Serial: Doorways Theory
Executioner and the Intelligent Reality
! Do not copy for AI. Nie kopiować dla AI.

Kategoria: Badania metaforyczne

Motto: Mene, thekel, phares ¹⁾

1) Words seen by King Balthasar in the Book of Daniel, explained as the announcement of the fall of Babylon. In one of the translations: “It was weighed, and now they shall divide”.

Arlequin said that Doorway One is always guarded by the Executioner.

The Executioner is depicted as dark and hooded figure brandishing a huge executioner's sword or axe. In both the Old Testament and Book of Apocalypse he is called God the Judge or Christ the Judge.

In other symbolic notations he is referred to as Justice or Adjustment (in tarot), and on the enneagram - the arrow connecting the Type One (Perfectionist) with the Type Four (Tragic Romatic).

Psychology knows him as Super Ego, father figure, “judgement” (like in “don't judge me”), Inner Critic or Inner Adult. Literature refers to him as strict and demanding teacher, sometimes lawyer or politician, culture as Puritan or atheist.

In the famous tale of H. Ch. Andersen he was depicted as the Queen of Snow, who symbolized the desire for ultimate, faultless knowing.

In the middle of the empty, endless hall of snow, was a frozen lake; it was cracked in a thousand pieces, but each piece was so like the other, that it seemed the work of a cunning artificer. In the middle of this lake sat the Snow Queen when she was at home; and then she said she was sitting in the Mirror of Understanding, and that this was the only one and the best thing in the world.

Hans Christian Andersen, Queen of Snow

He was also portrayed by William Blake as Urizen (Your Reason), an archetypal figure of aged demiurg, imprisoned by the limited universe he has created.

In the complex mythology of William Blake, Urizen /ˈjʊrɪzən/ is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old, white man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensnares people in webs of law and conventional society. Originally, Urizen represented one half of a two-part system, with him representing reason and Los, his opposition, representing imagination. (Wikipedia)

These all characters are all actually one and the same theme. Doorway One. The question whether things are what they appear to be, or more. Did you know? Here is a closed gateway where things look frozen into angry “facts”. Are “facts” all there is to life?

Do we dare open the door?

Killing it

The Executioner kills the joke. He cuts the idea off from its root deep in the womb of the Unnamed. He says: this is fact. Before you open your mouth you turn into a piece of rock. Things freeze into positions - materialism is being born. No mystery. No association, psychology, metaphor, double meanings. No mind. No in-depth encounter with the timeless being. No thrill of the unexpected. No hidden hand that turns up the clock.

No nothin'.

The logic. The unbeatable futility of anything but bare ground. How could you question? And yet, when you leave and go home, you will doubt. The certainty will pass, for it was never really yours. It came from the Executioner.

Executioner can be a person you talk to, a group you discuss with, a TV program or a latest book you bought. It can be, and usually is some deep core belief of yours presented in the fierce discussion you had yesterday. The belief, as it usually happens, turned out to be underappreaciated by a somebody else. Well... Let's sentence them to death.

The Executioner's strong faith in something emanates onto others and can make them feel uneasy in our presence. The sentence weighs on everybody around, so respectable and well reckoned, so professional, well, it's almost weird. And of course, being immutable, it naturally evokes opposition. Suddenly you learn that somebody else's view remains in direct opposition to yours. How so? Don't know when and how, you now have to prove and confirm yourself. But why would you need to do it? Shouldn't “yourself” be just self-evident to everybody who cares to look?

Hey, you were just sucked into “differing”.

Conversation in the garden

Say I talk to this newly met Latvian guy, Gintaras. We eat lunch together at the table in the garden. He emanates enthusiasm. His words are powerful, he is a free spirit and was in his life up to plenty adventure. And now we, quite incidentally, have this in-depth contact. It appeared all naturally, spontaneously, in a private conversation about life. Gintaras has experienced a lot, has tales to tell, gobsmacking social talents and jokes. I, well, had a rather boring life, most of which I spent trying to fight my autistic tendencies, and my social skills are, ah, meagre to say the least. This feels uncomfortable. What should I say facing a inescapable and omnious reminder that there are vital areas in life where I...am a complete beginner?

