Ecstasy

1.

I remember, way back during the latter years of the Eisenhower administration, when I was first learning German, I came across the following sentence:  Ich war ausser mir vor Freude. Literally translated the sentence reads, "I was beside myself before joy." The very definition of ecstasy, to step beyond oneself, to transcend oneself, to be subsumed into joy. Sometimes literal meanings "unclichés" the cliché, that is, reveals a truth which the usual, figurative meaning of an expression takes for granted. Such is the case with the German expression and its English equivalent.

The sense of self as independent from the environment might not be a fundamental truth, it is, however, an essential lie. Without this 'trick of evolution' we would not be able to separate ourselves from the world, as it were; without it there would be no tools, no science, no culture, no gods. Without it we would be like squirrels, like leaves, like the sky. 

It is a very good thing, but it is also a very heavy burden. The sense of self, a sometimes wonderful thing, is subject to other forces of evolution as well, the search for meaning, competition, the desire to dominate, etc. These and other internal winds can sometimes be as fierce and destructive as the external winds of Neptune.

We therefore need periodic relief from the Myth in the Mirror. Nature, whose primary concern is the propagation of the species, has provided a powerful one: orgasm. The spirit provides two, love and wisdom. 

Nature might not have anything against love and wisdom, but she cannot afford to wait for love to occur on a spiritual and physical plane. Sexual attraction is quicker and much more efficient. I once was fond of telling the following joke: 'What's the difference between Mozart's Piano Concerto Number 24 and sex? Mozart lasts longer!' Nature, you see, doesn't want to divert us for too long. If orgasms lasted a good deal longer, how could we attend to the task of raising a family? And Nature, of course, has an amoral side: does she really care if rape or relationship continue the species? In addition, desire, culminating in orgasm, is subject to many perversions, as the prurient use of the internet attests.

Love and wisdom, though admittedly harder to attain, are ultimately more satisfying; sources of intense spiritual and physical love as well, they are never perverse, they are never wrong.

They provide the only satisfactory paths to get beside oneself with joy. They are the only cosmic, earthly, ultimate Mozarts that last.

2.

I would like now to say a few words about a famous poem by Wordsworth, the subject of which is ecstasy, or more precisely the lack of it:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;--
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon;
The Sea that bares its bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us  not. Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising form the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn,

This justly famous poem is one of Wordsworth's best. The meaning is clear. What human being, whether working at a fast-food restaurant or at Goldman Sachs, has never heard the sound of water lapping on the shore of an inner lake, where he or she can experience the ecstasy of being one with nature, rather than the drudgery of being a cog lost in a mechanical world? "I will arise and go now,/ for always, night and day/ I hear lake water lapping with low sounds on the shore;/whether I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,/I hear it in the deep heart's core."

Far too many have spent too much time, say, during infrequent breaks from work, day-dreaming about being someplace else, doing what the heart's core wants.

Is it the world's fault for being too much with us? Just what exactly is this world? Kant has taught us that we will never know "das Ding an sich," the thing in itself; we can only apprehend what our senses reveal. Hindus teach various forms of 'you are the world,' that is, the world as we experience it is a construct of the human brain. This is largely true, although I view the world as a construct of 'the thing in itself,' and the mind. For instance, there is no such thing as a beautiful sunset without the mind. The colors that cause (sometimes) the heart to leap up when it beholds a rainbow in the sky, do not exist without sensual perceptions; these colors are how the brain interprets light of certain wavelengths. Cosmically speaking, there is no such thing as red. Quantum theory teaches us that we can't even be sure that the wavelengths exist independently.

Now you know the answer to the old riddle: if a tree falls with no one around, what sound does it make? The answer is no sound at all, for sound is the way brains interpret certain vibrations of air. And yes, we can't even be sure that the disturbances are there without consciousness; on this question, physicists are divided.

It is therefore not the world that is too much with us, it is our attitude, our faulty choices. Ramana Maharshi, the great Hindu sage of the last century, taught that one's true nature is bliss. We have created a world of wants, desires, hang-ups that keep us from experiencing this bliss; it is a world of boredom, depression and despair.

No need to be 'suckled in a creed outworn;' the ancient truths of love and wisdom are the great hidden secret of the good life.

So if you work for Goldman Sachs, you might need to quit, and, having amassed enough to get by, live, love, and be wise. You and those around you will be glad you did.

Buddhas teach that our feelings of inadequacy are caused by our desires. Get rid of  all desires and suffering is eliminated. While this is undoubtedly true, it is an extreme position. Not many of us desire the peace of a stone resting at the bottom of the sea. Is the choice, however, between that and running from this to that like a chicken without a head?

I know of a meditation practice of imagining yourself sitting in a field watching cars go by on a nearby road. Those cars are your thoughts. Such observation quiets the mind's discursive activity; we come to the crucial insight that we are not our thoughts. When we finally realize that there is no abiding self, the bliss of being is experienced.

Why is it that "Little we see in Nature that is ours?" Transcend the first person, singular or plural, and the ecstasy of Nature is seen with Nature's eyes. (Recall Meister Eckhardt's profound saying that the eye which I see God is the  same eye by which God sees me--We are talking about different I's, and only one of them has it!)

This is not as esoteric as it might sound. It is said that the basic difference between Ramana Maharshi and the rest of us is that he remained in the bliss of being while the rest of us come in and out of this state. Most of us have had so-called peak experiences.

The task is to increase these peak experiences, or at the very least, approach them. Wordsworth correctly points to the tragedy of being "out of tune" with the majesty of nature. We must do our best to be subsumed into the bliss within and without. How do we accomplish this?

First of all, through some time of meditation or a spiritual discipline that teaches us abstraction, that is, that we are not our thoughts.

Second, we must practice simultaneously the two roads to ecstasy, namely, that of wisdom and that of love. (I, for one believe that these attributes, the very foundations of morality, are not God-given, but are in a our very nature; others may disagree). What's important is to practice them!

Research has shown that the most important factor in life is good relationships. Not money, not fame. Relationships falter if one is not able to ecstatically be subsumed into the other, (love), or to ecstatically realize that you are not the center of the universe, (wisdom).

So if you work for Goldman Sachs, you might need to quit. Having earned enough to live simply, dedicate yourself to meditation, love, and wisdom. You and those around you will be glad you did.