When I've got a hunger for a meal of some tasty spiritual wisdom that appeals to my heart as well as my mind, and is free of unhealthy ingredients like dogmatism, holier-than-thou pretensions, and supernatural fantasy, lately I've been turning toward writings by Joan Tollifson.
Here's excerpts from her book, Death: The End of Self-Improvement, that appealed to me in my most recent Tollifson reading. I don't agree 100% with everything she says, but her overall thesis strikes me as sound.
This radical perspective points relentlessly to the choiceless nature of reality and the absence of anyone running the show. Everything is a spontaneous and automatic happening that can never be captured or grasped by words, concepts or formulations.
Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an unresolvable, incomprehensible, indeterminate mystery. And that's not a horrible or depressing thought, but rather, a liberating and beautiful realization.
In discovering our complete and absolute powerlessness, our utter lack of control, there is immediately great peace, true freedom and unconditional love. It is the freedom for everything to be just as it is. It is not the peace that is the opposite of war or upset, but rather, it is the peace that includes war and upset, the peace that is at peace with war and even with our resistance to war.
It is the unconditional love that accepts everything. In this discovery of choiceless unicity, there is immediately compassion for ourself and all beings, knowing that in every moment, we are all doing the only thing possible. No wave can ever go off in a direction other than the one in which the whole ocean is moving.
...Paradoxically, though, every time I've gone through therapy or delved deeper into some spiritual path or non-path, what has always emerged front and center at the root of it all is the willingness to be as I am; to be, on the human level, in some sense imperfect, incomplete and unresolved; and to see that this very person, warts and all, is already whole and complete; that this bodymind and everything it thinks and wants and does is a movement of the whole universe.
Rather than trying to reach some ultimate perfection of "me," or some imagined supreme enlightenment, it turns out that true happiness is a matter of simply being Here-Now, which is actually unavoidable; but what can fall away or no longer be believed are the thoughts and stories about this present happening, the interpretations, judgments, and ideals.
Even when people take up meditation to reduce stress and improve well-being, as many people do nowadays, even then, they soon learn that the usual result-oriented, end-gaining approach of trying really hard to get somewhere else -- seeking, resisting, evaluating, judging, and so on -- doesn't work.
Meditation, even as a wellness practice, begins with allowing everything to be as it is. In a way, even to say "allowing" or "accepting" is saying too much. Everything already is allowed to be as it is -- obviously! -- because it is as it is. So it's more like simply acknowledging how it is, being present experiencing, which we already are.
It's not a doing, in other words. It's more like not doing anything extra. Relaxing. Being what you cannot not be. And as the pathless path unfolds, everything is discovered to be an expression of this radiant presence that we are. Nothing needs to be pushed away or kept out.
Everything is spiritual.
"Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an unresolvable, incomprehensible, indeterminate mystery'
I read this far, then couldn't read any more. ...Do you really agree with this claptrap? It comes across as utter nonsense to me.
We have evolved to recognize patterns.
Sometimes, often, this misfires, sure, and we detect patterns where there are none; and, despite actually being clueless, we imagine we know what's what.
But that's not to say there's no patterns at all, and we never ever have a clue. Newton's laws of motion are actual patterns, about which we do have a clue. Pythagoras' Theorem is an actual pattern, about which we do have a clue. All of math, all of science, is testimony to there being actual patterns, and to our actually knowing what's what, to our having a clue.
Pardon me, Brian, but when someone starts talking utter claptrap like that with the air of all-knowing wisdom, then that majorly puts me off. (I mean Tollifson, not you!)
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I realize I'm maybe missing the woods for the trees, and I'll come back later to see what her actual, larger point is --- which may well turn out to be valid, wise even. But for now I find myself infuriated and utterly repelled with this faffing away (on her part, not yours!) while pretending to be wise and actually knowing what she's talking about, when it's she, it seems to me, that hasn't a clue. I hold as utterly suspect any conclusion that might emerge from such an utterly nonsensical premise, even if her subsequent reasoning and development of her thesis turns out to be sound. Garbage in, garbage out.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | October 01, 2024 at 10:38 PM
Appreciative Reader, if you've read a lot of Tolllifson's writings, as I have, you'd know that she's a respecter of science and reason. You've totally misinterpreted when she was saying in the quotation I shared.
ollifson is speaking about our personal lives, not the broader scope of science, learning, and such. She's reminding us of what I consider to be true: life is inherently unpredictable and unfathomable. Just when we think we've got life figured out, it surprises us, because life -- our personal, subjective, experienced life -- isn't something that can be captured in words or concepts.
