My spiritual development is resolutely dialectic. While I am deeply moved by scriptures touting nondual this-and-that, I am increasingly convinced that the transformational significance of nondual parlance is its inescapable dualism. I and others—belonging to a smattering of practitioners submitted to the Cernunnian and/or Plutonian forges of bidirectionality, liminality, edging, and inversion—find ourselves stuck between the poles of a dualism; then find ourselves stuck between a dualism and its attendant nondualism; then, perhaps, resign to the nondualism, or to the dualism, but with an increasing awareness of what is common to the dual poles, or an awareness of the arbitrariness of the distinction, which nonetheless remains. Then we do it again, perhaps in the grips of a new dualism, or the same; in the grips of roaring multiplicity, or generally blissed by dissolution.

If one were to survey contemporary spiritual discourse in the West, it would appear that there are many dualisms, yet seemingly only one nondualism. People seem happy to retain many dualistic frameworks as either polemic targets or as clandestine scaffolding; but appear to treat nondualism as a monolith worthy of devotion and only in need of clarification for those who have not been initiated into the nondual club. “Nondual awareness” or “nondual meditation” or “nondual philosophy” are phrases flung around as though there is a ready-made and common basis for their significations. The presumption, I presume, is that there is, in fact, a shared point-of-reference across practitioners and across traditions.

Believe it or not, and despite my emerging thesis, I do feel that there is such a common point-of-reference in limited cases. I believe that members of our somewhat loosely-defined linguistic community can converge upon a common understanding of such an elusive term, an understanding reinforced by common experience.

What I object to is

1. the confidence with which people presume that what they are referring to by the term “nondual awareness” is the same in each case, from practitioner to practitioner;

2. the presumption that such seemingly ubiquitous convergence means that the converged-upon concept and attendant realizations are somehow the “fundamental” concepts and realizations; and

3. that anyone should rest on their laurels in virtue of their confidence that they’ve attained direct knowledge of this “fundament.”

There are many formidable dualisms to be negated, each having left their mark on the history of contemplative practices, each having been forcefully negated in turn, and each a viable candidate for the dualism people are negating when they speak of nonduality: the outer and the inner, the mundane and the divine, the pure and the impure, the self and the other, the self and the non-self, the dead and the living, the subject and the object, the material and the mental, the thing and its properties, space and its occupants, the concealed and the revealed, the actual and the possible, the real and the imagined, the subconscious and the conscious, the unconscious and the conscious, the existent and the nonexistent, the rational and the irrational, the good and the evil, the enlightened and the ignorant, the impermanent and the eternal, the static and the dynamic, the zero and the one, the one and the two, the lover and the beloved… and, in a striking turn, the dual and the nondual.

Which dualism is negated in the experiences shared by contemporary proponents of nonduality? And what does it mean for their experience to be absent of said dualism? These questions are not rhetorical. Nor am I suggesting that people should already have answers to these questions, and that they simply need to provide answers to my satisfaction. These are rich, charged, propulsive questions that seriously resist resolution. I am strongly convinced that holding the tension of such questions is integral to a solid and liberatory practice. This tension entails a raveling and unraveling that is transformative and, dare I say, blissful, once you get used to the discomfort.

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Recently I watched the above clip in which Rupert Spira—one of the champions of nonduality in the West—was fielding questions from a conspicuously forlorn audience. The querent describes a transformative experience she underwent. She tells Spira that she was saddened by the fact that what she had experienced had since faded, and she seeks his guidance in light of this. Spira’s response is to the effect: “mental states come-and-go, including the profound ones. But awareness is forever. Awareness is the background stillness wherein the flow of experience occurs. It is not experience itself. You should attend to awareness, not the experiences that occur therein. That is where liberation lies.”

Of all the responses someone could have given, I cannot imagine a more dualistic one. He, in no uncertain terms, told the woman that her experience was not “it.” He told her that she should attend to this—“awareness”—and not the enticing “objects” of awareness. This is the epitome of duality. It is also the epitome of what people in the English-speaking world are calling nonduality, a term that is zealously and increasingly applied to pretty much any Eastern or East-oriented tradition dealing in paradox.

I can only assume that Spira and similar instructors of “nonduality” consciously employ a dual framework—pitting awareness against its contents—as a pedagogical tool, in faith that practicing within such a framework leads to the realization that awareness and its contents are, in fact, one and the same. Maybe this works. But I can say with confidence that Spira’s answer to the querent in the video did not help her. It is evident that she is trying to use his words to comfort herself, as if his wisdom alone would serve as a cure. Clearly Spira himself is expecting as much. And it is evident that neither are succeeding in their efforts. She will not go home and realize liberation in virtue of his advice. Spira’s limply edifying discourse reinforces the limpness of her conviction. His unsatisfying response to her ecstatic and invigorating experience dampens the very part of her that is hungry for freedom. But it sounds profound, profound enough to keep her roped in.

As I see it, the ecstatic experience that this woman describes in her question was an initiation. She was bestowed the signature of a way of being. She knows not the nature of the bestower, knows not how to receive the bestowal again, and knows not how to bestow it to herself. But she can come to know these things. Many systems of Buddhist and Hindu tantra have categories for just this kind of experience, and methods for its cultivation, and are most assuredly “nondual” in the eyes of scholars and practitioners. Indeed, one such richly variegated system is Kashmir Shaivism, a tradition that Spira explicitly identifies as a core influence in his YouTube bio and elsewhere. It is confounding that he is committed to lukewarm platitudes exclusively, when he is connected to the diverse tapestry of this lineage. (The work of Alexis Sanderson sheds tremendous light on the processes that led to the sanitizing of tantra in the Middle Ages onward. The work of David Gordon White does the same, in a slightly more accessible way. Regarding Spira’s doctrine as partially a product of the centuries-old “tidying up” of tantra makes it less confounding, but does not minimize my righteous indignation.)

