Sometimes you will hear talk of “perfect” human beings, “complete” human beings, “fully realised” human beings, within the cultures of the spiritual journey. With the understanding that some “him” or “her” has attained perfection in some kind of form. And, usually, the implication that by following that person (either through blind imitation of habit, archetypical realisation, emulated moral trajectory, entrance into a teacher-student relationship) the spiritual subject has the chance to reach perfection or completeness as well.
Such notions are purely cultural and have a meaning (of interest to ethno anthropologists) within their own originating system. But for us they are a distraction.
Our spiritual process isn’t about human beings, perfect or imperfect, complete or incomplete. It’s about the spirit: it’s about thought, in transmission of Intellect, in process of reception and reciprocation.
There are human beings involved in this process, this transmission. But their rank and station is incidental to the process, to the transmission of Intellect. Their rank and station is as incidental as nodes within a computer network: their significance is to receive and transmit onwards, nothing more. Nodes can be faulty, but their functionality is operational or non-operational, not perfect or imperfect.
(The information itself that is transmitted — this is subject to soul-accrual, a trace of where it has been, what it has touched. This trace does become more complicated, more beautiful, over time, over worlds. But there is nothing moral about its evolution, nothing to be “worked on” to increase its beauty.)
Mu, I have to disagree with some of this, but first … best wishes for the New Year 2012!
Overall what I sense about your commentary is that you’re in love with, in awe of the Beauty itself, but I don’t know that you’ve clarified the real functionality of what is a perfect human being, but maybe distracted yourself with an aspect and have become captured by it. I’ve always thought there were some limitations to this creature, but ‘how’ it occurs … do you think there could really be a separation of Spirit and the human being? I don’t think the human being can be minimized as much as you seem to be attempting. And, perhaps ‘following’ another person isn’t what we’re after, but maybe an alignment of sorts. I do think the ‘other’ person is important as the relationship and the ability to configure to what the other has achieved, what they own, what they have realized in addition to other non-human imprinting.
I like the notion of perfect and imperfect more than functional or non. Perfection lends itself more to a boundary and grasping what we are or are not until this achievement slips into an interval of sorts and develops further.
Perhaps morality is left in the traces, too, and what is or can be worked on is capacity?
Oh, Mu! I feel so old-fashioned in your presence!
Peace Kalimah, thanks for your reply and best wishes to you for the new year as well — of the Dragon no less, may it be successful for you!
First, I guess I’m really talking about personal experience here — mine, as a human being. I don’t think it works well as a generalization — but I also don’t think it doesn’t work well as a generalization …
I suppose all this depends on what we mean by a “human being”. I’m being general here — but in all cases, the “human being” must have a defining relationship back to a biological entity — that is, not the cells or the psychic components of the entity but the entity itself, comprehensible by biology — for example, “Muhammed” necessarily has a relationship back to a historical/political narrative.
In terms of my personal experience, I’m mainly thinking about two defining moments for me … one was what I previously referred to as an “Uwaisi” encounter and the other what I called my own “Miraj”.
I’m thinking that my “Miraj” is more accurately described as above. While I encountered “levels” with “prophets” on them, the “prophets” weren’t like some kind of iconography, like men standing before me. They were “foundational shapes” of thought. Subatomic, not corporeal in the sense that I am corporeal. I’ve had encounters with corporeal consciousnesses as well — but my “Miraj” didn’t take that kind of form … I guess the metaphor would be akin to a kind of spin instead of each “level” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(physics) ) …
I couldn’t say that I was encountering perfect human beings there — instead, curvatures/shapes/vibratory principles of thought that I could readily anthropomorphize (like giving names to quarks — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark ).
My “Uwaisi” encounter was, in contrast, a kind of corporeal linkage back to a flesh-and-blood human being, the man himself, all those centuries ago. But again, it wasn’t perfection that I was getting from that … it was more of a kind of soul spectrum, a “what came before you and what will come after you” kind of affair …
I had called it a “becoming”, in the sense of discovering a “tunnel” that connects the components of the soul — and intellect flows along that tunnel … but I probably placed too much emphasis on the (human being) ends of the tunnel, and not enough emphasis on the tunnel itself … which is what I mean by “spirit” or “thought” here …
Not sure if that clarifies things …
I like your point about humans, perfection and intervals. Its quite a fractal way of seeing things, and seeing teaching …
And yes, I think you’re right — morality probably IS left in the traces
Mu
I can’t speak for Islam or other world religions, but, I can speak for my own religion. Within Judaism itself, there are various spiritual paths. Some paths stress perfection and others view striving for it as a “red herring”. These latter paths stress focusing one’s divinely assigned spiritual work. If perfection is attained, let it happen because it came along on it’s own, not because it was chased down. It’s kind of like, if you’re eating healthily in most cases good health will arrive on it’s own. One does not need a seperate effort to attain it.
Yes, that’s a trend that runs through the two religions that I have most experience with, Buddhism and Islam … and Sufism local to Islam.
In Buddhism for example, the Therevada line emphasizes a kind of withdrawal from the world and personal path to enlightenment through following the Buddha’s story in your own life … with the idea that when we change within, the world will follow … the Mahayana line in contrast emphasizes good works within communities, with the idea that the path to enlightenment can take its time (delaying it to future incarnations is fine if we push humanity forward to it collectively because every action counts). I remember travelling from retreat with a Thai Therevada monastery to a Chinese Mahayana … big contrast!
Islam is a bit tricky because, for the most part, Muslims would argue it is a wholistic approach. Their example would be Muhammed (or other prophet kings like David or Solomon) — who was involved in politics, lawmaking, solving other people’s personal disputes as well as spiritual side of things. Nevertheless, there is a dichotomy …
I think all paths are fine — including ones that appear to strive for perfection — but I think any action done with the purpose of “following” a holy, perfect man … say, imitating an action of Muhammed or of David or of the Buddha in order to obtain closeness to God … I think that’s a red herring. The imitation of a man is not effective … instead, it must be the conduits in dynamic process “downward” from God and “upward” from the human that are the point. It’s not imitation of a life toward God that’s the point — it’s life itself, grasping that life itself is nothing but (I’ll say sephirotic) Love shipped up and down conduits between names/nodes in a network that spans worlds and times.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience.
In the past, I’ve followed a Hasidic path which had some emphasis on meditative withdrawal. Today, I follow a very outgoing Hasidic path that heavily emphasizes engagement with improving the spiritual state of the world.