Music of the Spheres

Music has always been important to me, but as my life has played out I’ve not given it the attention it deserves and have often been somewhat oblivious to its contemporary development. I discovered Johann Sebastian Bach in my university years; I particularly fell in love with his Goldberg Variations as performed on harpsichord by Gustav Leonhardt. But apart from Bach, Beethoven’s powerhouse Ninth Symphony, and some of George Friderich Handel, my awareness of classical music has been somewhat limited. I was ten years old during the time of Woodstock (1969), and although I remember it well, I was a bit young to appreciate the flowering of musical creativity that occurred in the ‘60s. I did, however, begin to appreciate this same music during the equally creative decade of the 70s, and like most adolescents of that pot-infused time, found myself getting lost in the melodies of such classic rock bands as Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and my own personal favourite, King Crimson (their original album, In The Court of the Crimson King, never having been equalled, in my somewhat limited musical opinion. Interestingly, they apparently named the band ‘King Crimson’ meaning it as a synonym for Beelzebub, which was of course, the name of not just the Semitic god but of the hero of Gurdjieff’s magnum opus).

The bands just mentioned all made instrumental music, to be sure, but when it came to vocals my favourite was Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, especially their Déjà Vu album. I always thought that Young’s voice in particular was unique, at least until recently, when I happened to listen to the recently produced CD of my old friend Brian Shiva Haley called Grokkin’ the River. Brian is a man of many accomplishments (he is a trained psychologist, and has traveled the world as a spiritual seeker), and his latest focus has benefited from this life experience. His music is melodious and comforting, but also energetic and appealing on many levels. His singing voice is a particular surprise; it’s always interesting to hear the contrast between a person’s speaking and singing voice.

I’d mentioned Neil Young, and if I could compare Brian to any vocalist, it would be Young. Like Young he balances the soulful and lyrical with harmonious quality, music that is easy to listen to while retaining depth and contemplative elements. The best compliment I can pay to a musician is to call their work unique, if only because it sometimes seems as if there are almost as many musicians as there are fish in the ocean. Brian’s work is unique and recommended. He may sound like Young, but he is himself. Hopefully his excellent CD will be followed by others.  

On that note, I should also mention the Jazz musician Jan Garborik, in particular his CD In Praise of Dreams, which oddly enough I discovered in a Starbucks. It’s the best Jazz music I’ve heard, a musical genre I’ve never particularly been enamoured of.

Gurdjieff approached music, via his compositions co-created with Tomas de Hartmann, as a vehicle to aid in inner awakening, and it indeed has the ability to do this, by opening the mind to avenues of awareness that have long been blocked or simply forgotten. Some esoteric systems have taught that all is Light and Sound, with Light being synonymous with consciousness, and Sound with energy. Both are ultimately seen to be two sides of the same coin—energy being the outer expression of consciousness, consciousness being the silent numinous and formless essence of energy.    

Cards of Wisdom

Tarot cards have long been an interest of mine -- in fact, in some ways, I can say that my interest in the path of Inner Work began in part with my study of Crowley's famous Thoth Tarot deck back in the mid-1970s. Many years later I explored the Osho Zen Tarot deck, which while not based on a traditional Tarot structure, is nevertheless an effective tool for generating insight into one's hidden patterns or potentialities. A very good more alternative version is the deck that was created by my friend Cheryl Harnish, Destiny Cards. 

I have fond memories of my 'Tarot university years', back around 1980, when I would, on occasion, take my Thoth Tarot deck and grab a booth in the corner of a popular pub on Peel Street in Montreal, and proceed to give spontaneous readings (there was never a lack of 'customers', although no, I did not charge them anything -- then, at least :) ). The power of symbols lies in their ability to bring to awareness elements of the psyche that we are not normally aware of -- at least, in any sustained fashion. As Carl Jung once wrote,

Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.  

