12.21.12 -- If that Wasn't the Rapture, Then What Is?

The world, as we know it, hasn't ended. Aren't we all kinda... disappointed?

What is with all this obsession over the end of the world? It seems like a wonderful distraction from real problems, as the Onion ingeniously put it: Man Who Will Die In Great Eastern Seaboard Flood Of 2023 Preparing For Mayan Apocalypse. For some reason, it's easy to write end of the world obsessions off as meaningless precisely because they are so popular. But isn't that a great reason to think there's something hugely important to be seen in this phenomenon? One thing I've noticed is that we were much more obsessed with this particular apocalypse about two years ago. I blame John Cusack.

But the obsession is surely not over with. I think everyone has a thriving wish to be destroyed, a "death wish" if you will. But not a boring, literal death wish like Detective Riggs, but a death of identity. Ain't that more fun? A wish for a death to illusion. How does "Oedipus Rex" end? With his illusions being destroyed, of course! And a destruction of his eyes, that which misled him outwardly, preventing him from seeing inwardly.

The Man Who Saw Too Much (of his Mom).

And what's the real climax of "Pride and Prejudice"?

Rumble in the flower garden.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh is Mr. Darcy's aunt, and she's played nice with Lizzy until this point. But when it seems possible that she, poor little uncultured Elizabeth might marry the dashing Colin Fir... Mr. Darcy, she's unleashes the rage she's been suppressing the whole mini-ser... book. Look, I've only watched it on YouTube, okay?

"This match, to which you have the presumption
to aspire, can never take place!"

Lady Catherine is The Worst! Elizabeth thought they were friends in this "opposites attract" kinda way. But when Elizabeth steps out of the social boundaries and thinks maybe Darcy will propose to her, it seems like she's ruffling the very fabric of society. Elizabeth is trying to make Up into Down, Black into White, Marriage into Love, it's all kinds of fucked!

Professor Wiki explains Lady Catherine's character like this: "According to Janet Tood, Lady Catherine de Bourgh can be seen as a foil to the novel's protagonist Elizabeth Bennet as Elizabeth is seen as wild while Lady Catherine is seen as strict to the rules of society and Elizabeth seems to contradict in her actions many of the ideals that Lady Catherine presents." 

"But who was your mother? Who are you uncles and aunts?"

Lady Catherine is saying all the stuff Elizabeth has been saying to herself, and in doing so she is shattering her illusions. Elizabeth isn't noble enough to marry Darcy by the rules of society, who was she kidding? Pretending to be all aristocratic, but still getting her feet all muddy and shit. 

"The possibility of a martial compact between Mr. Darcy and myself is none of your bee's wax, bitch!"

 Elizabeth faces down the dragon of self-illusion and slays it. Not by denying the truth, but by accepting it and pushing away those who find the truth intolerable. This is a paradigm shift, a little one, it's just one marriage. But look how popular that book is! 

 

"I hate to watch her go..."

So Lady Catherine's all incensed and reports back to Darcy about the abominable creature and social pariah which is Elizabeth Bennet, revealing to Darcy that she still loves him. Instead of bending to the values of the day and avoiding her at all cost, Darcy's all like:

I think this is the idea with confession. First you're like:

"Mea Cupla, ya'll!"

And then supposedly Jesus is like:

"It's aight, dude!"

Mr. Darcy doesn't want Elizabeth in her inauthentic self. The Christian's would say Jesus wants the real you. The Hindus would say that peace comes when you live in total truth, ultimate reality, and then you're "At one with Brahman." Atonement means At-One-ment, by-the-by.

So what's this got to do with the Apocalypse? Well, here's my theory.

People dread "being known" more than death itself. There's that famous study that supposedly: "People are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death." 

Here is the most amazing Ted Talk I've ever seen: BRENE BROWN ON VULNERABILITY

It's about the science behind Vulnerability. Brene Brown was a researcher who did not see much value in that "emotional stuff" that people talk about. She began doing research on happiness and learned that vulnerability is the key to true happiness. She discovered this quantitatively, and it was against everything she wanted, and was trained, to believe. It led her to have a "break down," or "spiritual awakening" as her psychiatrist called it.

She talks about the extreme end of vulnerability, what people experience who are basically emotionally shut down. She calls it "Excrutiating Vulnerability." So, this is nothing more than word games, but the word "excruciate" means to "to torture" or "to crucify." So I think this whole fear of the apocalypse, fear of the rapture, even "fear of death" thing is really about being vulnerable. Is not Jesus the example of someone who allowed himself to be completely, uncompromisingly, and eternally vulnerable? If we really do fear public speaking, being seen, and being truly known, more than death itself, isn't literal death better than "Ego death"? 

"At least now I don't have to be anxious anymore about giving all those sermons."

