In the Dark Places of Wisdom (Peter Kingsley)

This book is about re-interpreting what has become commonly accepted as historical truth in western philosophy, and even more, re-discovering what has been ignored or deemed unimportant. This is a monumental achievement as it promises to unravel and refashion the fabric of the Western world. The book is about bringing to awareness the experience underlying the foundations of an ancient philosophy that has been lost in modern conceptions of what we now call 'Western philosophy'.

Kingsley maintains that what we haven't been told is that a spiritual tradition lies at the roots of Western civilization. A tradition that plunges one into an experience so powerful, but so elusive that people have tried for thousands of years to make sense of it, and have always failed. The essence of this truth tells us that if we want to grow up and become true men and women, we have to face death before we die. What Kingsley is referring to here is what we might call psychological death, where one passes through the death of the egoic mind to emerge on the other side.

There were a group of people, Kingsley points out, whose culture had evolved to encourage the experience of precisely this state of consciousness. They were the Phocaeans, the most daring adventurers among the ancient Greeks, called by some 'the Vikings of antiquity'. They were from Phocaea in the western coastal regions of Anatolia (or modern-day Turkey), and the nearby island of Samos, which was the home of Pythagoras (who later sailed west to south Italy in 530 BC). Ancient Greece maintained strong links with Persia, Babylonia, Egypt, and India. Greek culture was much less self-enclosed than we have been led to believe. There was a great deal of trade and travel, with the attendant exchange of ideas, philosophies, and religion. However, the people of Phocaea eventually were driven from their homes in the coastal regions of Anatolia by the Persians, for religious, economic, and political reasons. Many sailed westward and established colonies in Corsica, and later in southern Italy. The city they eventually founded in south Italy was called Velia, and here they remained for centuries.

Kingsley states that there is one man who influenced the western world in a way no one else did. To some specialists he's known as 'the central problem' in making sense of what happened to philosophy before Plato. He's said to have created the idea of metaphysics. It's said that he invented logic: the basis of our reasoning, the foundation of every single discipline that has come into existence in the West. His influence on Plato was immense, and Kingsley indicates that just as it is sometimes said that the whole of western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, so Plato's philosophy in its developed form could be called a series of footnotes to this man: Parmenides of Velia.

Parmenides was, among other things, a poet, and Kingsley tells us that he wrote one work in particular, in the metre of the epic poems of the ancient past; poetry revealing what humans rarely see or know, describing the world of gods, the world of humans, and the meeting between gods and humans. The poem was written in three parts. The first part describes his journey to the goddess who has no name. The second describes what she taught him about reality. And the third part begins with the goddess saying she will now deceive him as she goes on to describe in detail the world we believe we live in.

Kingsley states that Parmenides in his poem was journeying down to the underworld in the regions of Hades, and Tartarus from where no one usually returns. He was consciously and willingly travelling in the direction of his own death. And the only way to describe this hero's journey is in the language of myth. We quote at length that part of Parmenides' poem that appears in Kingsley's book:

The mares that carry me as far as longing can reach
rode on, once they had come and fetched me onto the legendary
road of the divinity that carries the man who knows
through the vast and dark unknown. And on I was carried
as the mares, aware just where to go, kept carrying me
straining at the chariot; and young women led the way.
And the axle in the hubs let out the sound of a pipe
blazing from the pressure of the two well-rounded wheels
at either side, as they rapidly led on: young women, girls,
daughters of the Sun who had left the mansions of Night
for the light and pushed back the veils from their faces
with their hands.
There are the gates of the pathways of Night and Day,
held fast in place between the lintel above and a threshold of stone;
and they reach up into the heavens, filled with gigantic doors.
And the keys—that now open, now lock—are held fast by
Justice: she who always demands exact returns. And with
soft seductive words the girls cunningly persuaded her to
push back immediately, just for them, the bar that bolts
the gates. And as the doors flew open, making the bronze
axles with their pegs and nails spin—now one, now the other—
in their pipes, they created a gaping chasm. Straight through and
on the girls held fast their course for the chariot and horses,
straight down the road.
And the goddess welcomed me kindly, and took
my right hand in hers and spoke these words as she addressed me:
'Welcome young man, partnered by immortal charioteers,
reaching our home with the mares that carry you. For it was
no hard fate that sent you travelling this road—so far away
from the beaten track of humans—but Rightness, and Justice.
And what's needed is for you to learn all things: both the unshaken
heart of persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals,
in which there's nothing that can truthfully be trusted at all.
But even so, this too you will learn—how beliefs based on
appearance ought to be believable as they travel all through
all there is.'