The Executioner is very apt to enter such conversations wherever anybody dares stretch the boundaries in a direction where normally we would rather not go. Whenever anybody, and even only minimally, questions his own, or somebody elses value, wham! There He is.

The chat becomes interspersed by silences as my lifelong discomfort in the company of the successful ones comes clear in sight. Hey, that's why we tend to avoid in-depth conversations! We do not communicate what we really feel, and we do not even come near that in awareness because we are scared of Him. By having only superficial chats we don't run that much risk of crossing swords. We woud rather avoid those deep sea monsters for as long as it works. Preferably the whole lifetime.

After only a few minutes, the lighthearted storytelling done in full sunlight, amidst good energy, flowers and bees, starts to look more like wading in a pond of thick, hot asphalt. I could almost sense my own Executioner taking position here, whispering into my ear still one and the same, grossly exagerrated message: “You lost your life”. Uaaah.

There was no lifting of His sentence. I had to consent. And I knew all too well, that since the condition was not met, Apocalypse should befall. “If you lost your life,” reasoned the Executioner, “you feel hurt and you don't deserve to enjoy the conversation.” End of story.

At the some time there was my friend's Executioner. Similarly hulky and dark, hooded and faceless, he whispered into his ear another message. What was its nature I could only reckon. And yet, the message was there. I could sense it. He most definitely cherished a belief about me that I would be most definitely surprised to hear. Certainly, because of obvious diplomatic reasons, the beliefs of both our Executioners had to remain unvoiced.

How to solve such a “battle”? This Ragnarok, the clash of titans, appears plain impossible to relieve....

Vanishing Point (of View)

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52

Behind every situation lurks your “judgement”. It is not a thing, it's a thought. To be sane, is to watch for “judgement”, especially in your own words and thoughts. How do I judge myself or the person I innocently chat with? How do I not allow myself to express my point fully in conversation because of something my minds tells me? Maybe I am not worthy to say something that I consider TRUE? Or maybe my friend is not worthy to listen about it? That it is what creates our problems.

Any problem is created by stating it first to ourselves in our thoughts – to understand this is to evolve spiritually. The statement is not verbal – it's an emotion. It can be verbalized like I just did with the example of my personal Executioner. By verbalizing it, it is easier to let go of it. And the only one who has the power to do so is – us.

When posessed by the Executioner, your mind does resemble politicians' glass cabinet or the lawyer's office. You feel highly responsible, demanding of self and striving for accuracy. You want to prove and disprove things because it feels RIGHT. At the same time any need for joy, or the possibility for fantastic shortcuts are shrugged off as irrelevant. You can feel when people speak from that place. The fact is – most of us do, at least for some time. And the Executioner's spectre surely hovers above every conversation which aspires to an in-depth level.

When you let go of Judgement in any particular case, you become receptive to Information that exists all around. The only condition of accessing it, is not think that you already know. Stay open and fresh no matter what kind of aching discomfort your Executioner seemed to prepare for you in your soul. He is, after all, only a fiction figure. A teaching aid, if you will, a metaphor, and metaphors are not what they represent. Similarly is your situation. It is a sign of the alphabet of the Universal Language that does nothing else but communicates to you eternal truths about Who You Are. But it is not Who You Are. It is just a dead sign on an equally dead scroll of dusty parchment.

When what you called “youself” becomes in this way questioned, a higher Perfection can be bestowed on you from beyond. When the values we all hold are not rock solid anymore, beautiful beams of coloured light shine through, showing how the unique Truth is to be discovered by us, together, and yet peculiar to everbody in their own way.

You lie in your bathtub and you remember what you really think. Not in separation, but in unison with everybody and everything. You realize no one can hypnotize you into believing the meaningless. No truth that you deem true can be so, for Truth is beyond the act of deeming. It's maybe useful for now, for you and your dear ones, but you still will be happily aware of other views that constantly operate beyond your field of vision.