I think this is why we have, for the most part, stopped believing in hell but keep believing in the Apocalypse, against out better judgement. It's a projection of that inner fear of being judged, more by chicks like Lady Catherine de Bourge than by omnipotent sky demons, but its all shades of the same anxiety. And here's the trick -- if you make the fear out there, then it can't happen in here.

And here's where the dividing line between organized, external religion and personal, inner spirituality shows up. C.S. Lewis said something that Christian Apologetics would like us to kindly fo'getabout.

Say what you like, the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.  

Lewis' is referencing Matthew 24, which is where Christian Apologetics cites most the the Doom and Gloom stuff, or at leas the red letter examples. Here's the site I got this from: http://preterismmatters.webs.com/ It says that this rebuttal of Jesus' "Final Countdown" speech makes Lewis into a heretic. Christians says Lewis was wrong, Lewis says Jesus was wrong, so who's right? Well, maybe they're all wrong.

In the esoteric writings of every belief system is a description of coming into full oneness with the universe, with the Unmanifest, with God and ground of all Being, or just plain being connected to the people around you. This is a personal Oneness, and your wife, your co-workers, they might have no idea that anything has changed in you. But everything has changed. I heard a description once of someone who said they "became Enlightened." He said "I looked at the mountains, and now, they didn't look like mountains anymore, they looked like me, and I looked like mountains." Wacky shit, right? Maybe he's telling the truth in some way, but you couldn't tell from the outsides. That's a kinda "know the tree by its fruits" kinda thing. Jesus, in Matthew 24, describes events that might be psychological indicators of someone who is advancing into that phase of life. He quotes the prophet Isiah:

The sun will be darkened,    and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

 This might not be prophesy so much as psychology. The thing is that this is a personal psychology, not a social one, that is why it did not seem like Jesus "arrived" externally and saved the world in the times of the early Christians, because when he did arrive it was in a personal way for those persons who deserved him, as soon as they deserved. 

Let's say vulnerability is the key. Wouldn't a great way to avoid Excruciating Vulnerability be to say you've already "done that" because you're linked up with someone who stared into the abyss and did all that suffering for you. If Jesus or Socrates or Buddha went thru all that, then maybe by becoming a Buddhist you don't have to do it yourself. That seems to be the same as waiting for the external Apocalypse and avoiding the internal one.

I am obtuse and esoteric and I apologize for that. This is all that I mean to say:

"Helplessness Blues"

The Fleet Foxes

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station, oh, just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you
Or bow down and be grateful and say "sure, take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see 

What does rapture mean? It means "to be caught up." We all feel like we're falling, why would we not want to be caught by something greater, whatever that reveals itself to be? What could catch us? These days, when we are so discerning, a "personal God" won't do for most of us. What is strong enough, real enough, true enough? 

Perhaps the moment? And what do you have when you are fully caught by the moment? Eternity, perhaps? Some form of immortality, but not off in the distance, not after we die (whatever that means) but right here and right now. And what would be required for this? A certain set of beliefs? A transcendental knowledge? A mystical experience? Maybe we just need to kill illusion, and keep it real.

Here's an experiment:

Why am I writing this blog?

I'm writing this blog because I am scared. Because I feel alone.

When I was in High School I was very sad, very nervous, and very full of myself. One night I smoked weed, I took one hit off a massive Roor bong, and was higher than you can imagine. Too high, too high even for being so small and taking such a big hit. I walked down a hallway in my basement, I remember that, but suddenly (I'm told) I ran, fast and hard, into a wall -- I don't remember doing it. I had a lot of hallucinations, which I think about often to this day, but then my mom and my brother found me. 

I started convulsing, and I didn't stop. They took me to the hospital, where I remained in this state for about five hours, convulsing, seemingly unconscious, yet I was watching from within. I was in an imprisoned state inside my own mind, afraid I would be stuck there, watching reality just beyond me but unable to access it. I was afraid I would be trapped there forever, a slave to my insanity, my inwardness, and strangely I was deeply, deeply ashamed of this.

This repeating pattern of geometric images progressed past me in a loop, kind of like a mobius strip with three or four surfaces. It was all I could see, all my mind had to engage with, and I felt that this was the worst fate anyone could ever have. Slowly, I came to -- but that fear, that I was trapped in my mind, just became quieter, it didn't go away.

The doctors were there, the police were there, my parents were there -- they questioned me, tested my blood, and pleaded with me to tell the truth, "what else had I taken?" But they couldn't accept my verison of the truth. There was no way that this had happened to me just from smoking weed. I knew it hadn't, I knew there was something else, but it wasn't from any other material source. There was something else happening, something real, but in a different sense than laced marijuana seemed real to them.

So I left on a silent journey that I didn't share with them, that I haven't to this day. I've learned a couple things, made some amazing connections with people, and made a whole lot of mistakes. I am no where from feeling fully raptured, like I am definitely caught up in something bigger than myself. But I feel more in touch with... something. I thought it was about time I was honest about why I'm writing this.