If the querent felt free to curiously and steadfastly engage her yearning to draw closer to any bliss and its significance, she would embark on a journey that would be liberatory. It might well lead her away from her interest in that particular experience. It almost certainly will thrust her into new paradigms of thought and practice. And she will become friends with the dual-nondual oscillation. Freedom can be unbearably elusive, a love at turns genuine and unrequited. The querent got a dose of the divine’s tantalizing play of revelation. Spira doused it.

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The following passage is from the Brahmayamalatantra, an early tantric text (8th or 9th century), likely written in north India and representative of the florid and controversial depictions of liberation that dominate such texts.

[Practitioner:] “Oh god, bearer of the trident, if you are satisfied with me, give me a boon. Accept me as your son, oh god, and may my sacrificial pavilion succeed.”

[Bhairava:] “Well-done, great man, master of sādhakas, great ascetic. Who other than you would merit to be my son, oh Lord of men? Open your mouth, my child, I shall enter (the cavity of) your heart. Thanks to this, you shall quickly become as strong and powerful as me.”

Then, the mantra-knowing practitioner must perform circumambulation clockwise and open his mouth. [The god] shall enter him, there is no doubt about that, and when he entered, [the sādhaka] will become Bhairava. The great practitioner shall fly up, together with his sacrificial pavilion, as the Lord, himself [or? together] with his fellow sādhakas, and will be god Maheśvara. He shall take up any form at will, he shall be a supreme being, (luminous) as myriads of suns. He shall be Bhairava [with his] mandapa [and] the goddess Bhairavi. He will see with his own eyes whatever exists from [the level of] Śiva down to the Avīci-hell. He shall be worshipped as Śiva. (quoted in “Yoginī and goddess possession in early śaiva tantras” by Törzsök, 2010, pp. 5-6)

This is nonduality. A ripened man consumes and is consumed by Shiva-Bhairava: equally the Undifferentiated, the Penetrator, and the Penetrated. The yogin’s liberation is his merging with the Absolute. And it is markedly eventful. It hasn’t happened until his feet have literally left the earth. Flight is requisite. This is in no way merely a deep relaxation or quiescent extinguishing. The yogin stays a man, becomes a god, becomes any and all gods, realizes hell and bliss at once. He has tasted it all, has it all, becomes it all, and becomes nothing. Here is an affirmation so complete that it affirms its own negation: the union of self and other, totality and emptiness, expansion and exclusivity, love and transgression, compassion and megalomania. And still he’s just a guy.

What if Spira had cited this or a similar passage—from the very scriptural traditions to which he is indebted—when he was questioned by the querent? Why didn’t he? I take for granted that he is well-aware of this kind of passage in tantric scripture. Generally, the practices and revelations contained in such passages are tightly guarded. He might avoid speaking openly about such things, on pain of divulging the secrets of his and adjacent lineage(s). But certainly he could allude to such initiatory experiences without spilling the beans: the passage I’ve quoted divulges almost nothing about the practicalities of divine possession. More to the point, I’m guessing he’s interested in presenting only the seemingly perennial and undeniably sedative teachings that such an audience can easily absorb, try to remember, and ultimately forget. It’s white-washed. Vanilla in a bad way (I love vanilla). The fact of the matter is that the propagation of perennial soundbites does not liberate people. It appears to have the opposite effect in many cases: people walk away under the weak spell of a phrase like “I am already free and everything is love” and try to convince themselves and others of it using subpar methods. To become convinced that you are already free and everything is love is a tremendous accomplishment. Listening to Rupert Spira tell you as much is not.

I assume that some people have discovered deep liberation by applying what Spira preaches or something similar. Perhaps this happened for Spira himself. I am not doubting his attainment (although perhaps I am). It would make sense that he would promote what he has found to be the most effective approach to liberation. But I believe he is also banking on the shared conviction amongst his followers that what he is saying is not only effective, but true. The weight of apparent veracity is doing a lot of work. And I very much dislike this. If he believes the truth of words are in themselves liberatory, then he should be a poet or a proper philosopher, one allergic to doctrine. He should sink his teeth and tongue into arguments and impassioned frenzy, call upon a muse or two, and, ideally, stop showering. If he believes practice is liberatory, then he should stop talking so much, strengthen his own practice, and lead by example, thereby transmitting liberation silently, god forbid. And if, like a tantrika, he believes in the power of both word and practice, then he should be doing a lot more chanting, find a tree to hump, and, again, forego bathing, unless it’s in raw milk and freshly-harvested sap.

In the domain of grand proclamations, rife with unfathomables, we—a loud minority of humans that lay claim to the whole of spiritual insights—have determined that the unfathomable Absolute unfathomably births everything. We dare not dream that the unfathomable Absolute is, for instance, the child of the equally unfathomable intimacy of encounter, or that awareness itself is variegated in the subtleties of concealment and revelation. 

Immense value lies in the doctrine of fundamental unity. It is profoundly compelling in its simplicity and scale. It clandestinely obliterates all other perspectives on matters of consciousness and origins, and serves great prayers. A fortunate few who take up this mantle seem to get what they pay for. I hold that the merit of the perennial doctrine lies in this alone, and not in its purported truthfulness. If it is stripped of its monopoly on truth, it is returned to the tribunal of practicability, effectiveness, and resonance.

