Sick of hearing me say “Krishnamurti” when I talk about people who get the ever-vague it? Here’s another name: Peter Kingsley. Urgency. readers will recognize him as the only person I named in the three dedications. Some folks have asked who the “Her” is I also dedicated the book to. He gives the answer in this video.
I don’t agree with what he says here about the planned importance of every little detail in Western culture. In fact, the opposite. I think all cultures stem from an inevitable fuck-up called translation. I think it’s enough to say that his noted ancient mystics, Parmenides and Empedocles, were wrongly reduced to the fathers of logic and reason because their depth of meaning didn’t pierce the mind that was already blocking out Truth. This deep denial plagues us by neither plan nor accident, but by nature.
In life, the obvious thing is the thing we grasp onto first. In this case that would be self identity. From that center we move and judge and reduce. If, say, Parminides brought a whole and huge message to his people from an actual goddess and all they could hear was “logic, good!” — I wouldn’t call that a win. It certainly wasn’t her plan unless the plan was to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Perhaps, understanding our nature, she is simply trying to steer another train wreck, not endow every gear with its destiny.
If indigenous people are to be believed, we’ve seen this song and dance before and before and before because our alleged “growth,” as many of us assume ourselves to be experiencing, perpetually cycles this loop. It makes perfect sense because the moment you have separation you have time and conflict, as Krishnamurti noted. (Yes, that name again.) You always end up there because conflict is the nature of the self. This is why in the moment of no conflict, perfect freedom, the big enchilada, the you (and psychological time) is dissolved.
All of that said, the essence of it, the kernel, the “in the beginning there was…” and the No-thing that binds us all… Peter Kingsley understands that better than any living writer I’ve read and articulates it nicely here.
JayVay 