[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by Caleb

Contradictions everywhere

Hello everyone. First, I am new here. My name is Caleb, nice to meet you good folks. :)

I have been avidly pursuing my spiritual path for three years and change. I embarked and began consciously "seeking" after coming to a complete acknowledgment that my mother had been very emotionally abusive. I am trying to find the inner peace that I hope to have buried somewhere in there, underneath all of the psychological and physical illnesses that have plagued me.

A few paths / sources of wisdom have highly resonated with me. These include:
Abraham-Hicks
Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God
A Course in Miracles

What I have a really hard time is reconciling all the contradictions I hear between sources of information/wisdom that I thought I trusted. For example, in Conversations with God, "God" speaks about the cosmos repeatedly expanding out from the Big Bang, then collapsing again and then starting a new iteration. This to me was confirmation that the "insight" I had had a few months prior, wherein I imagined that that's exactly what happens, was correct. But in Gary Renard's "The Disappearance of the Universe," which is more or less touted as a great companion text to A Course in Miracles, and contains what Renard heard from some spiritual beings "Pursah" and "Arten," they tell Renard that that doesn't happen at all. In fact, *they* say that eventually time and space will cease, that we will *stop* living physical lives and just be eternally one with God, with no reason or need to experience anything else. Abraham-Hicks says quite another thing: that the universe keeps expanding and evolving forever and ever, we just keep experiencing, and desiring, and experiencing, and growing, and desiring, etc. etc. which has always seemed like it made more sense to me.

These are just a few examples. I run into all kinds of disagreements between teachers/sources I felt like I could trust. So, who *can* I trust? If all this stuff, especially the "channeled" stuff, is supposed to be coming from "spirit" or "God" or "the universe" or "infinite intelligence," then shouldn't it *all* be correct? If I can't trust all of it, it seems to me, I can't trust any of it.

Does anyone else have experience with feeling/thinking this way? I don't know what to do. Maybe some will say it's my ego mind trying to figure it out, but in response I'd say, "Well, doesn't my ego mind have a legitimate question?"

Hi Caleb,

Addressing your concerns, which are legitimate, from a pragmatic pov...

Sri Aurobindo says that all paradoxes are reconciled by higher truth, which makes eminent common sense.

What this means is that ultimately there are no contradictions, since all is eventually ultimately reconciled within-and-as One Truth which Reality IS, and which significantly we ultimately ARE. We are simply differentiations of that One Reality, and as such have access to it, in its fullness of Being which is infinite and eternal.

It is only in the dynamically evolving approach to realizing this all-encompassing Truth in which contradictions appear, because of the ignorance involved in not yet having realized who we truly are.

Since existence and consciousness are inseparable, in the dynamic physical multiplicity of Life, experience is the evolution of consciousness as an instrument of its own awareness.

Consciousness therefore, essentially is that dynamic evolution - and it is our self-aware experience of it in that evolution that leads to realization... the realization of our true Nature.

In that process, ignorance is an unavoidable condition of Life because ignorance and inconscience are the starting point of that evolution. Ignorance is therefore an unavoidable means of cognition, a limitation of awareness which must continually be transcended. This is the reason these contradictions appear - unless and until, in the evolution of our consciousness, we allow these contradictions to be reconciled by having the awareness of higher truth by ourselves transcending the ignorance and having become that higher truth by embodying it.

Further…
The apparent contradictions as revealed through various paths originate in the formal differences of approach to truth by different emphasis or ‘direction’ of each respective ‘path‘ - and often, from the unique experience of key progenitors of various paths.

So, if the ‘goal’ is to enter the ‘house of Truth’, depending on which door one enters through, that gives a different formal impression and appearance.

It’s like this: One path comes in through the kitchen door, another through the living room, etc. The proponents of the path entering through the kitchen say to other seekers, “You will see a refrigerator, a stove, a toaster and a sink.” It must be considered that this is the result of ‘entering’ through this particular means. It’s an artifact - or necessity - of the particular means.

