Here’s a link to an excellent paper by John Welwood very much related to awakening in life:
Dear Azarbaksh
thank you for sending this. It was spot on
Love
Mahdiah
Thank you for this very illuminating article. Well written and with footnotes as well. I’m only half way through it.
I like his paradoxical nature of this life. I think Pir Vilayat spoke to having this double vision as a kind of schizophrenia a split vision so to speak. Yet, it is all the One being. There is no other.
Hello Adam,
Yes, Pir Vilayat spoke of paradox frequently. Attempts to flesh it out included "reconciling the irreconciliables and “extrapolating” between the two “poles” of the one life/vision - the human and the divine. “Samadhi with open eyes.” “the inverted cone” of connection to the divine. You may remember these phrases. (However, in my recollection, did he did not refer to it as a kind of schizophrenia. I certainly hope not as schizophrenia is a real, difficult mental illness.)
Wellwood was familiar with both Murshid and Pir Vilayat’s teachings, as well as other Sufis. He was a thoughtful, perceptive psychotherapist and teacher. I appreciated his writing on the heart (can’t now remember the book, maybe it was Journey of the Heart, but it may have been in another book), and how he expanded on Murshid’s phrase “the heart is its own medicine.” Throughout this article I hear many thoughts resonant with our Sufi teachings. Wellwood lived and worked in the Bay area. He recently passed away - Jan of this year. A loss for the community.
Love and Blessings,
Amida
Hi, Adam and Amida.
Thank you for your responses. I don’t recall Pir Vilayat using the term schizophrenia, but rather stereoscopic consciousness. In the Gabrielite Work that Ravani Rah and I have developed, we call this state multimodal consciousness, in which there is a circulation between multiple levels on which we exist.
Love,
Azar Baksh
Dear Sster:
I stand corrected. I had thought Pir had mentioned this duality/unity split as being a type of schizophrenia - not of course in relation to mental illness. However, I may be in error. I submit toy our judgement in this matter. None-the-less, a most interesting and right-on article by Mr. Wellwood. I had not heard of him previously.
Love and blessings,
adam
I have not read the article yet, but plan to.
as to the term schizophrenia, more than once, during retreat,
Pir Vilayat would remark, that a person who achieved cosmic consciousness
(I seem to remember it was that term or something like it which indicated
something like God consciousness) was in a state like the schizophrenia, except the Adept had control
and the schizophrenic did not.
It rather stuck in my mind because once a friend who had a relative with that diagnosis got very upset
because he interpreted it to mean that Pir Vilayat was saying that the schizophrenic just lacked control of
his or her condition, in other words was not taking control - and I don’t think that was his meaning.
Thank you Hadi for reassuring me that my memory was in fact correct.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful paper! It brings such balance and honors the mystery of human emotion and experience in the midst of spiritual seeking.
Looking forward to seeing many of you soon!
Ruya
It is interesting that there is no mention of God in Mr. Well’s excellent article. For me, it is God that bridges the gap between duality and non-duality (unity). It is recognition of the One being, the only being that resolves the paradox.