To Die for Enlightenment

To Die for Enlightenment

I want to talk today about the death of a spiritual seeker. I have no happy title for this, because, in frank, loosing a seeker is not something to reward a group, a guru or a spiritual ideology.  He died looking for enlightenment in the Arizona desert, living off the land with his girlfriend at the insistence of a "Roshi" named Roach.


This is not the first time this has happened to well meaning individuals looking for ultimate happiness and spiritual oneness, and sadly I'd bet the house, car and my bank account, this won't be the last person to find transcendence in passing from this world before finding unity of body-spirit-mind.


After spending years in an ashram, dedicating myself to reading, practicing and finding all I can spiritually about Truth, I've found that many use the words, and few actually achieve they are discussing. When actual conversation happens, often it is wordless, leading to an ecstatic state, with or without a teacher, but definitely leaves an indelible mark on the aspirant.


In "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", (1972) a movie about St Francis of Assisi, the back story to this clip is that Francis has denounced his family, his wealth, and standing in Assisi, after returning sick from the Crusades. Prior to war, he was very much into gambling, women, wealth and pleasures of life.  In an epiphany, due to near death experience, he receives a voice from God to change. He is at church one Sunday and sees Christ's eyes open on a closed eye Jesus on the cross, giving his vision:  "Francis rebuild my church, can't you see it's in dis-repair." Later seeing San Damiano, he determines to physically fix the church. (Please realize that the exact words that were in the vision were more or less what was said, as St Francis never wrote down these words).

Here is the clip to explain St Francis's comment to his soon to be disciple, St Bernard. 


Sadly, there is more truth to the statement. Oftentimes I hear folks huff and puff spiritually with complicated answers to things (we) teach.  I find that the more complicated or over simplistic the answer, the less they really have experienced (or sometimes know). In reality, no one really knows until they've achieved a certain state (I think of the comment from the Bible; "for him (he) who has ears, let him hear."), you just "know" the answer.


  I think of folks like Ananda-Mayi ma, (see picture below), her ecstasy in samadhi is rather obvious, at least to me;

for the followers of "Ma", her ability to go into a state of complete oneness transcended all words. Yet for herself, she never knew of a time when she felt apart from the divine.  She was there, she embodied what she knew.

In interviews she constantly stated that, "she did "nothing" that would bring her to this state, but the state came to her."

For Francis of Assisi's transformation (by going to youtube you can click to see the full movie), again was not something he actively looked for, in fact with the abuse given to him by his family, previous 'so called' friends, as well as the possibility of being burned at the stake for a heretic, his conversion was directed by spirit, not by man.

What's my point?   I think that the drive to be connected to the divine comes from within, from spirit.  Whether or not we experience the state experienced by Saints (I am capitalizing on purpose) in our lives really is outside of our control (having a sense of 'oneness' oftentimes referred to in Hindu and Buddhist terms as samadhi ). It is an active state that comes and goes of its own will. 

When it is not present, often people experience a sense of separateness that is often referred to as "dark night of the soul" that includes doubt of God's existence, regret and extreme depression (Mother Theresa discussed this late in her life) seems to go hand in hand with the level of oneness achieved.  This is not stating that Bipolar condition is the bounce of these two states, because balance of life, having clear thought can differentiate the state, but leaves me wondering sometimes of teachers who put their students at risk.

The teacher should be there to help guide the student who has had this experience or quick glimpse of oneness. The glimpse is valid of its own accord, teacher or no. The point of the teacher it seems from my experience, (entered an ecstatic state for 10 days) should be to teach the student how to balance what they've seen with terra firma (life right here and now) to deal with loss when they experience that state, and teach good skills that balances the two.

When teacher is greedy, controlling and in search of fame, the student will most definitely suffer, as this poor couple found out in Arizona.  I know his wife/girl friend will take a longtime to recover (not to mention other members of his family) from this so called renunciation that was instructed by his teacher; dehydration is certainly not part of any spiritual path that I know of.

I sincerely hope that his family, wife and friends find a resolved peace for his passing. It is sad that he needed to go from this Earth so early, and perhaps in a needless way.