If you disagree, please leave another comment in which you describe what life truly is, how you've comprehended it in a manner that can't be argued with, being a description that is objectively true, like Newton's Laws of Motion. I doubt you can do this, which shows that you actually agree with what Tollifson is saying, once you understand it correctly.
Posted by: Brian Hines | October 01, 2024 at 11:52 PM
I’ve read two of Joan Toliffson’s books, plus her ‘Outpourings’ on her webpage. I like the way she cuts through (or away) from all the religious/spiritual jargon and over complicated teachings bringing the whole spiritual issue back down to earth allowing the simplicity 'that is' to be seen. Quite a few other writers in the non-duality school express this similarly including Tony Packer, Charlotte Joko Beck (both who broke away from the Zen tradition) – yet, many Zen and Chan teachings, in their own way draw attention to ‘just this’, the ‘present moment’ or ‘now’.
We all do, to some extent, have huge investments in pursuing and someday ‘discovering’ something magical and extraordinary. It is difficult to break away from such a search, particularly as we habitually invest our particular quest or way with a huge dollop of ‘me’. And as we all know, the ‘me’ or ‘I’ structure continually needs to be maintained through beliefs, opinions, knowledge etc. The spiritual quest may be just an extension of the ‘me’ first saga.
To drop all the gurus, babas, teachers, saints, masters and so on, along with their teachings would seem to take a lot of courage and effort, but in reality, if we’re lucky (some point out), it all disperses quite naturally as the reality of just the present moment gradually (or suddenly) becomes clear.
With regard to this ‘dropping away I’m reminded of what the Buddha is said to have taught regarding his teachings, likening them to a raft to be discarded when the other shore is reached. I sometimes think that it may be comparatively easy to leave the raft yet perhaps we sneakily (or unconsciously) take some of the raft’s contents with us – i.e. our beliefs, hopes and aspirations, opinions, insecurities and fears?
Posted by: Ron E. | October 02, 2024 at 07:06 AM
Science only knows what it knows until a new theory has been scientifically proven. It just seems that there’s always so much we don’t know or understand.
Most people only explore a handful of different ideologies during their lifetime at most.
Someone once told me to examine how following a certain set of beliefs makes me feel. Does it bring me peace?
Which leads me to one very big question, why is it that so many of Gurinder’s initiates have problems with anxiety. I’ve never seen so much Valium and sleeping pills taken among a small group of people as when I visited Dera. Is this just a sign of the times or is there something fundamentally wrong with the way Sant Mat is being transferred to GSD’s initiates? I don’t recall this being the case when MCS was guru.
Posted by: DM | October 02, 2024 at 07:20 AM
But that’s a false dichotomy right there, Brian! The idea that either one knows all of it, and knows it perfectly well; or else one knows nothing at all, and has no clue about anything.
I think that applies to both the outer world, as well as our inner, personal world.
Let’s take the outer world first: In fact, let’s take Newton: While it is true that Newton has explained the effects of gravity, with great precision; but there’s so many other areas where we don’t know things half as precisely, or at all. For that matter, even when it comes to gravity, Einstein came in and completely transformed our understanding of it. So our understanding, our knowledge, in this sense is always incomplete; and we’d do well to always remain aware of it, and remain aware of the limits of our knowledge.
But, that said, we conduct ourselves, as far as the outer world, not basis our ignorance, but basis our knowledge. *That* is the important thing.
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Likewise in our personal lives as well, surely? There’s a great deal we don’t know at all; and we’d do well to always remain cognizant of that fact. Then there’s much that know only sketchily; and again, let’s never ever imagine our sketchy knowledge is more than what it is. Then there’s some things that we know with far greater certainty and in far greater detail than other things --- all of this, even in our personal lives as well --- and even here, we’d be wise to always know that there might always be unexpected surprises, whether good or bad, lying in wait for us.
But, that said, in our personal lives no less than in our outer larger lives, we conduct our lives always basis what we do know, and never basis what we don’t! We remain aware of the provisional, tentative nature of our knowledge, but we still live guided by what we do know.
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Those words of Tollifson that I quoted? They make no sense, neither in the outer world, nor in context of our inner personal world.
She says: "Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an unresolvable, incomprehensible, indeterminate mystery”.
No, our brain sees patterns, some of which exist, and some that don’t. We recognize patterns, never perfectly, and sometimes completely wrongly, but oftentimes we do recognize patterns fairly correctly.
Our brain models reality and turns chaos into order. No, that order is not necessarily imaginary. Sometimes it is, but other times it isn’t. Even when it is, it is never exactly or perfectly or inerrantly what we’ve imagined it is; but oftentimes it is close enough as to make no difference, for all practical purposes.