Kingsley goes on to explain the symbolism in the poem substantiating his claims with recent archaeological evidence and many textual sources. He arrives, with insightful attention to detail, at the discovery of a process that was long ago understood, but whose knowledge has been virtually lost today. And that is the process of dying before one dies: entering into the underworld (or the collective unconscious in Jungian terms) while still living. This mind-shattering experience promises a deep knowledge and understanding that is based on a direct personal experience of who and what we really are.

A number of important key words were encountered in inscriptions on archaeological finds and through more careful examination of original Greek texts. These are, Phôlarchos, Ouliadês, Iatromantis, and Apollo. The meaning of these words, especially when taken in relationship, is quite revealing. Phôlarchos is translated as 'Lord of the Lair'; Ouliadês literally meant 'son of Oulios' or 'son of Apollo'; and Iatromantis is translated as 'prophet-healer'. Apollo originally meant 'deadly', 'destructive', and 'cruel', as every god or goddess has his or her destructive side, but the Greeks also explained it as, 'he who makes whole.' This more completely describes Apollo, "the destroyer who heals, the healer who destroys." In addition, Kingsley reports four vocations in this tradition that are said to give human beings a special closeness to the divine: prophet, poet, healer, and political leader or lawgiver. Interestingly, all of these activities are sacred to the same god: Apollo.

A golden thread connecting Apollo, healing, prophecy, and dark dwelling places becomes readily apparent. In this way, Kingsley shows that Apollo was in fact connected with the night, dark places, with the underworld and death. Apollo's temple was right above the cave leading down into the underworld, and this was the case at many famous oracle centres in Anatolia. These caves were entered by initiates and priests at the dead of night. Apollo was later associated with the sun, but this was a matter for initiates only. It is in the dark night that there is healing, which subsequently allows one to enter into the true light of day.

Today, Apollo is mistakenly rationalized to be the embodiment of reason. The gods are not 'rational' in the sense we know. Reason is a product of the mind, and to enter into conversation with the gods requires leaving the mind and reason behind. Kingsley tells us that light belongs in the underworld, that this is where its home is—that the source of light is at home in the darkness. This was well understood in southern Italy, as a whole mythology grew up around the figure of the sun god as he's driven in his chariot by the horses that carry him out of the underworld before they take him down again. This was true for Velia, and also certain men and women known as Pythagoreans—people who had gathered around Pythagoras when he came to southern Italy from the East. These were people intimately familiar with Orphic traditions. All these people understood that there is no heaven without going through hell. To them the fire in the underworld was purifying, transforming, and immortalizing. Everything had to be experienced, and to find clarity meant facing utter darkness. For these people it was all about going right through the darkness to what lies on the other side.

Kingsley recounts how the early Christians spoke of the 'depths' of the divine, and how the Jewish mystics spoke of 'descending' to the divine. These notions, however, were eventually silenced. As Kingsley states, "... the trouble is that when the divine is removed from the depths, we loose our depth, and start viewing the depths with fear and end up struggling, running from ourselves ..."

Through more impressive detective work, Kingsley reveals some of the details of the process that serves to take initiates into the experience of reality. He speaks of a process involving lying motionless in a cave in a state of 'incubation' sometimes for days on end. It is through these ritual practices of incubation that certain states of 'suspended animation' were achieved, through which, access to powerful healing abilities and esoteric knowledge was obtained. This suspended animation has parallels to various other religious traditions, specifically forms of meditation, where one enters into states of deep stillness, where the breath ceases, the action of the heart diminishes, and the mind stops.

Kingsley tells how ancient Greek accounts of incubation repeatedly mention certain signs that mark the point of entry into another world—into another state of awareness. One such sign involves becoming aware of a rapid spinning movement, and the other involves hearing a powerful vibration produced by a piping, whistling, hissing sound. In India, precisely the same signs are described as a prelude to entering samadhi. And this is also directly related to the process known as the awakening of kundalini, or the awakening of the serpent power.