Insofar as the unitary impulse is also the totalizing impulse and the imperial impulse, it must remain under threat by its own exigency to usurp. Unwittingly and against its best interests, it begs for improvement. To my devotedly critical ear, the impulse toward unity is substantially improved when it is regarded not as the truth of all truths but as a doctrine among doctrines, a technology that is, at turns, deeply effective and deeply unsatisfying.

(I hasten to add that no doctrine is merely a doctrine. On pain of sounding unimaginative and economically-minded, I reiterate: you get what you pay for, and that’s all you get. The whole cosmos and every corner thereof is thoroughly Lutheran for the likes of Martin Luther. His practice, I reckon, was to more deeply realize this, until each flower and preacher he met announced to his looming gaze a Lutheran tenet and nothing but. The same holds for Laotzu, for Nagarjuna, for each Ayahuasquero, and the rest of us, as implicit or ill-formed as our doctrines might be.)

In recommending that truth be sidelined in this examination, I am not denying that there is such a thing. In some sense, I am patently preserving truth from the vagaries of practicality and our groping arrogance. While the views I am advancing do suggest that I take some specific things to be true and others to be false, I adamantly suggest that we keep our sights set on the unknown as we forge. 

The appeal to truth grants us an apparently firm foundation for our work. By abandoning it, at least for a time, we become open to another fundament which overthrows and repurposes the doctrine of unity, yet which preserves and supports that doctrine and all other doctrines just the same. The unitary impulse, stripped of the obsession with truth and the accumulations of history, is more basically and lucidly demonstrated to be not a matter of the nature of things, but a matter of conviction. The very movement upward and inward and outward; the firming, the reification, the dissolution; the aggrandizement, the dissemination, the unearthing, the burgeoning of anything whatsoever: all of us do this, quietly, unknowingly, loudly, sweetly, in service of myriad themes and motivations, privately, communally, cosmically. Conviction runs through it all, silent though it may be. It is almost always silent. It is the impulse to affirm, affirming itself where it stands, glomming its surety to each thing it meets. Each of us and our faiths are made of it. We are understandably mistaken to think it is the other way around. The power of the embrace is the embrace. The power of the work is the work. The power of the power is the power. What one is convinced of, and what in oneself and one’s world transforms as each hones one’s axe, and with what reinforcements: none of this is settled until it settles itself. 

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Thus far, awareness-as-such has been spared from the overhaul. In liberating doctrine from the burden of truth, and placing conviction at the center, awareness nowhere announces itself. This is telling. Firstly, it tells us something that should already be obvious: people can and do develop rich spiritual systems that do not thematize awareness. Secondly, the very option to overlook the theme of awareness-as-such ever-so-gently suggests that it falls victim to the same charge as the doctrine of unity. In other words, if we are in the business of challenging the overbearing perennial inheritance, and thereby come to fruitfully entertain the non-unity of the doctrine of unity, then so, too, might we entertain the non-unity of its bedfellow. Like this:

Awareness, pervasive as it might be, is no fundament. Like each being, awareness is only discovered in relation. Awareness, like beings, and like relations, is only discovered when it announces itself. It can, like all else, announce itself variously: it can announce itself to be this, or that, or itself, or not-itself. It can announce itself directly or indirectly; with a flash, with a blast, with warmth, with dissolution, union, fracture.  

Awareness as radiant, piercing, absolute unity most assuredly can arise as a distinguished fruit of practice and life. The Absolute, true to form in its dawning, says: “everything has always been and will always be me!” It cannot also say, out of the corner of its mouth: “(I actually depend on the small and the plural for my being and revelation).” But we can say it. We can say to the Absolute: “you need me; you need us!” And if the Absolute, in retaliation, renders us mute and dumb, all the better. 

Awareness is a pre-eminent site of my practice, insofar as awareness is the site of power and (un)concealment, and insofar as power and the (un)concealed are my themes of choice. As beings and their surfaces penetrate and are penetrated, yield and cause to yield, awareness becomes a general term for the space where this unfolds. As it happens, the space of awareness becomes spaces, each permitting various kinds of play. Furthermore, the conceptual and experiential junction of my awareness and your awareness and our awareness becomes highly dynamic, in no way settled.

Yes, I can hear the voice of dogma ringing loudly: “just you wait, young man: one day you will come to see that awareness is one and all.” Say those who set their sights on just that and made it so. Innumerable others have done otherwise, and live in the shadow of the sanctioned brazen. May my words join the heap. 

Yes, pure transcendence is an option. It happens from time to time. It cannot, however, be rushed. If urgency presents itself as an option, then I am not yet ripe enough to be utterly beyond “my past.” I remain beholden to time and the stories that hold it together. 

Earthly life is made of stories about bodies and minds that are temporal, conditional, susceptible, that want and lack. To be human is nothing other than involvement with this kind of story. It is the same kind of story, with perhaps some discrepancies, whether I am waxing about “you,” about “me,” or about someone famous, holy, and deceased. As free as we are, there are basic conditions which keep us human, keep us here. Engagement with the human story is non-negotiable if one is to be human, if one is to play a human role in earth’s story. 

Transformation involves many moments of transcendence, of experiencing oneself as fundamentally empowered, as free from, as unconditioned and nonpast. Yet until one permanently departs, free from entails returning to, and what then? Transformation is made of this tension, cannot be conceived without this tension. Transformation involves the dissolution of the conditions which make it possible. To transform is to have and eat the cake in perpetuity, to consume oneself, to burn with oneself as fuel, and all creation as it comes. 

