Grieving the Loss of Truth

I was speaking with a coaching client a little over a week ago who is deep in the trenches birthing a worldview and potentially an exterior transition. In our conversation I became aware that he was perhaps longing for and grieving the loss of both objective truth and the projection that truth can be a destination to acquire.

I asked him to engage in the ritual over the next few weeks to truly mourn and honor the loss of objective and destination oriented truth.

Each meme has a different relationship with truth. It seems that with each cycle of development in human growth, truth becomes bigger, more intangible, and is more greatly owned as a subjective experience. I can recall when I experienced truth as something that could be acquired. I can also recall when nontruth was something that could be acquired. As if either was the root of fulfillment.

With awakening, there is the loss of objective truth. Truth becomes, always, the experience that is unfolding. What is true is that which is present.

In development, the relationship to truth develops from object to context, from context to subject, and then from subject to construct, and later from construct to mystery.

In both instances, truth is lost. Truth evaporates like the morning dew. This is liberating, typically, and normally celebrated. However, the longing for solidity and understanding runs strong through our human experience.

As truth evaporates from your experience in all of these ways, I highly recommend that you grieve appropriately its loss and the role this construct played in your life. In honoring this, something powerful might occur.

Loka and the Domain of Perception

Loka, a Sanskrit word, meaning world, dimension, plane, abode, and/or place or plane of existence manifests in a complex, dynamic relationship between both subjective (interior) and objective (exterior) spheres. Lokas are generally thought of as domains in the subtle realm that are visited through meditative states, astral travel, and lucid dreaming. This is certainly a piece of it. There are many worlds that exist in the subtle. For example, Swami Muktananda writes that he visited Siddhaloka, the realm of masters, in his process of awakening.

In my experience, the geographical domain of siddhaloka exists in the gross where ever there is a gathering of masters; in the geographical subtle where disembodied masters exist in subtle form (great place to meet Abhinavagupta); and in the subjective loka of enlightened perception: everyone is a master when you are a master.

Such experiences are neat. However, like most things in the column of spiritual neatness, loka is projected into the future as an event that must be acquired for human completeness. This is err.

Loka is both geographical and perceptive.

A loka as a geographical location exists both in the gross (physical), subtle (energetic, thought, dream, intuitive, etc.), casual (potentiality), and non-dual (location as all and the perception of oneness: ekaloka).

Loka as a perceptive experience includes memes (worldviews) and the state experiences of thought and feeling (by the way, each thought and feeling is a state experience). As we know, we interpret the state we experience from the meme (worldview) we're embodying.

In certain terms, our view of the world is the world. In other terms, the relationship between our world view and the world as it is (though we'll really never know how it is) is the world.

The body is a loka. The mind is a loka. The heart is a loka.

Much of our spiritual and development oriented human universe deals with the problems and pains of our humanity, and seeks to correct the ecology of our inner universe. We start wars with ourselves, striving hard to develop, calm the mind, change our patterns, and become something more, for "if I am enlightened or pushing the developmental envelope of the 3rd tier of human experience I would be happy."

It is my assumption that, just perhaps, you're okay. There is a strong current in integral culture that pushes towards development. This is not my assumption or preference. Think twice (or a lot) before you decide to adjust the nature of both your exterior and interior world. We know from the physical world that ecological environments are sensitive and even the slightest interference (with sometimes the best intentions) can cause great destructive change ending in climate chaos and global challenge.

Don't misunderstand, reality in its perfection chooses to develop as perfection. However, the hell-bent-on-development position that most in the integral and spiritual world embrace as the ultimate truth needs to be deeply reconsidered.

For a week, walk around pretending that everything about you, everyone and everything is okay. You can return to your unbalanced (and probably unchecked) bias towards radical development again soon.

[When one thing arises, there also arises paradoxes and polarities. A major paradox here is that there will be the presumption to let go of striving towards personal and spiritual development in order to be more okay. If you are hell bent on development, this is your own self, and your own self, your own loka, is just okay as it is being hell bent on development. Continue to develop, by all means, but please consider your motivations].