The Unbeliever's Way

[Zachary Lange]

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The Unbeliever's Way

The unbeliever stands, turns and opens the door, holding a lantern high upon the whole world. The light shines in the darkness but only the one bearing the lantern perceives the path it reveals. He sees that he is not holding the light for anyone but himself. Someone else could share in the light he shines but they may not carry his lantern or walk his path. The unbeliever says, "Get your own lantern out from your house, then come, I will give you a match you must strike yourself. Then you must enter your own dark wood. You look at your chaos and I will look at my mine. Then, if we have survived, return here to this hill, and we will share what we have seen. Then we will understand that it is our chaos."

When one is afraid, he must acknowledge his fear, look at it, experience it, die from it. Hold the light to fear and walk the path in darkness illumined. The mind of humanity is a turbulent world made up of all our experiences. The unbeliever goes a new way and so mankind has a new option. In this disorder, this world as it is, is our life. The unbeliever looks deeply into this world and sees that it is the only world in which there could be a "him". And it is the only kind of world in which "he" could awaken. But awaken to what? He doesn't know, it is what it is.

Every murder, every rape, every disaster, every accident, every illness, is a sign that says to everyone, "Wake up! Look and see!" What it means to awaken has no words that reveal it. The unbeliever doesn't know what it is. He sees it is possible that we all exist so that one person per generation, or one person per millenium even, may awaken. He doesn't know, but he sees that he and everyone and everything else is an environment for this enlightenment to occur. He sees that each of us is the only one that exists. Each is an environment for another. Each of us sees the world through a specialized view. His outlook is unique in that his interpretation of life is filtered through the complex of his personal memory bank. When he sees another he sees his own image of that person.

Now, in seeing the disorder, the hellishness, the cheap thrills that are supposed to answer our questions, the depravity of man, he is tempted to throw it away. The unbeliever wants to believe there is something else. He wants to be "saved" from what is. Now, if he likes himself, this "me" that he likes exists only because of his life in this world as it is. Everything about this "me" has been formed by this environment. So if the "me" were saved, for the afterlife say, how could the "me" be removed from this environment? What would the "me" be? But if he is not desperate to be saved, if he doesn't need to escape, he sees this environment (with its chaos, pain, misery, cheapness etc.) as his teacher. It is truth in disguise. He sees not truth verses lies, but truth and misunderstanding of truth. He sees there is awareness of truth and there is sleep. Perhaps to awaken is so easy that it's hard. What is there to do with nothing to do?

What does 'unbelief' mean? It does not mean anti-belief. The unbeliever believes in his wife, in his children, in the earth and stars and sky. He believes in truth and in love. Unbelief, as he sees it, is unbelief in ideas. He doesn't accept any idea as the truth for then the idea becomes a mask on the truth. The idea stands in place of truth, an anti-truth, a vicar. God is an idea of truth. No matter what the experience of God is, the unbeliever sees that what is worshipped is an idea. He is unbelieving toward this idea. He sees that whatever truth is, it is what it is revealed in us or it is nothing to us. Truth is in what is. Belief in an idea will bring division and therefore violence. Two people don't agree on any one idea of God because the God they are worshiping is their own personal projection.

The unbeliever rejects the doctrine of spirit, soul and body as seperate. He rejects the division of his members. He sees the mind and body as one. He does not say that the mind is "merely" material or "just" the chemical process. He doesn't know about that. He is saying that matter and spirit are not seperate. To be in this world, awake, one must not be at war with himself. One can only identify himself with what is real. What is real? Thoughts? Problems of the mind? Fears? Impulses? Desires? Wishes? Compulsions? Ambitions? Practices? Repetitions? Strivings? He sees none of these are really real. They are a game. Where these end, reality begins. One can only live with what is. If he is attentive to, if he loves what is, his environment becomes his teacher and the unbeliever, just as he is, awakens all at once. He sees out from his own eyes without translation of truth. If mind and body are not one then our members perceive differently and they war with each other. The true eye sees the world is hell for some, heaven for others and purgatory for all. And there is compassion. Wherever we are, if energy is wasted in belief, in doctrines, in ideas, in abstractions, then there is no energy remaining for what is real. The unbeliever sees that if he cries out for salvation, pouring out his heart in desperation, then he, and the world, remains asleep and exhausted. But he makes no war with belief. For to slip into anti-belief is another sleep, a sleep of nightmares. When the unbeliever awakens, love and truth and beauty shine in the light of dawn. He does not know what is beyond that, it is what it is...

[Simmy]

"When the unbeliever awakens, love and truth and beauty shine in the light of dawn. He does not know what is beyond that, it is what it is..."

I like that!

Zachary Lange, the Awakened Poet! ;)