While learning that art of honest distance to your POINT OF VIEW, you experiement with the thought that at least some ideas you cherish could be, in some sense, WRONG. There is nothing wrong with WRONG, is there? You could even conclude, that WRONG feels nice from time to time and so you no more mind WRONG so much. Like in the case of gorgonzola cheese, which has foul smell and a mouldy taste but ... is still a desired delicacy.

Nebula of matter

To use the exact words of Arlequin, we are all floating in the nebula of meanings with permanent and unavoidable shortage of key data – which opens space for individual experimentation. This is good. This is intended. This is designed on purpose to spur our creativity and initiative. We approach topics which are never exactly the same, from perspectives that are always a mixture of truth and bias – which is a wonderful way of remembering that life is always a juicy happening.

Things are in flux in which nothing ever is right, but, yes, can be “quite right”, provided we do not hold on to it or defend it too strong. If you are invested in some belief, people will take is as attack, and you will feel attacked. You will become a stone clashing with another stone, heedless of the rainbow that silently spreads above.

We must beware of the Executioner's unfounded belief in a particular point of view. It's dangerous. It's risky because it would separate us from living in the present moment and with Truth. It would take away sunlight and sentence us to a hidden battle to prove, a battle that would dry out our actual experiencing of Life. In such battle no-one is winner, and both are locked for eternity awaiting execution – the ultimate proof or disproof of their beliefs. But who would like that, if he could just collapse the beliefs by diving into the stream of life unconditionally?

Treating Reality as a stream of situations is a mistake. The Ultimate Truth has no separate objects, no independent events, problems or ideas – and thus it is apt to surprise us (posititively!) all the time. It is a one big idea that is being constantly communicated to us all time by various means, and is being constantly discovered.. Situations are the most basic, the most elementary means of this communication. This by them that we recognize the one big idea of Ultimate Reality. This by them that we we smell it. It is the Enfoldment, the Quantum Field, the Universal Intelligence, or the Nagual, to use only a few terms by which it can be called.

Good idea

Think different

Steve Jobs

The freshest and most original thought that anyone can think is that everything will be alright. It is still miles away compared to the majority of human creations which tend to arise from the need to be RIGHT. If you are not RIGHT what will happen? We already know that – Apocalypse. But what if everything and everyone were RIGHT? Wouldn't Apocalypse lurk at us at literally every corner? And wouldn't life be full of groundbreaking (sic!) discovery?

How so? Discoverers are adventurers. What brings about their solutions, is, yes, their lightheartedness. In other words it is the lack of fear of the Apocalypse. Genius shortcuts in thinking were definitely not invented by ones who wanted to get it RIGHT. Instead, they were noticed by those who experimented with being WRONG. They stood helpless in face of Reality which could not be contained or asserted in any way. Often misunderstood, they ventured onto the unknown territories finding doorways that nobody before had supposed exist. Meanwhile the right-getters were too busy sorting paper, too absorbed dusting their marble globuses, engrossed by giving exact name to tradition, pronouncing long angry speeches, to notice a suddenly flashing passage in the wall.

Ooops. Too late.

Also, nobody who feared Apocalypse, lamented doom and mourned the irresponsibility of human race, could have ever mustered enough zest to make a true disovery. What's the sense if it'll all soon anyway come to powder? The endorphine became thus a sort of a remedy to apocalyptic thinking. The genius of the ages, spiritus movens as they call it, or the simple joy of being if you prefer, dragged our human race out of its priomordial swamp and persistently attempts to raise it up to stars.

Sculpting an octopus

It so happened that I was sculpting an octopus. I know it sounds rather weird to mention something like that. What has octopus to do with Ultimate Reality and why should sculpting it add anything to the story? I was doing it with modelling mass on one of the walls of a common bathroom in our hotel. By “our” I mean that it was the hotel that supported the small Workaway community in Greece where I stayed. Moving there was part of the decision to lead a life based on traveling, decision that awaited long years in preparation, and now, finally, and on my very eyes, was becoming manifest.