We aren’t always clueless. Sometimes we are, and other times we aren’t. Even when we do have a clue, we usually have far less of it than we imagine. Nevertheless, oftentimes we’re clued in enough to make do; and in any case there’s always scope for getting clued in better.
No, life is not unresolvable and incomprehensible and indeterminate. True, all of it cannot be fathomed. Even such parts of it that we do have covered cannot be fathomed completely and perfectly. But oftentimes, we do fathom life fairly completely, and well enough to get by.
In any case, that’s the only thing we can ever do. We figure out life as best we can, and live by what we’ve figured out, and learn from mistakes and try to better fashion our understanding basis those mistakes.
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TLDR: It is a false dichotomy to imagine that either we know everything perfectly, or that we know nothing at all. Whether in our personal lives or in our outer, larger lives, it’s always wise to remain aware of the limits to our knowledge, and always remain aware that reality is much larger than our conception of it. But equally: whether in our personal lives or in our outer, larger lives, what we conduct our lives and affairs by is basis what we do know, and never ever basis what we don’t. That we remain aware of the limits of our knowledge does not change that.
What Tollifson seems to be suggesting is the exact opposite of that, as far as her fundamental premise. I continue to disagree completely with that premise. As far as our outer, larger life, certainly; but I take your point that Tollifson did not mean to refer to our outer lives, and that she’s supportive of science. But even as far as our inner, personal lives, I hold that exact same position, that we essentially live by what we know. Never, ever by what we don’t --- that’s an absurd idea, not doable at all, and to even attempt something like that can only lead to incoherence.
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The above was an examination --- and utter rejection --- of Tollifson’s premise, her starting point.
I read further, and the first thing she says, as she develops her case from that premise, is: “In discovering our complete and absolute powerlessness, our utter lack of control, there is immediately great peace, true freedom and unconditional love.”
I do beg your pardon, Brian, but that’s …utterly nonsensical, as well! We’re not “complete(ly) and absolute(ly) powerless” at all; it’s absurd to imagine that we have “utter lack of control”.
Again that false dichotomy here, implied this time: Sure, we’re not all powerful. Sure, we don’t have full control, complete control. But that is not to say that we’re utterly powerless, that we have zero control. We do have some control over some things, we do have some power over some things. While it is not wise to imagine we’re all powerful when we aren’t; but equally, it’s absurd to imagine we have no power at all and no control at all, when we do in fact have some power and some control over some things.
Sorry, Brian. She’s just faffing away here. Her meditative insights may be wise; but *this* isn’t.
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However, what she ends her thesis with, so to say, the point that she actually makes, that does seem perfectly wise to me, and I do agree with it. The part where she says: “Meditation, even as a wellness practice, begins with allowing everything to be as it is. In a way, even to say "allowing" or "accepting" is saying too much. Everything already is allowed to be as it is -- obviously! -- because it is as it is. So it's more like simply acknowledging how it is, being present experiencing, which we already are.”
Relinquishing all effort, and relaxing into simple observation and acquiescence and acceptance: that does seem to sum up the essence of meditation, absolutely!
Makes great sense, that, taken as a stand-alone, and shorn of that unwarranted premise that she starts out with for no good reason. Because that’s what meditation *is*, simply observing, simply being.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | October 02, 2024 at 09:57 AM
Appreciative Reader, all I can say is that I've read several of Tollifson's books, listened to several interviews of her, and read quite a few of the writings she shares on her web site and with people who subscribe to her Substack -- and I've never, not once, come to anything close to the conclusions you've drawn about her from a few sentences in a single quotation.
In my opinion, and naturally it's just that, you're making the common mistake of failing to put someone's statements in a broader context. We all say things that aren't exactly how we feel and what we mean, but are indirect or poetic or dramatic statements intended for a different purpose. Tollifson, like many or most spiritual writers, is out to wake us up to a different way of looking at ourselves and the world.
In doing that, she, like others, will say things intended to jolt us out of our complacency. That's how I took the words that you so heartily disagree with, because I'm able to put her words in a broader context of what she believes, which you aren't able to do, given my understanding is that you've read little of her writings.
It's much like when someone who knows a mutual friend only superficially tells me, "I can't believe what a racist thing ________ just said to me." Since I know the person well, I'm able to put the supposed racist words into the context of what I know about the person from years of our acquaintance. It's the same with authors. Every book I read has some question marks in the margins pointing to things said that I don't agree with.
