Ep. 233 - Colorless (365 Tao)

What's the difference between the erotic and spiritual? 

Temples and lovers are equally gaudy. 

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Links:   

• 365 Tao,  by Deng Ming-Dao  
• Best Self - Self Journal 
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Notes:  n/a

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast, a show that provides insight and tools to build the life and homestead of your dreams. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021, and hopefully the audio for this morning comes out okay. I'm trying a new microphone placement on my jacket. So if there's something wrong with this, let me know. I'll also try and give it a listen later myself. In this show, some of the insight and tools that I share with you are not original, and I try to ensure that every time I share something that is not mine, I give credit where credit is due. And today is no different. While I was walking the dog this morning, I figured, why not take a little lesson from 365 Dow? It is the 327th day of the year. That's November 23rd. So for 327, as always, for those not familiar with the book, 365 Tao, it is a treasury of life-enhancing daily readings. Turns a wise Taoist light on every facet of life. Each daily entry begins with a one-word title and its Chinese character and elegant calligraphy. A brief poetic aphorism provides the theme, followed by a clear, insightful meditation on the day's Taoist principle. So what we have, the title of today's reading is what did I say it was? The title of today's reading is colorless. The brief poetic aphorism reads as follows. What's the difference between the erotic and spiritual? Temples and lovers are equally gaudy. And finally, we have the clear, insightful meditation on the Day's Taoist principle. What's the difference between eroticism and spirituality? Both refer to ecstasy. Both lead to transcendence of the self. Both lead to unification with a larger order. Both are vulnerable to excesses of perversion, lust, sadism, obsession, and madness. Eroticism and spirituality, the two deepest endeavors of humanity are twins. Both eroticism and spirituality mean intense involvement in the diversity and color of the world. But there is a higher order, a state where one is holiness itself. Then nothing of the world of color matters to you anymore. The pleasures of the couch will mean nothing. Neither will the glories of aesthetic efforts mean anything. Only by entertaining the colorless state of pure blinding light can there be freedom from the twins. Meditation changes your consciousness. The type of consciousness that emerges depends on the meditation. Your consciousness in turn colors your perceptions of the world around you. There is no such thing as objective reality. You color everything. If you want the highest state of being, aim for consciousness without color. Well, here I was thinking that I would read something from 365 Dow and perhaps get something on nature or the seasons, because it is chilly this morning. We are entering late fall, probably in the seventh or eighth week, if not the ninth already in Q3. No. I don't know. Yeah, seventh or eighth week of Q3. Damn near the ninth or tenth week of autumn. I used to gauge everything by nature, by the seasons. Even the journal that I use, the best self journal, which is a 13-week journal intended for quarterly use. I even broke that down by the seasons ending and beginning on the equinox and the solstice. However, in an effort to integrate my operations, my being into the rest of society, I thought that it might behoove me to look at things through that lens and attempt to utilize the journal and look at things through the quarterly lens like most people do. I think there's a good balance to be had. Much like the balance to be had when looking at the vulnerabilities to excess of eroticism and spirituality. Let's let me. I'm approaching the stop sign here. I'm gonna reread each paragraph. There's three paragraphs here. Because I just thought of something. What's the difference between eroticism and spirituality? Both refer to ecstasy. Both lead to transcendence of the self. Both lead to unification with a larger order. Both are vulnerable to the excesses of the perversion, lust, sadism, obsession, and madness. Eroticism and spirituality, the two deepest endeavors of humanity, are twins. It's incredibly easy to get hung up and allow yourself to go down a wormhole of excess in both eroticism and spirituality. I I have uh I have done so in both. I and I feel I'm on the cusp of going down some wormholes of of excess with regard to my spirituality. I I for those who are truly interested, I'd be willing to expand and elaborate a little bit more on my excesses of eroticism, but I'd rather not get into that now. The excesses of spirituality, on the other hand, is something that I think can be easily done for those who are seeking. It becomes very easy to maybe fall in that trap, but are there worse traps to fall into if we are talking about excess and perhaps addiction? You tell me, would you re would you rather be addicted to drugs, alcohol, gas