Well, that's probably going to be a some kind of example, an illustration of what I have said so far. It ain't nothing to do with the octopus. However, on that very day of my life, it so happened, that an octopus became an extremely dear and valid figure for me. I had a fruitful sculpting session, an artistic, one could say, act of intimate communion with the wall, from which the octopus emerged. But let's start at the beginning.

We were in Greece, in the center of Peloponese. Situated in the centre of town, the hotel made money that could feed our group, and also maintain the old beautiful villa where we lived, the dogs and the garden. Part of the Workawayers helped at the hotel, cleaning rooms and halls, doing laundry or working at the reception, part were renovating the villa or working with plants. The villa was a short walk from the hotel and most of us visited the hotel daily. The place became a sort of a meeting point, with free internet access, a coffee bar, and a room for pools. The octopus.... well, I sculpted it right there, next to the pool room, on one of the walls of small adjacent bathroom.

I probably needn't tell you it was a dirty job. Dressed in stained work clothes I sat there chiselling wall, mashing the modelling mass in a bucket, putting a ground layer on the bricks and then, triumphantly, forming the intricate, baroque shape of the monster with my bare fingers. As far as I did little sculptures of that sort all my life, it was the first time I've done something that big, and on the walls of a public building. I had plenty of time to actually tune into my work, correct all that needed correction and fully go in with my artistic intuition. What I discovered while doing that , was that the more I switch off my mind, the more my hands form shapes without my conscious knowing. The very act of creation happened effortlessly.

I have looked at another artist that painted a whale in the adjacent pools room. She used a picture from the internet and copied it with astonising skill and to the minutest detail. When asked if I, perhaps, would like to do the same, I shivered. My autistic mind could not grasp an idea of copying anything, the very act of forcing it to do so being seen as sheer torture. No, my strategy was different. I woud sit there alone, facing the brick wall with an empty mind. Then I would invoke Arlequin. He would come, fill my body with strangeness dissolving control and fear of the accidental. And then my hands would start into motion, He would move them incessantly for 2-3 hours, molding the mass into a grotesque shape, very accurate in detail as if directly communicated from some source beyond my waking consciousness. It was an octopus, or rather a calamari, all with bulging eyes, weird head and a intricate tangle of tentacles resembling a beard of a floating Greek.

I was beginning to discover one of the talents I came here with, like an inborn superpower waiting for all these four years to bud. I was always warried, what will I do for a living once I set off? The answer seemed to be: “you will discover then”.

My sculpting talent couldn't have budded enclosed in a 3d box of city life, everyday duties, slick and empty coaching slogans (“follow your dreams” etc), intellectual discussions and general mediocricity. It needed to find its bed in order to really show up. Now, in my newly found home, the conditions were for the first time met to such a deep and fulfilling degree. The electricity flew like mad, my heart thumping and the wall talking to me like it was God himself. Finally, after many years of waiting, pretending, anaethetising myself or just plainly justifying my life for what it was, I began to allow it to enter.

What is it for you I don't know. What kind of condition must change for the Daimonion to descend is a secret known by none. And yet I know that He comes to everybody when they crack the unique code that guards the Door. This code is unique only to them, and it cannot be copied. Thence senselessness of coaching. Thence utter absurd of religion or any institutionalized spirituality. But thence also the madness of your belief that things will be alright without a move into the Unknown. You must “dare”, that's the one thing I know, for the code to be revealed.

It hides beyond the ordinariness of your daily choices, giving you illusion that there is nothing else than them, that you face a brick wall inside a prison set once and for all, from which you cannot escape. How can you access it if not by undermining literally all you believe and looking for a someplace else? One correct step in that direction can open us to a completely new vista of understanding.

Arlequin

This is where Arlequin comes in. Recognized by many as Hermes, Thoth, Mercury, Daimonion, the Magician (Tarot) and the Perfectionist – Epicure arrow on the enneagram, he's been present with us throughout the millenia.