But often, or usually, when I keep reading, I gain a fuller understanding of what the author is saying, and I then appreciate the book for what the author truly was trying to convey, rather than my limited grasp of that when I'd only read part of the book. I think you're jumping to false conclusions about Tollifson from a very small sample of what her worldview is.
Posted by: Brian Hines | October 02, 2024 at 01:44 PM
Fair enough, Brian. I was only going by what I saw here. I take your point that that may not have been representative of the whole of her ouvre, or indeed representative of her actual meaning. Agreed, reading just a portion of a work does sometimes result in taking things out of context.
Apologies if in trying my best to properly understand this, and via my comments to test that understanding, and maybe in some small measure add to the discussion, I may have ended up doing the opposite!
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | October 02, 2024 at 05:25 PM
I would add my two-pennyworth (or two-cents worth) to AR’s comments. I do find some of the expressions that ‘spiritual’ writers use when talking about non-duality a little confusing, but then I substitute terms such as boundless love, presence, the beloved etc. with my own unspoken insights that stem from simple awareness, noticing, acknowledgment and just simply seeing the never-ending processes of thought or conceptualising that overlay present moment seeing. I feel that’s peculiar to me – yet appreciate what non-dualists are attempting to convey.
For example, when Toliffson says how: - “Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an unresolvable, incomprehensible, indeterminate mystery. And that's not a horrible or depressing thought, but rather, a liberating and beautiful realization”.
I belive/think from my understanding of the more-or-less scientifically accepted premiss that we do create our own realties. The scenes, sounds etc. that the senses convey to the brain being very partial. The poor old brain, living in the dark, can only interpret such information from previous experiences. The brain can only offer a ‘best guess’ interpretation of the situation and from that scant information it prepares the body for action or not. In fact, the brain predicts the course(s) of action.
So, for me, Toliffson uses the imagery of brain patterns and how they turn chaos into order which she calls imaginary, I see this as a brain invention – which it is. Lisa Fieldman Barrett explains this well in her book ‘How Emotions are Made’
Toliffson states: - “Rather than trying to reach some ultimate perfection of "me," or some imagined supreme enlightenment, it turns out that true happiness is a matter of simply being Here-Now, which is actually unavoidable; but what can fall away or no longer be believed are the thoughts and stories about this present happening, the interpretations, judgments, and ideals.”
It seems to me to be all a matter of interpretation and as we well know, this is how much of our information is viewed – religious and spiritual info in particular. The one thing Toliffson always comes around to in all her writings is ‘Here-Now, the present moment, which is the one thing (though not a thing), and perhaps the only thing we can know for sure – and not the thoughts and stories we almost automatically take on board.
Posted by: Ron E. | October 03, 2024 at 08:54 AM
I would add my two-pennyworth (or two-cents worth) to AR’s comments. I do find some of the expressions that ‘spiritual’ writers use when talking about non-duality a little confusing, but then I substitute terms such as boundless love, presence, the beloved etc. with my own unspoken insights that stem from simple awareness, noticing, acknowledgment and just simply seeing the never-ending processes of thought or conceptualising that overlay present moment seeing. I feel that’s peculiar to me – yet appreciate what non-dualists are attempting to convey.
For example, when Toliffson says how: - “Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an unresolvable, incomprehensible, indeterminate mystery. And that's not a horrible or depressing thought, but rather, a liberating and beautiful realization”.
I believe/think from my understanding of the more-or-less scientifically accepted premiss that we do create our own realties. The scenes, sounds etc. that the senses convey to the brain being very partial. The poor old brain, living in the dark, can only interpret such information from previous experiences. The brain can only offer a ‘best guess’ interpretation of the situation and from that scant information it prepares the body for action or not. In fact, the brain predicts the course(s) of action.
So, for me, Toliffson uses the imagery of brain patterns and how they turn chaos into order which she calls imaginary, I see this as a brain invention – which it is. Lisa Fieldman Barrett explains this well in her book ‘How Emotions are Made’
Toliffson states: - “Rather than trying to reach some ultimate perfection of "me," or some imagined supreme enlightenment, it turns out that true happiness is a matter of simply being Here-Now, which is actually unavoidable; but what can fall away or no longer be believed are the thoughts and stories about this present happening, the interpretations, judgments, and ideals.”
It seems to me to be all a matter of interpretation and as we well know, this is how much of our information is viewed – religious and spiritual info in particular. The one thing Toliffson always comes around to in all her writings is ‘Here-Now, the present moment, which is the one thing (though not a thing), and perhaps the only thing we can know for sure – and not the thoughts and stories we almost automatically take on board.