An essential part of the 'path of awakening' is to become aware of our more unsavory elements, and in particular, those parts of us that get in the way of our greater unfolding. To claim that we want 'truth' is not such a big deal. Far more significant is to encounter our particular psychological resistances to that truth. And these forms of resistance can indeed be fierce. So much so, that they have the ability to throw us off the path of awakening altogether; or worse, to convince us, in so many subtle ways, that we are, in fact, waking up, when more likely, we are merely dreaming that we are awake.

Symbols are a language, and essentially, the most 'primitive' of languages. But this is also what makes them the most direct, because they have the ability to 'touch' us in ways that bypass the conventional conscious filters. The whole problem with the human condition can, in a sense, be boiled down to un-naturalness. In this connection, I'm not suggesting that our self-realization lies in some of 'return' to our primordial roots. Ken Wilber (for one) accurately identified such approaches as a type of 'romanticism', in which we erroneously assume that our awakening is based on merely recapturing what we have imagined that we have lost. Christ may have exhorted us to 'become as a child again', but he can't have meant that literally, as the ignorance of the child is not the same as the wisdom of the sage, even if resembling it in some superficial regards. 

No, we are not going backwards to the so-called bliss of Eden. We are (ideally) going forward, into a realization that both transcends and includes (as Wilber puts it). We are going beyond. But we cannot truly go beyond the limitations of our toxic self-image without first being willing to face the unresolved issues in our (mostly subconscious) minds. The Tibetan Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa once said it well: 'Better not start on the spiritual path. But if you start, you had better finish.'

I always doubted what he meant by that (though I've nevertheless quoted his words often, because they are powerful, something like a vivid Zen koan). What I never quite understood was the idea of 'finishing the spiritual path'. How does one actually finish that? Has anyone ever truly finished that? 

I'm not sure. But what I am sure of, is that we must face our 'darker angels' -- the parts of our nature that are sequestered away in the realms of our mind that are typically without light. We need to bring light to the hidden. As Jung (him again) put it:

Projections change the world into the replica of one's own unknown face. 

Meeting our 'unknown face' is not the end of the journey, of course. In some ways, it is the beginning. But our inner journey toward truth has no foundation if we have not yet undone our projections -- by seeing, square on, what is so difficult to recognize within us.  

2012?

Last summer, by a series of fortunate last-minute happenings, I attended a musical concert with a good friend of mine, who was organizing Andrew Harvey's talk and workshop in our town at that time. After this concert we met up with Andrew and Karuna Erickson. Both were running a workshop and promoting their recently co-authored work Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism. Harvey is something of a rarity, once described as a combination of ‘Oxford aesthete and Eastern mystic’. He is a mystic who is also a rigorous thinker (and very fine writer).

The four of us chatted at length in a local lounge after the concert, and in the course of speaking with Andrew I mentioned to him my upcoming book (to be published later this year), Rude Awakening. Andrew was interested in the subject matter (even offering to write a Foreword for it) , and relayed how he’d recently attended a 2012 conference, in which while giving his talk at said conference, he became quite animated while expressing trenchant criticisms of certain of the ditzier elements of New Age thought, and especially how it pertains to 2012 matters.  

I have, admittedly, been loath to look at writings dealing with the so-called ‘2012’ phenomena, which draws its star-power from alleged Mayan ‘end-time’ prophecies -- and in particular, from the interpretation of these prophecies. Whenever I have glanced in that direction, I've seen little of interest, beyond a worried pre-occupation with the future (sort of the inversion of the academic historian's fixation on the past). That said, if I'm to choose between past or future as a topic of interest, I incline toward the past, because at least it is grounded in something (facts, or at worst, persuasive probabilities). Future is an unknown, and thus inevitably is approached by inference and speculation -- i.e., imagination. The prime reason I seldom read fiction anymore (well, for the past two decades or so) is because I'm not terribly interested in perceiving reality via someone else's imagination. If I'm to do that, I'd prefer the medium of film or theatre, where at least there are other angles of creativity present. (In to that mix I don't include classics, or just really good literary stuff -- which admittedly, is a matter of perception based on one's predilections). 

