

Edited September 25, 2013 by C T

[Nikolai1]

CT

 

You and I probably aren't in disagreement because I'm not for one minute recommending excessive drinking. I just think its important to see things in their proper light.

 

There is a link between your former drinking and your presence here on a forum discussing the spiritual life. It was the noblest part of you that drank the southern comfort, and the same genius in you moved on to other techniques. Yes, it's s shame that more people can't do as you did...but the fact still remains that alcohol is for many people the only rich and authentic experience of the divine that they get.

 

The alcoholic is caught in a kind of riddle that they can't understand. How can something so 'wrong' feel so 'right'? None of the explanations that society offers for his drinking explain nor resolve the riddle. Only when his drinking is revealed as a spiritual behaviour can he consider the existence of better spiritual behaviours. Abstinence is no substitute. This drinker is a spiritual genius who needs the heights. There are religious techniques that can give him the ecstasy he needs. Carl Jung recognised that alcoholism requires a transcendental solution, and his ideas form the basis of Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

Let's not be afraid to pay alcohol the highest possible compliment. Until we do this the alcoholic remains trapped in his own riddle.

[doc benway]

I'm not advocating alcohol or drugs but the alteration of one's normal everyday conscious awareness can be a valuable aid to the spiritual search. We are so inured to our condition that we don't see it clearly. Changing that experience of conscious awareness temporarily through drugs, alcohol, meditation, and so forth, can help shake the foundation of what is taken for granted and help people begin to question the basic condition. Like putting dye in the water could perhaps help a fish to see the water for the first time, perhaps. That said, based on my own experience of different mind altering conditions and substances, I'd have to say that alcohol, at least for me, would be the least helpful.

[Stosh]

Wrong word God implies more or other than pleasure alone.

Wrong assumption that alcohol is pure in its pleasure

Wrong it is that folks only motivations are pleasure based.

Wrong that a spiritual life is normal.

 

I don't know why you would write such a post ,

since all of it is so far off the mark

IMO

But if that's what you really think , ummm

That's up to You.

 

[林愛偉]

God still roams through the desire heavens, and thus still subject to birth and death. Empowering pleasures, sense desires and grasping at them only hinder one's "spiritual" path. hahaha some funny stuff happening on TTB. One hand how vegetarianism is a hindrance to cultivation and now indulging in pleasures to emulate a god...

 

Amituofo. lol

[Nikolai1]

Hi stosh

 

 

Wrong word God implies more or other than pleasure alone.

 

We gain pleasure from all that brings us truth, beauty, goodness and bodily bliss. God is beauty, God is truth, God is good and God is bliss. God is all these. Each pleasure, insignificant in itself, is a fragment of God. We call it a fragment because it is a specific and short-lasting experience - but in essence each pleasure is God.

 

The purpose of life is to find God in ways that are as broad and and as long-lasting as we can.

 

 

Wrong assumption that alcohol is pure in its pleasure

 

There are many people whose highest moments of their life have been felt while drunk. But with the poor spiritual technique night swiftly follows day. With the good spiritual technique the height of daylight seems to last and last.

 

The alcoholic must be told: "Yes, what you felt was good. We understand your experience and you are not mistaken about its significance. But there are much, much better ways I promise. Let's find them"

 

The alcoholic must go cold turkey from the alcohol, but do not expect him to go cold turkey from God. This would be the path to despair. To save himself he must return to drink. But he doesn't understand this - he is bewildered. But say a disapproving word and he will get very, very angry. He must defend something but he knows not what.

 

To deprive a man of his relationship to the divine is the cruellest wound you can inflict on him, on his society. The white men did this to the native Americans, fenced them in and barred them from their sacred places. They were left to scrabble around and find God wherever they could.

 

 

Wrong it is that folks only motivations are pleasure based.

 

Like I said, there is pleasure to be found in everything. There is no purer hedonist than the saint. When we find God we recognise that all that we have ever sought in everyday life had a weak taste of God. God is the supreme pleasure - the one pleasure.

 

 

Wrong that a spiritual life is normal.

 

When any given person embarks on what is normally called the spiritual life, they are merely exploring another person's normality.

