The Path beyond the desert
Episode 33 - Updates and resources on the spiritual path across the desert of your mind and the encounter with the devil
Hey,
Hope you’ve been doing well. Welcome back to the campfire. It’s hard to say where I’ve been; I’d say moving very sharply from the mind into the body.
If you’re new here: welcome.
If you return: welcome back.
You should know by now where we are: in a dark forest grove, in the light of a lonely, bright campfire. Many, many souls are around you, though you see them now. Stay close to the fire.
Dawn is yet far.
Strange Times
What strange times we live in. Wars erupting left and right. And the left is right? Is the left right and the right left? As absurd as this phrase may sound, this seems to be one of the dominant thought-structures inside the collective psyche right now.
Didn’t they say that the end of the world comes when all becomes absurd? When meaning collapses into paradox. Or perhaps… that is when the world is born anew. When paradox becomes…
Meaning.
What is Beyond?
Before I even started venturing on this whole ‘spiritual thing’ I remember times during my teenage years when a concept began taking roots inside my young, still-developing psyche. This was the idea of ‘Beyond’.
I can’t tell you what is this ‘Beyond’ and I couldn’t tell you back then either. But the word itself simply fascinated me. Thinking back on those times now, it becomes clear that it seemed to be the first inception of what would later become my ongoing fascination with these deeper concepts I’m writing about here.
A ‘Beyond’ implies layers. It implies a front and a back. It implies an initial impression of something (like reality) and an additional, deeper understanding of it. While words are many, the truth of this is simple.
There is a beyond.
The Devil is in the Desert
The obvious has to be re-stated: nobody, in their right mind, would ever approach the spiritual path unless they were seriously sensitive and suffering at the same time. Our world seems to perfectly bring these two conditions together all the time.
I have walked this path for over ten years. Obviously you reach a point where the ‘spiritual path’ as a concept collapses entirely and becomes ‘just life’. The two become one and the same. I mean, that’s kinda the point.
And yet it can be a very lonely path indeed, especially when you become aware of and interested in notions such as consciousness, awareness itself, or anything related to Infinity/Deity and various other abstractions. It becomes an attempt to define what is ‘Beyond’ - a way to place words on top of it, in the hopes it may start to make sense.
What I’ve learned in the past three months is that a purely intellectual approach to these inquiries will likely hit a big, big, bad wall. Abstraction, thought and anything related to the intellect/Mind is a vast world and can bring one to dimensions of extreme complexity.
When these dimensions are properly investigated, they may lead to the beauty of Metaphysics, the highest realms that the intellect can aspire to. But in this grand journey there is a danger too: namely Pride.
A mind that reaches the farthest heights of abstraction and esoteric knowledge starts to become inflated automatically. It starts to become arrogant. Even when you cultivate humility to the best of your ability, this inflation still occurs. You can’t stop it. In Biblical/theological terminology, this is known as the ‘Luciferic Temptation’. This is the devil in the desert and it’s extremely real.
I have encountered this devil too and I can tell you, from very real personal experience, that listening to the temptation does, in fact, lead to Hell. But what does this mean, beyond century-old dogmatic Bible-bashing? It means that an arrogant intellect begins to have such thoughts as:
“If I can grasp Infinity/God/highest understanding of Reality, there is no reason why I shouldn’t have any and all pleasure.”
“I should always emerge on top because I can see/know what the majority can’t/won’t.”
“I’ve sacrificed years of my life to the pursuit of ultimate knowledge. Surely I must now be compensated adequately with wealth, pleasure, sex and status.”
“Ultimate knowledge should lead to sex, safety, pleasure, escape from illness, immortality, the love of everyone. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
And other similar ones, often cloaked in whatever pursuits you’ve undertaken in life. These pursuits are often (or always) responses to perceived lack. Whatever your personal trauma is, you’ll likely have developed goals in response to it. If you happen to become interested in such topics as spirituality, alchemy, theology, philosophy, metaphysics, etc. then you will likely relate to the above statements and will understand that, indeed, all knowledge comes with a price.
The devil awaits in the desert. Always.
Why? Because the temptation arises when the real suffering you’ve been trying to escape from catches up with you (that’s the desert). At that point, all knowledge is empty because all knowledge, even the most abstract, is made of words. Of language.
I sought God through language. And I have found parts of Him/Her/It for sure. You can absolutely find God inside language and when you do, you will also see the incredible beauty of it. That is, after all, the sign you’re going the right way.
But the beauty the mind can contemplate is only part of the overall picture of human life, and is by not ultimately satisfying.
The Somatic Experience
Okay, so where do you go? You go in the only place that’s left. The only place not made of language or thought: sensation itself. The phenomena we call the ‘body’.
There I discovered enormous tension.
Overwhelming tension is also known as pain. Notice that physical tension is a response to unwanted stimulus. When you get wounded, the body tenses by itself. It’s a protective mechanism, of course. But what’s interesting is that it does it even to perceive threat, be that physical or psychological. A bad word/insult can make you tense just as much as an incoming kick.
If you’ll begin to pay attention you’ll likely notice an ever-present sensation in the body which, for most of us, feels uncomfortable. This can range from mild discomfort that’s so ever-present you’ve completely stopped feeling it, to more severe forms of pain. The latter can (and are!) drowned out by various stimuli that make one return to the mind, such as overworking, drugs or just constant distraction.
If only the mind could provide some comfort! But the racing thoughts provide distraction, not comfort. And in the worst of times, they create Hell.
Useful resources
There’s much more to say about this, but for now I shall end it here and, instead, give you some nice, useful guidance if you wish to explore the pathway beyond the mind. This can only ever occur once you’ve truly exhausted its many, many, many, many temptations.
Simply Always Awake by Angelo Dilullo (Beginner-Friendly and Advanced)
This guy is awesome and has been a great companion for me in recent months. He talks about Awakening and concepts such as Non-Duality in a completely honest, direct way with absolutely Zero spiritual/metaphysical/esoteric fluff. There are no weird rituals, no strange techniques or mantras.
He references Hindu, Zen and Buddhist philosophy because this is where these concepts emerge from but you don’t have to know anything about these to appreciate what he’s got to say. He doesn’t care about convincing you or teaching you or anything. He just talks about his experience and brings Awakening from Duality, once an esoteric, mystical concept, into the realm of everyday life.
Angelo also has a book if you’d like to support him and does various online and in-person retreats. I highly recommend his work.
The approach of the people mentioned above is also notably found in Eckhart Tolle’s work The Power of Now. He is nowadays world-famous and for good reason. I keep re-reading his book and I find in it the same value I did when I first discovered it over a decade ago.
In addition, the great, ancient discipline of Tantra also covers the same ideas, but they tend to be cloaked in more esoteric terminology and practices. This is old wisdom for which I have great respect and its aura of secrecy can either really attract or repel you, so choose according to your own inclinations. My advice? There’s no reason not to familiarise yourself with both the ancient and modern approach.
I will share more on this topic as I also familiarise myself further.
Conclusion
Thanks for taking the time to read this and return here, to the campfire. I’ve been writing a lot more slowly because, as I said, I’ve been spending more time with pure sensation, rather than mind.
I have also entirely abandoned social media and its endless, devouring hunger for ‘content’. More and more and more content. Gods have mercy.
Anyway, I’m currently working on another place to preserve and showcase my art on this website. In the meantime, if you’re interested in what I do, you can check out my portfolio HERE. I also do commission work, if you need something mythologically appropriate for your living-room wall.
