De intuitieve irritatie die ik voel telkens als Moondust over die Jed McKenna begint, heeft me ertoe bewogen het kritische artikel over McKenna dat ik eerder op deze pagina (
https://www.fatsforum.nl/topic/de-w...n-en-toch-positief-blijven/page/2#post-61116) plaatste eens zeer goed door te lezen. Het is een uitstekend stuk dat haarscherp de zelfkicker die McKenna is doorziet! Allereerst kan ik me vinden in onderstaand citaat uit dit artikel:
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To awaken from our daytime ‘dream’ then, would be to cease to experience any of the physical reality dream content and instead something else. The best we can do then is to awaken within the dream. Awakening ‘from’ it can only (possibly) occur upon physical death.
Dit is het verschil tussen micro en macro, waar ik het zelf ook al eerder over had:
https://www.fatsforum.nl/topic/leven-na-de-dood/page/5#post-34125
Maar dan over de persoon McKenna zelf. De auteur van dit artikel slat de spijker op z'n kop als hij schrijft dat het bij McKenna alleen maar om ego gaat en niet om liefde:
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While Jed McKenna has indeed seen through many false beliefs that are common to humankind, he also appears to be completely devoid of heart. He draws a stark line of demarcation between ‘truth’ and ‘love.’ In my own experience, as we see through beliefs, there is an expansion of heart not a contraction of it. Truth and Love become inseparable. As the clarity increases, the compassion and acceptance of everything appearing to us, also increases. And that love and compassion includes and extends to the other living beings who appear within our reality. The ‘other’ becomes a reflection of self. I won’t get too deep into the issue regarding the role that love plays in the expansion of our consciousness, as it really deserves its own article. I’ll simply say that those like Jed McKenna, who believe that love has no part in awakening, have barely scraped the surface in terms of expansion.
Hij geeft een treffend voorbeeld dat bovenstaande conclusive ondersteunt:
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Jed McKenna openly admits that other people make him uncomfortable and that he prefers solitude. He in fact, makes no moves to conceal the contempt he feels for most people. At best, he tolerates others and at worst, he experiences hatred of them. All the while, Jed McKenna elevates himself in his own mind, because he is so very different than everyone else and spends many pages of his books describing just how this difference is “better.” If none of this is ‘real’ and there is abiding awareness of this, how do we deem a judgment of ‘better’ to be absolutely true? Being awake can only be ‘better’ than being ‘asleep’ if we hold certain values regarding the way life ‘should’ be lived.
Bij Moondust zie ik dezelfde tegenstrijdigheid terug. Aan de ene kant is alles een illusive en hoeven we ons er niet druk om te maken, aan de andere kant is Moondust wel actief op dit forum en levert vaak ook constructieve bijdrages. Moondust doet mee aan de illusie en stelt tegelijkertijd dat het een illusive is. Huh? Wij zijn nu eenmaal bewustzijn dat een aardse beleving heeft. Dat maakt onze 'illusie' in de staat waarin we zijn geincarneerd nu eenmaal waar, daar kan ook Moondust (kennelijk) niet omheen.
Dat dit alles met het ego te maken heeft (terwijl McKenna en zijn volgers beweren het ego juist los te hebben gelaten) bewijst onderstaand citaat:
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Like many spiritual aspirants who get stuck in believing they’ve reached the final frontier of spiritual enlightenment, Jed Mckenna appears to have deep, unresolved issues with feelings and emotions. I’ve engaged on spiritual chat forums and with visitors to my website with many similar to Jed McKenna in that they appear to have grasped onto the idea of dis-identificatin with the person, more out of a deep discomfort with emotion than an actual disengagement from ego due to clear seeing. After all, If feelings make us uncomfortable, what better way to make ourselves ‘feel better’ than to distance ourselves from our own feelings and the feelings of others through a disengagement with that which is deemed to be personal? In this case, we can circumvent our need to address the emotions and their source in favor of disengagement with personal identity. The end result? We get to massage our spiritual ego AND avoid facing those discomforting emotions all in one fell swoop.
Deze auteur heeft echt de moeite genomen om de woorden van McKenna te ontleden en hem niet zomaar de grond in te boren. Hij komt m.i. tot briljante constateringen, zoals deze:
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Jed McKenna tells us that he lives with an abiding awareness that none of this is real, but he belies his actual experience in his vehemence and harsh judgment towards those he considers to still be asleep. If none of this is real, how can one way of experiencing it be any better or worse than another? And even more importantly, if this entire experience is a dream, how can we separate ourselves from the unfolding of the content? If I’m dreaming a dream where I am an awakened being living amidst a world of mostly un-awakened beings, do I accept any responsibility for that experience?
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The operating belief in this case is; He cannot reside in peace and interact with others who are not enlightened. His peace is conditional. He needs others to behave in very specific ways or he will experience emotional angst.