 

The party-going materialist becomes dissatisfied with his life. He wants more, something different - and finds himself going to Church. He calls this new life the spiritual life.

 

His neighbour has been going to church since his childhood - suddenly he finds himself disgusted by the falsehoods and hypocrisy. He finds himself attending the science club. He calls it a deep need for truth. This, he thinks is the true spiritual life, not the farce of the church service.

 

Properly, seen there is no such thing as normal or spiritual. There is just life. We call spiritual that life which comes after an abrupt change of heart. In my OP I call this change of heart the beginning of expertise.

 

Too often, the party-goer completely swaps his parties for church services. He must go through this phase when his expertise is still latent. His expertise becomes manifest when he again parties hard on the saturday and then is up early for the Sunday service. Now he is a whole person. Now he is the expert.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Nikolai1

[xor]

I would think an expert would mostly avoid both hard partying and sunday services...

[Nikolai1]

I would think an expert would mostly avoid both hard partying and sunday services...

 

 

Yes, in reality he would. What I meant is that the expert has lived both ways of life and is therefore able to synthesise them into something else

[Stosh]

This is a reitteration of your original premise

We gain pleasure from all that brings us truth, beauty, goodness and bodily bliss. God is beauty, God is truth, God is good and God is bliss. God is all these. Each pleasure, insignificant in itself, is a fragment of God. We call it a fragment because it is a specific and short-lasting experience - but in essence each pleasure is God.

 

The purpose of life is to find God in ways that are as broad and and as long-lasting as we can.

and I , still say it is ummm diverted from the definition of god that folks already have or is implied by the word god (I dont believe in such a being but I did once ) Why dont you pick another word , "ogd" ? or something like it ?

because it seems like you possibly are borrowing from the god-concepts familiarity and bestowing your personal approval of hedonism onto it.

There are many people whose highest moments of their life have been felt while drunk. But with the poor spiritual technique night swiftly follows day.

When my mom went manic she said it was the best feeling in her life too , though she was devout Roman catholic , and I might assume the high of many things could be said to feel great ,, but alcohol is a depressant , folks consuming much of it tend to get beligerent ,lose coordination , get dizzy ,puke, and pass out. Yes in little doses it can brighten an evening. But thats small doses , its not the greatest joyful high one can experience.

cold turkey from God. This would be the path to despair.

Well , going cold turkey away from joyful rewarding experience could easily lead to despair ,, but joy aint god.

We call spiritual that life which comes after an abrupt change of heart. In my OP I call this change of heart the beginning of expertise.

If you leave that sentence to stand alone , I would say that it represents a point of view which has some merit. but could use some development in its description or implications.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Stosh

[C T]

 

 

 

There is a link between your former drinking and your presence here on a forum discussing the spiritual life. It was the noblest part of you that drank the southern comfort.

it was hardly noble, not even close.

[林愛偉]

I highly recommend, as a reference for everyone here, and a safe-guard for the mind and their cultivation, to read and contemplate The Shurangama Sutra: 50 Skandha Demon States chapter; it is the last chapter, volume 8. Commentary by Master Xuan Hua.

[h.uriahr]

The search for joy is the search for God.

Real intimacy with The Lord brings Real Joy

[SriChi]

Fantastic Nikolai. The purest hedonist is indeed the saint

 

Just feel it out.

 

I don't care much for alcohol, but that's because I have heard the "gong" a couple of times, and didn't really find too much repeatable value in that stupor. However, I'm glad I experienced it.

 

I agree about what you said about depth and breadth. If we have not experienced something, we don't really have a choice but are just deluding ourselves in thinking that our way is the way.

 

Balance is wisdom. And, before reaching equilibrium, the pendulum has to swing. Swing it, babeh!

[Stosh]

"but are just deluding ourselves in thinking that our way is the way"

[MooNiNite]

the search for pleasure can be spiritual i agree. Or maybe i should say the search for fun. but it has to be a fearless persuit, following the heart.

 

i think 95% of the population is searching for pleasure and most of them are not very spiritually evolved (having disease and what-not).

