What if imbued in the non-rational is the template for all spiritual endeavor? Surrendering to something, going to any lengths to get it, stepping outside of normative value systems, an intimacy with a world of interior experience despite what the world thinks, the capacity to be pulled and driven out of one’s habits and beliefs. What if the non-rational is merely the accelerated path for spiritual adventurers who want to know the whole of life and not just the upper echelons? Who want to learn in practice and experience, from the inside out. To be stripped of the pride that would separate and the superiority that would judge. What if the non-rational is a calling and from that calling comes the capacity to truly serve, be able to hear and understand the workings and the whispers of those in pain? Not from a book, not from a distant formula, but from real flesh-and-bone experience?
And what if the fear and loathing that accompanies our vices is what the rational mind holds as a competing theology to its attempts to control? And that it can’t stand that no matter what rules it imposes, it is powerless to control this force? And so it demonizes it.
And what if those who are practicing non-rational people learn to wear a mantle of shame in order to appease the superior rational mind’s control and even convince themselves they are not enjoying this great adventure? What if they merely offer tacit agreement about being cast as low, inferior, sneaky, broken, in need of the wisdom of the rational world while in actuality they know they have tapped into a power and that this power carries with it tremendous intelligence and that this intelligence is far superior in terms of what one can see and experience and know than anything the rational world has to offer?
And what if the nature of the non-rational is to give the guard dog of the rational mind a bone to gnaw on while the Erotic self slips out past the gate and down to where rich experience lies? The rational mind will then get all up in arms about how damaging it is and not address reality. The rational mind is quite fond of the lifeless life. It thoroughly believes in keeping life on life support even when there is no actual activity—just enough assistance for basic functions—to have a heartbeat. It will keep dead thoughts circulating through the mind, lifeless marriages, meaningless vocations. The rational wants security and permanence, no disruptions, forgetting that no disruptions is a flatline and the only way it could get the security and permanence it craves is in death.
The rational misses that much of the damage and danger of the non-rational is that it is ostracized and thus must be hidden and driven underground. Imagine if the research that went to supporting the notion that the non-rational is bad went to discovering how to tap into this clearly unstoppable force in a masterful way. Imagine if the rational mind were to dedicate its efforts toward understanding this force rather than judging it.
The foundation of our understanding of the non-rational is rooted in the fallacy of craving. The notion is that craving is endless and must be renounced. The root cause of craving is deficiency. Something is wrong or broken. It must not be “given into.” But we must stop and check our source and who has something at stake. It just so happens, it is the world of above.
With the ballast of the non-rational we have enough momentum to make it down below and we just might discover that, lo and behold, there is a whole and beautiful world with an altogether different operating system. This operating system might in fact be quite elegant, even including and welcoming the rational but extending far out beyond it to include all it has rejected and all it did not know existed, that scared it with its limited range.
The acquisitive side of the rational mind will then throw its values at the non-rational person, and say, “But you will lose everything.’’ The rational mind does not stop to think about what might be so compelling that it is willing to lose everything in order to gain access. Because to lose anything to the rational mind looks like insanity. What it doesn’t under- stand is that for the non-rational person, the stripping away of every- thing is the reward.
The rational mind, so set on “life” may say, “But we could lose our life.” The non-rational person is brought face-to-face with a reality that few rational minds will ever touch. We do not decide when we go. Every non-rational person who has lived despite the odds, who has willed death, faced death, can attest to the fact that if death does not want us, it will not take us. And if it does, it will.
The goal of the non-rational person is to live until life is done. The most humbling thing for the rational mind is the admission that it was not called. Its control made it an unfit candidate for a path of the fully expressed non-rational. The funniest part is that the rational mind engages in the non-rational quite often, it just does not have the fortitude to give into it fully so it practices denial and control in order to maintain a façade of superiority.
The whole of normative culture is rooted in unskillful non-rational behavior. The calling on the non-rational person is a powerful thing. Many are fortunate to be born into a family that is wealthy in the non-rational, wealthy in the lessons of humanity. Down here, we are born into a kinship with all things. There is no distance of above that would prevent us from being able to walk in another’s shoes, so we can afford to see everything without the judgment that would make us look away. We can see everyone’s underbelly because we are down here looking up.
This path brings us to the place where life is considered too much from the rational path—too loud, too chaotic, too demanding, too distasteful, too embarrassing—and instead of trying to turn it down or get rid of it, we are invited, and in fact, drawn further into it only to discover that loud, chaotic, demanding, and distasteful are just positions the rational mind holds against life itself. Inside those experiences is life, the celebration, the play. Inside are the lessons of how to be with desire, how to be with power, how to be with life itself; in other words, how to be intimate. And, we are held down there until the rational mind gives it up because the rational mind cannot continue to falsely hold its superior position and learn at the same time.
The world of the non-rational welcomes the rational provided it knows its place. It must give up its endless and vain attempts to maintain dominion, and do something worthwhile for once. It would do us well to have some humility, learn the lessons the non-rational has to teach about connecting with other humans, about spontaneity, about the truth that can’t be faked and how to live as neither the one attempting to orchestrate everything nor the one who in protest becomes the dependent where we vacillate between domination and hurt feelings and a desire to hurt those who would not be subdued.
The non-rational aims to demonstrate two lessons: the first is that the best position any one of us will ever get to is that of “one of.” And second, that when we hit bottom, we know where bedrock is. This comes after a journey of discovering who we are outside the bounds of control, the only way to truly know who we are. Hitting bottom is to the path of the non-rational what enlightenment is to the above paths. It is graduating us. When our journey of being out of control stops working, the power of the non-rational has withdrawn power. The next leg of the journey begins naturally. This leg is called recovery but the non-rational person goes forth with the deepest gold in their pocket, something the rational person rarely knows, the experiential truth of non-boundaried connection.
A connection that may or may not need physical contact in order for communication to occur. This can be a challenging juncture, as reentry into a rational world we have expatriated from comes with a heavy authoritarian demand that we renounce our citizenship in the other world and that we tow the party line by demonizing our experience and agreeing to do as is done in the rational world, cutting ourselves off from ourself. Unless we really have our wits about us, we will simply be reassimilated back into the rational world and lose sight of the whole reason we were brought down: to bring back the deeper understanding of intimacy with life, not from a position of superiority or teacher or guru but from the low, humble position of the non-rational person so we may be heard by all.
When we return with courage we will know the mechanics of the human psyche from the inside. We will know how to get in, how to exist without artificial boundaries, how to get out, and how to truly be taken by a force. Essentially, how to really love. We will be carved out in order to do so, and will not carry spiritual hubris, but an emptiness that exposes the heart.
When we return, we will not simply throw prescriptions, prayers, and admonishments down to those in the hole. Instead, we will hop in there with them. Now, there are not two people stuck in the hole, there are two companions, two fellows living the deepest truth and when the one who fell in is ready, the other knows the way out. The chain of taking care so we can find out who we really are will be set into place.