That said, I’m pleased to report that I recently discovered two pieces of writing on the 2012 matter that I found intelligent and engaging. The first is Richard Grossinger’s 2013: Raising the Earth to the Next Vibration (deceptively subtitled). The book is only marginally about 2012, prophecies, impending catastrophes, New Age simplistic dualism, and the like. (Which is why it is good!). It is more like an extended blog—and very extended, being some 600 pages—in which Grossinger wanders widely and freely along the byways of associative thinking ultimately connected to his take on the development of human consciousness, and especially how it is playing out now in these times of wildly exponential change. Grossinger can write, and with originality of thought; he is perhaps in some ways Robert Anton Wilson’s successor (with a touch of Kerouac and Harold Bloom-for-the-fringes. And he has been at this for some time; just the other day I stumbled upon a copy of his Waiting For the Martian Express, published in 1988, in a used book store, which, I daresay, contained writing equally original and incisive). The other work in this vein that I enjoyed was Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Pinchbeck is a generation younger than Grossinger, and it shows in his writing, which while equally original, presents a vision that is perhaps a tad less seasoned. He is, however, a bit less of a poet than Grossinger, and so his writing is somewhat more straightforwardly journalistic, something than may be handled with greater ease by those less inclined to a writing style that is both multilayered and ‘electrically elegant’ (as Andrew Harvey aptly describes Grossinger’s prose).

The main problem with the whole 2012 thing, as I see it—and as generally presented by writers other than the two just mentioned—is that in some ways it functions as an elaborate type of disinformation. Prophecies (and related matters) are seductive in general because they relieve us of the strain of having to sustain attention in present time. There is nothing harder in life than consistently maintaining present-time awareness (and its troublesome sidekick, responsibility). Especially as we age, accumulating dust and detritus (debts, failed relationships, accumulated misgivings, health issues—the general entropic sweep of human life) as we go. There is a reason why people, in general, grow fatter or more prone to alcohol usage as they move into middle age and beyond. The stress of dealing with the sheer musty banality of life shoves most in the direction of seeking quick relief from said stress.

For New Agers, stress about present time reality can be a discomforting thing to confess to, because after all, the whole idea of being ‘spiritual’ is to live with a radical orientation toward both clarity of thought and the present moment. So New Agers generally resort to more sophisticated distractions from the more unbearable facets of their present-time life. A good one is prophecy; and especially, prophecy that is based on impending global changes, preferably catastrophic.

For a person whose life is ‘working’, running on all cylinders, the idea of a looming catastrophe is unappealing. But for one who lives in such a way that they perceive themselves as marginalized, or recognize (however dimly) themselves to be unwilling to be responsible for certain facets of their life, a great global change is not such a bad idea. Who cares if all hell breaks loose if your own life is already a train wreck?

I am not, I should emphasize, a cheerleader of a lifestyle that rejects any sort of participation in the world. The path of the monk—in the true sense—is not for most. Primarily because most people have key lessons to be learned in areas relating to responsibility—and by that, I’m not referring to a conventional conformity within the parameters of ‘Man-made reality’, but rather, with the simple coming to terms with the reality of being alive in a physical body sharing a realm along with many other physical bodies.

In all probability, 2012 (or 2013) will pass as every other year has, regardless of what we humans conjure up at that time (or regardless of what humanly manufactured dystopia or, perchance, natural disaster  comes our way). It is true that we live in a highly interesting time, featuring a population and technology spike unlike any other seen before. Where it is all going is anyone’s guess, though I suspect that John Michael Greer, in his The Long Descent, has as clear a view as any. But for one aspiring to be awake, the lesson remains the same: find the balance between mind and world. And remember our highest purpose for being alive.     