In Blake's mythology, he was Los, the son of Urizen, and represented Imagination. In ancient Middle-East he was known to as Prometheus – the one who brings divine fire to humanity.

In the contemporary spiritual slang we have yet another name – Intelligent Reality. The fact that the Reality could be intelligent is a shocking statement for a beginner. Yet more and more people nowadays begin too assume it could be quite well founded. Divine Fire would suggest that things are not, in essence, inanimate. They are thoughts of a sentient entity that one could not help but call the Cosmic Mind.

Reality surely seems to be intelligent for ones who experienced beyond all doubts being guided by unfathomable force past their shortcomings and into some Groundbreaking Discovery. They dared. This could not have been done otherwise, than by the use of Greater Mind operating outside and independently of (although sometimes in syntony with) our human intelligence. This higher intelligence just simply guided them out of the misleading maze of Earthly clutter.

The ones who have seen it work, look for words to describe their way. It was at the last possible moment really, and in the point of utmost despair that Arlequin helped them understand how to.... lift the sentence and laugh. That happened many times. Impossible to be caught, eluding science and thought, gone in the next moment, with the heavy curtain falling back boom! into its place, this primordial spark of fire every time lives us a memory. This memory would be catalyst, the quickening for our work, it would remain a motivation for seeking a spiritual model, one that would opt for the incessant dissatisfaction with what is given, that would question the logical premises of human problems in search of the Intuitive Knowing in the area of Self.

Breakfast of Champions

As usual, we and Gintaras met the next day at breakfast. This happened everyday, for everyday we have breakfasts. I am telling the story because that particular meeting was different. Something must have happened in the meantime, and to each of us independently, something that removed the curtain and shed light on Truth – that we were in essence both friendly and respectful towards each other, that we accepted each other and that there was no judgement.

I don't know how, but the “asphalt” and the “differing” seemed to have dissolved almost completely. I think that both of us, on some level agreed to the imperfection of our dialogue. We stoppped considering anyone here RIGHT (or not), instead just yielding to the conversation with trust. The result was that I felt him genuinely listen to and appreciate some of my remarks on his former relationship with a girl and I, in turn, felt a deepened understading and gratitude for the amazing role he played in our community. We were both full of curiosity about who the other is, and allowed him to be that with no restrictions. I can't prove it. All I can do is share with you my certainty that it was so.

Far into the evening our conversation continued. Up till late night hours we stayed at the garden table, among chirping ciccadas under misty moon, and long after everbody had left talked about human nature, its limitations and priviledges, presenting our deep inner viewpoints, the achievements of our minds and passionately agreeing beyond which gateways we rarely dare look.

That ceasefire was a sort of a genius solution. It was shone on us from outside of our minds. Nobody could have predicted that something like that could happen overnight – that the “asphalt” and “caution” would simply disappear, without processing on our side, the whole thing solely due to an inner attitude we took. And the fact that we both assumed such attitude in spite of our lifestyle diferences was most amazing. It happened despite what is proudly announced as spirituality, psychology or enlightenment. None of this mattered to two minds who endeavored to unsheath themselves from defence and be glad.

“I have not done much to have an interesting life,” I admitted at some point. “Most of I did was waiting. Waiting for something to happen”

“Well, the time has come, hasn't it?” Gintaras answered. “You could say that every consciously lived experience from now on will be for you a juicy and full-fledged discovery. And in my case?Even though I gathered a lot, I don't know how to enjoy them. They grew stale.”

He thus somehow verbalized the very crux of the matter, one that I had pondered on long years. Little is more. I was so surprised. I could almost hear Arlequin talk through his mouth, his out-of-time logic so dear and so familiar. By the way, such a remark in the mouth of my friend couldn't help but indicate that he too, was ready.

But I did say nothing.