The transformer—transformed—breaks from the conditions, but in doing so must reckon therewith. While one can totally transcend for a time, in meditation or whatever, if one experiences a return, there is yet some reckoning to do. This reckoning might be dread, depression, grumbling, running, numbing. However, if we let transformation do its job, instead we discover compassion, forgiveness, grace pouring from our own eyes and pens. That to which we return is apparently bound, deceived, dead perhaps, and therefore in need of divine witness, the resuscitation of light. In a stroke of grace, we transcend yet again, realizing ourselves as bestowers, bringing a parcel of story back to life, set free.

If I cannot see the divine in the child who runs in fear, then my understanding of the divine is immature. If I turn my back on the actions and conditions of the child, then I am still child, turning on himself. And if I cringe at this prospect, fear still has its way. If I leave this life before loving it, I will return yet again, to old stories and new ones, much the same. To awaken is to surrender into the one remaining choice.

The Kingdom of God is both within and without, a destination ever-present.  It is truly your essence, your source, and it is also true that you do not experience it until you die, ye who were born into sin. That is, ye who were born into radiant flesh and the resplendent play of appearances. The one who believes that the splendorous and frightful veil appearances defines all that one is, that one must die indeed, if ever did such one really exist. 

That one dies, just as the calcified form and content of experience softens. Glorious calcification, heartily hardening the veil upon birth, such that each of us can walk the walk. It is grace that allows us to move through space and time into timeless space unbidden. “Enter heaven only after you’ve done this this this this this this and finally die, at long last.” Whoever said so was spot-on. This is the only way our immaculate unfolding delivers the goods. What must be overcome–at some point or another–is the belief that only certain deeds earn you the right to die into bliss, and that death is anything other than surrendering into the arms of love. You can surrender blissfully while embodied, which is all that any of us are doing. Each step is a step toward true death (and false death, if you like). Our experience of embodied limitation is immaculately untenable, love’s greatest reflex.

Own fear. Disown fear. Own pleasure, give it away. The Highest couldn’t care less, or more. It adores and adorns its loins’ fruits, each and every one. Our ethics are God-given only insofar as humanity is God-given. Good and bad belong to this world. The law is not bestowed. It is created through us, by us. To defer the power of law to the Unseen is an unsuccessful attempt at forfeiting responsibility, perhaps because we believe it is a heavy and unpleasant burden to bear, perhaps because we believe salvation is dictated by rules, contingent upon our obedience. Freedom is not earned, it is done.  

Often in our circles which give utmost credence to academic sciences, what is considered “predictable” is precisely that which lies outside the domain of the truly creative will. (This divide frames the entire, impassable charade of the contemporary debate over “free will.”) What is predictable is what is mechanistic. What is predictable is that which can be explained according to a certain view of physical, spatiotemporal causation. When prediction is applied to psychological events, it is applied in a way that obfuscates the role of the spontaneous creative will, or denies it outright. Since its very recent birth, this kind of mechanistic worldview has had little regard—or hostile regard, or befuddled regard—for liberated, generative consciousness of any sort, human or otherwise.

In the broadest sense, prediction is based on the assumption that present events and future events are connected in some way. Typically, we, in “this society,” tend to think that the connection goes like this: the present (and/or the past) somehow determines the future. Therefore, if we investigate how things presently stand, then we can learn about the future. However, I think it is more accurate and illuminating to reverse the relation: prediction is predicated on the belief that future events determine present states. “If such-and-such will happen, then our current investigation should indicate such-and-such.” Or, “If I receive a clear, powerful vision of such-and-such happening, then this is because it will happen. Or, “If such-and-such will happen, then the diviner tells me so.” We are perhaps disinclined to think this way, for it seemingly goes against our convictions about causation. Nonetheless, in its general form, the view that the future determines the present is compatible with the view that the present determines the future: causation is not the only kind of determining. Understanding both perspectives can stretch our worldviews in delightful, liberating, and challenging ways.

As I see it, telling the future is creation reversed. When we believe in prediction, we believe that a future event declares a present state, speaks through the present. Creation, on the other hand, involves generating/determining/expressing a present intent in order to actualize a possible future. Prediction is resignation to the belief that the future is set, at least somewhat, and that my power lies in grasping the future’s contents. Conversely, creation involves embracing some degree of power over what will happen, for the future is ostensibly undetermined. Creation and prediction are both “pre-diction,” speaking into being. 

We predict precisely so that we can make choices about what we do, what we create. We predict as a way of examining what appears to be coming, as a way of examining what has been and will continue to be features of our experience. We predict to enrich our awareness, to serve the consciousness which generates, transforms, declares, rescinds. What is illuminating about the mirror-relationship between prediction and creation is their thoroughgoing overlap. That which is predictable is changeable, and that which is changeable is predictable. 

This totally defies the stark distinction which commenced this post. I, myself, have no problem with this, for I do not endorse the prevailing mechanistic worldview in academic sciences. However, even if you do endorse that worldview, there is yet much to learn from contemplating the role of prediction in decision-making. Consider many of the predictions we make in our personal lives, attempting to answer questions like “will I get a raise?” or “how long will this relationship last?” “Proper” methods of prediction cannot answer questions like these. This, for at least a couple reasons. First of all, there aren’t enough data points, not enough instances to extrapolate a pattern to investigate, and far too much that cannot be accounted for. At best, one can try to find research that seems relevant, but the degree of relevance is anyone’s guess, for your life is a brand-new case, even if you, as a human, are quite like other humans (which is also up for grabs). Second of all, the course of one’s personal life is sensitive to the exertion of the creative will (mine “or” God’s) in a way that standard mechanistic prediction cannot be, by definition. For these reasons, most of us (academics included) turn to other methods of prediction, intuition being chief among them, as well as informal reasoning, divination, and non-academic sciences, like astrology. 