To belabor the metaphor - another path might involve seeing a coffee table, family photographs and a piano, etc. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that by comparison the two different approaches are mutually exclusive - or false - by virtue of their differences. That is how the separative, divisive mind interprets the disparity: if one is true, the other therefore cannot be.

In actual fact, they both may get you into the ‘house’ but you might not see/experience this right away and that’s even in the process of entering. What about the theoretical description of process before that? The different approaches present these apparent contradictions and paradoxes by their disparate emphasis which appear as mutually exclusive even though in actuality they are simply relative.

For instance, Bhakti (devotional) paths utilize - indeed they DEPEND ON - the very duality that some Jnana (non-dual) paths reject. One yearns for God by utilizing the apparent separation that ignorance represents. Avaita (non-dual) seeks to actively disregard this separation by rejecting it in all manifestations. Yet, this doesn’t mean that one or both approaches are false. Not only that - it often happens that one approach will lead to manifestations of another path anyway, e.g., by engaging in service (karma yoga), one may spontaneously develop wisdom (jnana), and/or devotion (bhakti). It's not like there are strict, rigid, inviolable divisions or barriers - it's more fluid, plastic, flexible in practical manifestation. Spiritual aspirants should remember this when engaged in adamant discussions that superficially negate other paths based on these relativities of means.

This also represents a caution about varied and eclectic approaches, especially in the current era when due to advances in communications - every historic path is implicitly acknowledged, accessible and available as an expedient. Some derisively call this the ‘spiritual supermarket’, but for spiritual aspirants it represents more personal freedom - which does necessitate the requirement of personal discrimination, personal responsibility, and a vigilant and ongoing self-examination, so as to be guided internally by an increasingly de-centralized individual intuition, vs. dependency on monolithic external codes, rites and rituals, that when compared externally appear to be mutually contradicting even if they may represent in essence, valid approaches to truth (“Truth is One paths are many”, etc.).

This is also why spiritual Masters from time immemorial traditionally demanded strict adherence to the particular path they espoused, otherwise disciples with ‘each foot in a different boat’ would be inclined to this very confusion and end up falling into the water - and not be within any expedient vehicle. In that case, both master and disciple would be the loser.

So what it boils down to, especially in the current era, is ‘what has utility for me?‘; ’what are my evolutionary requirements in the moment‘; ‘what is a practical expedient?’ And the answer is: that which feels genuine, authentic, satisfying; that which does resolve and unify the contradictions of ignorance and false appearance, that which leads to truth. That which is truly progressive. It is Truth Itself, which resides within - and IS all Being - which leads and guides to it. It is the search, the necessity and the aspiration which is itself the means; this is an often unrecognized secret. It is the ‘Way’ that is intimately and inseparably one with the ‘Goal’. This is why so much emphasis is often placed on ‘the journey’.

Getting back to Sri Aurobindo, the founder of Integral Yoga, he recognized that all different approaches to truth arose due to these differences in emphasis, preference, and temperament by individuals, which led to the development of the ’margas’. These represented prominent principles within the human being that are universal and universally present. Because these components are part and parcel of Reality itself - they only appear to be exclusive or contradictory because of the very emphasis of one which necessarily de-emphasizes any other. But they are nevertheless all present within each human being, and therefore it is a mistake to negate the available potential of one particular emphasis, thereby excluding another.

In his Integral Yoga, he therefore regards all of the major components as essential for practical inclusion in what he calls “the Yoga of Self-Perfection” allowing for the fullest expression of available human potential, thus eliminating the apparent contradictions of the various emphasis on the traditional aspects - notably within oneself - which traditionally would be represented by the yogas of devotion (bhakti), discrimination (jnana), and work/service (karma). All of those components receive equal emphasis in his yoga, thus avoiding the apparent contradictions and exclusions of the traditional emphasis/de-emphasis paradigm.

Apparent contradiction vs trust
Additionally, it has to be said that the issue of apparent contradiction and mutual exclusion because of approach or direction different paths take, is an entirely different matter than the issue of ‘trust’ or authenticity within any given path. Trust comes from the reliability of direct practical experience - not from a theoretical intellectual evaluation of conceptual differences of paths.



~ J