This brings us to another aspect of Apollo that was relegated to darkness, namely, his affiliation with snakes. Kingsley states that in ritual art snakes were sacred to Apollo. His fight with the snake he killed at Delphi symbolized absorption of the prophetic powers that the snake represents. When he appeared in the middle of the night to those who visited his incubation shrine, he might assume the form of a snake, or a hissing sound would reveal his presence.

"The purpose of these techniques was to free peoples attention from distractions, to turn it in another direction so that awareness could start operating in a completely different way. The stillness had a point to it, and that was to create an opening into a world unlike anything we're used to: a world that can only be entered in deep meditation, ecstasies and dreams."

And it is precisely this stillness that allows us to make the hero's journey into another world, to the source of light in darkness, and bring back the timeless knowledge we encounter there.

A fascinating account of gods and goddesses, prophets and healers, and Western culture's true spiritual legacy—one that promises to infuse fresh vitality into the heart of a withering Western philosophy and science.

Autobiography of a Yogi (Paramahansa Yogananda)

This book is a rare account of the life of a certain type of individual--the yogi. It is rare that we get a clear first-hand account into the life of such a person, as the responsibilities attendant to spiritual vocation often do not permit for such indulgences. However, Paramahansa Yogananada had an important message to convey. And he endeavored to convey that message through the telling of the story of his extraordinary life experience.

Yogananda takes us through the formative experiences of his life, with remarkable candour, elegance, and charm. His life is laid out as on a canvas for all to see, the texture of his experience bordering on the fantastic and unbelievable. And yet there is a deep sense of honesty and truthfulness in his words. His friendships with diverse peoples from all strata of society, from common folk to scientists, statesmen, Nobel Laureates, or other spiritual giants of his day, leaves one to reconsider the initial impression of inauthenticity in the face of such grandiose phenomena, and whether there is a great deal more to human existence than we are generally led to believe.

The book is replete with fascinating insights into human nature, and the relationship between the material and immaterial realms. Yogananda displays his awareness of Western thought with a liberal sprinkling of quotes and aphorisms suitable to the occasion, by many illustrious figures of Western culture, including Socrates, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Dostoevsky, and Emerson to name a few. The book is extremely well-written and extraordinarily scholarly without detracting from its readability. There are generous footnotes expanding on ideas or providing references to other works. The index alone is worth its weight in platinum; it provides a thorough listing of people, places, ideas, and events, complete with contextual entries, the likes of which I have rarely seen. Such attention to detail clearly reveals this work as a labour of love.

Perhaps the single most prominent feature of this work is it's remarkable description of what Eastern spiritual traditions call samadhi. Yogananda's experience was brought on by an act of compassion on the part of his Christ-like guru, Sri Yukteswar. Seeing the young yogi struggling with meditation, desperately attempting to still his mind, Sri Yukteswar gently and compassionately strikes Yogananda on his chest above the heart. What follows is an incredible experience in Cosmic Consciousness. Yogananda's body becomes rooted, breath is drawn out of his lungs, "as if by some huge magnet." Consciousness disidentifies with his body and streams out, "like a fluid piercing light from my every pore." Yogananda describes a sense of aliveness never before experienced; an expanded perception of people on distant streets, discernment of root structures and the inward flow of sap in plants and trees. His ordinary frontal vision transformed to, "a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive." All objects within his panoramic gaze,

[...] trembled and vibrated like quick motion pictures. My body, Master's, and the pillared courtyard, the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, became violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; [...]

As an oceanic joy pervaded his being,

A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being.

And then, suddenly, "the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realised that my infinite immensity was lost." The words of Yogananda's guru cap the experience with a revealing wisdom, "You must not get overdrunk with ecstasy. Much work yet remains for you in the world. Come, let us sweep the balcony floor; then we shall walk by the Ganges." And much later, Yogananda's deeply insightful and practical realisation that through stilling of the dual storms of thought and breath, release from delusive convictions and direct perception of the Infinite as One Light could be had.

The reader's interest is continuously piqued until the tension becomes almost unbearable--enter the science of Kriya Yoga. This is the centrepiece of the book and Yogananada's life purpose: an explanation of the how and why.

