A rose by any other name also stinks
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John Aufenanger
 March 01 2023
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    Many people who say they are on a spiritual path assent to an awareness-first, or consciousness-first, or even consciousness-only "model" of reality. This turns into a belief, just as the matter-first "model" does. Beliefs are not useful, true or false - doesn't matter. These are only thoughts. Sometimes it feels good to believe in the opposite of what we used to believe in. It allows us to create a new spiritual identity. Then, we can change our name to Shanti and start wearing more comfortable clothes.


    I lived in a hospital town years ago - that is to say, a small rural town in darkest America where the main employer, or only employer, is a large teaching hospital. I noticed that wearing hospital scrubs at all times, usually without underwear, was very common. There's five or six thirty-five-year-old guys free-balling at the coffee shop every morning. (Women are generally a little less interested in wearing nothing but shapeless monochromatic tissue paper.) Of course I understand the allure, but I thought it was a tad disrespectful of those who may not wish to see these swinging bell-clappers when all they want is a cup of joe. Surely.


    Then, a young Nepalese fellow opened a Buddhist meditation center just outside of town. He always called me Richard Gere because of the way I wore my hair in those days, and I didn't have the beard. After a few years, I noticed an increase in local diversity as international visitors from the Gomde joined the farmers, naked doctors, and me, in the coffee house queue.


    Fun.


    I thought of this yesterday when I purchased an extremely comfortable Vietnamese unisex one-size-fits-all trouser that's nothing if it's not comfortable. It is very nearly nothing, after all. I found the shop, in other words, where people who have changed their names to Ra or Baba Yum-yum buy their clothes.


    Me? I haven't changed my name, but I do respond to the title "Most Exalted One."


    Some spiritual teachers, like Rupert Spira, teach from a consciousness-only perspective. And yes, if we're studying Advaita Vedanta, or Dzogchen Buddhism, that is at the core of these philosophies, and others too. Is a scientific statement also being made? Possibly. And we may find as time unfolds increasing interest in consciousness-first theories in Physics. This radical idea is being taken seriously by serious scientists. I've referenced Donald Hoffman and Chetan Prakash in previous posts, Conscious Agent Theory. I may have mentioned Bernardo Katrup as well. It's extremely interesting stuff, and unlike current American politics we can talk about it without throwing up.


    But, Belief? Why?


    Let go of belief. Truth and belief don't go together.


    Who I am is this that I am. It doesn't matter how I dress, or if I dress. It doesn't matter what my name is, or if I have one. And, ultimately, it doesn't matter whether there is spacetime and matter. It doesn't matter what scientists are saying today, yesterday, tomorrow, even if what they are saying - like, for instance, there's no such thing as yesterday or tomorrow - happens to align with my latest belief. Tomorrow it won't. And then what do I do?


    Finding one's true nature requires dropping beliefs, not chasing new ones. New beliefs, or new forms of thought identification, do nothing but change the name, the clothes - nothing of the slightest importance. One's true nature does not give a damn what it is called, or what it is made of, or what the universe is made of. Its reality is much more simple than that. Its reality is much more obvious than that. Nothing is more obvious. What's to believe?


    Having said that, most religious and spiritual traditions of long standing involve a name change of some kind. A Catholic religious takes a new name at ordination, Buddhists give you a new name when you take refuge. Cat Stevens changed his name when he converted to Islam. New names are often handed out to devotees in the guru traditions. Symbolically, name changes can have a certain power. But, if all we have done is adopted a new false identity then all we have done is adopted a new false identity, and these two words - false and identity - are nearly synonymous.


    A new identity is all I need to stop being an asshole? No. It turns out I'm still an asshole, even if my new name translates as "divine truth." Hold these things lightly - very lightly, if at all. Dropping all identity is where we are going. The mountain summit has no name; it's just the summit. It is unchanged by what we call it.


    And, so are you.







    philosophy spirituality advaita vedanta religious life guru traditions buddhism identity
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