More than one path to Choiceless Awareness

  I've heard it said that we are all grounded in our beingness just below our navel, but some express themselves through the heart and are drawn to devotional practice. Others, whom have a tendency to express more through the mind are drawn to the practice of "neti, neti"; not this, not that. The via negativa.  But whatever you practice, eventually the practice itself is discarded for the nondual, the unknown as choiceless awareness.

  Because I am the meditative type, examining the mind and dropping its conceptualizations, the via negativa, I've had to examine my mental position when it reifies in the company of my friends that promote the via positiva of the heart - the love of a devotional character.  I've defended my path thinking their idealism is born from naivete and they, in turn pray for me lest I dry up, an embittered,dark stone.

  I want to bring two authors to this forum that elucidate each path elegantly.  Starting with via negativa, the teaching of Buddhist psychology and meditaive practice of Tibet by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

  "Negativity is not bad per se, but something living and precise, connected with reality.   "...negativity breeds tension, friction, gossip and discontentment, but it is also very accurate, deliberate and profound. Unfortunately, the heavy-handed interpretations and judgements we lay on these experiences obscure this fact. These interpretations and judgements are negative negativity, watching ourselves being negative and then deciding that the negativity is justified in being there.

"...the watcher, by commenting, interpreting and judging, is camouflaging and hardening the basic negativity.  Negative negativity refers to the philosophies and rationales we use to justify avoiding our own pain. We would like to pretend that these "evil" and "foul-smelling" aspects of ourselves and our world are not really there, or that they should be there.

  "So negative negativity is usually self-justifying and self-contained. It allows nothing to pierce its protective shell - a self-righteous way of trying to pretend that things are what we would like them to be instead of what they are.

  "This secondary, commenting kind of intelligence of double negativity is very cautious and cowardly as well as frivolous and emotional.

  "The basic honestly and simplicity of negativity can be creative in community as well as in personal relationships. Basic negativity is very revealing, sharp and accurate. If we leave it as basic negativity rather than overlaying it with conceptualizations, then we see the nature of its intelligence. Negativity breeds a great deal of energy, which clearly seen becomes intelligence. When we leave the energies as they are with their natural qualities, they are living rather than conceptualized. They strengthen our everyday lives.

  "True spontaneity feels the texture of the situation because it is less involved with self-conscoiusness, the attempt to secure oneself in a given situation.

  "At the very advanced levels of practice we can go through the negative negativity and turn it into the original negativity so that we have a very powerful negative force that is pure and unself-conscious. That is, once having squashed this negative negativity altogther, having gone through the operation without anesthesia, then re-invite the negative for the sake of energy. But this could be tricky.

  "Then negativity simply becomes food, pure strength. You no longer relate to negative as being good or bad, but you continually use the energy which comes out of it as a source of life so that you are never really defeated in a situation. Crazy Wisdom cannot be defeated. If someone attacks or if someone praises, Crazy Wisdom will feed on either equally. As far as Crazy Wisdom is concerned, both praise and blame are the same thing because there is always some energy occurring...a really terrifying thought. Crazy Wisdom could become satanic but somehow it doesn't. Those who fear Crazy Wisdom destroy themselves. The negative destruction they throw at it bounces back at them, for Crazy Wisdom has no notion of good or bad or destruction or creation at all. Crazy Wisdom cannot exist without communication, without a situation with which to work. Whatever needs to be destroyed, it destroys, whatever needs to be cared for, it cares for.  Hostility destroys itself and openess also opens itself.  It depends on the situation. Some people may learn from destruction and some people may learn from creation."

  For the via positiva; the devotional character of Shiva....

  Allow me to quote Osho"s comments on Shiva's 112 Secrets, specifically #54. "Whatever satisfaction is found in whatever act, actualize this."  As part of self-remembering techniques.  On jumping into choicelessness: Osho's comments;    

  "...It is easier to take a jump when you are happy because with happiness courage comes, with the possibility of a higher bliss opens.  With misery the world is like a hell, and there is no hope, everything is just hopeless. Then you cannot take a jump. In misery one becomes a coward and one clings to misery because at least this misery is known.

  "Adventure needs a subtle happiness in you. Then you can leave the known. You are so happy that you are not afraid of the known.  That is why I say from the negative you cannot be choiceless. You cling to your misery. It is known. It is always better to be with a known misery than an unknown misery.

  "With happiness, quite the reverse is the case. With happiness, one wants to move into the unknown happiness because the known gets boring. You never get bored with the known misery, you enjoy it. With happiness you get bored. You can move into the unknown. The unknown is alluring, and the choiceless is the door to the unknown. This is how one has to move; from the negative to the positive and from the positve to the choiceless.

  "From misery, move to bliss and only then can you move to the beyond which is beyond both.  You renounce the negative and you gain happiness: just by renouncing the negative you attain to happiness. If you now renounce this happiness, this positive mind also, you open the doors of the infinite."

 In closing, I'm sure there are many paths to the ultimate unknowable, the unbiased wisdom, and I am ultimately strengthened and enlightened by each example as expressed by my friends. I must stay mindful of that contraction felt in my body/mind when I feel moved to justify MY mental position. And if my friends define their mental position in response...well then we are all disempowered aren't we?