Dear Aging Becomer
by Bob Cergol

A letter written by Bob to friends, many of whom have been "on the path" for 25 or more years, and read by him at the April 2005 TAT Spring Gathering:

You consider yourself more esoterically informed than most -- way, way ahead of the common masses and "Joe-six-pack." from animated postcard by Jeff Victor In the last 30 years, haven't you figured out yet -- how to become a reverse vector? Is it by more and more "doing" and "thinking" -- by running faster and faster, in ever decreasing concentric circles -- until ... you become like the "Do-Do Bird" Rose described. Is it through bodily action, or mental activity? Which of these follows which, and which is more substantial than Omar Khayam's "... snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little Hour or two -- [and] gone"?

If death equates to the absence of doing, thinking and experiencing, -- i.e. nothing, then aren't you on your way to becoming nothing -- with no effort required? Isn't that the direction of your life? Can you actually become something, fundamentally different, than what you are right now? Who or what is becoming? You used to be convinced that you could become, now you only hope that you can, that this leaden "YOU" that you know and love so well -- and hate -- can become a golden you, that will deserve your love forever -- and live forever -- PROVING ONCE AND FOR ALL WHAT IN YOUR HEART YOU DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE -- AND MOST FEAR. You the body-mind fantasize a vision of becoming something PERMANENT, and superior to yourself -- and that somehow YOU will remain anterior to everything -- intact as "you" -- containing God himself -- the timeless. WHERE DID YOU GET SUCH A DELUSION?!

I think it is your distorted seeing and hearing of the essential desire that comes to you from your true Self -- your Essence -- for even God does not have the power to split himself, and everything He touches was never separate from Him. (It is the INVISIBLE CURRENT from Rose's Jacob's Ladder diagram. This is pure metaphor, attempting to explain the mechanics of a creation that does not exist.) You the Shadow-Man cannot fail to act in accordance with your essence, your true source and fundamental nature. However, your actions are refracted according to the fixation of your attention on experience, refracted according to the resulting need for self-definition and personal survival, and refracted according to the resulting fears and desires generated by the experience. In other words, you the shadow man do not become or evolve or will your attention away from the false. You the shadow-man are watching two movies: one is the movie of your destruction, one is the movie of your denial and acceptance of this destruction. The theme of denial is depicted by the vision of becoming through acquisition. The theme of acceptance is depicted by one's own deconstruction through simple looking -- with acceptance.

Are you looking -- or acquiring? It is by virtue of your essence that your attention cannot be 100% glued to that which is separate. The desire and attempt to define your self, and to survive, is simply what manifests in the shadow of experience cast by the "Light of the body," that Christ said was "the eye." You, the Shadow-Man, are what manifests when Awareness reflects upon itself and finds no object to reflect upon. Your attempt to become is doomed to failure. This is beautifully stated in these thematic and climactic phrases from the poem The Hound of Heaven: All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.

Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.
Naught contents thee, who content'st not Me.
All things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Thou dravest love From thee, who dravest Me.

If your attempt to become transcendentally different is doomed to failure, what can and will you do about it? Can your actions lead to a change in anything other than your circumstances? You believe that it can because you mistake the after-the-fact reactive experience as you-the-doer. It is a wish of you-the-somatic-mind. Have you noticed that your actions have an effect upon your attention? What motivates your actions? The action of looking will further affect the focus of your attention. Becoming a reverse-vector is the opposite of external, worldly becoming. It is un-becoming.

It is your un-doing! It is the breaking of your fixation on all experience -- including the experience of identity -- until the attention collapses in upon itself and all experience either stops or is recognized as non-existent. Spiritual becoming is worldly and personal un-becoming through the reverse vector of the attention -- "that power of noticing" which is not your possession. The potential value in your activity aimed at becoming lies in the effect that it will have upon the direction of your attention -- not in becoming something other than what you already are or are not. Your desire to become was wisely exploited by your teacher, who coined the phrase: "milk from thorns." He also liked to recall the Radha Soami guru who answered his question about what can be done: "All that man can do is desire."

Rose knew full-well the ultimate Source of this desire, and how this desire manifested in the "mind realm" and in the "body realm." Your experience generates experience. Experience is to the identity as food is to the body. Your identity weaves itself in a self-perpetuating chain-reaction -- so long as the attention is glued to experience -- and so long as the body fuels the reactor. The "fabric" of identity unravels as the attention is turned to watching -- first experience itself, as an outside observer rather than a participant, and then when the attention is turned to watching the experience-er. Experience is binding.
Observing the process of experiencing is liberating. Good hunting, and may your life experience be decidedly disconcerting. As your faithful friend, I remain.... Bob

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Only through the simple process of self-observation can this thing called the "self" be seen. We may need years of looking at it, seeing why it does what it does, thinks what it thinks, until we know it well enough to cease to believe in it. All of our energy, for all of our life, has been poured into this thing: our personality, the little self, the ego. A few moments of seeing, while of monumental importance, will not cause its complete demise. This demise is what we fear most; for it is seen by the thought-pattern we call "us" as death. At some point, the initial joy of seeing will turn to the pain of ego-death, as the Truth becomes known. It will not be pleasant. In fact, the pain and horror felt by the ego as it faces its own death, will be felt as yours. Hartmann's words again ring true: "Conquer the pains resulting therefrom." While all this may be just words to you for now, know that after you have gone beyond this realm of thought, beyond this self-surviving collection of reactions seeking nothing but its own continuity, "seeing" will still be there. You will then have no more need of thought or reaction to give you meaning and value, as the simple act of seeing will once again be enough. The world of thought will no longer be your home, having become a movie, a dream, as much a comedy as a drama, wherein the bit character you used to call your "self" is merely another player. Your interest will be only in a pure amazement at your own unknowable Being … and perhaps the need to help another find freedom from the trap of reaction, the world of "self."