I believe in astrology, in divination, in intuition. I believe that they can have predictive power. However, I do not believe that prediction, per se, is their chief power, largely because I do not believe prediction, on its own, is terribly valuable. If I can change the course of my life, then why should I predict in the first place? Or, if I have no power at all, then why does it matter what will happen? Rarely will a prediction impel me to prepare for a fated end. I’m not much of a preparer to begin with. Yet, the acts of intuiting, divining, and contemplating the future are invaluable nonetheless. Prediction can offer great insight into the current state of affairs and my relation to it. It tells me about my attitude toward what is, what I believe is coming, what I want to happen, the ways in which I believe the past affects the future, what I value, etc. It tells me about what is likely to happen as things stand at this point in the space-time-thought-feeling-desiring manifold. Even my degree of conviction in a prediction is invaluable information: how “determined” do I feel today? 

Prediction is empowering. Quite against fatalism, prediction emboldens my ability and willingness to create, to change. The very choice to predict is a ceremony of elevation in understanding and potency. To collapse merely into fearful projection and preparation is to misuse this gift of power. Hence banking. We have spawned into a society which is so beholden to fearful preparation and hoarding that it can seem incredibly difficult to escape these habits, impossible to entertain any alternative. It can be different, radically different, but we must fortify ourselves time and again. A solid remedy, reinforced by millions, is to lend our attentions to enchantment, to the stars, to the sweetest nectars, to poetry, to the vibrational truths which totally usurp deluded despondencies. Just the same, forfeiting our power to the cards, the diviner, the astrological chart… this is scarcely more than a homemade prison. The cards serve us and the stars are our peers, wiser than us only because we have not realized the breadth of our abilities, the truth of what we are.

It seems my attention is grabbed by problem after problem, after problem after problem, and has been for years. Dissatisfaction flows seamlessly with cognizance and the vice-grip of self-consciousness. I totalize, I aggrandize, make all quandaries metaphysical. For years I’ve fought these habits, blaming them for my search-and-destroy mentality, rendering this problem-seeking a problem, thus trapping myself.

Making an enemy of the mind is old news. Some teachings say: all you must do to recline into flow is quiet the mind. This might work wonderfully for some. I have tried it for years, only meeting greater turmoil. Tell me I’m doing it wrong; “just keep practicing”. Yes, perhaps I am practicing “quieting the mind” incorrectly, given that my mind keeps forging ahead full-steam. But this has become largely irrelevant. I have come to believe that quieting the mind is a proxy goal, and I am quite okay with failing at half-measures.

Mindfulness meditation, on its own, is a method for ceasing to identify with the thoughts and feelings which arise in consciousness. I believe this practice is tremendously valuable in creating enough distance between arising thoughts and the oft-ensuing belief in those thoughts which arise. However, many of us arrive at a dismal impasse, believing that salvation lies in mindlessly practicing mindfulness meditation until freedom “happens.” If one’s mind is perpetually quiet, then yes, there is freedom. However, very few among us are in a position to attain perpetual quietude, and might not actually want it. We want the freedom we think it will bring. Practicing quieting your mind is not the same as being free, nor is it the same as having a quiet mind. You might practice yourself to death. 

The mind is not the enemy. I tell you, my keen nose for a problem, my insistence upon getting to the absolute bottom of whatever arises through apt conceptualization and penetrating insight… these aren’t problems. The enemy is, and always has been, placing stock in beliefs which restrict the flow of creation. Through a little adjustment, the vice-grip of the intellect can become a dignified mechanism of alchemy, separating wheat from chaff. For anyone who wishes, the intellect can be a sword which recognizes deceits, pierces to their core, and lives on as a relic of heartening conquest. Let me put this undying churn of conceptualization to good use. 

Feel free to grip each apparent problem which arises. Develop the habit of enthusiastically inquiring into each as it comes. Respect the experience of the problem by fully acknowledging what it means for it to be an experience, for a problem to arise in consciousness in the first place. Far from trivializing any problem-at-hand, acknowledging its standing as a personal experience allows you to feel the problem, to witness your role in its unfolding, and therefore to become empowered in response. You participate in any problem you experience, large or small, near or far. We can follow through instead of stopping short, and trust that we do have the power to recognize and overcome deceit, often entirely dissolving the problem instead of solving it. There is no danger in the intellect. Misuse arises when we defer to old answers, or defer to other people’s answers, or run from answering altogether because “the mind is the enemy” or because we are afraid of engaging. Your intellect, sharp as a tack and endowed with its own wisdom, is not satisfied with any of these approaches. When we defer in any way, we are denying the highest satisfaction of our own power, our own freedom, our own delight, the coming-to-light of radiant consciousness. Attempted lobotomy is one solution, usually to the wrong problem, often issuing despair.

Song: Mix up, Mix up. Bob Marley and the Wailers.

• a rewarding expression of a celestial essence, relationship, or event through making music.

• a richer understanding of the nature of certain celestial bodies, celestial relationships, and celestial events through studying their musical attributes, i.e. frequency as rhythm, frequency as tone, and intervals between frequencies.

• Communing with the starry heavens through sound.

• Mediating the personal and earthly influence of the starry heavens through sound.

• Reproducing a celestial arrangement or event through arrangements of tones and/or rhythms. 

