DOWN TO HEAVEN, UP TO HELL

7/29/2019 DOWN TO HEAVEN, UP TO HELL

1/7

DOWN TO HEAVEN, UP TO HELL(Some excerpts from The Tree of Arousal)

WHEN WE FALL IN LOVE there is a sort of organic gasp, the system goes into shockand we are put on red alert to defend our circuits from overload and burnout. We are inthe grip of something beyond our control. At Level 4 we now suspend judgement andclose down, unable to fulfil our function as arbiter of moral values. At Level 5 we arereckless and beyond restraint, transmitting lunatic messages of rapture at theperfection of the beloved who may well be seriously below average. And without Level

4 to tell us to Get a grip, this person is not worth it, we overload, forsake reality andtake refuge in Bali Hi Disease: I want to take you to a special island. At Level 3 wefall into an ardent swoon, planning the wedding and a blissful future. Although ourinstincts at Level 2 warn: Watch out, this ones weird. Well get hurt, we have beenabandoned by the common-sense and humour of Level 4 and languish with unrequitedlove. At Level 5 we pick up on this and start writing suicidal poetry. The system is inmeltdown.And we are off. Our tiny bark is sailing into a sea of pain. The poor benighted object ofour passion is hoisted onto the masthead as a mascot. The sandcastles of coquetry

were long ago washed away by our first foolish infant babblings of delight and we havelost all status, all mystery, all power. All we have left is ourselves. And our poundingheart. We have gasped, we have sobbed, moaned, gazed, meditated profoundly, thensorrowfully, then critically, and finally pragmatically on the portrait we have painted ofthem, and now we have nothing left but suffering. Do not suppose we are fools; we arenot dupes of our despair, we know they are not worth it. We have plumbed theirdepths, assessed their dysfunctions and their hang-ups; and now we love them fortheir tiny imperfections, their tricky shifts of mood, their odd dislocations, the passingshadows of their past, their sadness, their failures and their grief. God help us we

understand them. We know more about them than God himself. We see the darknessand the underside and coldly, pragmatically, they ravish us and render us helpless. Wedo not even love them anymore; love has got nothing to do with it. We are sailing intothe roaring forties without hope. Hope? We do not even expect to survive. We are herefor the pain. We have this appointment with ourselves to suffer here, now, and like this.Our lives are trimmed to a point, focussed on anguish. We are artists. We paint inabsinthe with blood-soaked brushes. Indomitable, we haul our weight of sorrow dayafter day, and we are beautiful in our suffering.And nothing can be done until time stabilises the situation, allowing Level 4 to returnrational and refreshed from a good break. Eventually the new relationship will beassessed according to normal criteria and Bali Hi Disease will have run its course. Andthere may even be a happy outcome.


2/7

BALI HI DISEASE the great escape.For those who have not seen South Pacific the song goes:Bali Hi seems to call me/ Where the sea meets the sky/ Come to me your special island/ Bali Hi, Bali Hi.Bali Hi I hear you calling/ Where the sky meets the sea/ Here am I your special island/ Come to me, come to me.

It is the ultimate escape from reality to an island which only exists as a metaphor for anunfulfillable longing. We all catch Bali Hi Disease from time to time, but some are moresusceptible to the virulent effects than others. Level 2 can expose a fault line in thepersonality, a weakness for the impossible dream that may go unexplored most of ourlives. But when we catch BHD a rift opens in the clouds and after many years silentanguish the sun bursts through, angels sing, flowers bloom, bells ring and our truegreatness is finally revealed: Ah at last! I knew it would come one day. BHD has aninsistent driving quality that makes it compulsive, and its unrealizable nature increasesits allure: I have been appointed to do this . . etc. Then unreality blossoms, careersare abandoned, marriages break up, homes are sold, life-savings squandered,mortgages taken out to pay for whatever has hooked our soul up into a land of

marvels. Some projects may be well worth doing and our aura of conviction can inspireothers to flock to us in supportive admiration. But we may also find ourselves alonewith our vision against a hostile world that challenges its legitimacy. Then our certaintyincreases; we have a special mission and are being tested to the limit etc. so we lockhorns and fight on. BHD usually lasts 23 yrs and when it wears off there is nothing wecan do to recapture the dream. The best prophylactics are a limited income, a limitedlife-style and a limited sphere of influence. If were unlucky enough to be in a positionof power we may do untold harm and greatly impair or endanger the lives ofthousands, because, in spite of all the evidence, we believe it is the right thing to do.