station fast food, processed junk, sugar? Or would you rather be addicted to a life of the spiritual? Including but not limited to prayer and meditation. Both have their pros, both have their cons. But we're not here to talk about that. Or are we? It continues. Both eroticism and spirituality mean intense involvement in the diversity and color of the world. But there is a higher order, a state where one is holiness itself. Then nothing of the world of color matters to you anymore. The pleasures of the couch will mean nothing, neither will the glories of the aesthetics efforts mean anything. Only by entering the colorless state of pure blinding light can there be freedom from the twins? Freedom from the twins being eroticism and spirituality. What is the colorless state of pure blinding light? What is that that we enter where we receive freedom from the twins, from this world? Is it death? I don't know. Can't say I've ever experienced that. Have I had a near-death experience? I guess that's really. I guess that really depends on what you perceive to be the near-death experience. I've spoken about the coma before and being in it. And I've been asked what I remember from that experience. And the reality is very little. Um I first came out of it and tried to speak of it, all I could speak of, and I still refer to it as such, is the white. Right. For me personally, perhaps the white is the colorless state of pure blinding light. Where we experience freedom from the twins. Freedom from spirituality. Freedom from eroticism. Freedom from all of the challenges that life has to offer. There's one caveat to this though. We've talked about it this in the Telegram group a little bit. It's a bit of a dark and morbid subject. We don't dwell on it, but we are realists, and we talk about a lot of that there at t.me slash allaround growth. Links will be in the show notes. But we've talked about death, and we've also talked about the consideration of taking our own lives. The caveat that I mentioned to the colorless state of pure blinding light, where we experience freedom from the twins, I don't believe that we are able to experience that wholly if we were to take our own life. But we have so much here in this world and so much to look forward to. But as we hear in the strangest secret of the world, the architect of the universe didn't build a stairway leading nowhere. We're here right now for a reason. And I think it's important and only respectful to go about finding that with purpose, i.e. 2022 goal workbook, linked to in past episodes. Now meditation changes your consciousness. The type of consciousness that emerges depends on the meditation. Your consciousness in turn colors your perceptions of the world around you. There is no such thing as objective reality. You color everything. If you want the highest state of being, aim for consciousness without color. For those of us who are Christian, I think we oftentimes get hung up in the religion. I had reasons for joining the church which were kind of outside the spiritual realm a few years ago. It was larger community-driven. But that process has led me back to the desire to explore some of the spiritual in life. And real quick in conclusion, I'm not sure about you and your own spiritual journey, but I was raised Roman Catholic and I went through later in life a period of time where, and I still am, just maybe to a lesser extent, a more refined extent, where I was seeking. Went to all sorts of different churches, Episcopalian churches, Lutheran churches, Presbyterian churches, Friends Church, the Quaker Church, the even dabbled around with some Buddhism, but you know, let's be frank, not really. A lot of people talk about that. Yeah, read some stuff. Never really went anywhere to connect with anyone about it. Went back to some Catholic churches. Universalist churches, right? Um, all sorts. And everybody's got their different take on God's spirituality and such. But we read, your consciousness in turn colors your perceptions of the world around you. There is no such thing as objective reality. You color everything. If you want the highest state of being, aim for consciousness without color. And when we talk about colorless, we talk about the colors of eroticism and spirituality. Let us not get hung up in the divisiveness of religion, but let us unite in the glory of God so that we can live more healthy, positive, and beneficial lives, improving the lives of our own, improving the lives of our families, improving the lives of our communities, and in turn improving the lives of the world. Guys, I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. If you did, I would simply encourage you to check out the show notes for links to everything that was utilized as fodder for discussion today, as well as links to share the show with others, and links to all past episodes for easy reference. I appreciate you spending your time here with me this morning, and I look forward to another episode with you tomorrow. Have a great day today, everyone. And make it a great day for someone else as well. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.