In the last post I mentioned how Silk Road views tended toward non-dualism and Tantric types of teachings. It’s worth a minute to make a little side-trip to elaborate a little bit on one of the most important basic concepts of this approach, the concept of Non-Dualism. Non-Dualism is a very powerful concept with deep implications. This is true in both a spiritual sense and a real-life sense. It is a vast topic and here is a little overview in case you’re not familiar with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism.
The simple way to think about non-dualism is that the absolute Truth and the truths of the everyday world are not separate. This can be interpreted in countless ways, and certainly argued about until the end of time, but the basic concept stands. It’s like saying that heaven is present here on Earth.
This concept is a very important one because of its very real-world implications. If you believe that heaven or Truth is ‘out there’ and we are just here on this material Earth than this world is implied to be a place of untruth. If Heaven is conceptually a place of peace, wisdom, and harmony, then Earth must be a place of chaos, ignorance, and fighting. Earth must be a place cut off from Heaven and the things it represents to us. If, on the other hand, heaven can be conceived of as a place or state of mind that is also here on Earth, then all of those qualities can be understood to be present here as well. If heaven or Truth is present here and now, then we should be able to access that state of Being here and now. If we have to wait until we’re dead to access peace and wisdom than there’s no real point trying to find peace or wisdom here.
If the ultimate Truth is present here and now it would also have to be formless or Empty. This is a difficult concept but let me try to make it simple. If the ultimate Truth had a particular form then only one culture would be able to access it. We would also have to have certain outer conditions present, or certain particular outer conceptual beliefs in order to access the Truth. Well, there are infinite cultures and languages and peoples and types of beings so then we would have to imagine that only one particular group throughout all history had possibly found that truth, since so many outer forms exist. This is clearly a ridiculous idea. In contrast, what deeply spiritual beings everywhere have discovered is that the ultimate Truth has no form, it is rather a state of Being. This state of Being can be thought of as a state of consciousness. There may be countless ways of accessing this state of consciousness, and there certainly are, but the state would be the same for everybody, everywhere, or it wouldn’t be the ultimate state of Pure Being. There is only one Ultimate State of Being. It is formless. Because it is formless and it is a state of Being or Consciousness or Awareness, then it can be present everywhere at any time and in any being inhabiting any outer condition.
Still, there are outer conditions more conducive to our being able to be present in this state of Being, especially for beginners. There are ways of thinking that make resting in this state much easier. There are beliefs that make it more likely that we are able to find and rest in this state in ourselves. There are ways of acting that make us more likely to be able to rest in this state of Being. The particular details of these ways may vary, but the basic dynamics are the same. Our ability to find and rest in our Pure Being while going about our lives is the result of lining ourselves up with conditions that support us being able to do so, at least at the beginning. True masters of this can probably remain in this type of awareness no matter what condition may be present in their lives. But let’s be real, we aren’t one of those people, whatever we wish to believe about ourselves.
Well, how then can we find this True Nature so that we can rest in it? Well, find yourself a deep and real meditation and spiritual practice, and a teacher to help you- because you aren’t going to accomplish that goal without them. But one problem will stand in your way in our society- a culture that makes that almost an impossibility. We live in a deeply dualistic society- the spiritual dimensions of life are banished from the public sphere, by both science and by our materialistic culture. We also have deeply dualistic religious traditions in our society. This leaves us with the choice to abandon Western thinking patterns and become an ancient yogi from some other culture in our minds while outwardly inhabiting the Western world, which results in a kind of inner split-personality disorder. Or, we can try another idea- reinterpret our own Western culture through a more accurate lens- a Non-Dual one, and in particular, what I’m calling the Silk Road view. I’m calling it the Silk Road view because the Silk Road has been the historical home of these philosophies within cultures related to us, and we have always been part of the Silk Road world. So this is not making up anything new, it is merely reframing where we understand ourselves as living, reframing our own history to more accurately reflect historical reality. Non-dualism has always been at our cultural root, has always been present in our culture, and it has been through a very successful snowball job of cultural salesmanship that you don’t know that. There are powerful interests that haven’t wanted you to know it. It’s a very powerful and liberating view, and not everybody wants you to be liberated and powerful.
But you already know that.
Spiritual traditions are amazingly rich, sometimes slightly stuck in another time in the way they express themselves, but nonetheless they are important tools to connect with and utilize. Still, when it comes to connecting this with our real lives there is often a disconnect. There is a gap between these inner teachings and our outer way of seeing the world. This is inevitable to some extent, but that’s not really their job, and it probably shouldn’t be- that gets dangerous, and religion and politics soon get mixed, with disasters on their way for everybody. How about a better idea, we bring our outer understandings, our secular understanding to meet religion and spirituality? Secular ideas are negotiable, debatable, and can be changed. Religious ideas get fixed and soon somebody kills somebody over them. Instead, we are for better adapting our secular views to make a place for spirituality to peacefully exist within them. We can establish secular parameters that make actual sense so that spiritual views can find a home and live peacefully inside them. We can come to understand our secular world in a way that creates conditions where intelligent, peaceful, wise spirituality can thrive, and dangerous ones can starve and die. Central Asian cultures and societies were able to do this, and so can we. We can probably do even better if we give it a try.
By understanding our world with Silk Road vision we open the door to healthy spirituality finding a home. We come to understand our world and history in a more accurate way, and one that is a perfect fit for healthy, non-dual, and holistic spiritualities. Why did I just say ‘holistic’? Holistic implies in integration of mind, body, and spirit. This view connects our spiritual understanding to our mental understanding to our understanding of the physical world. The Silk Road view also connects to a view that has gotten a bad name lately due to things totally out of its control, Tantra. The Silk Road is where Tantra was developed, and most religious approaches in the region are deeply connected with Tantra and its relatives. The tantric traditions still thrive in the Silk Road world.
Tantra means ‘weaving’, and it refers to the weaving of all dimensions of reality together. It is not a sex cult. You will encounter almost nothing but puritanical sexuality in the real tantric worlds. Western Tantra grows out of sex magic in the West and has almost nothing to do with actual tantra, they just borrowed the name. That doesn’t mean that real Tantra avoids sex altogether- it is one of those things that need to be woven together with the rest of life- but in reality it is only a tiny part of what goes on in the real tantric traditions of Asia. The vast majority of the time it is just that sexual terminology is borrowed as a metaphor of the union of opposites.
The Silk Road view is a holistic view, and it is a healthy one, and it helps to unify our inner and outer worlds, and that helps us to find inner peace and outer health, as well as helping to lay the basis for a healthier and more peaceful society.
Shambhala Caravanserai 