Kriya Yoga is a simple psychophysiological method by which human blood is decarbonized and recharged with oxygen. The atoms of this extra oxygen are transmuted into life current to rejuvenate the brain and spinal centres. By stopping the accumulation of venous blood, the yogi is able to lessen or prevent the decay of tissues. The advanced yogi transmutes his cells into energy.

Yogananda refers frequently to the Bhagavad-Gita, and quotes from it liberally. He states that Kriya Yoga is the same science Krishna gave millennia ago to Arjuna, and that it was also later known by such notable figures as Patanjali, Christ, St. John, and St. Paul among others. The basic tenet (interpreted from the Bhagavad-Gita) is:

The yogi arrests decay in the body by securing an additional supply of prana (life force) through quieting the action of the lungs and heart; he also arrests mutations of growth in the body by control of apana (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, the yogi learns life-force control.

Yogananda quotes from the Gita again,

The meditation expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger.

Patanjali, the renown Indian sage, is also quoted in reference to the Kriya technique or life-force control:

Liberation can be attained by that pranayama which is accomplished by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration.

Most revealing is the further explanation of the Kriya technique that follows, and shall be quoted at length:

St. Paul knew Kriya Yoga, or a similar technnique, by which he could switch life currents to and from the senses. He was therefore able to say: 'I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ, I die daily.' By a method of centering inwardly all bodily life force (which ordinarily is directed only outwardly, to the sensory world, thus lending it a seeming validity). St. Paul experienced daily a true yoga union with the 'rejoicing' (bliss) of the Christ Consciousness. In that felicitous state he was conscious of being 'dead' to or freed from sensory delusions, the world of maya.

In the initial states of God-contact (sabikalpa samadhi) the devotee's consciousness merges with the Cosmic Spirit; his life force is withdrawn from the body, which appears 'dead,' or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily condition of suspended animation. As he progresses to higher spiritual states (nirbikalpa samadhi), however, he communes with God without bodily fixation; and his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldy duties.

'Kriya Yoga is an instrument through which human evolution can be quickened,' Sri Yukteswar explained to his students. 'The ancient yogis discovered that the secret of cosmic consciousness is intimately linked with breath mastery. This is India's unique and deathless contribution to the world's treasury of knowledge. The life force, which is ordinarily absorbed in maintaing the heart action, must be freed for higher activities by a method of calming and stilling the ceaseless demands of the breath.'

The Kriya Yogi mentally directs his life energy to revolve, upward and downward, around the six spinal centres (medullary, cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal plexuses), which correspond to the twelve astral signs of the zodiac, the symbolic Cosmic Man. One-half minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; [...]

The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and 'foolproof' methods of Kriya, man's body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy--the first materially active expression of Spirit.

The details of the Kriya technique are, unfortunately, not described in detail, due to certain injunctions in communicating such information in a format intended for the general public. However, not all is lost, as Yogananda indicates that the technique can be learned from an authorized Kriyaban (Kriya Yogi) of Yogoda Satsanga Society / Self-Realization Fellowship--for those so inclined.

Yogananda also gives a brief summary of the Yoga system as outlined by Patanjali (different from the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path). The first steps, (1) yama and (2) niyama, require observance of ten negative and positive moralities--avoidance of injury to others, of untruthfulness, of stealing, of incontinence, of gift-receiving (which brings obligations); and purity of body and mind, contentment, self-discipline, study, and devotion to God.

The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration); holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation), and (8) samadhi (superconscious perception). This is the Eightfold Path of Yoga which leads one to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), a term which might be more comprehensibly put as "realization of the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension."

A fascinating account of an extraordinary man and his life experience. The essence of Autobiography will likely not be understood by those who seek to understand solely through conceptual analysis. At the core of the book is something ultimately ungraspable by the mind. It appears to be pointing to something beyond mind, something that requires a direct personal experience in order to fully appreciate. And whether that experience is sought through the science of Kriya Yoga or some other path is a decision best left for the reader.

