The Orange Moon of Consciousness

Let’s understand what we are doing when talking about spiritual concepts like meta-paradigms and consciousness. And let us understand a common danger which exists when doing so.

First, all of these words are just concepts and no concept is the truth; it is only a representation of the truth. In other words, it’s just an idea about experience. It’s not the actual experience. In Zen, they say the wise man points to the moon but the fool looks at the finger. It’s the moon of spiritual experience one is seeking and not the finger pointing to it. Keep your eyes on the prize.

Imagine trying to describe the taste of an orange to someone who has never eaten one! Try all you might with dozens of delicious and juicy words, you will never do so. Ultimately, an orange will need to be tasted to understand the taste of an orange. Oh sure, you may need to go to a grocery store to procure one, but such are the little inconveniences of this modern life.

Describing consciousness, or spirit or being or presence if you will, is exactly the same. Words can be used to show one where to look, or how to look, or even why one should bother to look. Words can even be used to point out the qualities to look for.

Osho said he shared his experiences so when you experienced them yourself, you would remain grounded and not go mad from their weirdness. Such words may appear scientific and knowledgeable and even metaphysical, but they will never ever ever ever be a substitute for the taste of consciousness.

Fortunately, one need go nowhere further. One actually is consciousness. So after reading the words pointing to it, always stop to taste it! Being conscious of being conscious is in itself the heartfelt way to reality.

Also, there’s a process of spiritual deconstruction in which one idea is removed by another idea. And then both ideas are abandoned, leaving one in experiential reality. In India, they describe it as using a thorn to remove a thorn. When the thorn is removed, one throws away both thorns. It makes all the sense in the world.

Otherwise, what one would accomplish is merely the removal of one belief in favor of a new one. Beliefs are merely concepts with which one has attached, and no concept is experientially true. No belief in any orange is a substitute for the experience of an orange.

And this is the fundamental flaw of most religions. Somewhere in their early years, wisdom was practiced to remove a false belief, say a false meta-paradigm. But instead of abandoning the concepts used to point out the actual experience, they attached to them. Praise the new thorn, same as the old thorn!

Look, these are extremely important warnings for anyone on the spiritual path. This is absolutely crucial to understand. Every sectarian religious belief was founded on an aspect of perennial wisdom which was believed rather than followed toward the actual experience it was pointing to. The result is more delusion, more suffering, more religious wars and strife.

A true believer never knows the truth. A fundamentalist never experiences one’s real foundation of peace.