THE TERRITORIAL ANIMAL & THE MAN FROM THE FAR COUNTREEAt Level 2 we are sensitive to our environment and live in a state of heightenedawareness, fearing intruders and suspecting strangers. Unprepared for change, wehave evolved rituals and rigid habit patterns to protect and defend us. We control ourterritorial boundaries, be they physical, emotional or psychic, and are locked into ourown power-base. We defend no moral or ethical position, just a status quo long

sanctified by habitual use. (Clinging on to a dead marriage or a meaningless job forexample.) Inflexibility hardens into an entrenched position until it gets brittle; then itmay become either volatile or dangerous, (see the killings in the car-park), or suddenlyirrelevant overnight. This could be due to an unexpected identity crisis compelling us tore-evaluate our lives according to unforeseen needs and new criteria, and this wouldgive us some control over the outcome. But if we are too scared to change and reallylocked into a stultifying existence, we may attract a visit from The Man from a FarCountree, the stranger who rides into town beloved by many Westerns. This outsider isan intruder who disrupts our life, shakes our convictions, challenges our identity andquestions our assumptions. He is an unsettling force for change. He may be an actualperson or a new liberating energy in our lives that wakes us from our complacency andrevitalises us, toppling all habitual customs and carefully constructed edifices.Marriages may disintegrate, homes may be sold, careers and children abandoned,leaving nothing but smoke and wreckage. Then he disappears, his mission


3/7

accomplished. This is a catastrophe for us at Level 2 where nothing is ever trivial orinconsequential. But it can be a turning point too, and the forces liberated by thischange may enable us to begin again and do it differently.

THE ARTIST

At all Levels we are artists and squeeze the world like an orange to paint with the juice.We tell the truth but not your truth. We colour our faces yellow because we hate pink,decorate ourselves like totems and wear incomprehensible clothes. Our magnetic fieldzings with life; we suck you in, glut you with too much stuff then spit you out reeling.We love you too much for your own good, but essentially you are not our business sodont get between us and the sun. Well take your money and confuse and frightenyou, but we are not as mad as all that because we have work to do. We have anintolerable patience in pursuit of the exact, but we have no time to waste and if youbore us we will throw you out. We are unruly, inconsistent and illogical, balancing on a

precipice of pain, breaking our nails to scrape the glamour off the surface to get atwhat is underneath. We submit to living in your world but are crushed by the banalityyou take for granted. Our feelings are too strong and your unkindness bruises us andhurts our minds. Our nervous system barely supports our work-load because we askso much of it. Work is our religion; it exposes us to ourselves and we die of it. Everyday.

TRAVELLING, DOCUMENTATION AND LISTSAt Level 5 we move around. We keep the holiday industry in business. Partly this isrestlessness; but theres a driven quality to the sightseeing, as if the world has to becollected and the data recorded and documented before it wears out. Because Godsaid to Adam:I hope youre naming those flowers you admire so much.Sure said Adam. Why should I do that?So you can make a list said God.Right said Adam. Thats good is it, a list?Well you would be Adding to the Sum of Human Knowledge said God.

Alright! said Adam enthusiastically. Id better get going then.And then youll be a Scientist added God.Oh Wow! cried Adam. Come on Eve were going to name everything and make a listand then well be Scientists and can Add to the Sum of Human Knowledge.Great! cried Eve. And it will get me out of the house!At Level 5 we have to see everything, even the nasty bits, which is why we take ourcameras everywhere. If we dont photograph it there is a danger it may not exist andthis would critically shorten the list. We may even collaborate with Level 4 to become atravel writer and increase the sum total of places on the list to be visited. We have no

deep relationship with the parts of the world we go to at Level 5, but we may take partin information gathering of a high order if sufficiently motivated: e.g. the classification offlora, fauna, ancient sites, endangered species human or otherwise, migrationpatterns, oceanic flow, tidal charts, ice-cap measurement and all global climate change


4/7

statistics. This disinterested, highly charged, vocational activity is heroic in its way andis our ultimate glory and justification at Level 5.

SWEARING, SMUT, TABOO AND THE THING IN THE TROUSERS.Still getting it up? This is hard-core Level 5 and the perilous daily greeting of Breton

pensioners in the supermarket. The thing in the trousers frightens us because we dontknow what its going to do next. When we want it its not there; when we dont want it, itcomes in droves like the number nine bus. Smut is driven by the engine of this coreembarrassment, though small children laugh helplessly and inexplicably at anything todo with bodily functions. So at Level 5 we have collaborated with the subconsciousLevel 2 to create the concept of Taboo. The breaking of this Taboo is such a riskybusiness that it can only be released by abandoned, knickers-wetting laughter. Oursexual fears and raptures are locked in together down at Level 2, and our laughter isreleased courtesy of the mouthpiece Level 5, who keeps a dodgy and precipitous line