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The fact that Jed truly believes he is free from all framework and all context and yet continues to engage with strong judgments indicative of attachments, regarding his dream content, demonstrates a certain disconnect between what he says he sees and what ‘is.’ Jed seems very able to see the blinders worn by others, but comes up pitifully short when it comes to seeing his own. This is something I’ve seen time and time again in those who believe themselves to be fully awakened. There is a seeing that no belief is true, but then they turn around to grasp more tightly than ever, to an absolute conviction of their own ability to see completely unfettered.
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As per my experience, I suspect that Jed would find that if he could surrender to the fact that he seems to be surrounded by delusional, shallow ‘other’ people, his need to judge them would cease, thus a certain level of clarity would ensue that would help him to see that all judgment is indicative of a particular ‘dirty’ lens we are wearing. When we clean the lens, not only do the perceptions behind the judgment usually change, but the content of the dream itself often transforms. It’s important to note that while we can clean extraneous ‘film’ from our lens of perception, so long as we continue to perceive physical reality, a lens will continue to exist. The challenge is not to eradicate the lens, but to keep it as ‘clean’ as possible and to remain perpetually aware of the existence of it and ultimately to accept the existence of a lens, fully.
Dit is een echte beauty, waaruit blijkt dat McKenna alleen maar zijn 'spirituele ego' aan het voeden is (en hetzelfde geldt voor zijn volgers):
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Like the masses of deluded ‘others’ appearing to him, the character, Jed Mckenna, is stuck, neck deep, in Maya, all the while believing he is awake and outside of the dream. While Jed has indeed seen through and moved beyond some of his beliefs, he’s re-attached more tenaciously than ever to others. In his insistence that he’s accessed absolute truth, he indicates his ‘absolute certainty’ that he is seeing clearly. Absolute certainty leaves no room for the possibility of ‘going further.’
De auteur zegt waar het op staat als hij schrijft:
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To be human and to experience physical reality is to don some sort of a lens. Without a lens, there is no perception. As such, I hesitate to use words like ‘enlightened’ and ‘awakened.’ Surely we can expand our consciousness to become more lucid, but I don’t see a finite point where we can declare, “I’m fully awake now. I’m done. I’m outside of the dream. I’m enlightened.”
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n my own experience, when the perpetual existence of personal perception itself can be seen and accepted fully, peace truly does prevail. This circumvents the need to try to do away with the very mechanism that is responsible for this temporary physical experience we’re currently having and simply places us in the position of appreciating it for what it is and milking it for every ounce of enjoyment possible.
Het komt er op neer dat McKenna zich zo neutraal opstelt omtrent de 'illusie' dat hij daardoor ook niet volop van het leven weet te genieten en in een soort gevangenis van neutraliteit zit die zijn hart in een soort 'spirituele bunker' gevangen houdt (nihilisme):
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My overall assessment of Jed McKenna is that while being very good at pointing the finger at other people who are stuck in Maya, he fails to see that he himself is also firmly stuck. And while I would agree that Jed’s experience is devoid of any deep suffering or debilitating emotional pain, it also appears to be devoid of actual joy. He tells us that he is not at all bothered by this, but in my estimation, if he chose to do so, he could improve the content and the experience of his own dream by going deeper and by exploring some of his issues surrounding emotion.
Dit is behoorlijk in tegenspraak met deze gevleugelde uitspraak van Weston Price:
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Ten volle leven is gehoorzamen aan Moeder Natuur.
Het lijkt mij dat Price het vele malen beter heeft begrepen dan deze Jed McKenna! Bedenk ook dat natuurvolkeren eveneens geloofden dat we in een 'droom' verkeren. Het verschil is dat ze van dit leven iets MAAKTEN en niet verzandden in pseudo-spiritueel gewauwel, zoals McKenna dat wel doet. Waar het om gaat is: je leeft, dus LEEF dan ook!
Het werk van McKenna is leuk voor spirituele beginners, maar iedereen met een scherper inzicht kan zien dat McKenna vastloopt in zijn eigen hersenspinsels:
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I’d recommend the writing of Jed McKenna more for those just beginning to explore the idea of spiritual awakening and those new to the idea of self inquiry. To those who have gone further than Jed, it will be quite clear where he’s gotten stuck. However with that being said, a clear example of what it looks like to be stuck while believing oneself to be fully enlightened just might be one of the most powerful teaching tools available when it comes to all of this.
In summation, If Jed McKenna, or whoever the actual author of this book is, has written these stories with the intention of demonstrating how easy it is even for those quite far along the path to get sucked back into believing in the ultimate truth of our perceptions, then he’s done a brilliant job. If he’s written these stories from the vantage point of believing he or his character Jed McKenna is enlightened, however, then in my estimation, he’s fallen more than a tad short.
Mike