A Chemical Wedding

Good movies on metaphysical guru-types are hard to come by, mostly because their lives and ideas are just too difficult to convey via a medium that is designed, above all, to entertain. We live during a time of compromised attention-spans. Modern means of communications (such as smartphones and social networking sites) are blurring relational boundaries, but they are also altering our perceptual fields, by creating a rapidly shifting show in which we are constantly tempted to switch focus to the next new thing that is clamoring for our attention.

Entertainment in its raw form (such as via sports, music, and film) has become of such value that athletes and successful entertainers are commonly paid more than doctors. Entertainers are valuable because they distract us, and the man or woman on the street is looking to be distracted from the meaningless elements -- so enhanced by the modern Blade Runner-esque bombardment of images and sensory data -- of their life. 

As such, movie scripts that make us think or that lack a plot that reaches out and grabs the average viewer and holds their attention in the usual base manner, rarely get funded and many never see the light of day. Most films are formulaic and utterly forgettable. Occasionally a gem comes along, perhaps a few a year if we're lucky (The King's Speech, with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, which I saw recently, being a sterling example of a quality picture; last year's sci-fi offerings Moon and District 9 being two others). But because the prime need of a film is to attract an audience and make money, the main focus must be on what satisfies the most possible viewers. The appeal to mediocrity has been the bane of all forms of art throughout history, and it is no different with modern film. 

G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most interesting men of the 20th century, and he led a life that was beyond the vision of even most novelists, and yet an actual biopic of his whole life has yet to be made, even though he's been gone for over sixty years. A movie was made of the first 35 years of his life -- it was directed by Peter Brook, released in 1979, and titled Meetings With Remarkable Men (after Gurdjieff's quasi-autobiographical book of the same title, published posthumously in 1963). The movie ends just when Gurdjieff was about to embark on his teaching career. It is an extremely well made film, lovingly crafted by people involved in Gurdjieff's Work, but what happened to the rest of his life after age 35? Why has there been no film of his most important years as one of the 20th century's most influential gurus? (Incidentally, the role of Prince Lubovedsky in the film, one of Gurdjieff's first mentors, was played by the well known English actor Terrence Stamp, who was himself an initiated disciple of Osho). 

No proper and complete biopic of Gurdjieff has been made for the same reason that none of Aleister Crowley's life has been made either -- to properly do so would require a script that simply could not be compressed into a two hour feature. It would need to be a series, of a length similar to the recent 38 episode production of Henry VIII's life (The Tudors, excellently done I might add). But, of course, that is not the only reason -- any film made by large movie studios must, perforce, uphold the worldviews of those who finance such things. Such a movie script may run the gamut from high quality to low, but it will, in some way, conform. Rogue mystics like Gurdjieff, Crowley (Osho, Trungpa, Adi Da, etc.) rub the 'wrong' way. They do not conform (in the greatest, most general sense -- which in the world of commerce and those with the power to finance a film, is everything).

Which brings me to an interesting little Hammer Horror-esque movie I saw last night, a feature called Chemical Wedding, based on the figure of Crowley. (The movie was retitled simply Crowley in North America). It is the brainchild of Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson (he wrote the script), and was directed by Julian Doyle. I'm late to the party on this one: the film was released in May of 2008. The plot is farcical and elements of the movie are clearly plagued by a relatively low budget. In short, this is a B picture. The actors who play Crowley are, however, outstanding (John Shrapnel in the opening scene, Simon Callow the rest of the movie -- though to be accurate, Callow does not play Crowley, but rather an eccentric Cambridge professor who is 'inhabited' by the spirit of Crowley). Apart from that most everything else is relatively low grade, particularly, I thought, the editing (ironic, since the director is a former editor). 

And yet, the film works, precisely because it is not meant to be taken seriously. It is actually high comedy, and I found myself in stitches more than once watching it (one scene, involving Callow's character giving Crowley's 'To pee or not to pee' speech in a lecture hall, is priceless). How much of this comedy is intentional I'm not clear, but almost certainly much of it is, and this is confirmed by a 'making of the movie' featurette that shows several takes where cast and crew burst out laughing at what they are creating. 