[C T]

the spiritual path is not one of reckless abandon. The old traditions have systematically mapped out routes that free a person from grasping and aversion, en route to the cessation of all sense gratification. From cutting through karmic tendencies and then leaping over dualistic forms, these systems guides the adept meticulously towards the fulfillment of boundless emancipation.

 

Just following the heart, or seeking pleasure in order to bring God closer, are examples of shallow concepts fit for those with a lot of dust over the eyes. These are mere diversions. It may still take a person to the other shore, but its a choppy sea out there.

[timelessness]

You have to become one with god. Like a river becomes one with the sea. Then all your actions will be motivated by God.

[Stosh]

You have to become one with god. Like a river becomes one with the sea. Then all your actions will be motivated by God.

So , in real terms ,

what do you feel 'becoming one with god' is?

[SriChi]

"but are just deluding ourselves in thinking that our way is the way"

 

Thank you!

[juliank]

Hi CT

 

 

 

Drinking alcohol is an authentic and effective spiritual technique alongside many others. It is particularly effective for those who seek to experience the depth of God. It takes a certain genius to be able to extract this from alcohol. There are many people who do not have the capacity for such a deep union, and these are the ones most likely to denigrate alcohol. What they haven't experienced for themselves they are hardly likely to understand.

 

For some, alcohol brings God to the level of consciousness in a particularly effective way. When intoxicated such people feel the grandeur of themselves and their potential in a most direct and lively way. However much they hear alcohol denigrated, the spiritual drinker will not, in the depths of their heart, share this view. They know what they know. And they are not wrong. Through alcohol they gain a true and authentic glimpse of God - a glimpse denied the average drinker.

 

Such people are then placed in privileged but perilous situation. They have discovered a key, but it will leave them unable to return to sobriety.

 

The alcoholic is so often an individual of native spiritual gifts. But they exist in a society which tells them only of alcohol's harm. We do not understand what is truly precious about alcohol, and so we do not recognise that the precious part can be obtained in other, better ways.

 

Alcohol, though an authentic technique is a very bad technique. Very, very bad. It's function is purely to reveal God - to show us what he looks like. Only the chosen few can respond to alcohol this way. And only the chosen of the chosen have the foresight to see that alcohol is a double edged sword and that its benefits need to be swiftly found in other more stable ways.

 

If you want to help an alcoholic, you must recognise the grandeur of the drink and of the drinker. Call him bad names and he will need to contradict you in the way he knows best - in drink.

 

As someone who had a problem with alcohol and was at the same time reading arcane spiritual texts I resonate with this passage. In fact I would go on binges then hole myself up reading spiritual masters while I dried out. I always knew that there was some affinity between both of these states even though I never talked about it. When I would be knee deep in my binges I would start quoting Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu and Li Po randomly at bars to strangers and friends. My conversations would become increasingly inspired by the spirit, I would engage in over the top generosities as if God was watching down on me. I would sit on the steps of monasteries and churches while drunk just because it seemed like the 'right" place to be.

 

Everything Nikolai said in this post I had already discerned with myself many times over but I lacked the balls to make the full leap. I finally did and I'm not going back. That being said, I thought other drunks too were also on the brink of redemption but sadly i found that not to be true. Most of the ones that I tried to engage into spiritual topics with laughed at me or brushed my attempts aside. I agree, it's obnoxious to hear about God or spirituality when you are just trying to get your rocks off. I was different in this regard. Perhaps at a deep level I was self flagellating on purpose because I knew the sand in the hour glass was running out. I am glad when it finally did.

[fluidity]

So , in real terms ,

what do you feel 'becoming one with god' is?

 

 

Wholesomeness and purity. There is no substitute, this is the inherent nature of things so take it or leave it. God is Pure and the love of God is like the Sun, it beams radiance to all and sundry. The most decrepit souls still feel the Light of God: if they didn't, it would not be the Light of God!

 

 

If a child is not hurt by the action, then it is wholesome but again I am only pointing to the true nature of wholesome. Wholesomeness carries a certain essence to it, which renders it the feeling of Realer than Real. All else is illusion/defilement. You knew it as a child, if you had a fairly decent upbringing. Then people/your own self broke it down and now you may have tangles.

 

Becoming one with God is as simple as recognising God but also as difficult as recognising God