open for this purpose. We fall over the precipice, and marvellously we are not dead butmore alive than ever; our laughter celebrates this survival. Liberated from the fear ofdeath for an instant, we breathe more freely, and insanely open ourselves up to whatlife has to offer. But it is knife-edge stuff; clowns are notoriously frightening and we donot feel safe with this tragic self-exposure, it could so easily be us. Bad language, thenaughty child that puts a glint in our eyes when we are too old for anything else, seemsto be Level 2s volcanic reaction to exasperation, forcing expletives through ourjuvenile mouths at Level 5, and producing for an instant an uneasy whiff of sulphurfrom the depths. Swearing, once a sanctified protection against a perilous andunpredictable fate, has become the index of loss of power and an inadequatevocabulary.

RELIGION Harold be thy name.As a complex, subtle and repetitive programme of rituals and habits giving us preceptsof good behaviour and family values, above all Religion is safe. At Level 5 we handdown traditions, and we are reassured and solaced by the calming rites. And we mayfeel a genuine source of spiritual support and relationship in the like-minded

community who join us to reiterate the loved words and phrases. It is a comfort andhelp in times of affliction, and a wonderful source of hymn tunes and ineffable churchmusic. Except that at Level 5 we have no judgement or discrimination, no ability to sortthe wheat from the chaff and test the value of ideas. Here we learn things by rote,repeating them parrot-fashion without understanding the implications. So we canabsorb the prejudices and preconceived ideas, the stereotypes and extremist polemic,the violent opinions and the flaky views, along with the most elevated, spirituallyinspiring and sweetest soul-magic to be found on earth. And sadly this honey sothrillingly sugars the pill that we do not even feel our gorges rise as the poison slips

down.


5/7

LEVEL 2 (subconscious)

(THE HIPPOCAMPUS IS THOUGHT TO BE CONCERNED WITH STORAGE OF

LONG-TERM INSTINCTIVE MEMORIES AS PART OF THE LIMBIC SYSTEM.)

So we are off again. Down we go as the great tree thrusts its roots deep into theearth. A microphone plunged into the soil here will pick up the groans andcreaks and sighs of the tree itself as it gropes its way downwards into the dark.

A subterranean night-time world with fleeting glimmers of roots and theconstant roar of sap; we have lost all bearings, we are blind, our ears are filledwith growling whispers and moans. We are leaving the light of consciousnessfor ever, pledged to the night. But do not be afraid, for the deeper we go thestronger we get . . . . .

We cannot loiter here except in dreams, for we can be swept away by hideouscurrents. It is dangerous to leave behind the world of colour TV, going to the pub,taking the kids to school, parking meters. But it is too late to return, because if we havecome this far we know the truth lies before us and we have an urgent, agonisinghunger for it. Artists and writers may feel compelled to enter this country of the lost, forthey know it is filled with gold. It is the world of Lucifer. And at Level 2 already we feelhis tongue in our mouth. It is filled with gold and unseen assets. It is the badlands ofpassion and revelation, of crazed delights undreamt of at other levels; it curdles theblood. There is no underlying principle, no judgement or formula; all is a sickeningwhite-hot mix of uncensored images and glee. It goes beyond what we asked for andthere is no going back. Beauty and madness share the same bed, and all hope is lostfor moderation. Once we are touched by Level 2 we are changed for forever. How canwe go back to colour television? It is a hot-bed of creativity and fecund images. Wemust surrender ourselves to enter Level 2. We have an inner need to do this or wewouldnt have come; it is beyond the usual and not safe. We need to mine seams richwith the birth and death of things, rotting and fertile, swarming with life. The foul andreeking dwell here decomposing in the dark. We are pledged to parturition, to bringingforth monsters painted with blood and lovely beyond belief. Macbeth lives here, so doTamburlaine, Salome, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan. At Level 2 our blood is hot

and red; it is the only paint thats red enough to dye our garments with.

THE CALL OF DESTINYIt happens in childhood at Level 2, often at seven years old; the knowledge, the calmand unsurprising truth that this is what we have come to do. At that age it is play butnot make-believe; we know who we are. And then we lose it, or forget it, and lifehappens. At the very back of our minds remains the prompting, e.g. Keep going

North and thats it. As we have no map were lost most of the time anyway, oftendangerously so. We veer wildly in all directions for decades, and it is only after about40 yrs that we get a jolt when we see a sign saying To the North and we think Thatsfunny; I was going that way anyway. And because Level 2 is subconscious we followthe road unthinkingly. We dont even know were on it until we come to a parting of the