The film defines campy, but because it has good overall production values, and a dominant performance by Callow, it can be taken seriously as a creative work that brings to light one of the most controversial (and misunderstood) characters of modern esotericism. 

One other point: I think a movie like Chemical Wedding is also very good for helping followers of Crowley to see a bit more clearly any degree of emotional attachment to their 'supernatural aid' (to use Joseph Campbell's term). There is an old expression from A Course In Miracles: 'the ego hardened the moment we forgot to laugh at it' (paraphrase). Almost certainly the Beast himself would have been greatly amused by this movie, and flattered at the attention it lavishes on his legend, even if hugely distorting it. As Grady McMurtry once remarked, there was no point in whitewashing Crowley's rep because he spent so much time ruining it himself. Chemical Wedding is a type of campy extended commentary on McMurtry's remark.

Mysterious Conjunction

My book The Three Dangerous Magi: Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley, is available in (some) bookshops this month, and via Amazon. Putting together this book, and watching some of the responses to it, has been interesting. First, I had to choose a title, and hit upon the idea of 'three dangerous wise men' as a sort of comment on the idea of the type of 'prophets' or teachers who appear during dark times, or what in some traditions of the East is known as the Kali Yuga. Of course, the notion that we live in a 'dark time' is matter for profound debate; good arguments can be mounted to prove or disprove this idea. But the main idea of a 'Kali Yuga' teacher is that they specialize in the needs of their time, and in particular, helping people to escape from a prison at night, when there is little light. Such a teacher must know something of prisons -- and of the night -- themselves. They must have an edge to them to awaken people during  a time when there are so many ways to remain distracted and asleep.

Needless to say Osho, Gurdjieff, and Crowley were three highly intriguing characters, but what is probably more intriguing is the sort of view arrived at by followers of the three as to their relative merits. Many admirers of Osho approve of his name being mentioned alongside Gurdjieff, as Osho did, after all, admire the man, and even used some of his teachings in his own ashram. But for many of these same people Crowley is too much of a stretch (and some are even offended at his inclusion). Although, when one actually examines the reasons for this, one finds little substance beyond the usual garish and silly perceptions of the man. He is, in my opinion, quite possibly the single-most maligned and misunderstood mystic of modern times. Angel he was not, but nor are any other 'crazy-wisdom' teachers. The main difference in Crowley's case was that he made of his life an open book. So many teachers operate via elaborate subterfuge and deception; this is true even for many of the 'great' teachers who do, in fact, accomplish legitimate and powerful work.

More than one person has questioned why I chose to include Crowley in my study, but what I've found (to this point) is that most of those who cast doubt on my choice understand very little of Crowley and have not gone much further than reading a popular treatment of him (such as, for example, something by Colin Wilson, a fine popular writer who was heavily influenced by John Symonds, Crowley's most hostile biographer; Wilson overall had a somewhat dim view of his gnostic countryman; not altogether surprising -- often the harshest critics are those close to their object of study. For example, in India you will find some of Osho's greatest supporters, as well as his severest critics).

Crowley was, in fact, brilliant, something obvious for any who actually bother to read him. He was also a key figure in the transition from archaic mystic paths to modern pathways. My own further sense with Crowley is that he could easily have been a disciple of Osho had he been born in a different time. (Obviously a thought colored by my own time as a disciple of Osho, though perhaps not a statement that would be appreciated by a Thelemite). Gurdjieff people can, at times, be the most elitist of followers of the three. The Gurdjieff Work is esoteric in the most practical sense, but many involved in it believe it cannot be properly understood unless one's life is committed to it wholeheartedly. I myself spent one year in the Gurdjieff Work (almost 30 years ago), something that does not (according to at least one author who made it his point to inform me) confer upon me the right to write with authority about his Work. Nevertheless there are ample grounds for comparative study of his life and ideas, and like my other two 'dangerous Magi' he contrasts in many fascinating ways with their life trajectories.