Certainly, I am not the first to have this aspiration. For a survey of the history of this kind of pursuit, I suggest looking to Jocelyn Godwin’s many thorough studies. My intent here is to describe my pragmatic approach to creating music for tuning awareness, for pleasure, for celebration, for communion, for meditation, for remediation, based on principles of correspondence that, to me, seem the most potent and vital. Much of my direction is led by my intuition, which is led by communion with guiding forces. The overarching intent—which guides my study, my creation, and the impact I wish to have—is to enrich daily life with an experience of essential vibrational and celestial truths, which are more fundamental than our static interpretations which underpin what we think we are and what is happening around us and in us. Earth is not a thing that life happens on, and the body is not a thing we live in.

Method

We needn’t spend much energy picking one most esteemed system of correspondence; say, Kepler’s application of the platonic solids to the distances of the planets from each other. This, least of all because how one should apply the correspondences discovered by Kepler, for instance, is not at all clear, since such prescription was not his appointed duty. Anyway, that would be quite a limited and disenchanted approach. Many systems have merit, and I must add that systems gain power depending on how they are used in each instance, and accrue power based on their repeated use, like a prayer (which this is). So how I use the systems-at-hand depends on the occasion.

What are the ways to establish correspondence between the starry heavens and sounds on earth? Here is a summarized list of the relevant ones, to my mind. A much more thorough description of each of these principles can be found in the final section of this article.

• Direct correspondence of frequencies, by way of multiplying/dividing numbers associated with the celestial mechanics in order to discern (sub)harmonics of the original frequency. Through this method, we can non-arbitrarily determine audible frequencies which correspond to celestial values.

• Ratios, derived from numbers associated with the orbital mechanics and distances associated with celestial bodies.

• Ratios based on the geometry of the planets at a given moment, relative to earth, relative to the sun, relative to the galactic center, etc. This can be established by planets’ positions in three-dimensional space or by their positions on an astrological chart.

• Using angles and positions of celestial bodies to determine their relative frequencies, volumes, positions in sonic space (using multiple speakers or headphones), and changes in these parameters.

• Correspondence between ratios in celestial mechanics and the overtones which compose timbres and vowel-shapes.

• Correspondence between certain shapes associated with the movement and positions of the planets (epicycles), b) a cymatic pattern or lissajous curve, and c) the frequencies or intervals which create said patterns.

• Direct correspondence between planetary resonances, electromagnetic waves, and soundwaves.

Both rhythms and pitches can be derived from these frequencies. Since frequency is a general notion, one can easily discern tempos and rhythms as well as pitches from these calculations.

Significance

As it stands, the list above simply describes methods of establishing correspondence between values . We’ve got to consult intuition and each occasion in order to determine which values, and combinations thereof, are relevant. In addition, we have to consider how feasible it is to create a tuneful piece of music based upon the derived frequencies and rhythms. As a devoted musical improviser with a keen interest in non-standard tuning and much experience therewith, I feel as if I have been unwittingly preparing for this work.

Because I am relying upon intuition to guide the process, you might wonder why I am using somewhat laborious calculations at all in this process. Can’t we rely solely upon intuition? Just ask “what pitches and rhythms correspond to Venus today, and how should I apply them to Kristen’s attunement today?” Yes, this can be done, and I do this. However, intuition has also clearly and repeatedly led me to incorporate my analytic and philosophical strengths into this work. We can commune with spirit in a multitude of ways, and it behooves us to embrace all of our gifts.

With that said, not all of these numerical correspondences are energetically potentiated simply because they are mathematically established, or because they excite my intellect. Direct application is the final test. Tune your harp, your guitar, the tone generator, your voices, etc. to the pitches and rhythms in question, and see what happens. How it sounds and how it affects the energetic field, a.k.a. consciousness, are the bottom line. 

The combinations are boggling. We can mix-and-match correspondences to arrive at interesting, novel combinations. These choices should be guided by context and intent. Here are some examples.

• If we want to replicate or enhance a planetary conjunction, we can build a scale based on the frequencies associated with the years of the planets in question. The ratio between the initial frequencies can serve as a basis for the rest of the tones of the scale. If this sounds bad, then we can use the day-length frequencies instead of one or both of the year-length frequencies. If the original scale sounds amazing, then we can simply add in the day-length frequencies to the original scale and see how it sounds. If all of the frequencies are harmonious together, then we’ve been blessed in creating a scale that thoroughly encodes the planetary conjunction.

• If we want to create a piece of music that works with a dynamic celestial event, we can use one of the correspondences that involves orbital velocity or the planets’ distances from the earth, or each other, at a specific time. For instance, astrologers are interested in occasions when a certain celestial body leaves the shadow of the sun (called heliacal rising). In order to represent this sonically, we can discern the ratio of a) the apparent motion of the celestial body as it moves through the earth’s sky and b) to the apparent motion of the sun, at a given time. We can use this ratio to create a scale. In order to ensure the connection of this scale to the celestial body, we can use another point of correspondence connected to the celestial body to establish a root frequency from which to build the scale with the ratio.

• We can use many of the listed correspondences to determine a set of frequencies connected to just one celestial body and intuitively combine these to create one or more scales with which to create a piece of music.

These general examples are somewhat simple and effective ways to represent to work with the systems of correspondence. The multitude of options allows us to subtly capture many different kinds of astrological and astronomical relationships. These we can apply to many different musical explorations, attunements, remediations, etc.

Detailed descriptions of correspondences

Below I more thoroughly describe the kinds of correspondence that I have found most captivating, some of which I have success applying to music-making. I have not tried applying all of them. In future posts I will demonstrate specific applications. My aim here is to present an overview of the abundant options.