On the Road (Jack Kerouac)

This book is a wild, mad rollercoaster ride through the hearts and minds of a generation. Everything is so believably crazy and insane, one can't help but imagine it could happen to any one of us if we just let it. The themes of adventure, freedom, fearlessness, optimism, and acceptance are especially pronounced. A kind of Hero's Journey through the depths of ones mind and heart that vibrates and manifests on the material plane in regard to what's happening all around. The book takes you criss-crossing all over the United States lost in the adventures of circumspect Sal Paradise and crazy Dean Moriarty. Although I've never read Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, I've read of them, and my impression is here we have a great tribute to such enduring classics, though couched in the speak of a new generation. "Digging" everyone and seeing beauty everywhere even in the midst of paltry mediocrity, fostering a deep interest and curiosity of people and life.

The book continually reveals layers of people and culture with amazing clarity and insight. One is left with the impression that the work is based on the author's own personal experience, such is the depth of observation and attention to detail. The many adventures really brought home to me how paranoid we have all become in the West, how untrusting and fearful. Such a contrast with the people encountered in the later adventures in Mexico, a journey into the true unknown—"The New World." Also a symbol for the return to that childlike state we all find ourselves in at the beginning of our lives, a state of heightened perception and consciousness, where everything is so new, fresh, virgin, one profound discovery after another. That is, all until the machinery of conditioned society grabs hold of us, and forces upon us the monotony of our role as cogs moving forward it's wheels—all the while, being taught to pay relentless homage to the gods of unbridled greed, power, selfishness, and anything and everything lacking intrinsic value or meaning. Life stops flowing. Everything becomes planned to the finest detail. Our lives become mere shadows and pretenses of plastic experience concocted so we can lull ourselves into thinking we are genuinely partaking of life.

There are also some very philosophical sections hinting at getting TIME, about getting IT which I absolutely must quote. This seems to point markedly towards ideas in Eastern philosophy regarding the importance of moment to moment awareness. That the more present we are, the more IT manifests all around us. In a nutshell, stopping our continual reminiscing or regrets for the past, our compulsive planning or worrying for the future, and just being here, now. Letting all just unfold on it's own. Kind of Ram-Dassian, but then Jack Kerouac's followup book a year later was The Dharma Bums, so it all fits together.

In one extremely potent moment, as Sal wanders alone down the streets of San Francisco, desperately tired and hungry with no money in his pocket, picking butts from the street, passing by a fish-'n-chips shop on Market Street, and making eye contact with the proprietress:

[...] I walked on a few feet. It suddenly occurred to me this was my mother of about two hundred years ago in England, and that I was her footpad son, returning from gaol to haunt her honest labors in the hashery. I stopped, frozen with ecstasy on the sidewalk. I looked down Market Street. I didn't know whether it was that or Canal Street in New Orleans: it led to water, ambiguous, universal water, just as 42nd Street, New York, leads to water, and you never know where you are. I though of Ed Dunkel's ghost on Times Square. I was delirious. I wanted to go back and leer at my strange Dickensian mother in the hash joint. I tingled all over from head to foot. It seemed I had a whole host of memories leading back to 1750 in England and that I was in San Francisco now only in another life and in another body. [...] It made me think of the Big Pop vision in Graetna with Old Bull. And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. I could hear an indescribable seething roar which wasn't in my ear but everywhere and had nothing to do with sounds. I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember especially because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it. I realized it was only because of the stability of the intrinsic Mind that these ripples of birth and death took place, like the action of wind on a sheet of pure, serene, mirror-like water. I felt sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein; like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes you shudder; my feet tingled. I thought I was going to die the very next moment. But I didn't die, and walked four miles and picked up ten long butts and took them back to Marylou's hotel room and poured their tobacco in my old pipe and lit up. I was too young to know what had happened.

Wow. And again:

Now, man, that alto man last night had IT—he held it once he found it; I've never seen a guy who could hold so long... Here's a guy and everybody's there, right? Up to him to put down what's on everybody's mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then he rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. All of a sudden somewhere in the middle of the chorus he gets it—everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries. Time stops. He's filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul-exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows it's not the tune that counts but IT...

And finally:

[...] the point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE... Now you just dig them in front. They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there—and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see. But they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace unless they can latch on to an established facial expression to fit and go with it, which is you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end. Listen! Listen!

I wanted so much to be there with these crazy madmen as they traipsed across America and beyond in ultra-cool devil-may-care style. Wanted to let go, join them, lose myself, and become a little bit mad also.

The novel that defined a generation? Definitely—and inspired the next.