6/7

ways and find all our companions are going West. Not wishing to be alone weaccompany them for a long time. We learn to speak their language and try to think likethem. We adopt their manners and customs, eat the same food, frequent the sameplaces of entertainment and even marry one of them. But after a while we becomeuneasy. We dont understand the jokes. We are boring, we make excuses to go homeearly, we are often silent, then absent. We are listening to different music. And finallywe stop in our tracks. It is like a car-crash; the engine cuts out and we can go no

further. It is the end of the road and we have to turn back. There is no vision, no flashof lightning; it is a question of survival. A long hard journey takes us a step at a timethrough dreary days back to the road we were on. And then at last the sign: To theNorth. Spent and disoriented we collapse. For many days we can do nothing, we arefinished. We have lost the past and see no future. But we feel the sun on our face. Andat last one day we are able to breathe without fear and stand upright. Then we find aworld transformed. Colours dazzle us. We look into the faces of strangers and findfriends. We learn to walk again, slowly, taking nothing for granted. We have beensaved by the road we did not take. It is taking us. And we dont even know where it is

going. But in spite of insuperable barriers, of wearing years of helplessness and pain,there is no more dithering or faltering or turning back. At Level 2 we cannot leave theroad we are on because, once chosen, it is the only road; there is no other.

BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU, YOU ARE THE ONE WE LOVEAt Level 3 we see through the mess that you are and we have chosen you for yournobility, your quick intelligence, your pain, your laughter, and the glint of true gold

shining in your heart. We are Kingmakers. You are beautiful to us, lit pink through theshining spectacles of love. Who would not want to be you? And maybe for a while youwill be, sustained by the transforming power of our great hearts. We are so emotionallystrong that God has unhesitatingly confided to us the remaking of you, (noble,intelligent, suffering, humorous, golden etc.) and by Golly we do it! Having made youKing, we honour you as your devoted subjects and slaves. Who you really are is notthe point, because if you dont want to be noble, intelligent, laughing through tears etc.you jolly well should! This persuasive scenario is more flattering than roses orchampagne and it may even work, because were stronger and more stubborn thanyou are. But if you have the force to resist this projection and remain yourself, severalthings may happen: a. We will not believe it and turn a blind eye. b. We will take you toa psychiatrist. Or c. We may discover we have a real person opposite us and be soturned on by this surprise that we fall in love all over again. This time you will becomplicated, perverse, pig-headed, quixotic, and even more interesting than you werebefore. So you cant win; you remain our King, enthroned in our hearts, and we willhonour you, plodding faithfully after you into the distance to love you even beyonddeath. So there!

SONS OF THUNDER, SONS OF LIGHT Beyond religion beyond madness.And the darkness comprehendeth it not . . Now we are off the map without acompass, who knows where? John the Baptist raving wild-eyed in the wilderness? Or


7/7

the son of thunder John the Divine, whose instinct for the light lit those transcendentwords, incomprehensible and charged with meaning? We are beyond Religion now; ithas been burnt out of us by the white fire of truth. We have broken through the crust ofreality here in the scorching light of the desert, and yet we are not mad. We have beenmad, but now we are sane and know what we want. We are seeking an understandingbeyond reason, an intimate knowledge that side-steps the rational, a short-cut to thetruth, where Intuition opens the door . . . . . . . . but here words fail us and there is

no more communication from L2 for we are being pulled down by gravity . . . anattraction exerted by the earth itself . . . . our own earth . . . below the level of theroots, deeper and deeper into the dark . . . . towards the opening door . . . andthere are no more words . . . .

LEVEL 1(unconscious)

(THE BRAIN STEM IS THOUGHT TO ACTIVATE THE EXPERIENCE OF

UNKNOWING AND PRIMORDIAL AWARENESS OF THE SELF)

. . . . . no more anything . . . . just silence and an ever increasing pull downwardstowards the centre of the earth . . . . where the sense of peace is tangible . . . sothat even our breathing is stilled . . . . a stillness steeped in silence . . . . and thedeeper we go the stronger we get . . . and the deeper we want to go . . . . . . . .

ATMAN. THE SELF. It has been a long journey. There were times when we wonderedif we would make it. But here we are. And we can relax now because we are at home.We can kick off our shoes and take it easy.

THE TRUTH. We cannot fool Level 1 because we see the funny side. Its a relief tofind everything so simple: a slow liberating slide into the truth. We can be who we arehere. In fact there is nothing else we can be, for we are like young children, open-eyed,clear-sighted, knowing nothing, seeing all.

NOW READ THE BOOK

ITS FREE

DOWN TO HEAVEN, UP TO HELL

Documents

Transcript of DOWN TO HEAVEN, UP TO HELL