A big problem with the so-called spiritual path is blandness. It is a great irony that the idea of the 'path' is fundamentally that of awakening, and yet many who would awaken us in fact put us to sleep. (Try listening to an Eckhart Tolle talk. A wonderful speaker, lucid, simple, to the point, but absolutely tinder dry and superb for insomnia).

Osho, to his everlasting credit, did not put people to sleep, and nor did Gurdjieff or Crowley, for that matter. They were not alone. There have been other teachers who could awaken not just with their ideas, but with the force of their presence as well, and some of these are still around (Lee Lozowick and Andrew Cohen being two good contemporary cases). Such teachers piss people off as much as they inspire, but they don't send us into sweet dreams with warm fuzzies.

Incidentally, the cover of The Three Dangerous Magi contains an alchemical 'secret'. The image appears to be that of the full Moon at night, alongside a tree. (Apt, as Osho, for one, described his awakening as having occurred in the night under a tree; Gurdjieff said humanity was 'food for the Moon', and Crowley wrote a fine novel called Moonchild). However, it is not in fact the Moon. The image is of the Sun (either a sunrise or sunset), with the color filter of the photo cast in dark blue light. And so while appearing to be the Moon, it is in fact the Sun. In many esoteric teachings appearances have equal power and value to substance, because both are ultimately understood to be the same. The Moon is in the Sun, the Sun in the Moon, the mysterious conjunction. Deus est demon inversus. (God and devil are two sides of the same coin). Awakening is, in essence, the Great Work of uniting apparent opposites.

YouTube Timewarp

I'm often astonished by the wonders of modern technology. In February of 1986 -- nearly a quarter of a century ago -- I found myself in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was a disciple of the radical Indian mystic Osho (then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh). I had been wandering around India, when the opportunity came to travel to Nepal and attend Osho's daily talks that he was giving out of the Soaltee Oberoi Hotel. This was unexpected, because Osho at that time was in a kind of seclusion, having just escaped the craziness that surrounded the meltdown of the commune in Oregon. I'd gone to India in December of '85 not foreseeing that the opportunity to sit in his talks would arise, but it did.

Once in Kathmandu I settled into a routine of attending Osho's 'walk-by' (a type of 'moving darshan') that he did on the grounds of the hotel daily, followed by his lecture in a large conference room in the evenings. At the end of February '86, he and his small entourage departed for Greece, in what was to be the beginning of his bizarre 'world tour', in which he was kicked out of, or refused entry to, a number of countries; I detail all this in my book The Three Dangerous Magi, which is being released in the U.K. now (November 2010) and in North America and elsewhere (next month).

One day while there, I wandered the streets of Kathmandu, and ended up at an outdoor market of some sort. There, in the middle of everything, was a table and on it was a pile of photos. One of the photos immediately caught my eye; it featured Osho in white robe in the foreground, and in the background three other people, including myself. Someone had taken a snap shot just as he walked past where I was standing. The effect was one of me standing in his 'aura', if you will. It was an extraordinary shot. I of course bought the photo at the market and had it blown up and framed when I got back to Canada.

Over the years the picture usually hung on a wall somewhere in my home, but about two years ago I moved and never got around to taking the picture out of storage. So it had faded from my mind. Just recently however I was looking at an Osho video on YouTube, when another video caught my eye. It was titled 'Osho in Kathmandu'. The thought crossed my mind that I might show up in that video, given that it was almost ten minutes long. Miniscule odds, but I was naturally curious.

Sure enough, I found myself in the video, standing with a group of friends as Osho walked by. Not only that, but the image appearing in the footage -- although of grainy quality (it is 25 years old) -- is of the exact same time when the photo of me was snapped. The exact same people are standing around me, the same gestures, etc. Given that I was there for about thirty days, the fact that the video was shot the same day the photo was snapped (although from a completely different angle) is very strange, to put it mildly, if only because photos and videos were being shot every day.

