There is a sort of neo-Pascalian wager that colors my contemplative practice these days. The contemplative path is a series of self-fulfilling prophecies. You do become kinder, you do become more open. The world does not change, but your attitude toward it does. Really, there is just this - just the same world that is in front of everyone else. But, without being sickly sweet, it can be seen and felt as the living skin of God. Both the flatland view and the mystical view seem internally consistent on a rational level (although flatland has trouble explaining the certainty associated with direct mystical experience, a certainty as sure and as clear as your perception of your hands or feet right now; and meditation allows greater cognitive experience of rationally-verifiable truths). So why not choose the option that leads to expanded compassion, love, and peace?

The fear that arises with Pascal's wager is that it is actually a choice -- with consequences.

On the one hand, I can see the world from the good, humanistic, skeptical, liberal perspective - what, for shorthand, I think of as the New Yorker view. In this world, certain things are clear. The great variety of human experience, from ballet shoes to the terrible complexities of Afghanistan, is a wonderful, rich, dazzling symphony. Culture is essential, beautiful, and real; people like Ken Wilber are weirdos. Religion, for its part, is sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible. Meditation is good to relax, as part of a complete, humanistic life, but anything more than that is closely related to delusion. Restaurants, operas, political debates, the joys of family and friends -- all of this is accessible, to read, experience, even possibly to contribute a verse. It is all part of a world that, if you have the right education and political liberalism and privileges of class, you have an invitation to enjoy.

From the perspective of mochin d'gadlut (the "expanded mind"), on the other hand, all of these worlds are, essentially, manifestations of the One. They exist, they are beautiful, but the reality is that they are just ripples on the ocean. In theory, all the beauty remains - but it's not so easy.




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Top: Lee Phelan, Coffee and fries
Bottom: Lee Phelan, Floor