If I learned of the idea from someone else, I give credit. If I give no credit, I do not presume that no one else has had the thought. I just have not come across it in my limited research.

Direct correspondence

1. We can discern the frequencies of each planet’s orbital—say Venus’s 224.7 earth days to orbit the sun—and then calculate how many hertz that is, aka cycles per second. This very very small fraction can be multiplied by two—respecting the musical octave ratio 2:1—to arrive at an audible frequency. We can do this with each planet, arriving at a set of frequencies with which to work. For example, we can replicate the conjunction of two planets by creating the two frequencies together. These higher octaves of the fundamental are actual harmonics, which might well be audible to beings existing on different spatial and temporal scales as us, although one might need to abandon the idea that sound needs a medium to propagate.

2. We can perform the same operation as (1) but by using the day-length (rotational period) of each planet instead of orbital period. This and the first approach are recommended notably by Hans Cousto, author of the Cosmic Octave. I hasten to add that he simply takes for granted that these correspondences are the correspondences, without considering the wide range of options. He is also imprecise in the numbers he uses for calculation. However, I appreciate his intent.

Ratios

1. We can create scales based on the ratios of the planets’ relative distances from the sun, or from the earth. Kepler was a key proponent of this approach, based upon a nesting of spheres associated with the five Platonic solids. These ratios also appear in Pythagoras, and probably elsewhere in the ancient world. This requires further explaining, which can be found here and here.

2. We can create scales based in the ratios of the planets’ relative rates of orbit, a.k.a. years. This is also in Kepler’s Epitome of Copernican Astronomy and Harmony of the Worlds, and also correspond roughly to another proposed nesting of the five Platonic solids.

3. We can create scales based on the ratios of the planets relative rotational velocities, a.k.a. days. In this case, as with the previous two approaches, a multitude of ratios can be produced, so this does not determine any one scale, but an onslaught of choices.

4. We can create polyrhythms based on the periodic alignments of three or more celestial bodies as they orbit the sun or the move through the earth’s sky, as demonstrated here and exemplified in Steve Coleman’s approach to his music-making.

5. We can create a ratio associated with each planet by dividing rotational period by orbital period, or vice versa. Given any frequency, we can use the ratio-at-hand to determine a second frequency. This way, these aspects of the planet’s identity are encoded in a ratio that is not fixed to any one frequency. We can create a musical scale based on any one or more ratios, although it may not be tuneful.

6. We can derive ratios from the distances of a planet from the sun at its nearest (perihelion) and furthest (epihelion). When these two magnitudes are quite close, it will create a rhythm, like this. We can also do this with the angular velocities of the planets at these points.

Geometry

1. Form a triangle with the earth and two celestial bodies as the points. We can use continuous changes in the angles to determine relative frequencies, changes in frequencies, their volumes, and changes in their volumes. This can be done in three-dimensional space or in two dimensions, using an astrological chart.

Vowel-Shapes

1. Each vowel-shape is characterized by a set of primary overtones. This is embraced in throat-singing from around the world, vocal styles in which melodies are created by accentuating certain overtones by controlling the shape of the mouth. Because the overtone series is orderly and expresses mathematical ratios, some of these ratios more-or-less correspond to ratios present in celestial mechanics. Joscelyn Godwin’s book The Mystery of Seven Vowels opened my eyes to this kind of correspondence. David Hykes’ choral music greatly exemplifies the richness of overtone singing.

2. The same goes for the timbre (quality) of most tones. We can construct a tone-quality by using fourier transform (in reverse). This is done by adding together frequencies, typically of sine waves, with distinct volumes given to each. Taken together, this registers psychoacoustically as a single tone. We can select ratios and relative volumes that reflect values in the orbital mechanics of our solar system (or beyond), such as relative orbital velocities, sizes of planets, day-length, etc. I have not tried this, but programs like Max and Pure Data might make it rather doable.

Cymatics

1. If we trace a line along the path of each planet in the earth’s sky, it forms a unique regular geometric pattern, its epicycle. These stunning patterns correspond to cymatic patterns, and these cymatic patterns, in turn, correspond to specific frequencies, and to interval relationships. We can use this to associate frequencies and intervals with planets. For a more general exploration of the connection between cymatics and astrophysics, look here.

2. The same can be done with Kepler’s application of the Platonic solids to the spatial and orbital relationships between the stars. Kepler noted that the sets of ratios of planetary orbits around the sun correspond to the sets of ratios of the diameters of the outer and inner spheres defined by each Platonic solid (link). Slices of each Platonic solid correspond to certain cymatic shapes, and these cymatic shapes correspond to specific frequencies, and to interval relationships.

Electromagnetism and resonances

1. One can discern correspondence between celestial electromagnetic waves and audible soundwaves. This can be established by some piezoelectric intermediary, like bone, rock-crystals, and DNA (see this and this). If you select the right audible frequencies, electromagnetic frequencies produced by the material in response to the frequencies will correspond to electromagnetic waves (radiowaves, visible light, Schumann resonances, etc.) associated with celestial bodies as an overtone or undertone. To my mind, this is perhaps the most exciting of the correspondences, for it can bring together elements of fundamental electromagnetic fields with basic building-blocks of the fleshly body. However, I have not been able to find enough relevant data to execute.

Let me know if you think of any other methods of correspondence, or have ideas for applying them. Feel free to apply anything from the article that resonates with you. My intent is to share, to inspire, to explore this cornucopia with you.