Anyway. The basis of recording technology, of the visual sort, is of course light. Images can be recorded because light can be recorded, or more exactly, the effects of light. Attention, or consciousness, is commonly symbolized by light, and for good reason, because it works in a similar fashion. There is something in consciousness that has the capacity to transcend time, to not be limited by time, much how a photo or some video footage can transport us back in time.

But is that really what's happening? Or is it rather that nothing truly ever leaves the present moment?

All these images that fascinate us, the world of form, captured by eye and camera and video, are full of light, but that light, when penetrated, is essentially nothingness -- shadows and dust. Nostalgia is our attempt to grasp onto nothingness and make it into something. Always we have to let go, and let go some more.   

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust. -- Rumi 

White Noise and Coffee Shop Dharma

'White noise'. Now there's an odd term. Technically it's defined as a sound that is an amalgam of all audible frequencies, at the same level of intensity. More commonly, we use the term 'white noise' to refer to a generalized, relatively quiet noise that is a sort of fusion or combination of everything we can hear going on in the background.

A typical urban coffee shop is a good place to experience white noise, especially if the shop is crowded. The sounds of all activity combined with human voices creates a kind of dull drone that (provided the shop is free of screaming babies or giggling teenagers) is more or less muted -- or perhaps more accurately, an animated muted, as everyone there is caffeinated.

I spend a lot of time in coffee shops, and I also write a lot. That means that I write in coffee shops a lot (a dazzling display of logic). I currently have two computers: a 2007 Acer Aspire desktop, and a 2008 Compaq laptop. (Well, make that three: I also have a 2007 Blackberry Curve, which is essentially a mini-computer). A computer that is two or three years old is already becoming dated, but I'm content with my machines and hope to get another two or three years out of them.

I write more on the laptop because that's what I take to the coffee shops. This city (Vancouver) has many of them (Starbucks, birthed in Seattle, first expanded to Vancouver). Now we also have Blenz, Waves, JJ Bean, Bean Around the World, The Grind, Saltspring, Cedar Cottage, Solly's, and many more (those listed are the ones I go to; I daily pass by others that I don't).

I write in coffee shops because, paradoxically, there is less distraction there. Gurdjieff wrote most of his 1,000 page long Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson in the Cafe de la Paix, in Paris, during the late 1920s. This I can easily understand (although I find it harder to understand how he did it with just pencil and cheap notebooks). I can understand it because the white noise of a coffee shop is in some ways perfect for writing, being loud enough to prevent the mind from wandering, but not so loud that concentration is impaired.

White noise is an interesting metaphor for the activity of the mind. The mind is always generating thoughts, the amalgam of which can be imagined as a sort of white noise. In order to be aware of such white noise, however, requires a witness that is distinct. There is the noise of the coffee shop, and the one who is aware of it. There is the movement of the mind, and the one who is aware of that.

Awareness arises in contrast and context, but is itself indivisible. (How do you truly divide awareness? I can make the effort to be simultaneously aware of both self and what I am perceiving, but that is only a mental trick, really. Awareness itself is not a 'thing' and therefore cannot be treated as a thing that can be divided, multiplied, combined, etc.).

The silent mind is considered a virtue in some spiritual teachings, but in fact a 'silent mind' is something of an impossibility. Silence exists, but mind is energy, activity, movement -- 'white noise'. What, then, is silence? And what is awareness?

These are the essential questions, the ones to be keyed in on in self-inquiry. We look into these questions not with the intention of explaining them -- although this can be attempted -- but more with the intention of entering into them. To gaze upon awareness itself, upon silence itself, is to begin to see into the nature of pure presence, and into the pristine clarity of awareness. The deeper we look, all activity that arises in the mind -- thought, awareness, silence, energy -- is ultimately seen and understood to be the same. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Thoughts arise from the void, from emptiness, from silence. And within a thought, is found both energy and silence.