The Process of Entering

By leap of faith I don't mean a leap into a belief system but a leap out of a belief system – a leap out of the box containing you into the bigger box containing that box. This is really what progress is, and to achieve it you need faith in the teaching and belief in your teacher and yourself. Most peoples approach to progress is to just become bigger and stronger but to remain within the same confined system they inherited from their parents and the culture that educated them – in Tai Chi terms this would be called "comparative mastery." Every now and then in your life someone or something will come along and will point out to you, either didactically or by example, that there is in fact a bigger richer world out there than the confined one you have become either comfortable or dissatisfied with. So, as I have described before, my father was responsible for opening up my narrow Mancunian outlook by bringing home books on Paul Klee and Stockhausen. And later, Emily Dickinson's complete poems, which just blew my mind – I still find her the most revolutionary of poets, not because she invented new forms or extended the language (how trivial can you get), but because she led such a life of concentration – she was basically a nun devoted to the internal – so internal she never left the house. What was totally interesting about her was that she wasn't just extending and stretching the world I already inhabited, as the others I've mentioned were, she was showing me that a completely different world existed – what we now call the world of the heart. Studying with John Kells – the only other person I've encountered who lives exclusively in this world (it is no accident that ED is the only poet he has any time for) – has gradually made me understand more of this world, and has convinced me that it is the real one and the only one worth being part of. What is very difficult to come to terms with is that on entering a new world everything within oneself has to change – the tricks and techniques you've learnt since birth to deal with the ordinary world just don't hack it in the new one – if they do then it isn't a new one it's just a bigger version of the old one. Now the real bummer is that what is important is not being in a new world but the process of entering itself. Otherwise life would actually be quite a breeze – find a unique niche for yourself – map it out (become an expert) – and rest on your laurels. The internal cannot be mapped because, as it says at the beginning of the Tao Te Ching, "The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao" – as soon as you can say anything about the internal you've externalized it and it is no longer internal. The internal is something you need to be constantly entering. Like JK says, "Each day I start life again." The internal cuts through and confounds any concepts – no matter how generalized and inclusive you make your model the internal will not fit it. Even calling it a world is incorrect. If anything it is that process of entering anew. To enter anew you need energy – the ability to be supremely awake and active – and you need heart – the ability to open and embrace unconditionally – and you need relaxation, or what we are now beginning to call soul – a groundswell of connectedness and commonality that pervades your being – and you probably also need grace – the ability to put your self in the hands of something higher than you'll ever be.

The problem with language and with writing is that it is always open to interpretation – there is always going to be a massive rift between what is meant and what is understood. This is mainly because the interpreter is approaching the text with a rigid interpretive apparatus – they are not actually open. Their mind may be open in that it is willing to receive new information, but the heart is not – is not willing to be thrust into a new world. When I read John's writings there is no part of me that says, "Oh yes! I absolutely agree!" or "No way! That can't be so!" – it's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing – it's far deeper and more immediate than that. I usually feel myself in the grip of some really uncomfortable truth I'd much rather not have to face. If I think anything it's usually, "Oh shit! Back to square one." It's a bit like having to swallow medicine. The truth is not nice. It's awful. And it's dangerous. This is why I take exception with the whole New Age, alternative health movement – the world they describe and inhabit has no power or passion – it's just a weak middle-class reaction to the excesses of Darwinian capitalism – avoidance, not yielding.