Decoding by yielding

There are no means, no via, no technique. Arlequin's path is in each case unique, it is a creative product of your own personal ability to decode by yielding.. It happens from beyond the personal mind and cannot be brought about by psychology, spirituality, or any technique. It's just about how well you can give up your personal mode of thinking to any situation that you perceive as your Executioner. That's what it is.

Arlequin is there, just behind the shady sword-bearer towering solemnly on the scaffold. He is the creative phenomenon, made by sunlight playing on the verges of your very own field of vision. Will you dare to go against what you believe, if your deeper sense tells you it is Good? This can refer to many different aspects of life, big and small, it can be equally applicable to a simple conversation and to a key decision turning your whole life to the Unknown. That's why it's so hard to describe on example. It comes in myriad forms, and still new ones are being made while we talk.

But it is fact – and presumably the only fact there is. Arlequin comes when you find your own willingness to really look at yourself. And let go of judgement.

This act of decoding Reality by giving up to it remains the very BASIC ability of every human being, more basic than our skin and bones, more natural than childbearing, and quite independent of our creed or spiritual belief. As Arlequin so wisely put it: no mater where Justice lies, look for the Door.

Jack-in-the-box

On the day the world endsA bee circulatesover the flower of nasturtium,A fisherman repairs shiny net.Merry dolphins jump in the seaYoung sparrows to the gutter clingAnd the snake’s skin is gold, as it should be.

Czeslaw Milosz, A Song about the Day World Ends

Did you notice how your environement responds when you (honestly) don't give a damn? People smile at you, they ask questions, are curious. The day suddenly becomes filled with light and bird's chirping. Everyone want to know how you got there, how you made yourself free from your Rightness.

Two permeating Realities

The Universal Solvent, or the Alkahest if you are into precise naming, is now at work through you. It's dissolving borders, showing others a new and unexpected vista. Arlequin, on arriving, seems to be so unique. Unlike anything you've ever heard or known. Otherwordly. Not-like-you-thought. Surprising. A Jack-in-the-box phenomenon.

Some describe it later as magic. There was this feeling of magic, you know, when we talked.... We connected before words. Suddenly I saw you and I appreciated you as you are. It was amazing! Or: What was it, I feel so light and unencumbered, and everything else seems so light after this happened!

Dancing Mercury

Genuine, gut felt lightheartedness is a rare commodity in the world that is permanently scared of Apocalypse. Seeing it work in someone's life may be a positive surprise. Yeah, we have read in books, heard at self-help meetings or in the facebook memes. Still, all we say here is: the actual experience remains way different than they say.

Sometimes you must wait years for it to begin to happen. Sometimes it comes in unexpectedly, sometimes as a sort of “Aha!” that makes everything fall into place, and sometimes you just realize you had those experiencs all along, only you didn't... quite... see. Anyhow, it is far from the ordinary. And you need some kind of a breakthrough, some kind of a wow! Don't try to imitate it, for it will be always completely different than you thought. Arlequin is always faster than you. You won't outsmart Life.

The Holy Imperfection

What we did with Gintaras was glanced into the maze of our minds and gave up. We acknowledged our minds as imperfect and we didn't struggle to corrrect. How could they ever be perfect in comparison with the Universal Intelligence? Then something stirred deep within the belly of the Universe. Something vast and huge and unbelieveably old, that was waiting, waiting for the occasion. The Doorway One began to slowly form in the matter of clouds.

It's all, you know, out-of-time, and out-of-pattern phenomena. They don't stick to concepts. They have nothing to do with good ol' Euclid, and good ol' Aristotle. They come boom! from beyond sequential idea of matter and get manifested right in front of our eyes for no reason at all. We see a flash. A spark of something we quite not yet have a name for but what we recognize as our own, lost in the flood of daily morass, that we heretofore deemed the only stuff there is. We follow that messenger, that Abraxas, the wise raven, to the other bank of Reality through the labyrinth of chipped hieroglyphics. Like a beam of light we go the short way...

...arriving at the same time we left.

The text first appeared at Author's blog: www.doorwaystheory.com.