Posted by: Ron E. | October 03, 2024 at 01:09 PM
I much prefer the writings of Jurgen Ziewe, Frank Kepple, and Neville Goddard which value inner world experience over all of the mental calculations our computer brain can manage . The inner worlds where one footstep is orgasmic. Every human is trying to touch that bliss with every wave,drug, Sex, and Rock n Roll etc. event.
For ex. -Why is it we can look at sunsets or campfires for minutes sometimes hours? It never gets old. They reminds us of the other worlds we came from. We are like the salmon or the dove who knows.
Posted by: Jimmy | October 03, 2024 at 04:32 PM
@Brian: “If anyone who believes in the sound current can demonstrate some provable effects of it in the physical world, I look forward to reading your comment on this post that contains such evidence. But I'm deeply sceptical that anyone can do this.”
There is an old American saying “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” Similarly one could say that whatever happens at higher levels of consciousness stays at higher levels of consciousness.
Yet just as the picture on a cinema screen is only a shadow, or shall we say the opposite of a shadow, in terms of light, of what is projected from a film which itself is dead matter, just as the flickering of sunlight on a wave in the sea does not contain the origin of that light, so the reflection of the Shabd is heard in the brain of a musician and transposed into sounds from musical instruments. Instruments which in themselves being dead matter only amplify those sounds yet remain free of them in any material sense.
I asked Sri Pitikuli Murigadas ”What is the highest point in music?” He replied “The highest point in music is when you don’t hear your own instrument because you are listening and playing along with the sound within.”
A recently deceased member of one of the early and defining British rock bands ‘The Pretty Things,’ a disciple of Charan Singh, told me he heard the Shabd as a child and that led to his music career.
Ludwig Van Beethoven declared that his entire body of work was simply inscribed from notating what he was hearing within.
Whether by the law of karma if indeed it exists, and we cannot prove it in any material sense, or whether through the gift of a great mind, the intellectual, no matter how great, admirable and even worshipful his insights into things may be, is hampered by that very Himalaya of mental data from observing a simple truth hidden within in the forests of knowledge.
Only when one goes from mindfulness to mindlessness can the Shabd be heard. And not only that, but only when one gathers the entire soul force from the body to the Agni Chakra behind the eyes, and not only that but when the soul force is then lifted up by the force of a great whirling wind of its power, like an inverted spiral, (in the same way it physically rattles the throat at the time of the death) to the Tisra Til further up in the forehead above and between the eyebrows, can even the lowest forms of the Shabd be heard.
So all we can rely on as even the most etherial of evidence are the reflections produced by the musician from the transference of what he hears within to what he reflects without. Yet no matter how wonderful is the play of the musician it is less than a grain of sand in value compared the the sweetness, majesty and truth of the origin.
All of who were initiated by Charan Singh and are connected to that chord will hear it when the condition of the disciple is ripe. "I am sorry to say there is no shortcut" He said. The sad truth is that the mind must first be purified by a long period of cleaning the lens and rather like an athlete in training, obtaining the ablilty to hold the attention without blinking as it were, on what ever is observed within. Knowing that almost in all cases anything observed within below the Til is just rubbish; flotsam and jetsam of mindness. But that from time to time He gives us a hint or a sweet to keep us going. "Patience," as we were told as children "is a virtue." "One day my prince will come" as they say in the movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJkNsWCay4c
Ode to his Guru giving him a glimpse of Shabd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDJhYpKDN4&list=OLAK5uy_nl6-apK9qW_7OURkGDzPUeDpC9CL9F2hY
Van Morrison:
John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTCrVydBAqo
[Chorus]
Like a full force gale
I was lifted up again
I was lifted up again by the Lord
[Verse 1]
No matter where I roam
I will find my way back home
I will always return to the Lord
[Verse 2]
In the gentle evening breeze
By the whispering shady trees
I will find my sanctuary in the Lord
[Bridge]
I was headed for a fall
Then I saw the writing on the wall
[Chorus]
Like a full force gale
I was lifted up again
I was lifted up again by the Lord
[Bridge]
I was headed for a fall
Then I looked up and saw the writing on the wall
[Verse 2]
In the gentle evening breeze
By the whispering shady trees
I will find my sanctuary in the Lord
[Verse 1]
And no matter where I roam
I will find my way back home
I will always return to the Lord (Like a full force)
[Chorus]
Like a full force gale
I was lifted up again
I was lifted up again by the Lord
Like a full force gale (I was lifted up again, lifted up)
I was lifted up again (I said I was lifted up)
I was lifted up again by the Lord
Like a full force gale (Lifted up again)
I was lifted up again (Lifted up again)
I was lifted up again by the Lord
Posted by: Chiro | October 18, 2024 at 07:23 AM