This process of field-patterns upon field-patterns results in further fields, and in waves, and in bodies, harmonized systems of bodies, including human bodies. And including, of course, our own solar system. In our solar system, at present, the continuous coming-into-being of the universe is significantly manifest on the surfaces of celestial bodies. Earth weather is a solar-systemic event. We can see this in two ways (at least). We can describe forces being exerted by corporeal bodies upon each other: sun upon earth, moon upon ocean, rock upon rock. Or we can stick to the field-vibrational perspective, through which patterns and ripples propagate. As before, I encourage the latter. We might mix the corporeal- and field-perspectives by saying, for instance, that electromagnetic waves emanate “from” the sun. Although true, it is not the whole truth. Electromagnetic, magnetic, nuclear, gravitational events created, and are continuing to create, the sun and the sun-earth dynamics. Here, temporality is also challenged, for the sequential picture presumes temporality, and it is clear that temporality is dependent upon activity in fields, thought of in Einsteinian spacetime or newer concepts. It seems as though we have efficiently arrived at the edges of language. And so it makes sense to speak doubly: waves create bodies, bodies create waves, fields permeate all, permeate permeability.

Earth-weather, all earth events, the earth herself… these are vibrational events, most richly and fundamentally understood as vibrations in the fields of this solar system and beyond. (Again, simple reference to a spatial beyond is also a shorthand, per Einstein’s insights.) Souls, I believe, are certain kinds of patterned condensations in the “local” vibrational fields. Specifically, they are condensations in the fields in which space and time come into being. They do not rest upon spacetime, but co-emerge with it. 

This takes us to astrology. When earthbound-timebound personalities, living among others, contemplate their own condensations, they often understand the underlying patterns as archetypes. Personality archetypes, I reckon, are their own vibrational patterns that we experience as basic (although dynamic) patterns of feelings and beliefs. Passed through the framework here presented, astrology rests on a couple theses: 

1. There is a stable, predictable connection between 

   1. the patterns of field-vibrations which underpin earth-events and 

   2. the patterns of field-vibrations which underpin the celestial bodies.

2. There is a stable, predictable connection between 

   1. the patterns which constitute human archetypes and 

   2. the patterns of field-vibrations which underpin the identities and movements and interrelationships between celestial bodies.

It is a great gift to us that each star-system is a microcosm, so that we needn’t assess the entirety of a galaxy in order to understand the patterns. The same goes for each manifestation of conscious life through archetypes. We can study human history, the starry heavens, and our own current lives to glean so much about what we are, where we are going, and why we care. Nonetheless, a widened gaze is pressing. We have passed into a galactic era. Perhaps we did long, long ago: our solar system has been influenced by “outside” events–celestial impacts and conscious influence, perhaps–for millennia. Furthermore, due to globalization and recent waves of E. T. contact, the possibilities and experiences bearing upon each earthling’s life are shocking and confusing. We get to (or have to) frame our individual lives in relation to much larger processes, and this we can do to an unprecedented degree in these times. Take this little essay as another invitation, if not your first, to incorporate yourself into galactic and cosmic awareness. I hope the above schematic helps.

Photo of Joshua Tree by Alex Prideaux.

You might’ve also felt that the world was dead, boring, tragic. You might still feel this, as I do, at times, although I refrain to say how often. You might’ve also experienced, at times, another domain of experience and belief that is less dismal, not at all dismal in fact; utterly liberated and delightful. And then, perhaps, those moments fade, which can feel very disappointing.

I believe that many people are undergoing a transformation in this spirit. You might be aware of some movements of this new age, which declare a new earth, a newly ubiquitous vibrational augmentation, a global shift in consciousness. These ideas are exciting. They are valuable if they bolster someone’s commitment to ongoing transformation. Beyond this, they are self-defeating. The world “has been,” and is, and “will always be” shifting. To argue this point is to kill life, to shove liberation back into the confines of empirical (imperial) certainty.

The body is transformed as mind transforms. In other words, I begin to experience another body, multiple bodies, co-extensive with my own flesh, none of which are solid, static, deathbound. As this conception matures, I begin to experience others in an entirely new light, as well as the trees, the cars, joy, suffering. There is a point of utmost saturation, in which each moment is unveiled as self-propagating waves. Beyond all else, I am committed to realizing a life drenched. I know that I cannot help others discover freedom if I do not taste its fruits and learn to share. The writings I share on this page are expressions of this devotion. They are the byproducts of the baptism of my beliefs, the exaltation of the concepts which keep me here, keep me tied—albeit less-and-less—to a world in which words are the primary carriers of meaning. These writings are among my daily offerings to that which brings forth.

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Healing is always paradoxical and miraculous. Your jaw drops. True healing honors, then disowns, the pains of the old body, the old world, pains which say “I am broken, I am helpless.” Through intimacy with the pain, through true presence, the pain begins to dissolve, and the old body with it. Through this process, the body which had the pain is revealed to be a mirage. A body which we believe can break, breaks. When we look for a problem, we find it. True healing dissolves the problem, dissolves the looking, melts the conviction in a body which hurts, a past which is wounded, which defines me, creates me. Healing is the conviction that creation is always present, ultimately rendering healing unnecessary. 

I say this because I have many times believed “I am healed” but still found the old pains in an old body. Maybe you can relate. Temporary relief is not healing. Doing what the experts say is not healing, if you are not healed. Completing a course of treatment is not healing, although healing might coincide with the process. Many of us perpetually forget what healing is, forgot it so long ago that we haven’t the slightest conscious awareness of it. Heaps of cultural detritus obscures the Self that knows. A clear understanding of the nature of healing can dissolve—heal—the great farce, our inherited deceits.