The Voice of Scarcity

This is the second of Rick’s 4-part series, The Gate of Power and the Flame of Life.

The Convolution of Desire: The Voice of Scarcity

Scarcity as a voice is neither an enemy nor an illusion; there are very real things to consider, to fear, and to prepare for. The Greeks referred to Ananke, the Gods of necessity, as a terrible but durable force; not to honor such a divinity would be tantamount to catastophe. The sense of there being a problem is not scarcity per se, but rather when the voice of scarcity takes over to such a degree that it becomes the singular voice, the only voice, the voice of fear then overrides all other possibilities and life is played out in a defensive mode.

When one observes this voice, however, one sees the convolution of desire, the sick rose. Fear often arises out of a desire that has fallen back on itself, that is not in contact with fresh vibrant energy but one stale story upon another, moving into hardened patterns of conditioning. 

There is a significant difference, in this vein, between limitation and boundaries as opposed to repression and fear.  One is sensible–don’t jump off the ninth story of a building thinking you can fly; the other is mythological–“Jews have horns and you had best stay away from them.”  To the degree that repression and fear harden into belief systems, “facts,” and institutionalized practices, the case is closed, life has become circumscribed, and breakthrough is no longer possible. Desire knows this and is offended, angry, disillusioned, hence the origins of destructive behavior in hopelessness and despair. A society that offers no divine vision can compensate with goods and entertainment, but human life has become hopeless. The other offered compensations are usually some projected “ego-elongations” such as “history,” or “the nation,” but this does not change what is deeply wrong with materialism, which at its best it offers but comfort unto death. The flame of desire then recoiled in anguish, seeks sensation ad absurdum. This flame needs to be fanned so it may flourish and spread its wings. Hence, the first movement of bhavana, the cultivation of being or in the words of Maslow of “Being-Cognition” versus “Deficit Cognition,” is to open to the possibility of meaning, of nobility, of glory, and beauty of the Spirit. In Buddhism this is called the awakening of the bodhicitta, the “mind of enlightenment,” which is a grace that imparts the self-esteem to follow one’s star.

My friend and colleague Gene Jones, a past president of the American Jugglers Association, had a set of powerful methods to teach people the art of juggling. At one point, however, he realized that beyond skills and methods, the major hurdle his students had to get over was the idea that they could not do it. If you could break through this, you could learn. Similarly the major hurdle in attaining an empowering sense of alignment is simply the idea that it is possible. This basic faith; that “I am here for some reason, and that there is a power in my life is to discover and embody that reason” is absolutely crucial.  And this faith is a product of Shakti, of the free flow of unimpeded energy.  There indeed may be a central fulcrum of choice here, not an overt, “I choose this,” but an élan, a movement, a way of goodness, honesty, and openness that can carry the voice of scarcity. It need not drive scarcity from our neighborhood, for she alerts us and teaches major lessons, but by opening to the full voice of faith – not through time worn traditions and their myriad of rules, but through the basic goodness that we see in ourselves and others – we may begin to float, to surf, to dance, to celebrate. And this will attract kindred spirits with whom we can build our visions.

Perhaps there is an evolutionary dynamic at work here as described, for example, by Louis Mumord in his work, The City in History. From scarcity point of view, people came together in cities in order to survive, to protect water sources, stores of grain, and the like. But on another level, the civic endeavor pointed toward a greater vision, for the city was more than this. Beginning with tombs that marked the mysteries of life, death, and what may lie beyond, even the original aspects of temporary settlements had to do with sacred things, with a more valuable and meaningful kind of life and not just with physical survival. The first germ of the city, Mumford goes on to say, lay in the ceremonial meeting place that served as a goal for pilgrimage. Certainly the fire of desire is a necessary survival mechanism, but it casts a glow far beyond, and it is this glow that allows one to set out on a true journey of discovery, not as an imitator or slave, wage or otherwise, but as a true pilgrim in our time. Hence, as Joseph Campbell has pointed out, in the Western tradition’s Gwain, and the Green Knight, the questing knights go into the woods through the entryway that they do not know, through the shadows. This is not to reject the past, its wisdom, and direction, but to promote the understanding that in order to walk through the shadows, one’s way must be lit by a flame. Conscious direction alone will not offer an abundant sense of purpose. Even if you go into the family business, at some point you are charged to make it your own. And it is often through loss, betrayal, and falling that one moves into awareness of the existence of a greater design.” Calling,” therefore arrives more often through impulse or happenstance than through design. To destroy impulse is to submerge calling into reflected “might have beens” whereas to honor impulse, to learn to listen to it, to care for it, to extend and expand its power is the charge of the first gate of desire.

In the city where I reside when in India, Vrindaban, it is said that you are only in the “lila,” on the path, after you have lost the way. This loss puts you at the Mercy of the Goddess Radha, it tempers the flame of desire without snuffing it out, and allows that flame to take on divine direction. So loss may be a major prerequisite to authentic vocation, for it alone can stir the embers and bring a return to vitality.

Let me recapitulate; we begin with a spark, a flame of longing that allows us to dare move into the circle of life, and learn how to balance that longing through the fulcrum of the wheel. Skillfulness allows us to surf along the waves of desire and to seek ongoing alignment. Alignment is used here in the sense of an airplane constantly correcting itself as it courses through the sky. Hence there is no goal, or final destination that we need to place before us, as long as we honor and fan the vital principle that keeps us alive, and its manifestation is energy, abundance, enthusiasm, and above all a sense of belonging.  The Holy Quar’an speaks to this when it describes the light of heaven and the burning of hell as being one and the same. Those who cannot open to the radiance of divine existence experience it in other ways, and ultimately as an intolerable burning. 

In this first gate, we are willing to be open to life itself, to be summoned by divine forces, by the Gods! We cannot dictate what forms these forces will take. When the Gods come, they are to be honored, even in their forms of illness, emptiness, and loneliness. Like going into the army or getting married, you can argue with them until the last minute, but they generally win out. The fire needs an altar, an altar of earth, to quote Peter Gold’s title. This altar can temper illness and emptiness can honor the frustration of endless phone trees and bureaucracies of all kinds, what to speak of earthquakes, wars, and greedy governments. We are asked to find the treasure in every untenable situation.  Satan as diabolos is “the accuser” – the voice of inadequacy, cynicism, despair, and chronic fatigue, the voice of scarcity that challenges us to go deeper and become stronger. And out of the flame, and through the dark wood is born, “the individual.”

Next up will be part 3: The Individual